In shock and silence they viewed that painted horizon and remenisced their paths and history, (which, just a few weeks before, had even included their bravest warriors screaming in blind fear and panic while sprinting through the plains of moytura being menaced by monsterous apparitions conjured by fleeing natives in the worlds first bloodless military invasion). Wide eyed and open mouthed they now sat in the sunset, looked to each other, gazed at the setting sun , looked to each other again and said ...
  " Bugger !!,...We'll have to try the other way then".
  The gradual backtracking of the celts from this Irish outpost towards the east brought all the many tales of myth and magic into the roots of what was (by the time the Romans started empire building) a predominately celtic cultural europe. They also gave birth to new nations as the clans that remained on this wetern isle grew in confidence and population, expanding and building their own secretive empire to regularly rival and 'trounce' the Romans. The Dal Riada outgrew their lands in the north of the island and (once they realised the south was taken) pushed further to the north and east -knocking the blocks off the curly haired picts and taking the islands, mountains and lowlands to form what we now call Scotland. In the Irish midlands and just to the south my ancesters - the tribes that formed the Mael Riain were getting fed up with the bad manners of their southern neighbours - the Eognachta - who were forever coughing up phlegm and letting it gargle away in their throats. In a bid to make their gullet scraping more acceptable they even made their own linguistic dialect in which to disguise their phlegm churning fun. But enough was enough and my ancestors told them to pack their bags and go gobb off somewhere else. They did, leaving forever the emerald isle they found new lands and a new nation to the east -settling in the lands that we now call Cornwall, Brittany and Wales.Some would argue that the Eognachta got a much better bargain in this deal- not only did they get some of the most awe inspiring and beautiful landscapes in europe but they also got to keep their 'gobbiness' as well, with both the cornish and welsh languages managing to survive into the current millenium. My ancestors got to cover up the real explanation behind the 'Emerald' in Emerald isle and - after alot of cleaning - found a nice rock to build their new southern capitol on (Cashel in county Tipperary).
  Even though thousands of years have passed since that common ancestory and our cultures, values, national identities, speech and even languages may have been completely altered. One thing that unites all these descendants in the present is our ability to kick up a dam good tune - and the inheirant ability to do it at an early age. Our two Amy's may well be seperated by a few hundred miles and live at opposite ends of the British Isles - but they may very well share a common ancestor along with their musical abilities...
  For our first Amy I may well have to mind my P's and Q's because even though modern day Dal Riada no longer chop their opponants heads off and play football with them ( unless of course youre wearing the wrong shirt in the wrong stand at a Celtic v Rangers soccer match)but they do still occaisionaly issue one way tickets down Glasgows storm drains if you step too far out of line - and my initial oppinions might well have been worthy of a ticket.
  When I saw her first UK TV appearance there was something strangely and unexpectadly masculine in her voice that made my facial reactions identical to 'girls aloud' in this UK 'sunsilk' advert.
The song was good, the lyrics were OK, but every other verse seemed
to ooze an unexpected 'butchness' which seemed a little eerie. Maybe
a jealous sound engineer was having a laugh, but successive appearances
also seemed to pick up a faint traces of an occaisional butchness . After
viewing a live gig at a castle in Invernesshire the Mr 'Well Good' MacDonalds
voiceover seemed to have disappeared and Amy MacDonald delivered a top
rate performance with a well rehearsed set and an accomplished band who
pulled off some great leads and solos in the process - including a lively
cover of Fleetwood Macs 'Go your own way' worthy of a few mentions.
  Maybe it was just poor sound engineering after all, but if it wasn't then
before the rest of the worlds jokers jump on the bandwagon it might be
worth mentioning the risk of a serious medical problem that Amy might
need to have professionaly checked. Concerns aside, Amy, like most gifted
songwriters started young and has been franticaly penning those songs
and gigging since the age of thirteen and music performance has been her
chosen choice of career ever since her gran gave her a tenner when she was ten to buy a Travis cd. Now that she's nineteen not only is she now fulfilling her dream with a promising contract through Mercury records, but Travis have now become her fans and borrow money off their own grannies to buy Amy MacDonald CD's.
  The fact is, that even with those occaisional deep notes, Amys songs do sneek into your head and continualy play themselves until you find yourself liking them wether you want to or not.
  For the real Amy MacDonald click the button.... especialy the 'footballers wife' video on her sites media section - song writing at it's best..and, if noone hears from me for a while then could
someone please ask the Glaswiegan police to check the stormdrains... just in case...

  ...For our second awesome Amy we need to go to the southern end of the British Isles- those southern lands of the ancient exiled Eognachta. The jurassic coast of Cornwall may well be a world heritage site and one of the worlds most awe inspiring natural landscapes, but thanks to the songwriting and singing abilities of Amy May its a landscape that has become even more priceless and prescious. Her voice has often been campared to Dido, but we think Amy far exceeds Dido in her ability to raise the tempo and power and in her ability to inject real passion into her vocal range. Her songs, and especialy the track Stormchaser ( inspired by her own emotional stormchasing and penned on a plane heading back from a romance in Goa , India -the suposed ancient birthplace of the celts- the song was born out of her own stormy escapades in an indian summer on the back of a wild eyed dreamers motor bike), are all full of all the dreams, desires, failures and follies of youth and are bound to stir up some intense feelings and memories in anyone, of any age, either fortunate - or unfortunate enough to have had them...(aah memories!... I remember one wild summer with friends on the beaches and bars of Tra Mor, especialy nights dancing with a wild green eyed girl who later cornered me by the wall outside O'Shea's bar with hands that made my voice raise two octaves in the hot summer breeze - in the six hour ferry crossing on the way home the following week the encounter inspired about twenty of my own songs and my friends were so fed up waiting for me to stop writing that they had to set fire to my pen....I think the girl set fire to the songs once I sent them over to her later that week...)
  Amy May likes to write songs that 'connect' and she delivers them with vocals that draw you right into the heart of her songs making her an exceptionaly gifted singer and songwriter - no wander she'a been nominated as 'Cornwalls best' female vocalist for the last three years!
Something also tells me that there'll be alot more bikers taking holidays in Truro over the next few years...
  To get a closer look and listen to the unique songwriting gift that is Amy May , follow the link below, buy the debut album and then stick her site in your favourites...

 A preview of the award winning track Stormchaser can be heard on Amy's MySpace site here...

   **As an update to the saga's and travels of Amy May...2008 and 2009 saw Amy venture to another 'west country' where her debut West Coast concert was in Los Angeles' at 'The Derby' on her actual birthday and the last year has seen her jetting back and forth between Cornwall, LA, and even Bahrain for regular gigs and concerts and she can now often be found singing on the beaches of both her two favourite West Coasts.So you can now expect alot more bikers to start taking their holidays in LA too. We've added two beautiful new songs from Amy entitled 'Hold On' and 'Come To Me' - so expect some new releases on her sites very soon.
Also well worth a big mention is Amy's own UK backing band the 'Ooh La La Band' who comprise of Celine de Santos (who must surely be Britains best ever looking bass player) on piano bass and vocals, Harry Harding on drums guitars and vocals, with Barnaby Ray also filling in and taking turns on drums and guitars when gigging too. Their debut album 'Singing In The Rain' should still be available from their MySpace profile (which also airs Amy May's rocked up version of 'Told Me So' from Amy's 'Right Right Now' album in their player. The Debut Ooh La La album also features what is probably the best ever recorded version of Steely Dans 'Dirty Work' in existence too, so it's a 'must have' album just for that one track alone. So head over to the bands MySpace for more at...