Three Sheets to the Wind celebrates the sailor's life

“Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We kindle and char, inflame and ignite,
Drink up, me ’earties, yo ho.
We burn up the city, we’re really a fright,
Drink up, me ’earties, yo ho.”

Do you long for the sight of a Jolly Roger or still catch yourself daydreaming about whether there will there be a fourth installment of “Pirates of the Caribbean”?

While there are rumors that Walt Disney Pictures has made tentative plans to shoot another chapter in the saga of Capt. Jack Sparrow, it’s difficult to know whether the buzz is actually just posturing by movie producers or the fantasies of fans of the film. Arrrrrgh!

So if you’re a landlubber in need of some adventure on the sea, and the “Pirates” trilogy isn’t doing it for you (and you can’t wait until Sept. 19, aka “Talk Like a Pirate Day”) then the answer may be ... Three Sheets to the Wind.

No, it’s not a sailing term or a point on the compass. Three Sheets to the Wind is a local sea shanty band known for gritty songs of the sea (featuring wenches, scalawags and lots of grog). The group is performing Saturday at 7 p.m. at Coalesce Bookstore in Morro Bay.

Formed on the Central Coast
The Three Sheets are: Sidney Willson Young, who plays guitar, banjo and vocals; Chrisanne Wollett, who plays mandolin, harmonica and guitar; and Jack “The Shantyman” Beardwood, a tenor who sings and occasionally plays the spoons.

The band has performed locally since the early 1990s. They’ve played at the Live Oak Music Festival, the Performing Arts Center, Morro Bay Harbor Festival and at the Dana Point Tallship Festival.

“With songs of shipwrecks, pirating on the high seas, whaling and wayward sailors, Three Sheets to the Wind seeks to preserve nautical songs and shanties that have been sung onboard ships for hundreds of years,” Beardwood said.

Sea shanties, or chanteys (from the French verb for "to sing," "chanter"), were shipboard work songs. When a yardarm or heavy canvas sails on a 19th century clipper ship needed to be raised, the shantyman would lead the song that synchronized efforts of the crew as they performed the task. This was in the days when heaving when you were supposed to ho could be hazardous to the ship and your mates — especially during a blow. The songs also helped take the edge off the boredom that is life at sea.

“Shanties are sung in a call-and-response fashion,” says a report on a BBC Web site devoted to the genre. “A leader, or shantyman, sings out the verses, and the chorus or refrain is then echoed by the entire crew. The style is very rhythmic, and a word is usually emphasized in the refrain to indicate the point at which the crew should pull on the rope or do whatever needs to be done.

“Since there are a variety of specific shipboard tasks for which a shanty could be used, different styles of shanty have evolved, each with its own rhythm according to the necessity of the task.”

Sea shanties have been around for hundreds of years. The music genre gained fans in the wake of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series. Arrrrrgh!

A famous fan of the genre
Actor Johnny Depp and “Pirates” director Gore Verbinski were captivated by shanties and responded with 2006’s “Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys,” a double-disc set with tracks from Bono, Sting, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Lou Reed, Richard Thompson and Lucinda Williams.

The CD includes perhaps the most famous sea shanty of them all, a stamp-and-go number titled “What Do We Do With a Drunken Sailor,” that contains these lyrics:

What shall we do with the drunken sailor?
What shall we do with the drunken sailor?
What shall we do with the drunken sailor?
Early in the morning.

Hooray and up she rises
Hooray and up she rises
Hooray and up she rises
Early in the morning.

Three Sheets to the Wind covers “Drunken Sailor.” Their repertoire also includes scores of other shanties as well — ditties that involve drinking (“All for Me Grog”), the romance of the sea (“Eddystone Light”), lofty ships (“Golden Vanity”) and the itinerant life of a merchant sailor (“Rolling Down to Old Maui”).

And, perhaps, a pirate tune or two as well. Yo ho!

— Jay Thompson


If you go ...
Three Sheets to the Wind will play songs of the sea and some Irish music at 7 p.m. Saturday at Coalesce Bookstore, 845 Main St. in Morro Bay. Tickets are $10. For details, call 772-2880

Ever hear a real sea shanty? Hear a portion of “Roll the Old Chariot Along,” from the Library of Congress' Gordon Collection, which was recorded in the Bay Area in the early 1920s. Click here.

Photo by Janice Young

Artwork is from Three Sheets to the Wind’s 1995 recording, “All for Me Grog.” The design is by Bruce Clyde.

Today show's sweet on Pismo Beach

NBC’s “Today” show must be sweet on the Central Coast.

A stay at Pismo Beach’s luxurious Dolphin Bay resort will serve as the consolation prize for couples participating in the network’s “Today Throws a Martha Stewart Wedding” contest, anchors Ann Curry and Matt Lauer announced this morning.

While the winners, Mesa, Ariz., students Cody and Jessica, experience a wedding and reception designed by home décor maven Martha Stewart, the three remaining couples will enjoy five nights at Dolphin Bay Hotel & Residences – starting tonight.

“It’s a gorgeous area of California,” Lauer said of the Central Coast, noting about nearby 200 vineyards.

The other finalists in the contest were Will and Beth of Naples, Fla., Thomas and Nicole of Detroit, and Jason and Alisa of Chicago.

According to the resort’s Web site, Dolphin Bay offers 70 one- or two-bedroom suites ranging in size from 900 to more than 2,000 square feet and featuring a kitchen, dining area and laundry facilities.

That’s not to mention all the other luxuries: free valet parking, Italian linens, flat-panel plasma TVs, fireplaces and Aire Jet spa tubs. It’s located at 2727 Shell Beach Rd. in Pismo Beach.

***

Dolphin Bay seems to draw its share of celebrities.

In May, 200 guests flocked to the resort for a wedding for the daughter of Hollywood mogul Glenn Padnick, the president of Castle Rock Television.

When the cast of “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” filmed at the Guadalupe Dunes last fall, stars Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom were spotted dining at the Dolphin Bay's Lido Restaurant.

And in June 2006, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger joined about 50 guests for dinner at Lido Restaurant.
Each paid a whopping $10,000 per plate to dine on Dungeness crab, duck confit and vanilla ice cream profiteroles. The event was a fundraiser for Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign.

For more information, check out the Today show or Dolphin Bay.

-- Sarah L.

Girls: Dare to get "Knocked Up"

A week after it hit the theaters, I’m still smiling about “Knocked Up.”
Judd Apatow’s latest comedy mixes off-beat, often raunchy jokes with a shaggy-dog love story with surprising heart. Finally, a guy movie for girls.
As the trailer suggests, “Knocked Up” pairs slacker Ben Stone (Seth Rogan) with Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl of “Grey’s Anatomy”).
She’s way out of his league, a blonde goddess who works for E! He’s a scruffy slacker who spends most of his time smoking pot and watching movies with a Greek chorus of geeky roommates.
Then the unthinkable happens: What starts as a one-night stand turns into a full-blown disaster.
To Apatow’s credit, the camera spends just as much time with the pregnant Alison as it does with his goofy but likeable male lead.
As Ben struggles to make the transition from shiftless slacker to responsible dad, Alison worries about losing her job and her independence.
He’s got the munchies. She’s got morning sickness and mood swings.
“Knocked Up” doesn’t offer an easy fix.
Its protagonists are exact opposites plagued by bad examples. Even Allison’s put-together sister (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife) and her husband (Paul Rudd) are struggling to find meaning in their marriage.
I won’t go so far as to call “Knocked Up” the next “When Harry Met Sally.”
There’s a wealth of testosterone-driven humor, including a hilarious running gag about beards that I refuse to ruin here. But “Knocked Up” shows a new level of maturity for the man behind “Anchorman” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.”
What begins as a cautionary tale for career girls – don’t swap spit with losers – becomes a sweet exploration of that final leap into adulthood.
Chalk it up as one of my favorite movies of the summer.

FUNNY BUSINESS:
The prediction: Comedies, not overblown blockbusters, will top the box office charts this summer.
The evidence: “Spider-Man 3” dropped dramatically its second weekend.
“Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” saw “one of the steepest post-Memorial Day opening drops on record," watchdog Box Office Mojo reported, pulling in $114 million its first weekend and only $44.2 million the second.
Meanwhile, “Knocked Off” raked in $30.7 million its opening weekend. The movie is already being mentioned in the trailers of Seth Rogan’s next movie, “Superbad.”
Now factor in the fact that "Pirates" cost $300 million to make. "Knocked Up" cost a tenth of that -- $30 million.
I’m banking on comedies.

-- Sarah L.

"Pirates'" long, strange trip

Ten or 15 minutes into “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” I found myself musing, “What the hell has Gore Verbinski been smoking?”
It may have been the sight of our intrepid pirates confronting Chow Yun Fat on the docks of Singapore, as the big, bad warlord calls for “More steam! More steam!”
Or Capt. Jack Sparrow confronting his fractured psyche — so to speak — on his stranded ship.
Or maybe, just maybe, the army of stone crabs towing the tattered Black Pearl across the dunes. That’s right. Crustaceans. That are rocks.
(Not sure how wicked Jack’s watery grave morphed into a salt flat? Me neither.)
It’s difficult to settle into a film when the opening sequence features a small, ragged boy being hanged. Yikes!
And the movie’s machinations nearly put me in a doze.
The plot of the third “Pirates” movie is as tangled as Davy Jones’ tentacles.
Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) wants to save his father from eternity on a ghost ship. Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) wants his heart back. And Capt. Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) wants to stop the British colonial government from ruining high adventure on the high seas.
Not to mention the sexual tension between Turner, Jack (Johnny Depp) and the always ravishing Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley).
There are so many double- and triple-crosses, I wonder whether the actors themselves got confused.
What’s worse, the much-anticipated cameo by Keith Richards consisted of little more than some wise looks and a little noodling on a guitar. Mr. Ed, bless his equine soul, would have put in a more convincing performance.
There are pluses: Fantastic special effects; a great “girl power” message; and a number of very funny sight gags — usually courtesy of the monkey and our wacky band.
Action sequences are longer and gorier than “Dead Man’s Chest.” (Though, thankfully, there’s no 20-minute sword fight in a giant wheel.) And Johnny Depp is, well, wonderful.
As for Gore Verbinski, I’ll have what he’s having.

-- Sarah L.