A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
I have been pondering the problems with last Sunday’s Irish music session at Jack of the Wood. Specifically, I’ve been thinking about this in terms of some of the problems I encountered in Washington State. There is an issue specifically with Irish music, but the problems with the last session could happen with just about any non-concert corporate music-making session.
I was on a mission to find a true, authentic Irish pub in our area. I had made a list of possible targets and had already visited several. I’m actually writing about them out of order of visit so that I can group them more conveniently. In this post I take a look at the pubs here in Greenville.
You would think that with all of the diverse music last week I’d have reached saturation point. Of course, that never happens. My fingers may get tired, but the need to participate never dies. So, when Laura said she wanted to have some “girl time” to go shopping, I took the opportunity to head up to Asheville to play in the Irish session at Jack of the Wood.
had my list of regional Irish pubs and I had my list of criteria. It was now time to visit some pubs. Some of the pubs I’d already visited, so I’d just rely on impressions I got from those visits. Others would be new to me. Some I’d visited, but it had been awhile, so I went back. There were fifteen pubs on my list and I managed to visit a little over half, eight in all. That was enough to come to some conclusions.
I’ve played lots of Celtic music sessions lately, but only one of those has been in an “Irish” pub. This struck me as a bit…weird. So I started wondering. Our area seems to have lots of Irish Pubs. What’s happening with those pubs? Are they truly “Irish Pubs?” For that matter, what really makes a pub Irish? To answer these questions I decided to do a regional pub crawl and see what each of these has to offer.
This past Sunday the Upstate Minis held their 7th Annual Bulldog Fun Run. The event is a benefit for the Greenville County Animal Care Center, and consists of somewhat British-related events taking place all over the county. Laura and I participated in our first one in 2016, and we put this one on our calendar so that we’d be sure to participate this year. It was our first outing with the Upstate Minis since returning from Washington.
We’ve had some absolutely beautiful days over the last few weeks, and it’s been tempting to just abandon everything at the house and head out with a camera. I was able to do that a couple of times. These were places I’d visited many, many times, but I got a few good photos on separate trips to Pearson Falls and Poinsett Bridge to share.
On North Pleasantburg Drive near Worley Road there once was a local dive called the Radio Room. It was either a din of iniquity or a cool place to hear up and coming bands, depending on with whom you spoke. The Radio Room has relocated into more respectable digs in the Auld Hardware building on Poinsett Drive and the old building has been demolished, revealing a once-hidden cemetery. Of course I had to explore it. In the process I found a collection of fascinating people that had been part of the Turpin/Raines Family that were early settlers of Greenville.
It had been awhile since I’d visited the Pickens Flea Market. I had visited once since returning from the west coast, and at that time I didn’t play with the musicians circle. I figured Halloween would be as good a day as any to pay another visit, and this time I was loaded with guitar, banjo, melodica, and tin whistles.