The Patched Hats

The Patched Hats (ca. July 2004 - ) Just WHO are these Patched Hats you've been hearing so much about? A very good question, my friend...a very good question, indeed..... The quick answer goes like this: The Patched Hats are Andreas Trans? (vocals, guitar, spoons, hand drum) and Parker Otwell Roe (vocals, bodhr?n, guitar, bouzouki)...'nuff said. The long answer goes more like this:

Just WHO are these Patched Hats you've been hearing so much about? A very good question, my friend...a very good question, indeed.....


The quick answer goes like this: The Patched Hats are Andreas Trans? (vocals, guitar, spoons, hand drum) and Parker Otwell Roe (vocals, bodhr?n, guitar, bouzouki)...'nuff said.


The long answer goes more like this:


In the summer of 2004, two musical souls were slammed into one another on a small coach ride somewhere in the Burren (Co. Clare) on the west coast of Ireland. Over a shared bottle of cider in the back of the coach, some guy named Parker and this other dude named Dre began a conversation that would last, on and off, until the present... The subject matter? Irish trad music. The details? Way too many to name. Parker was in Limerick for his second round of Blas at the Irish World Music Centre (http://www.ul.ie/~iwmc/Blas/index.html)...which, subsequently is an AMAZING summer program for trad... Dre was also in Limerick at UL for a program through the Univ. of Wisconsin. Two guys...same place, same time, same reason...TRAD!!! Well, the coach ride ended and a friendship began which took these fair lads all around the west for a week of travel and reverie...Miltown-Malbay for Willie Week, Doolin, Galway, etc...you get the idea. And now, I suppose, the rest is history...



Oh...the NAME, you say? Sure...let us go back to Doolin where we find our intrepid heroes in one of the three pubs in that small infamous town desperately seeking a session and finding an empty stage before the "house band" arrived to tantalize the tourists. Empty stage...the lads had their instruments...people were anxious to hear some trad...why the hell not? So they played for a bit, the people listened and applauded... "Who are you guys?" they all asked. "What's the name of your group?" Caught completely unawares and both adorned in their patchwork chapeaus the answer was more instinctive then planned... "We are The Patched Hats." And a legend was born...