We had a great show at Houston Via Colori on Saturday. Thanks to Elaine Mesker-Garcia (aka cybertoad) for taking some photos!

More in our gallery here.

Recently we unearthed a CD containing some live recordings of the band performing at the 2002 St. Patrick’s Festival at the old Garden In The Heights. The Fish were joined by our friend Tim Vorick on the drums and legendary hammer dulcimer player David Clauss of Celtic Stone fame.

Here are live versions of American Woman, Lark In The Morning, Loch Ness Monster, Remnant Stew and a jig medley of Morrison’s Jig, followed by the Swallowtail Jig, followed by more of Morrison’s Jig

American Woman [ 2:37 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Lark In The Morning [ 3:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Loch Ness Monster [ 3:55 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Remnant Stew [ 5:59 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Morrison's jig, followed by the Swallowtail jig, followed by more of Morrison's [ 3:29 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Thanks to all of our fans who voted in the 2010 Houston Press Music Awards! We took home the trophy for Best Folk!

The Flying Fish Sailors have been nominated for the 2010 Houston Press Music Awards! Please take a moment and go to the voting page and cast your vote for the Fish in the Best Folk category, we’d really appreciate it!

Best Folk (where we are) is category 34

While your there, consider our friends who are nominated in the following categories:

Category 16 – Best Rock – The Blaggards
Category 35 – Root Rock – Sideshow Tramps
Category 36 – Best Cover Band – Beetle (featuring our own Jim Henkel!)
Category 37 – Best guitarist – Jim Henkel

The direct voting link is at http://polls.houstonpress.com/polls/hou/mas2010

Thanks for your consideration and support!

Many people associate us with folk music, and rightfully so. But not many know that the Flying Fish Sailors have recorded and released a heavy metal song. At the end of the Loch Ness Monster CD is a bonus track. A heavy metal version of the title track.

Loch Ness Monster - Heavy Metal Version [ 6:04 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Thanks to everyone who voted and helped the Fish take home the 2009 HPMA award for Best Folk Band! We appreciate your ongoing support!

Voting for the 2009 Houston Press Music Awards has begun! Please take a moment to go and vote! Flying Fish Sailors for Best Folk!

We’d also like to suggest some of our friends in various other categories:

The Snake Charmers for Best Blues
Blaggards for Best (Irish) Rock
Drop Trio for Best Jazz
Tontons for Best Indie Rock
Beetle Best cover Band (has Greg Henkels brother in it!)
Sideshow Tramps Best Roots-Rock/Americana

Many, many years Greg Henkel wrote a song about the 1918 Flu Pandemic that killed over 20 million people worldwide.

The Flu Pandemic song became one of our most popular performance pieces. Despite the grim subject matter, the song is often referred to as “a happy little ditty about death” and brings smiles and laughter to those who hear it.

The current swine flu outbreak has generated a lot of interest in the song and is driving a lot of traffic to the band web site.

The song is available on our Loch Ness Monster CD which is available @ amazon.com or from us directly.

Interestingly enough, there is a live version of the song that was recorded at Rockefeller’s during Son Of Blarneyfest in 1996 that I almost forgot existed. It predates the Loch Ness Monster studio recording by several years.

You can listen to it here

Or the studio version here

And there’s the version with the fan made video that’s quite entertaining

The Flu Pandemic

Copyright 1999 Topmast Productions and the Flying Fish Sailors

Chorus: It was the Flu pandemic
And it swept the whole world wide
It caught soldiers and civilians
And they died, died, died!
Whether they’re lying in the trenches
Or lying in their beds
Twenty million of them got it
And they’re dead, dead, dead!

There was a soldier on the battleground in 1917
He turned there to his buddy with his face a ghastly green
He said “We made it both through Passchendaele, the Somme, and Flanders too
But now my number’s up my lad for I’ve gone and caught the flu”

chorus

Well a nurse was in the hospital when Tommy was brought in
When he sneezed she caught a face full that was flying in the wind
She wrote a letter home to England to tell them of her plight
But the letter never got there ’cause the postman too had died

chorus

From the meadow-lands of Somerset and o’er the bounding main
To the shores of old Americay they sung the same refrain
Mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts as well as the odd nephew
Brothers and sisters and bosses and lovers were all got by the flu

chorus

Well a farmer out in China watched his family dropping down
And a businessman in Cairo hit the street without a sound
And an eager little Bolshevik in old Sevastopol couldn’t keep up his grinnin’ at Lenin as Comrade Virus took its toll

Flu Pandemic - Live [ 3:34 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s nomination time for the 2009 Houston Press Music Awards. Please take a moment to fill out the online nomination form and nominate The Flying Fish Sailors for the “Best Folk” category

http://polls.houstonpress.com/polls/hou/musicawards09/

You don’t have to nominate someone for each category. Just fill in the ones you know.

Thanks!

The Flying Fish Sailors performed at the Houston International Festival this past weekend. The weather held and we were not washed away in a deluge like the performers on the previous Saturday. Thanks to Elaine Mesker-Garcia (aka @cybertoad) of Fresh Photography for these wonderful shots:

We have the rest of Elaine’s shots in the Flying Fish Sailors Photo Gallery.

And thanks to Sandy Grimm for this exceptionally linear photograph of the entire band!