Kyle Alden, with Vincey Keehan, and Friends – Studio 55 Marin

Folk musicians Kyle Alden and Vincey Keehan have played together for years in San Francisco-based Irish trad band The Gas Men.

Each of these talented multi-instrumentalists is also an accomplished songwriter and singer. Join them for an evening of new and old folk and original songs highlighting the threads that run between Ireland and California, Kyle’s home state and Vincey’s adopted state.

Sure to be a few lively instrumental tunes as well. Featured guests will include Susan Spurlock (vocals and mandolin) and Paul Eastburn (upright bass), among others. Award-winning singer/songwriter and folk musician Kyle Alden is a performer who has appeared on stages throughout California, Colorado, the Pacific Northwest and Ireland. His third CD–Songs From Yeats’ Bee-Loud Glade — a collection of thirteen original folk songs inspired by poems of W. B. Yeats — received world-wide radio airplay and was on three “Best of 2011” lists among folk music DJs. As the 2012 grand prize winner of the Y-Tunes Song Contest for his settings of W.B. Yeats’ poetry, Kyle was honored to perform at the Hawks Well Theater in Sligo, Ireland in the summer of 2013. He just returned from New York where he joined Mick Moloney and Athena Tergis in performing a selection of the Yeats songs at Symphony Space on Broadway.

Vincey Keehan is a fine singer/songwriter from the West of Ireland, near Gort, County Galway. He came to America in the early 1980’s and has lived in San Francisco since that time; he is well-known on the Irish music scene in both places. Vince is a founding member of the Gas Men, who play regularly around the Bay Area and beyond. Their two albums, “Minding Mice at the Crossroads”, and “Clement Street”, showcase the many talents of the Irish music scene on the West Coast, including singing, lilting, instrumental music, live tracks and folk and original compositions. His latest project is called “Nights In Shanaglish,” which he co-produced with London concertina player Paddy Egan. They gathered a terrific collection of local musicians to play and sing at Whelan’s pub in the tiny village of Shanaglish, near the Galway/Clare border. A live audio recording, issued in both CD and vinyl formats, plus a DVD are all part of this amazing collection which captures the magic of spontaneous music-making in a small, rural Irish community.