KiwiCelt Wooden Flutes

Like most people, I get a lot of spam and rubbish among my email – like, probably 95%! One becomes used to it even though it’s not nice to receive such stuff. And, like most people, I also get email that is ho-hum – stuff you just have to deal with but is a bit of a drag. As they say in New York, “Whadayagunnado?” Deal with it right? Right! Well, today I received a different type of email that gave me a lot of joy!

Last week a friend of mine from Italy sent me a sampling of Colm O’Donnell’s album Farewell To Evening Dances - an album that has been described on Bogfire as “A wonderful collection of traditional song, flute and tin whistle music from a naturally gifted musician.”

From the little I have heard of it, it’s a lovely Irish traditional album with plenty of variety. Our friends at Celtic Grooves have posted a review of Farewell To Evening Dances – part of which reads:

“[...] Colm’s flute and whistle music is one of the sweetest you’ll ever hear, whether he plays an old tune or one of his excellent compositions. His performance of his own air “An Tonn Amplach” (The Hungry Sea) is achingly beautiful. If that weren’t enough, Colm’s traditional-style singing in Gaelic and English as well as his lilting are no less than remarkable. [...]“

Reviews aside, I was really impressed by the samples my friend had sent me and so I ordered the CD from a company called CD Baby – good price and no fuss. I received the usual order confirmation email that is standard with online purchasing and that was that – game over! But wait, there’s more… This morning I received an email from CD Baby to let me know that my Colm O’Donnell CD was on it’s way. Again, nothing unusual – standard practice. But asides from the usual invoicing and dispatch confirmation, they also had this to say:

[...] Your CD has been gently taken from our CD Baby shelves with sterilized contamination-free gloves and placed onto a satin pillow.

A team of 50 employees inspected your CD and polished it to make sure it was in the best possible condition before mailing.

Our packing specialist from Japan lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as he put your CD into the finest gold-lined box that money can buy.

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards and the whole party marched down the street to the post office where the entire town of Portland waved “Bon Voyage!” to your package, on its way to you, in our private CD Baby jet on this day, Monday, July 23rd.

I hope you had a wonderful time shopping at CD Baby. We sure did. Your picture is on our wall as “Customer of the Year.” We’re all exhausted but can’t wait for you to come back to CDBABY.COM!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Sigh…
–
Derek Sivers, president, CD Baby [...]

Way to get repeat customers CD Baby! It’s not very often that I get any joy from email, but this was one of those moments – I indulged in a good old fashioned laugh-out-loud! Perhaps a cynic would say that it is just another marketing ploy, but I say, “If it lifts the spirits, bring it on!”

Anyways, I’m looking forward to receiving the CD (and the gold-lined box) and will post a little review of my own and a couple of samples when I receive it. Colm O’Donnell is quite a musician and there are some great flute and a cappella vocal tracks on that album.

And a big mille grazie to my Italian friend Priyadarshan for sharing the samples. (Pssst… Priyadarshan, amongst his many talents, is a great chef and really knows how to cook pasta in the real Italian way - and he makes great coffee!)

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