The Ebay Bagpiper: Devil Drone Reeds by Vince Janoski

Wherein Pipehacker purchases and test drives assorted bagpipe junk from ebay—so you don’t have to. If you spend any time sorting through the bagpipe offerings on Ebay you’ve seen them. The strange and wonderful variety of “off-brand” drone reeds from just about every continent on Earth. Serious pipers will simply give these goofy entries a [...]

Stream It All! Bagpipes Delivered to the World! by Vince Janoski

The historic free live stream of the Glenfiddich Championship was a rousing success, I’d say. Congratulations to Iain Spiers on his first win. If you were one of the (at peak) more than 800 viewers, you dragged yourself out of bed in the wee hours (like me), lost sleep watching it into the night (if [...]

Pipehacker Movie Review: Jiro Dreams of Sushi by Vince Janoski

Jiro dreams of sushi, but Pipehacker dreams of bagpipes. I may be making a joke, but in all seriousness, the documentary film Jiro Dreams of Sushi is a great example of the singleminded focus that is required to become the best at just about anything. Even if you couldn’t give a fig about sushi the [...]

Pipehacker Tools: Rite in the Rain All-Weather Memo Book by Vince Janoski

You’re out on the pitch in full kit and it is coming down in buckets. Most Highland games soldier on rain or shine and we pipers are left to deal, grumbling about the wet, our reeds, trying our best to remember where to be and when. Worse, it’s been nice and partly sunny all day [...]

Pipehacker Review: Treacherous Orchestra by Vince Janoski

When you first look at their album cover for Origins, Treacherous Orchestra appears as if it is just the latest thrash metal group or DJ-dance-hall-fusion-electronica band. Never would you suspect an ensemble that pays a great deal of homage to their Celtic traditional roots and puts forth a sound that is like a Scottish country [...]

Review: The Bagpipe Harness by Vince Janoski

This is a guest post by Nathan Wahlgren, the Keydet Piper. I had a chance this weekend to try the Bagpipe Harness, kindly sent to me by the designer Colin Roddick. One line summary: the product is pretty good, but I don’t recommend a piper relying on it for every piping situation. A detailed review [...]