Norway’s Greenland Whalefishers are one of Celtic-punks longest running and consistently great bands and while they are very much routed in the sounds of The Pogues (right down to Arvid’s out MacGowning MacGowan’s vocals) though with a nod to both ’77 and current punk influences.
Live At Farmer Phil’s Festival is a no frills, in the raw recording of the GWFs set at the quirky Farmer Phil’s Festival in the UK and it really capture the power of the GWFs live set that has bashed heads from Poland to California and Japan and is now bashing heads on vinyl. The vinyl package is classy, high quality, blue wax including tons of photos on the inner sleeve – buy it before its gone, it will be a collectors item shortly.
1. 4 Season Song
2. Hit the Ground
3. Waiting
4. I Just Saw You
5. I Am Roving
6. July Morning
7. Rich Holder At Thorp Arch
8. Backup Man
9. Limp Jos Story
10. Loboville
11. The Wild Rover
No real theme here, just mostly new stuff along with a couple of old’er punk tracks from Darkbuster and Runnin’ Riot.
Lexington Field – Selfish Bastard – Poor Troubled Life
Circle J – The Legend Of Robert Morgan – Diggers
Darkbuster – I Hate The Unseen – 22 Songs That You’ll Never Want To Hear Again!
Darkbuster – Irish – 22 Songs That You’ll Never Want To Hear Again!
The Skels – American Men – Headed For The Knackers Yard
GreenlandWhalefishers – July Morning – Live At Farmer Phils
The Gobshites – Drunken Night In Dublin – Poitin
Jackflash – Shearers Strike – Jackflash
Nick Burbridge & Tim Cotterell – Song Of Sisyphus – Gathered
The Brazen Heads – Who’s Yer Paddy – Who’s Yer Paddy
Surfin’ Turnips – In The West Country – Return To Turbo Island
Shilelagh Law – 1 & 9- 1 & 9
BibleCodeSundays – The Kids From The City of Nowhere – Boots Or No Boots
Sir Reg – How The Hell Can You Sleep
Runnin’ Riot – Judge Jury And Executioner – Reclaim The Streets
MaterDea – Lady of Inverness – Satyricon
Here’s something outta left field – Celtic-progressive-rock from Italy. SATYRICON is Materdea’s second album and its chocker-block full of big contemporary metal riffs and fancy drumming along with operatic female vocals and strong vocal harmonies overlaid with Celtic and medieval teamed lyrics and melodies. The best point of reference I can give is a sound somewhere between Celtic rock originators Horslips and the symphonic metal band Nightwish (we at least their cover of Gary Moore’s OVER THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY- I’m not familiar with the rest of Nightwish’s stuff)
The might Greenland Whalefishers have a new live album out on glorious blue vinyl (and as an iTunes download for you lesser cool kids) – “Live At Farmer Phil’s Festival” – recorded in 2010 at England’s quirky Farmer Phil’s Festival.
Shane MacGowan, The Aftermath & Friends have released “The Rockier Road to Poland” in support of the Irish football team and their Euro 2012 adventure.
Fellow Pogue, Philip Chevron and his legandary Radiators From Space have just released “Sound City Beat” the bands 4th album – “Sound City Beat” is a collection of covers of early Irish beat groups – a history lesson in were Irish rock’n'roll comes given the appropriate kick up the arse from the first Irish punk band.
Sound City Beat, full track listing
1. Head For The Sun (as performed by The Movement)
2. It’s Happened Before, It’ll Happen Again (as performed by Taste)
3. I’m A King Bee (as performed by The King Bees)
4. 6. 10 Special (as performed by The Hootenannys)
5. Yes, I Need Someone (as performed by Eire Apparent)
6. Behind The Painted Screen (as performed by Andwella’s Dream)
7. I’m Gonna Turn My Life Around (as performed by Peter Adler & The Next In Line)
8. You Got What I Need (as performed by Mitch Mahon & The Editions)
9. Gloria (as performed by Them)
10. Dublin (as performed by Thin Lizzy)
11. The Lady Wrestler (as performed by Horslips)
12. Turn Out The Light (as performed by The Creatures)
13. Morning Dew (as performed by Sugar Shack)
14. That’s All Right (as performed by The Blues Aces)
15. Never And Everyday Thing (as performed by Granny’s Intentions)
16. Dr. Crippen’s Waiting Room (as performed by Orange Machine)
17. New Places, Old Faces (as performed by Skid Row)
18. You Turn Me On (The Turn-On Song)
Our Chicago bro DJ John Bowles has released the 4th Celtic-punk comp., in the Paddy Rock serious.
20 tracks from:
The Mahones (Canada), CRAIC (Ohio, USA), Bastards on Parade (Spain), The Ramshackle Army (Australia), Whiskey of the Damned (Wisconsin, USA), Wild Colonial Bhoys (Minnesota, USA), The Kilmaine Saints (Pennsylvania, USA), Brick Top Blaggers (California, USA), The Sandcarvers (Wisconsin, USA), Kevin Flynn & The Avondale Ramblers (Illinois, USA), Murder the Stout (Texas, USA), Charm City Saints (Maryland, USA), The Pubcrawlers (Maine, USA), The Larkin and Moran Brothers (Illinois, USA), The Mickey Finns (New York, USA), The Rumjacks (Australia), The Tossers (Illinois, USA), Sir Reg (Sweden), The Mighty Regis (California, USA), Circle J (Netherlands), and Drink Hunters (Spain).
The Pogues have confirmed the following summer shows:
August 4 – Stockton, Stockton Weekender
August 7 – Cologne, Tanzbrunnen
August 8 – Hamburg, Stadtpark
August 9 – Berlin, Zitadelle
August 11 – Budapest, Sziget
August 17-19 – Somerset, Strummer of Love
September 11 – Paris, Olympia
The September 11th gig in Paris will be recorded and filimed for a DVD / Live album, so if you are in Paris get your uglu mugs down there.
Smokey Bastard are a frantic, banjo centric, folk-punk outfit outta London with their second album, TALES FROM THE WASTELAND, a strong follow-up to their strong debut, CRASHING THROUGH FLOORS. To my ears Smokey Bastard occupy the middle ground somewhere between The Pogues and Dropkick Murphys with a nod of the head towards Springsteen and his Seeger Sessions Band- Mrs McGRATH/My SON JOHN get’s a good kicking here, and ASPIRATIONS, I HAVE SOME name checks Springsteen himself. My guilty pleasure though? MAMMA MIA the old ABBA chestnut, Celtic-punk hasn’t been so much fun since Mr. Irish Bastard went Living La Viva Loco.
I’m guessing this is the 5th release by Jamie Clarke’s Perfect that we’ve reviewed here at Castle S’n'O, so you all know the story of Jamie and his membership of The Pogues, replacing the might Philip Chevron and playing on and writing material for the final Pogues studio album, 1986′s, POGUE MAHONE. All the prior Perfect releases have been consistently strong – mixing folk, polka and other Cental and Eastern Eurpean souunds with Irish, punk and Pogues. BEATBOYS, I’d argue is Perfects best release to date, a bigger band, a bigger sound – Punk’n'Irish meets Rock-a-billy and strong Tutonic influence (Jamie is based in German) Highlights include, a great version of THE SUN THE MOON from POGUE MAHONE and Johnny / June Carter Cash inspired JACKSON and folk-a-billyBEATBOYS and pretty much everything on the album.
A show dedicated to one of the most fertile countries for Celtic-Punk, Germany of course (and yes I know Jamie Clarke is English but he’s been in Germany so long it makes him German enough)
Fiddler’s Green – Bugger Off
The Porters – Too Many Pints Of Guinness
Jake & The Blades – Hell To Hell
Mr. Irish Bastard – Isn’t It Grand Boys
Jamie Clarke’s Perfect – Beatboys
The Porters – Weila Weila
The Ceili Family – Fall Face First
Auld Corn Brigade – Muirsheen Durkin
The Pokes – High Hopes
Fiddler’s Green – Sports Day Theme
Jamie Clarke`s Perfect – Tobi`s Fall (Orginal If I Should Fall From Grace With God)
Across The Border – Irish Airraid Over Germany
Black Friday are a Pogues-ish, Clash-ish, Maritime Celtic punk outfit from the south west of England – that’s Cornwall for all those that don’t own a map. LIVE AT THE BREWERY is Black Fridays second full length album and their 2nd live album if memory servers me correctly, though this new album is almost evenly split between originals, trad standards and a couple of contemporary standards – GUNS OF BRIXTON and BLACK FRIDAY RULE as opposed to their debut that was all standards except the masterful original GOT TO GO which reappears here in all its glory. If LIVE AT THE BREWERY is anything to go by then Black Friday are a very fine live band though we still await the studio debut to make it all official.
Songs from the Spider Box, is the very musically clever debut from York, PA based Garrahan’s Ghost. I say musically clever as the Ghosts combine speedy, high energy Celtic rock with a punk/new wave-ish edge (I say new wave as the vocals by Roo Nevin make me think back to that era) and tight musicianship, prominent accordion, fluid and at times jazzy guitars, a bit polka, a bit gypsy, a bit sleazy lounge act, and a bit Irish dance (Ceile) band. Jewels Jig and Houdini Diablo are the most Celtic/Folk/Punk tracks if the clever bit doesn’t scare you off.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day from us here at Shite’n'Onions. On podcast #52 we got plenty of standards both old and new.
Neck – Every Day’s St Patrick’s Day
Big Bad Bollocks – Guinness
The Gobshites – I Only Drink Stout
Blaggard – Bog Songs
Blood Or Whiskey – Follow Me up to Carlow-Holt’s Way
Lexington Field – Galway Bay
Circle J – Marry Mcqueen
The Rumjacks – I’ll Tell Me Ma!
Black 47 – Vinegar Hill
The Skels – Young Roddy McCorley -Kelly the Boy from Killan
The Porters – The Rising Of The Moon
Auld Corn Brigade – Sean South from Garryowen
Smokey Bastards – My Son John
The Mahones – Give It All Ya Got (Or Forget About It)
Fiddler’s Green – Highland Road
Nogoodnix – Muirsheen Durkin
The Mighty Regis – Paddy Don’t Live In Hollywood
Devil’s Advocates – The Ones Behind the Wire
Luke Kelly – A Nation Once Again
It may have taken nearly 30 years for the seminal Irish punk band Radiators From Space to cut their third album, but don’t tell Phil Chevron that they sound any different than before. “To me, it doesn’t sound any different,” says Chevron. To him, even though their debut, T.V. Tube Heart, had a sound more like their contemporaries in the late 70’s punk scene, the fact that their latest, Trouble Pilgrim, has slower-tempo songs and more of a pop sensibility has more to do with their growth as musicians, as well as their changing influences over the years. “When you’re young, you start out playing what you can, and eventually you end up playing what you want.”
And don’t call this a “Reunion Album.” “We really never actually split up,” he says. “We just ran out of road…but it was always the idea that, when the opportunity arose, we would get back together. And we have done a few times before this.” The difference now? Says Chevron: “There isn’t that sort of pressure to return to the hamster wheel of commercial grunt work. We do what we like, without the pressure of having to have a career plan, as such.” And in that spirit, the Radiators have gotten back together several times in recent years. Does the fact that they’re older, and not trying to compete in the same markets as younger bands? “Oh, of course,” he says. “None of us, at this point, have any interest in going back in the factory line. We’re competing with no one.”
Chevron, as a member of the Pogues, has toured the world many times over the years. Are the Radiators planning on touring behind this release? “If someone wanted to arrange that, we’d definitely be interested, but it doesn’t seem very feasible at this point.” And as for the gap between the new CD’s release in Ireland and it’s appearance in the States, Chevron says this has more to do with the fact that the band has no plans to try and sign with any major distributors. “The album’s been out there, available for anyone who wanted to release it. We knew that Shite ‘N’ Onions were champions of the album when it was first released. When you own your own masters, which we do now, you have the freedom to license to whoever you want.”
That the album makes references to US foreign policy is only natural, says Chevron, but “America has such a huge footprint on the world, it has to accept people commenting about it.” He points to the fact that Shannon airport is now virtually being run like a US military installation as a reason that someone from Ireland might have cause to make their feelings about the conflicts going in the Middle East known.
The track most likely to get people’s attention this time around is the song “Joe Strummer,” the subject of which should be obvious to anyone with ears. According to Chevron, it’s a kind of musing about what the great Clash front man and solo artist (and, for a brief period, a member of the Pogues) would have to say about the state of the world today. “We started out admiring him, as everyone did at the time, to working with him as our producer, to being mates with him. We introduced him to football.” Strummer’s ability to, as Chevron puts it, “put that point of view across,” makes to world a completely different place for not having him in it.
Trouble Pilgrim may not sound like your classic 1-2-3-4 punk rock album, but the subject matter is as passionate and as pointed as the Radiators From Space have always been. The nearly 30-year gap between albums has only served to ensure that the band put its best foot forward.
Trouble Pilgrim is available in the US from Shite'n'Onions
Celtic punk from Spain and it’s Autonomous communities – featuring the Drink Hunters new album “With My Crew” – Thanks to Waldo at Celtic Folk Punk for the suggestions and the tracks.
Paddyrock.com has just announced the release of Paddy Rock Vol. 4 – a 21 track comp. of the best of Celtic-punk – on March 6th.
The Mahones (Canada), CRAIC (Ohio, USA), Bastards on Parade (Spain), The Ramshackle Army (Australia), Whiskey of the Damned (Wisconsin, USA), Wild Colonial Bhoys (Minnesota, USA), The Kilmaine Saints (Pennsylvania, USA), Brick Top Blaggers (California, USA), The Sandcarvers (Wisconsin, USA), Kevin Flynn & The Avondale Ramblers (Illinois, USA), Murder the Stout (Texas, USA), Charm City Saints (Maryland, USA), The Pubcrawlers (Maine, USA), The Larkin and Moran Brothers (Illinois, USA), The Mickey Finns (New York, USA), The Rumjacks (Australia), The Tossers (Illinois, USA), Sir Reg (Sweden), The Mighty Regis (California, USA), Circle J (Netherlands), and Drink Hunters (Spain).
