The Bedlam Bards

The Bedlam Bards

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About The Bedlam Bards

The history of the Bedlam Bards is long and strange, not unlike some of their songs. Sit down, my children, and I will tell of how these events transpired: In 1995, Cedric agreed to be a wandering minstrel at the first annual Four Winds Renaissance Faire, run by his long-time associates Linda and Dustin Stephens. One of the stage acts booked for that show was a duo called LadyHawke, which consisted of Hawke and sweet-voiced lady named Marney. A few weeks before the faire, someone realized that Hawke and Cedric, who had never met, lived only fifteen minutes apart, so the two of them got together for a single jam session before the faire. Perhaps it was an omen that the first song Hawke played for Cedric was "The Moonshiner," which was a melody Cedric had used many times as a competition waltz. A few days before the faire opened, Cedric wrote "Bring on the Faire," which was promptly adopted as the opening gate song. Although the fiddler did not perceive it at the time, that became the first song for which Hawke figured out chords totally by ear. Over the next few years, Hawke and Cedric would occasionally run into one another and play a bit. Hawke was always glad to get a break from singing in the middle of a song, and Cedric loved having a guitar back up his fiddle tunes. But for the most part, they went their separate ways, Hawke busy with different incarnations of LadyHawke and Cedric playing SCA with great intensity. And then their stars conspired against them . . . Picture if you will the first morning of the first season of the Hawkwood Medieval Fantasy Faire. After a summer's drought, storm clouds have filled the sky. Hawke, having just returned from a successful run at the Northwest RF, is waiting, last in line at the participants gate before opening. Cedric approaches, looking bedraggled, dubious, and weary in a tee-shirt and costume pants. The fiddler, who had committed to the show thinking that he would play for a belly dance band, has spent a fitful night after discovering that the dance act had been canceled at the last minute. He has awakened that morning to discover that he left his one and only ren shirt at home. And now, it is threatening to rain. The fiddler walks up to the balladeer and says, "Damn, they'll let anyone into this faire, won't they?" Since Cedric has no schedule of his own, he agrees to tag along at Hawke's shows for the weekend. Within moments, the clouds burst; the minstrels stow their instruments in a booth; and together they slog through the mud and rain to find Cedric another shirt. By the end of the weekend, the faire has agreed to pay Cedric to perform, and much to his surprise, they have put him on the schedule by the next weekend. Suddenly, the 'Hawke and Cedric Psychic Experience' (also known as The Band That Never Practices) has a double schedule—all of Hawke's shows and all of Cedric's. By the end of the faire, Cedric is convinced that he needs to cut an album, so he invites Hawke to back him up on it. By the time Cedric's Overmode is finished, Hawke has suggested that they should team up permanently. Cedric balks at the idea, but then the perfect name comes to him: the Bedlam Bards. After all, "Bedlam Boys" was the first song that the two of them learned together. Both like the ring of it, the alliteration, the reference to insanity, the reference to bard craft; they also are inspired by the Minstrels of Mayhem, a legendary renfaire band. And finally, they want to be the Bards, not the Boys, just in case Lilly decided to join them. [A side note: Some time later, Cedric and Hawke discovered that several novels about a renfaire musician, written by Mercedes Lackey and Ellen Guon, had been bound together under the title Bedlam's Bard Funny how a great mind thinks alike, isn't it?] Where was I? Oh, yes—Lilly! Back at Four Winds, the deranged duo had encountered a precocious merchant's daughter. This already buxom twelve-year-old could play the whistle like nobody's business and possessed a lovely voice as well as the ability to memorize lyrics in an instant. The three of them performed at Four Winds as an impromptu trio. The lovely lass had joined the Hawke and Cedric Psychic Experience on stage several times during the first year of Hawkwood, and she had both played and sung on Cedric's Overmode. Both of the boys from Bedlam were eager to keep her with the band. ["We saw her fir-irst! You ca-an't have her! Nanny-nanny-boo-boo!"] Over time, Lilly became an integral part of Bedlam shows at Hawkwood and TRF; and she is now considered a full-fledged member of the Bedlam Bards. Any time that the boys have to perform without her, she is sorely missed. Well, there you have it, boys and girls. Now go fetch me some hard cider.

Taken from Last.fm

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