In a attempt to get away from just doing ‘ReviewReviewReviewReview…’ we started a monthly feature of all the Celtic-Punk news that passed us by. All will get a mention but I need YOU to help if it’s going to work. Any band news, record releases, videos, tours (not individual gigs though yet sadly), live streams, crowd funders etc., send it into us at londoncelticpunks@hotmail.co.uk or through the Contact Us page.
In case you missed this month has seen a flurry of Celtic-Punk Christmas song releases from across the world. Anti-Depresants from Ireland, Grass Mud Horse from China, The Feelgood McLouds from Germany, Batallón De San Patricio from Mexico, Nova Scotia’s Stanfields and London’s very own Clan Of Celts all putting out new songs and videos in time for Christmas Day. These were featured in a special post just after Christmas Day so if you missed it then click below to find it.
NEW CHRISTMASSY CELTIC-PUNK SONGS FROM MEXICO, GERMANY, CHINA, IRELAND AND LONDON
One band that would have featured in that post was London’s MAN THE LIFEBOATS Crimbo song ‘Whisky For Christmas’. Sadly I didn’t hear it until recently so be happy I could sneak it in here.
..by the way that aint how you spell whiskey!!
A compilation release of northern Irish Oi!/Punk/Ska/Reggae bands in the memory of Desi Cush and Colin Riot. Dancing With The Fallen normally organise a charity all-dayer but as the pandemic has ground everything to a halt it was decided to raise money through a compilation of bands that would normally be on the festivals bill.
LORETTA PROBLEM are back with another wonderful song and video (please take the time to watch their 2019 smash hit The Waltz Of My Drunken Dream featuring Juha Lagström on vocals. As close to Poguesy perfection as anyone has ever got!). 30 years old this year this bunch of Finnish Punks and Celts just keep on getting better and better and just to prove it ‘Another Kind Of Love Song’ is a remake of one of the songs from an LP they made about 25 years ago.
A new Folk release from DECLAN MILLAR recorded in the back of a caravan with a 30 year old microphone. Produced and recorded by Jay Terrestrial from Punk/Dub legends the Inner Terrestrials. As Jay says
“This LP is about one bard with his voice and instrument, grass roots and no frills. I’m really impressed with the result, the man’s still in his early 20’s and is a songsmith with a voice that speaks from the heart.”
Boston singer/ songwriter BRYAN McPHERSON has a new double album in the planning stage titled How to Draw Everything provisionally set for release in September 2021. You can get on board at the very beginning by checking out the Kickstarter Campaign and pledging. Therefore keeping Bryan out of the hands of record company vultures!
KIRK McLEOD of the bloomin’ brilliant Celtic-Rock band SEVEN NATIONS has a solo album out. He has released A Time For Pilots earlier than expected and even though I’ve not heard it I am sure it will be his usual brilliance. The album is available on his website now, and will be available on streaming services soon!
Official video for the new song ‘Away’ by IRISH STEW OF SINDIDUN from Belgrade, Serbia. Founded in 2003 this band is massive at home and are one of the best known bands in Eastern Europe. ‘Away is their first release from their album, City of Grigs.
CALLUM HOUSTON fresh from his two summer London Celtic Punks Live Streams is still knocking them out the ball park and he recently recorded The Pogues highly under rated classic ‘Tranmetropolitan’. Callum is back playing live gigs in Brittany so give him a shout if you’re nearby.
MAGGIES FLOCK – Party at the Cemetery
THE MAHONES – 30 Years and This Is All We’ve Got To Show For It …
DROPKICK MURPHYS – ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ Single
DROPKICK MURPHYS – ‘I Wish You Were Here’ Single
Remember if you want your release featured then we have to have heard it first!
Now not only is the accordion the backbone of Irish music but also of Celtic-Punk as well and their are plenty of fantastic players around but I only recently came across the album Roaring Accordion by STRANGELY. He is based in Bellingham, Washington and plays oddball Folky drinking songs. Think along the lines of a higher pitched pirate Tom Waits with Celtic roots. Strangely performs this music usually as part of a solo show that incorporates theatre and comedy and is joined here by a whole host of mates.
THE RUMJACKS recorded an acoustic version of their new song ‘Sainted Millions’. The proper version will feature on their new album Hestia. Out next March and available for pre-order now.
Dutch Celtic-Folk-Punk band MAGGIES FLOCK recently performed for the on-line People 4 Music Festival which has now been uploaded onto You Tube.
Absolutely stunning new video for ‘I’m Free’ taken from THE CELTIC SOCIAL CLUB album From Babylon To Avalon which we reviewed recently and heartily loved.
A plug for some good friends of ours over on Facebook. The Dropkick Murphys- Fan Page and the Celtic Punk, Folk And Rock Fans are two of the best music forums on FB let alone Celtic-Punk. Ran By Fans For Fans. Just like and join in the fun!
All we need to do now is for you to help fill this page with news and remember if you are new to the London Celtic Punks blog it is easy to subscribe / follow and never miss a post. Also if anyone is interested in helping out on the reviews front then let us know via the Contact Us page.
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 (
A home grown band now hailing from the smugglers dens along the East Suffolk coastline of ye Olde Ipswich Towne they have come. With two critically acclaimed album’s behind them, 2011’s self-titled debut album on their own Rumrunner Records label and the follow up, 2013’s Seven Seas Of Sin they have been labelled quite appropriately as ‘Motorhead meets The Pogues’! A regular feature on the UK’s punk circuit and with regular headline appearances they are rapidly becoming one of this island’s better known punk bands. Similar in style to Pirate Copy from Kernow, who we featured in Part One of our Round-Up’s, in that while they have no Celtic instrumentation they do play in that style that is probably best known as Pirate-Punk that crosses into Celtic-Punk quite easily. So has the five year wait since the release of Seven Seas Of Sin been kind to them? Well you bet you last doubloon it has!!
We end Part Two with easily the most blatant Celtic of our releases today, the fourth album from Irish Stew Of Sindidun. Born in Belgrade, Serbia back in 2003 it’s been six years since their last album, New Tomorrow, was released so it’s been quite a long wait but worth it! On City Of Grigs they have never sounded so Irish! With ten songs and three traditional Irish covers, ‘Paddy’s Lamentation’, ‘Step It Out Mary’ and ‘Down By The Glenside’, that are well chosen and show the bands connection with Irish music goes well beyond that of just a covers band. These songs topics feature the three most important subjects in Irish music, emigration, rebellion and romantic tragedy! It’s indeed a shame we don’t more folk like Sindidun vocalist Bojan Petrovic back at home when he explains
1. FLATFOOT 56 (Chicago)- ‘Odd Boat’ 
1. BLACK ANEMONE (Sweden)- ‘In It For Life’ 
The lads from Cassidy’s Brewery sent me the link to their debut album just a couple of weeks ago so they sneak into our round-up’s but they are one of many featured here that I would have liked to do a full review of. They are a six-piece band hailing from Belgrade, Serbia. Formed in 2008 the current line-up has been together now for a couple of years. The band started like most European celtic-punk bands I suspect playing covers from the mainstays of celtic-punk plus local legends, in their case the awesome Orthodox Celts, before setting out with their own material. Here they give us a ten track album split 50/50 with covers and originals and while the covers are faithful punked up versions of Irish standards like ‘Raggle Taggle Gypsy’ and ‘Drunken Sailor’ it is their own songs that really shine on this album. Lyrically they are very strong with the words to album opener ‘Sail Away’ particularly sticking in my head. If you going to play celtic-punk and have no celtic roots then you need to know your history and this is where Cassidy’s Brewery come over well. With a accent that is easy to understand in fact you don’t need the lyrics as Uroš vocals are as clear as a bell throughout. Irish and Scottish history is covered and no better than on ‘Heroes’ where William Wallace and Finn MacCool go for a beer and end up meeting Prince Edward!
Here’s a band that you wouldn’t categorise as celtic-punk at all. Or folk-punk either but they certainly do have some crossover appeal to fans of London Celtic Punks I am sure. Heathen Hymns is their fourth album after Reformation House (2010), Galley Beggar (2012) and Silence & Tears (2014) and the band have got stronger with each release. Hailing from Kent and London Galley Beggar are a band of six musicians that grew up obsessed with an old sound. You could I suppose pigeonhole them among bands like Fairport Convention, Pentangle or Steeleye Span and while their may have been a time in my spikey haired punk rock youth I would have scoffed at that I can say that the sheer quality of their music has won me over. With their folk-rock sound quite in vogue at the moment they have been steadily building a huge fan-base and even huger reputation and they have successfully merged the traditional folk sound of England with the psychedelic folk rock sound of the 70’s and nowhere better than on the hypnotic ‘Moon & Tide’ and its fantastic video.
Hungary, Hungary, Hungary bloody Hungary. That’s how it seems this site goes sometimes. I won’t bore you with another list of absolutely brilliant Hungarian celtic-punk bands but will just say that I would swap all ours for theirs in a shot! Formed in June 2015 in Veszprém Mad Man’s Crew mix up a variety of styles with folk and punk colliding with ska via some rather nifty trumpet that slots in super nice. Kicking off with the brilliant ‘Leave Behind’ that takes melodic punk and throws in tin whistle and accordion and some band Oi! Oi!’s to great effect. As with Cassidy’s Brewery above the production here is superb and again the vocals are clear and Molnár is perfectly understandable. Eleven songs clocking in at forty minutes that very rarely strays from celtic-punk but when it does it explodes in your ears like a bomb going off. Fast paced punk rock with accordion is how I would best describe this. They have taken a different approach from the majority of Hungarian celtic-punk bands by concentrating more on the punk side of things though not to say the folk side is neglected it’s just that you wouldn’t automatically think of Irish folk music when you hear them. Other highlights here are the amazing ‘Anthem Of The Anarchists’ which takes all the elements and strands that make up celtic-punk and injects real life into them. I love this song so much it would make my Top Ten songs of the year!
Hoist the Jolly Roger Ye Banished Privateers take no prisoners since launching in September 2012 and have a list of crew mates longer than yer arm with over thirty (!) members of the band and over a dozen on stage at gigs it makes for a rum do indeed. First Night Back In Port is the band/collective’s third album and is a staggering seventy-five minutes and fifteen songs of pure unabashed bastardized Irish folk an’ 17th century sea-shanty punk rock. The music takes you back to the 18th century a rough time when pirates dominated the seven seas and Ye Banished Privateers while they could easily become parody they mange to steer well clear of that thanks to great songs. At times it sounds like Tom Waits on the lash with fiddle, banjo and accordion 
Another release that sneaked in at the last minute this time from France and the debut release from a band that came from the ashes of Seagulls Are Drunk who featured on these pages a long, long time ago. The Black Clover celebrate their first anniversary with the release of this EP and again like with SAD it has a very particular French sound to it while also incorporating celtic-punk and traditional French folk music. Beginning with ‘A Road To Galway’ the song builds up and up and while not quite hitting punk rock levels it certainly rocks along and has a very catchy feel to it. Driving bass and drums and all the time fiddle and accordion keep it moving. They mix it up with ‘Black Tot Day’ a slightly jazzy sound but losing none of the celtic-punk bite and catchiness. Slowing it down for the saddest song you’ll hear today ‘The Lost Beer’, the tragic ballad of a lost love. As with Seagulls Are Drunk I thought then they had a real Tom Waits thing about them and the same here and not just because of Seb and his low and gruffled vocals. Imagine Tom fronting a celtic-punk band and you basically got it but then they go and throw out ‘La Baffe’ a Celtic/Breton bastard of a punk rocker and you realise that all four songs here are all different and then the EP ends with ‘The Sea Is Behind Me’ a beautiful ballad. Great release and bodes well for the future from a band who sound both innovative and fresh while having their roots planted firmly in the past.
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