Are you like Bilbo Baggins? Do you love a good adventure? Will shaking up your life help you to find happiness? Subscribe to Pub Songs & Stories #254 to find out. WHO'S PLAYING IN THE PUB TODAY Welcome to Pub Songs & Stories. This is the Virtual Public House to share stories and inspiration behind my music. 0:24 - WHAT'S NEW? Let me start by reminding you that Pub Songs & Stories is a podcast brought to you by my Gunn Runners on Patreon. The public version of his show will be released on the first Monday of each month starting in August. However, there will be a private version. It will come out every other week, exclusively on Patreon. If you're looking for Stories from other Celtic bands, then be sure to subscribe to the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. If you enjoy my music or this podcast, please sign up on Patreon. You'll get this podcast, and be able to downloads songs featured in this show. You also get Stories from the Road, sheet music, and get access to the Coffee with The Celtfather concerts which happen on Wednesdays at 11 AM eastern. You get all of that for as little as $5 per month. And you can get a discount with an annual membership. Thanks to my newest Gunn Runners on Patreon: Ivan MacKillop I'm still putting together my next Kickstarter. The album is called Come Adventure With Me. It features that title track, and some of my newest music. Several songs are already recorded. And if I haven't given them away on Patreon yet, they will be available there. That's because Streaming music gives you a quick and easy way to sample all of my music. Digital sales keep my business running. Tips and CD sales allow me to tour. Patreon funds my songwriting! Kickstarter funds physical products like CDs, shirts, album pins and other merch. The plan is to officially release the album next year. But in what format? I have quite a few people who ask that I keep releasing CDs. I also started releasing Album Pins, which are lapel pins associated with each album. That is what this new Kickstarter will fund. Yes. Some of the music will go to pay musicians for their time in helping me create the music. But most of it will go into producing physical merch for this album. Although I'm also raising money for album lapel pins of a couple past albums. If you're interested in supporting this album, please follow the link to my Kickstarter page and make a pledge. 3:15 - UPCOMING SHOWS MAY 6: Tucker Brewing Company, Tucker, GA @ 6:30 - 9:30 PM. MAY 20: Ironshield Brewing in Lawrenceville, GA @ 7:00 – 10:00 PM. MAY 21: Pepper Place Farmer's Market, Birmingham, AL @ 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM CT May 28: The Lost Druid, Avondale Estates, GA 3:30 - STORY OF WHEREVER I MAY ROAM I'm like Bilbo Baggins. I love a good adventure. I think it all started when my parents divorced. My dad would drive us to Texas each summer to stay with our grandparents. My brother and I would fly home a few weeks later. I loved air travel. Then my mom moved to Italy in 1985. My brother and I flew, just the two of us, across the big blue ocean, to Italy. This was the height of my Dungeons & Dragons days. So going to Italy was like stepping inside one of my D&D campaigns. It was magical. I relished it. My mom had a small home in Isola Montagne. It was a few miles from the Vicenza military base. I moved to Italy in 1989 to live with my mom. I visited Rome, Venice, the alps, Florence, Verona, just… everywhere. It was incredible. Life was an adventure. But I also knew that I didn't want to adventure alone. Sure I had fun in 2003. I sprained my ankle. But I had already booked a flight to Germany where I would take a train to Italy. It was fun. But also lonely. I wanted a family. In 2009, I met my wife, Gwen, at a house concert in Virginia. It was one of the few actual tours I ever made as a professional musician. We clicked instantly. We solidified our kindred spirits a couple months later when we met up in London. Our first big date was in Cambridge. I was living in New Orleans at the time. It turned out that New Orleans was where she called home before she swam out of it during Hurricane Katrina. We are connected in part by our love of travel. That's something we've made a big part of our lives, and that of our children too. We took Kenzie to Galway, Ireland when she was 1 ½ years old. It was cold, wet and rainy that April of 2012. But an adventure! Since then, we've gone back to Cambridge. We've traveled around the US. This summer, we're heading to Scotland and Europe as a family. This is what "Wherever I May Roam" is all about. It's finding happiness and love wherever we are. One of my first epiphanies back in the 80s was that if things aren't working out how you want them to, shake things up. Do something radical. That's why I moved to New Orleans. It's why I split up the success of the Brobdingnagian Bards to move to New Orleans. Travel is a great way to open your mind and spirit to great possibilities. 7:50 - Marc Gunn "Wherever I May Roam" from Selcouth You can download "Wherever I May Roam" as an MP3 when you join my Gunn Runners on Patreon. Hey if you want to join me on an adventure, every year I host Celtic Invasion Vacations. These are small group trips to Ireland or Scotland. This year we're going to Invade the Banks of Loch Lomond. The trip is already filled up. I don't know where we are going next year. But you can subscribe at celticinvasion.com to be the first to find out. Thanks for listening to Pub Stories. The show was produced by Marc Gunn, edited by Mitchell Petersen with graphics by Miranda Nelson Designs. You can subscribe and listen wherever you find podcasts. You can also subscribe to my mailing list. You will get regular updates of new music, podcasts, special offers, and you'll get an album for free. Welcome to the pub at www.pubsong.com! #pubstories #whereverimayroam #kickstarter