Geeezz! What can you say about SPOT/ALBERT?
Well, this is the kind of thing that happens when an avowed Neo-Bop jazzhead runs away screaming from the insane hubbub of the Rock and Alternative world. SPOT didn't look back much; he just marched forward into a whole other world where big amps and fatuous hair were not the issue and how you played your instrument actually mattered. In the late 1980s he fell into the gathering rush of traditional Irish & Celtic music and felt right at home. An accomplished guitarist/tenor-banjoist, he soon embarked on years of solo touring, festival crawling and tune sessions all across the US and in this soup mix he met bodhranist/drum maker ALBERT ALFONSO.
Spot had performed with or shared stages with such notables as Mike Watt, Sonic Youth, Alejandro Escovedo, Devotchka, Eugene Chadbourne, Drive-by Truckers, Michael Hurley, Fugazi, among others. Albert had performed with artists such as Solas, Altan, Liz Carroll, Brian McNeill, J.P. Cormier, John Doyle, Greenfields of America as well as having given drum workshops with the Royal Academy of Music in both Glasgow and London. Over time their paths crossed more and more until one fateful day when they both got thrown onto a stage somewhere and some wise guy (or gal) remarked, "You should play together regularly!" But no worry; they seemed to have figured that out on their own already.
Insofar as musical styles go, their disparate backgrounds shared many areas of interest. It's easy and honest to say that SPOT/ALBERT are based in traditional Irish/Celtic Music but in the big picture a wide array of other styles, influences, adventurous arrangements and original compositions ruthlessly invade the mélange. And here neither of them looks rearward or apologizes. Spot pithily attests, "I play both kinds of music, good and bad!" and Albert underlines, "We've been playing music for a long time and we ain't Finnish yet!" Many festivals, numerous bar gigs, two tours and one album ("In The Bag" / No Auditions NYET 7008) later, this sulphitic duo persists in both knowing the rules and happily bending them. In a nutshell, a performance by these two can at any point wind up like a musical excursion into Marxian (Groucho; not Karl) channel surfing.