German Celtic-Punkers The Feelgood McLouds are back with a new single – Back In Life – means not just back in life but back on stage, in the clubs, in the backstage rooms and the cramped tour bus together dancing and partying. The world is sad enough so escape with The Feelgood McLouds into their wild Celtic-Punk world for a short while.
After two successful albums and an EP, with thousands sold and millions of streams, after more than 150 concerts at home and abroad, the Feelgood McLouds are back on the road again. Mixing Irish Celtic traditional’s with raucous Punk-Rock sing-a-longs. Sometimes with a edge, sometimes with a good dose of humour, sometimes against thirst but always with a catchy tune. Since 2015, the six Saarlanders have been touring Germany and other European countries with the aim of placing messages in the often monotonous world of Irish Punk-Rock. Anyone can write about ́s singing, dancing and drinking but to connect this at the same time with the serious, the not-good, the bad, the hatred, war, oppression without being too pointy finger hectoring is what distinguishes The Feelgood McLouds from most bands in the scene. With imminent news due soon that will please fans remember their line:
“we don ́t care who you love – as long as you love someone from the bottom of your heart!”.
Producer and Editor: Christian Schneider https://www.instagram.com/uiuiui.prod/
Download Back in Life https://bfan.link/back-in-life
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I’ve always met Germans in Ireland and I remember many years ago as a kid having a conversation about the Wolfe Tones with a German tourist while waiting on a train at Limerick Junction. The folk from Paddy’s Punk are no different and made numerous visits across the Irish sea before deciding to combine their love for Irish music and their musical roots (from bands such as Faust, Die Tornados and Red Point DC) as Paddy’s Punk. It’s been four years since their first release Sláinte Mhaith. A six track EP that came out on vinyl and CD and was released by Hoehnie Records. Five of their own compositions and one cover of raw, melancholic and melodic tracks. It stood out at the time for having female vocals and while we never like to labour issues like that it made a refreshing change not only because they were female but, more importantly, because they were also bloody good. The EP is still available (on green vinyl) from 
Not a band I’m particularly knowledgeable about bar coveting one of their great t-shirts but here goes. I’m pretty sure I had some stuff from them in the past but was all lost in the great external HD crash of a few years ago. Hailing from Minnesota the album was recorded remotely, hence the name, which makes the expert production even more impressive.
The Pokes had quite a lengthy several year hiatus between this album and their last but have returned with an album that reminds me of them at their best. Another Toast is their fifth studio album and takes off from where Mayday ended. Their distinctive Folk-Punk sound is left intact as well as the humour they are famous for. Kicking off with an ode to their beloved Berlin wart’n’all. Accordion led with a real catchy beat chugging along. As I’ve said before The Pokes remind me a hell of a lot of the Geordie band The Whiskey Priests. Unafraid to venture into political commentary but it’s pure bold and absolute brazen entertainment that is the goal here and is achieved 100%. My personal favourite here is ‘Gambler’, now talk about bloody catchy! but several songs could all be described the same. With the album’s artwork it’s no surprise The Pokes take a deep look at death here but always with a jig in their heart and a beer glass being slammed into a table.
We have just literally done a review of another band from Arizona (
The Surfin’ Turnips have been with us now a good few years and round their way (Bristol and the south-west of England) they have become quite the institution. Known primarily as a festival band they have a decent enough back catalogue too and their latest album Down The Allotment came out back in March.
Born and raised in London by immigrant parents from Ireland Anto Morra swapped the Smoke for the Swamp in 1989 and adopted Norfolk as home but still returns often to visit his Mammy and play for London Celtic Punks. At times a pogoing, gobbing Punk, a lazy pot smoking hairy Hippy, a bopping Rock-A-Billy, a sharp dressed Mod and even a Bauhaus loving Goth he’s soaked it all in and none of it and all of it has been an influence on him.
As usual lots of news out the FEROCIOUS DOG camp with a massive new tour announced going right from end of Britain to Scotland! (I fancy Edinburgh birthday weekend myself if they’re watching hint hint!!!). Their new album The Hope is also available on pre-order from 
BATALLON DE SAN PATRICIO- 
other is the biggest and probably the most popular band in Europe – Fiddlers Green. Since their formation in 1990 Fiddlers Green have released an incredible fifteen studio albums and just in case that wasn’t enough their have also been a further six live albums plus EP’s and DVD’s galore earning them the reputation as one of the busiest acts in Rock music let alone Celtic-Punk! Already during 2020 they have released the Acoustic Pub Crawl II – Live in Hamburg album back in March. 2020 was set to be a busy gigging year for them too with an extensive ‘unplugged’ tour playing an acoustic set in intimate settings across Germany. Sadly as we know Covid has caused the cancellation of live music so the band has kept busy instead writing new material and recording. On Acoustic Pub Crawl II Fiddlers Green picked sixteen of their favourite tracks from across their extensive back catalogue played as if they were in front of a roaring fire in a cosy wee Irish pub. The tour has been put back to 2021 so keep a well peeled eye out for that.
So here we are in May 2020 and I cannot possibly imagine a worse time to release a record with the opportunity to promote Life On A Ferris Wheel almost non-existent. With no sign of the ‘clampdown’ being relaxed it is a refreshing attitude to say “Hey, Life goes on” and say “Damn it!” and just put it out. The boys are a relatively new band, being formed in January 2015 in the city of Saarbrücken in the southwestern German state of Saarland. Now the Germans have taken to Celtic-Punk like no other country in Europe has and they have a wealth of really excellent bands but The Feelgood McLouds do more than enough to make themselves stand out. While most of these bands take a more Folk orientated route the McLouds are unashamedly Punk Rock and you could categorise the difference as being Do Or Die Dropkick Murphys and post- Mike McColgan Dropkick Murphys. That is not to say they are a straight up Punk band as they are most definitely not and they manage to combine that Streetpunk sound with Irish/Celtic melodies and instrumentation really well and authentically. The band themselves describe their sound as
1. 
years so it just makes it all the more clear how much we all miss Waldo and his fantastic 
The festival will happen on St. Patrick’s weekend from Friday 13th through to Sunday 15th March and features an extensive line up of bands each day with artists coming from as far afield as Serbia, Ireland and Scandinavia as well as a superb line up of home grown German artists too. The festival takes place just outside Berlin so is easily accessible from anywhere in Europe and even further afield. The venue is E-Werk Zossen (in English the Zossen Power Station!) situated at Am Nottehafen 4, 15806 Zossen, Germany and the nearest airport is Berlin-Tegel. Zossen is in a beautiful region of Germany just south of Berlin and their is plenty of accommodation available in the town. When looking be sure to look for ‘Zossen’. For example the Weißer Swan hotel is only a very short walk from the venue and still has rooms left (
1. THE LAGAN- Let’s Do It Again
1. MARYS LANE- Wild Unknown 
Hi everyone, I thought I’d drop a little something extra this year for December in addition to the Christmas Special, it’s my top 10 albums of 2018 as judged by me and my old kelpie Banji. Some fantastic music came out this year and I swapped a lot of these artists albums positions around many a time before settling on the final rankings. Rankings are always suggestive so if you disagree with my list then feel free to let me know yours. Here’s the rankings/playlist:
Produced by Sebastian ‘Seeb’ Levermann, of famous German metallers Orden Ogan and owner of the Greenman Studios he has done a grand job taking the folk and punk elements and combining them to make a powerful album that is not over produced or sees either wing of their music over dominating. Ten years since they first kicked off is a rather long time to get your debut album out but it was a wait worth waiting for.Their experience in other bands has stood them well and whether you call them Folk Punk or Celtic Rock it doesn’t really matter as the one thing you are guaranteed is a damn good time and they have managed to successfully transfer that sound onto Still Got The Booze.
Having known each other for some thirty years it was only a few years back in 2009 that the idea to start something new came up. Wanting a band with its feet based firmly in traditional Irish music and with an emphasis on emigration songs Muirsheen Durkin & Friends was born. Their name comes from the auld song about a happy go lucky Irishman heading off to mine for gold in America during the California Gold Rush of 1849. The song is unusual in that its a happy song and Muirsheen (a reference to the phonetic pronunciation of ‘Máirtín’ (in English Martin) in the West of Ireland.The feet may be in trad with 
Starting off with ‘Card’ Voting At The Hall is fourteen tracks that comes in just under forty minutes. From the very off it’s reminiscent of 70’s/80’s English punk but with with some nice Celtic flourishes. ‘Cards’ is in fact one of the best tracks on the album with Philipp’s clear vocals shouting out loud and proud. It has a certain Dropkicks feel to it too with its catchy chorus and driving punk and mandolin. Excellent start. The lyrics deal with the betrayal of workers by their trade union leaders. ‘These Hands Master’ tells of working class life that was taken for granted until they realised that not only can these hands build they can also vote.
1. FLATFOOT 56 (Chicago)- ‘Odd Boat’ 
1. BLACK ANEMONE (Sweden)- ‘In It For Life’ 
Ghosttown Company are not unusual among the German celtic-punk scene in that they play mostly acoustic folk music. Yes with the spirit of punk but this is celtic-punk played under the influence of Country, Americana and rock whilst butting shoulders with traditional Irish and Celtic songs. The album starts with ‘Shooting Star’ and they kick off with the album’s top song. Catchy is surely the most overused word when reviewing things so instead of repeating it throughout just assume every song is ‘catchy’ it will save us both time. The European celtic-punk bands love the flute and I am a late comer to the brilliance of this instrument (thank Firkin for my conversion) and it works wonders here. ‘Far Away’ is up next and is a more solid rock number with saxophone and chugging guitar driving it along. Now I’m not sure if the world needs another version of a famous folk trad classic and here it is ‘Whiskey In The Jar’ that gets the folkpunk treatment. Since the advent of recorded music the same songs have popped up for a reason and it’s a little rich to slate modern day celtic-punk bands for it when my Mammies record collection from the 50’s/60’s/70’s must have a thousand different versions of maybe 5 or 6 songs in it. More Dubliners than Thin Lizzy needless to say it’s a great cover and the Bhoys do it justice playing it with a hoe-down twist with added “Yee-Hars” and pub soundtrack. So far the band that is in the back of my head are The Men They Couldn’t Hang and on ‘Plastic World’, the LP’s longest song, you can hear it as well as feel it with the lyrics of the song. That ‘English’ influence continues with next track ‘Clowns In A Game’. One of the album highlights is the outstanding ‘Greenlands’ which takes us on a mesmerising journey through Ghosttown Company’s musical abilities. The music swirls and twines building up and up before relaxing again and repeating. The whole band plays their part and this must surely be a huge live favourite. While they can cut loose you also get the feeling that some songs like the following, ‘Going Down’, would benefit from the same and bit of ‘anarchy’. Another celtic-punk classic next with ‘Black Velvet Band’ and bands love this as it’s slow build up gives them a chance to go f**king mental when the chorus comes along. Not here though and the song is quite restrained with some excellent mournful saxophone and again the band take’s trad material and manages to do something a little different with it to give it their own stamp. The accordion and the mandolin lead us into ‘Hell You Know’ and another standout song that flows magnificently along. This is music that is perched halfway between folk and rock and the past and present and while it won’t scare your Grandparents it is still thoroughly thigh slappingly great. A visit to Ireland is recalled next in ‘Island Of The Green’ and the autobiographical story of how Ghosttown Company frontman and songwriter Chris fell in love with Ireland and all things Irish things on their first visit to Dublin. Music, alcohol and good times in the four corners of Ireland put to catchy (sorry!) country tinged Irish folk’n’roll. The last cover is ‘Spanish Lady’ and one of my favourite songs of all time. Now I can only remember this being covered in the celtic-punk world by Shane MacGowan And The Popes. It may be a tad restrained compared to that version but again they nail it and the thigh slapping continues unabashed!
These Bhoys are brand new to the celtic-punk stage and are a more than welcome addition to it. As with many, many bands out there there is no stereotyping here (well maybe just a tiny little bit!) just a love of all the things that make us as humans great. These are things that the Irish are famous for but by no means solely confined to the Irish race. Generous, kind, faithful, hospitable, passionate and devoted while at the same time managing to be pretty well f**ked up as well and I get the sense that Ghosttown Company here are wise to that. The traditional songs here are solid renditions but gone are the days when celtic-punk bands were judged on their covers and with nine of the album’s twelve songs penned by the band themselves it bodes very well for them. Although here what I have done is actually pigeonhole them they were a band I found quite hard to do so. Now unique is not a word bandied around in celtic-punk circles very often, after all a lot in the scene does sound a bit ‘samey’ to put it mildly, Ghosttown Company have managed to come up with something different and show they are never just another Irish covers band and with this great debut behind them they are set for a great future.
As second song ‘Poor Old Paddy O’ kicks in you can’t help but notice that they seem to be inhabiting the middle ground between the DKM’s and Flogging Molly. The accordion lends more to FM but the punky guitar is dead on DKM. A song that bridges the gap between celtic-punk’s two biggest bands. Quite an achievement but can they keep it up? The album’s first traditional cover is a brilliant song in its own right, ‘Johnny Jump Up’. An Irish drinking song written by Tadhg Jordan
Sometimes its fast and sometimes its slow, sometimes its sentimental and sometimes its in-yer-face. The Distillery Rats don’t let the ‘issues’ of the world get in the way of what they do, fantastically well, which is to play a great set of songs that would have even the grumpiest of folk music traditionalists (better known as snobs) on their sandalled feet and bouncing around the dance floor spilling their real ale. 