ODDS’N’SODS. A CELTIC-PUNK ROUND UP NOVEMBER 2021

Summer is over. Was it ever really here? Anyway it’s hard to get seriously Rock’n’Roll in the sunlight so time for dark nights and mischief and also for this months London Celtic Punks round-up of all the band news, record releases and videos from bands big and small from across the Celtic-Punk scene.

They only just missed last months Odds’n’Sods so pride of place to French Celtic-Punk band TOXIC FROGS. Officially the Celtic-Punk-Rock Chicks band!! The new video for ‘Bestie Life’ taken from My Lucky Own EP released earlier this year.

THE O’REILLYS AND THE PADDYHATS celebrate their tenth anniversary with In Strange Waters and reaching the highly impressive target of 100,000 subscribers on You Tube. A greatest hits album with their favourite songs adapted into Pop, Metal, Ska and even Barbershop! In case you missed we were lucky to have Anto Morra review it on its release.

Nebraskan band THE KILLIGANS recently announced on their Facebook page a grand album give away!! All you need to do to receive a free download code for their album Dance On Your Grave is to send them a personal message on their Facebook page. The album made the 2018 Celtic-Punk Top Twenty and our review of the album can be found here. The Bhoys are busy working on a new album, with 3 songs already recorded. Expect a video for the first single sometime around Christmas.

A new mix, courtesy of ChuckRD, of the superb Christmas track ‘It’s In These Times’ from the sadly missed now defunct Irish/ Danish Celtic-Punkers ROVERS AHEAD. They really were one hell of a band and very high up my list of bands I wish would reform. To be honest I can’t tell any difference. I don’t have an ear for this sort of thing.

PALAZOR is a solo music project who describes himself as a “mediocre musician”. I quite liked it!

THE WILD COLONIAL BHOYS – Remote Ruaille Buaille

GREEN GUARD – Devil’s Lung

FEROCIOUS DOG – The Hope

HOLD FAST –  Last Of The Rebels

JOLLY ROGER – Ship Or Bust

remember we can’t review it if we don’t hear it

This section is for Celtic-Punk bands that have (on the large) left us but their music is still deserving to be heard and heard for free courtesy of a free download. We tried to book the Welsh band KILNABOY several times to play in London but it never came off for several reasons. At the time they were quite the name on the Punk scene but I was pretty sure they had split up but it seems not so keep a eye out for them. Sharing their name with a tiny village on the West Coast of Ireland they played energetic catchy Irish Folk-Punk and Prison Bars And Battle Scars dates from 2014. If you like it check out the rest of their back catalogue on Bandcamp as it is all available for ‘name your price’.

Live footage from one of the trailblazers of the Celtic-Punk scene. THE CROPDUSTERS were contempories of The Pogues and The Men They Couldn’t Hang and played their brand of ‘Cow-Punk’ / Folk-Punk back in the day. I went to their rather under whelming final gig at The 100 Club a good few years back after they had an almighty falling out but things must be sorted now as they recently played the Barnstormer festival at the Cerne Abbas Brewery in Devon. Watch this space for news of other gigs. Also playing the same festival was another blast from the past with Brit band PRONGHORN announcing a new album next year.

Now it’s been a looooong time since I was a fan of Grunge pioneers THE MELVINS and there was a time this news would have really got me excited but that was then. They have just announced a 4-disc reimaging of all their favourites songs done acoustically. Five Legged Dog is out now.

Moscow based ‘Punk And Bagpipes’ band ZUNAME announced a new album, Vertigo, to be released on Christmas Day and the first single to follow shortly!

Man can’t live on Celtic-Punk alone and personally I’m rather partial to the sound of Psychobilly and one of the scenes leading lights Philip ‘Doyley’ Doyle has just written a book detailing his time growing up in Ireland and moving to London. Starting the infamous Klingonz and the wild stories of a life spent in the Psychobilly scene. A crazy but lovable journey packed with funny and interesting stories/ You can pre-order the book with optional CD’s from the Diablo Records Bandcamp site.

In case you haven’t noticed our big rival out there is the American Celtic-Punk site SHITE’N’ONIONS. I think they were the first and are still going strong now. I much prefer the site now it’s moved over to WordPress and of course we only mean a friendly rivalry as its all #onebigcelticpunkfamily as you all know. They recently had an interesting interview with Nashville based Dubliner singer-songwriter Dylan Walshe well worth checking out.

Cornish Pirates JOLLY ROGER UK have a new EP out in the next few days. Ship Or Bust is available now on a pre-save link. As we’ve said before theres barely a fag paper between Celtic-Punk and ‘Pirate’ music at times and Jolly Roger are one of the best I’ve heard in a good while. They’ve just ran a successful Kickstarter appeal to buy a new van so hopefully we might see them away from the South-West coast soon. They’ve recorded a bunch of short promos on their You Tube channel besides this one.

One of my favourite bands the American Celtic-Rock/Punkers SEVEN NATIONS have just put out a rather amazing animated video for a track from their last album Tales From The Eighth Nation.

TROLL BENDS FIR are based in Saint Petersburg, Russia and have just released a new single. ‘В плену грибов’ (or in English ‘Taken Captive By Mushrooms’) from the upcoming new album Troll Gnet Yel. Russian beer folk they call it and it has some cool bagpipes and fiddle. I also have a soft spot for dual vocals too which they pull off here very well and even fit in a bit of Metal style riffs and vocals too.

The more I see of Facebook the more and more I dislike it. It has a stranglehold on all forms of expression and any wrongdoing in it’s eyes is punishable by excommunication. This isn’t good and anything that breaks their monopoly is a great thing (except Twitter!) so if you feel the same you can now subscribe to London Celtic Punks posts via our group on the new phone app Telegram. Very similar in style (but better and easier to use) than What’s App but the best thing is that it is completely free from Facebook control. Join us on Telegram and don’t miss a single post! https://t.me/londoncelticpunks/  

Some live music news for all you Londoners. Luton Irish band MISSING THE FERRY play The Cock Tavern, Phoenix Road, NW1 1HB  and MATT McMANAMON and THE BIBLECODE SUNDAYS play the Castle, Commercial Road, E1 1LN sadly both on Saturday November 13th. Bit of a dilemma that! DAOIRI FARRELL plays Nell’s, 3 North End Crescent, W14 8TG the following day on the Sunday. The legendary WOLFE TONES (now 50+ years strong!) play Camden IC on November 17th and 18th; and the Hare & Hounds, 325 Purley Way, Croydon CR0 4NU on November 19th. We can’t promise to print all live news but please send in anything for consideration.

Some London Celtic Punks news now and we still have a handful of Green’n’White ‘Skully Cap’ ringer t-shirts available. They come in all sizes from Small right up to XXX-L and are available from our online store. Also available are 2 other shirt designs so click the link below for our full range of other tatt. Shirts, badges, stickers, flags, CD’s and fridge magnets all the discerning Celtic-Punk fan could ever need!  https://the30492shop.fwscart.com/

Also now a wee plug for London Irish Rugby Club. After years in the wilderness out in Reading and some would say a watering down of the club’s Irish ethos they arrived back in London at the tail end of last season and a joy to behold it was too, except for the last minute defeat after being miles ahead at half time!! The club is back in the heart of the Irish community so check out the clubs merchandise and show your roots and get some mates together and get down there. Eight train and tube stations within a 20 minute walk and no shortage of decent pubs too means their is literally no excuse.

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!

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ALBUM REVIEW: LES RAMONEURS DE MENHIRS- ‘Tan Ar Bobl’ (2014)

We here at London Celtic Punks love our celtic-punk and as much as we love our celtic-punk we really really love celtic celtic-punk!By that I mean there’s some fantastic bands from the States or Canada or Indonesia and Italy or Australia, in fact there’s some amazing bands from all over the world truly making celtic-punk an international thing. Saying that though there is something extra special about a band from one of the celtic nations taking up the gauntlet. In Ireland there’s Blood Or Whiskey, Wales has Kilnaboy and in Galicia there’s Bastards On Parade and The Falperry’s but no celtic nation has as many, and are as good, as those from Brittany.

We’ve touched previously on the blog on the history of Brittany as a celtic nation, in this review (here) of the Breton band The Maggie Whackers latest EP, so click there to stop us repeating ourselves! Suffice to say there’s a massive resurgence in both Breton feeling and the Breton language. Through centuries of oppression France has failed to absorb Brittany or kill off the Breton language and Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs are a perfect example of what’s happening in Brittany.

Formed in 2006 its members include Éric Gorce on the bombardon, Richard Bévillon on the bagpipes, the traditional vannetais singer Maurice Jouanno and Loran, guitarist from the the group Bérurier Noir. The most amazing thing though about Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs is that they sing in Breton, the ancient language of Brittany which is closely linked to both Cornish and Welsh. Their first album, ‘Dañs an Diaoul’ (The Dance of the devil) was released in 2007 by the former label of Bérurier Noir, Folklore De La Zone Mondiale. The singer Louise Ebrel, daughter of Eugénie Goadec, a famous traditional Breton musician, guests on several songs on the album. Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs participated at the massive celtic festival ‘Festival Interceltique de Lorient’ in 2007, having performed outside the official programme. Back in 2008 they toured Scotland with the only band comparable to them Scot’s punkers Oi Polloi. Second album ‘Amzer An Dispac’h’ followed in 2010 and featured more of the same with  hardcore punk accompanied by celtic instruments and shouty  gang choruses and vocals. Guests from across the musical spectrum were asked to perform and did freely showing the lack of snobbery within the Breton folk/language scene. They choose to embrace Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs (not that it’s always been plain sailing) while Oi Polloi are put down and, even worse, ignored by their Scots compatriots despite all the positive work they are doing to promote gaelic in Scotland.

As its impossible to comment on the lyrics I have to talk about the music and the feelings that the album gives me. Knowing a little about the band through a Breton friend the first thing that strikes you when looking up the band is how they have managed to cross generational boundaries and I must admit to a tear in the eye at one video where in front of the stage is a huge crowd of young punks moshing about while at the back a huge crowd of, ahem, more elderly fans are performing traditional dance to the same song. Its this link to the past that makes them so special. The ability to connect the struggles of the past to the struggles of the here and now and even of the future. In an age when there is a revival in celtic awareness its in the language movement and especially in celtic music that people are finding their roots and their pride. Celtic-punk is but a tiny part of that but in Brittany, thanks to bands like Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs, The Maggie Whackers and the Sons Of O’Flaherty, its helping to lead the way.

Musically the album doesn’t break any new ground from the first two LP’s but as they were both bloody brilliant that doesn’t really matter! They’ve a new singer in tow but the same chugging guitar, metal riffs, industrial style drum machine drumming and all with clear shouty hoarse vocals and no bassist that keep the toe tapping going while the celtic instruments are played with absolute gusto by champions in their fields. Eleven explosive songs clocking in at just under 45 minutes and all originals except a fun cover of The Adicts 1980’s punk classic ‘Viva La Revolution’. The best way to describe the music I think would be to say you’d find it impossible to stand still listening to this. Within a minute or two you’ll be be slapping yer thigh and a-tappin them toes. Catchy just doesn’t come into it. Les Ramoneurs De Menhirs are not just a celtic punk band they are a movement and one of which in everyone with a interest in celtic affairs should keep abreast of. Who said music cannot change the world?

Contact The Band

WebSite  Facebook

email- contact@ramoneursdemenhirs.fr

Buy The Album

Coop Breizh

here’s a list of YouTube videos here mostly from 2014 well worth trawling through on a quiet night accompanied by a few beers!

for easily the best english language web site concerning Brittany then check out THE BRETON CONNECTION “a portal to the Breton movement for self-determination and cultural rights”.