Perhaps if the Celts weren't so hooked on music, they'd have invented surfing before the Polynesians.

Mike Katz, piper for Scotland's own Battlefield Band, was talking about the band's attempts to book some shows in Hawaii after its Friday appearance in San Diego. That led to talk about surfing, which is, Katz said, increasingly popular in Ireland and Scotland.

Besides prime surfing spots on Ireland's west coast, Katz said there's another in northern Scotland, at the Pentland Firth.

"There are some good waves in Scotland ---- there's a world-renowned surfing spot. The waves are really big, and you can watch the surfing really close because they break adjacent to a cliff where you can stand and watch it. It's very impressive because you can see Orkney (Islands).

"There are a lot of great waves in the north of Spain ---- and that's Celtic, too!"

As are the men of the Battlefield Band, which has been around since the late '60s. Members have come and gone through the years, but the band's mix of traditional and modern has stayed consistent. Its current tour is in support of "Zama Zama," a collection of songs about wealth and the lack of same.

While the Battlefield Band has always focused on its own compositions, albeit performed in at least a semitraditional fashion, Katz said audiences have been supportive of its efforts to keep Celtic music from becoming a museum piece.

"Most of the time in America, people are fairly open-minded. Obviously, the instrumental music, the bagpipe music, is very Scottish. A bunch of songs that Alan (Reid) wrote are obviously Scottish because he's Scottish. Most of it's pretty Scottish. I think the people are pretty flexible here.

"Most people don't have a very clear idea of what Scottish music is ---- it's sort of lumped in with Irish music. And that's not necessarily wrong. There's a continuum from the south of Ireland to the north of Scotland."

Interestingly, the band's devotion to Celtic music has proven so successful that it's taken them around the world many times over.

Ask Katz what was the most interesting place they've ever played, though, and the answer is instant: "Without a doubt, Uzbekistan."

The Uzbek tour came about through a friend in the British foreign service.

"A gig came up because a Beatles tribute band was suppose to be playing at the British embassy, but they got frightened by the whole thing ---- so he organized a tour for us. Free concerts, really. We played for 10 days in Uzbekistan."

While there, they met some Uzbek musicians whom they brought to the United Kingdom a year later. During that tour, away from the control of the dictatorial Uzbek government, Katz said the Scottish and Uzbek musicians began teaching each other about their different musical traditions.

"If you look at the whole Silk Road from the Mediterranean all the way to China, Uzbek music is basically right in the middle.

"The main, or most notable, instrument, is a two-string instrument. As a guitar player, I can usually understand how someone is doing something, even if I can't do it. That two-stringed instrument I couldn't even understand!

"The music itself is not that alien. It was great ---- some elements were very eastern, others were more Turkish or Mediterranean. And the singing was great.

"We taught them easy tunes, and they taught us easy tunes. All music is like this; there's a lot of subtlety in all music. On the surface of it, it's very simple, but it's not simple. It's like hearing guys who aren't very good playing the blues ---- it's awful.

"You can understand it, but to play it convincingly you'd have to work at it."

The Battlefield Band

When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 6

Where: Acoustic Music San Diego, 4650 Mansfield St. (Normal Heights United Methodist Church), San Diego

Tickets: $25

Info: (619) 303-8176 or acousticmusicsandiego.com

Web: battlefieldband.co.uk