Flash Company 

Flash Company refers to the kind of folks that your mother warned you about that you spent lots of time with none the less!  And so this happy aggregation of Irish/Celtic music lovers has gathered to pick up their instruments (there are many of them!) and spread the celebratious nature of the most sublime music ever heard on the face of God's green earth.

     Flash Company was born when Eric Garrison, a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with decades of experience playing the folk  and rock and roll circuits, met up with Jim Pospisil, also a singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with decades of experience playing the folk and rock and roll circuits, and began trading music business war stories.  As the two got to know each other, a particular confidence was shared which revealed that both harbored a deep love of Irish and Celtic music and had been playing that music on "their own time" for years.  While both were busy working musicians playing other styles of music, the two decided to get together and scratch the Irish music itch by putting a band together that would embody the spirit of traditional Irish music as represented in the pubs of rural Ireland, along with the lush contemporary sounds of present-day Irish and Celtic writers.  

     In early rehearsals, both Jim and Eric wanted to stretch out and get to play the instruments that they never got to play on their other gigs.  Quickly, it was determined that a strong rhythmic foundation would be needed so that both could exercise their talents on melodic instruments.  Underneath the mandolins and pennywhistles and tenor banjos  and melodeons and bozoukis, there needed to be the consistent sound  that would hold it all together.  Enter an old college friend and former bandmate of Eric's, Bryan Maloney, master of the all things guitar and a true son of the Ould Sod.  And so, Flash Company became a trio....three guys playing an eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary Irish and Celtic-influenced  music surrounded by a forest of instruments.  The band's first big performance  featured guitar(s), bozouki, mandolin(s), pennywhistle, bodhran, melodeon, piano, and bass.  It was effective but not efficient, as instruments were passed and sometimes thrown across the stage (and caught with effortless grace...most of the time).  

     Faced with a need to consolidate, the band decided to streamline its menagerie of performance instruments.  In consideration of weight and square-footage-taken-up-on-stage, the piano was left at home and redundant instruments were subjected to the do-we-really-need-three-of-these-on-stage? test.  The repertoire became more adventurous, with more challenging instrumental tunes added to keep Eric and Jim on their respective toes.  As the band did more gigs, and the requests for particular songs  were noted, the repertoire grew as well so that today's Flash Company performance ranges from the 18th century tunes of O'Carolan to the work of the Chieftains and the rock-inflected work of contemporary artists like Luka Bloom, Touchstone, Cathie Ryan, and Cherish the Ladies.  With Jim and Eric both being songwriters, it was inevitable that the band's repertoire grown to include some choice original songs as well!  

     Flash Company is ready, willing, and eager to share this joyful, thought-provoking, deeply meaningful music with you!