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 four very reliable CDs, “Plays Well With Others”, "Roadtrip", "Not Far from the Tree", and "Made from Scratch". 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. They play Irish and American roots music, which is cool in itself, but what makes them kind of different is that the traditional tunes are intricately arranged with harmonic and rhythmic complexity that draws on the polyphony of Bach. Not trying to brag here, but you really have to know your stuff to pull that off. 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. Technically that is an international reputation if you think about it. 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, whistle, Irish flute, piano, guitar, acoustic bass, bodhran, and song Linda Mortensen: Whistle, flute, recorder, and song Emily Powell: Fiddle Sara Craig: Fiddle Sean Ewing: Guitar Micah Martin: Bodhran, whistle, tuba, and The Hoss