Album Notes

The Demerits are happiest when tossing off a set of lilting jigs, blazing reels, and bluegrass tunes for anyone who will listen. Formed in 2003 on the campus of Cedarville University in Ohio as an emergency measure to appease angry crowds demanding traditional Irish music, The Demerits have since gone on to record three very reliable CDs, “Plays Well With Others”, "Roadtrip", and "Not Far from the Tree". They have performed in a few different places, none of which was very prestigious, but all of which were a good deal of fun.

The group members are mostly fugitives from classical music. After hearing them rip through a rowdy Irish dance set you might not guess that they also have perfectly respectable lives in which they serve as music professors and current or former music students.

Recently they have begun to acquire a reputation in Ireland. What happened was, this one lady got their CD and sent it to her daughter who was staying in Ireland, and the daughter called the mom and said the music was good.

So you can see that things are really picking up.

Check out the website for video from live gigs and some nice audio downloads.

The Demerits (on this recording) are:

John Mortensen: Uilleann pipes, 5-string banjo, B/C Irish button box, high and low whistles, piano, guitar, string bass, bodhran

Linda Mortensen: Flute and recorder

Heather Hennessey: Fiddle

Sara Craig: Fiddle

Ben Kibbe: Guitar

Micah Martin: Bodhran and whistle