Calling out around the world, Are you ready for a brand new beat? Summer’s here and the time is right, For dancing in the street… well maybe not!
Here’s another Odds’n’Sods. A whole load of Celtic-Punk entertainment from all the scene’s bands big and small, established or just starting out.
We kick off with exciting news out of the FLOGGING MOLLY camp with a new album just around the corner and a full European tour in August. ‘The Croppy Boy ’98’ tells of the 1798 Irish rebellion while we can expect Anthem in early September. Pre-save or Pre-Order the record now at https://riserecords.lnk.to/FMAnthem.
Flogging Molly will be joined on tour by our very own FEROCIOUS DOG so be sure not to miss out on what promises to be a facking marvellous night!!! The tour takes in Ireland as well as Germany and we’ll see you in Dublin so give us a shout if you see us!
Now over to Boston and our bhoys the DROPKICK MURPHYS have a new album This Machine Still Kills Fascists – featuring the lyrics of Woody Guthrie — out on September 30. Pre- order from https://dropkick-murphys.ffm.to/7reo1k8.OYD. The albums 10 songs were recorded by Ted Hutt in Woody’s home state of Oklahoma, bringing Woody Guthries words into the present. All acoustic. Not a single amplifier was used.
Major disappointment around the Celtic-Punk a couple of weekends ago when the DROPKICK MURPHYS televised set at Hellfast 21 festival was cancelled at the last minute. Still the show went on and i still drank the beers I got in and we can now watch it on You Tube.
Another band with a new release coming out is Los Angeles based HOIST THE COLORS whose album, When Daylight Breaks will be coming out on all the usual platforms on Friday, August 26th!!! Pre-sale for the vinyl release is now up on their website. https://hoistthecolors.com/merch
Anyone remember Finny McConnell’s announcement last year that THE MAHONES were going to be retiring from touring? Well absolutely no surprises here to find out they will indeed be touring later in the Summer!! They also announced plans for a new album, Jameson Street recorded by a combination of all the different classic Mahones line ups from the very beginning right up until today’s team. Coming out on True North Records in the autumn and the first single coming in the summer will be ‘Rise Up’, written by Finny and Punk legend Greg Norton from Husker Du.
In the next few days we begin a short series of nine interviews with ‘movers and shakes’ within the Celtic-Punk scene. We start this Sunday with John Murphy, editor of the original Celtic-Punk fansite Shite’n’Onions. They recently reviewed the new solo album from Hugh Morrison of Murder the Stout and ex- Street Dogs. Don’t miss the whole series by checking in daily!
We haven’t heard much over here from AIRES BASTARDOS from Argentina since they won London Celtic Punks best debut album in 2019 but they have kept busy and here’s the first song from a upcoming EP of new material and it is brilliant!
Irish-American Folk-Punk accordion maestro TC COSTELLO is teaching in Spain and is available for online tuition especially language stuff. I’m sure he could help a few London Celtic Punks out!!
I have a long list of favourite Celtic-Punk but their are several ones that I really love and respect and listen to regularly. One such band is from Argentina called RAISE MY KILT who have released a new song called ‘Raise Your Pints’. It’s the first release from their upcoming new album. You can hear it over on Spotify
New Japanese Celtic-Punk out this week 凩KOGARASHI. Not a band I’ve heard from before but a great song and i tracked them down on Facebook so head over and leave a ‘like’.
We had booked Dutch band PYROLYSIS to play London pre-Covid but life thought better than that but they did are playing London on July 15 and have been recording some new material and released ‘The Whalers Lantern’ on You Tube via A Pirates Life Radio. Check it out, a internet radio station for 24/7 pirate music! https://tunein.com/radio/A-Pirates-Life-s294482/
SCHANDMAUL – Knüppel aus dem Sack
DAVE BAINBRIDGE – To The Far Away
THE DREADNOUGHTS – Roll And Go (review on its way)
ALESTORM – Seventh Rum Of A Seventh Rum
CRASH NOMADA – Broar EP
Remember we can’t review it if we don’t hear it
Each month we have a ‘blast from the past’ where we feature a band / album from someone we love but missed out on release. These come with a free download so you can enjoy them too. You all (well both of you!) said you enjoyed last month’s excursion away from Celtic-Punk with The Swearengens so here’s some more in the same vein from THE COWSLINGERS. Formed in 1989, the band barnstormed the world, playing more than 600 gigs, from West Virginia to Spain, Seattle to Germany. The Cowslingers’ whomp-and-stomp sound cruised as many musical paths. Over nine albums, 12 singles and two EPs, the band explored dusty detours, from country to punk to rockabilly to hard rock to garage rock. Here’s their debut 1994’s Off The Wagon And Back In The Saddle (Link) and their final album 2017’s Real Big Rooster (Link).
The following month we have Italian band DIRTY ARTICHOKES – the tidiest Celtic-Punk band in the Celtic-Punk scene – returning to town at the beginning of August and will be playing with THE LAGAN and ANTO MORRA, two artists popular on the London Irish music scene that sadly haven’t been able to play much of late. The gig will be at the Bird’s Nest in Deptford and all details are on the Facebook event.
Londoners PERKELT ‘Pagan Speed Folk’ are joined by PYROLYSIS at the legendary live music venue, The Troubadour, in West London on Friday 15th July (Facebook event). Swill from THE MEN THEY COULDN’T HANG has a solo show at The Water Rats on 19th August (Facebook event). NEW MODEL ARMY announced 3 dates in early December ending with the Camden Roundhouse on the 10th.
If you like what we do then you can support us by checking out our online store. The Harp’n’Bones design is back in all sizes and on black or white shirts. Also we have new polo shirts, in all sizes, and some nifty woolly hats as well as the Green’n’White ‘Skully Cap’ ringer shirts. Click the link below for the full range of all our other tatt. Shirts, badges, stickers, flags, CD’s and fridge magnets all the discerning Celtic-Punk fan could ever need! Help keep Punk Celtic! https://the30492shop.fwscart.com/
Facebook is shit. Proper shit. That the world’s most ‘popular’ social media site has only 2/5 in the play app store says it all! It’s stranglehold on all forms of expression is not good and it’s great to see people leaving in droves. Don’t despair though if you are one of them as you can keep up with London Celtic Punks posts via our wee group on the phone app Telegram. Similar in style (but better and easier to use) to What’s App but completely free from outside interference. Join us on Telegram, don’t miss a single post and even receive the odd exclusive and special offer! https://t.me/londoncelticpunks/
Even though we hate it Facebook does supply the (very) occasional ray of sunshine so a shout out to 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 you and me. Like and join in the fun!
Last word and it’s a serious one sadly. THE KILLIGANS drummer Shane and his wife are new parents to a wee guy named Wylie. Sadly, they have had some issues with Wylie’s health and The Killigans put an appeal out for any help. Remember folks #onebigcelticpunkfamily https://gofund.me/bfa45f1e
A reminder too that we need your news so anything you would like to share with the rest of the Celtic-Punk scene send it onto us.
If you are new to the London Celtic Punks blog it is easy to subscribe / follow and never miss a post. Bands, promoters, record labels, venues send in any news to londoncelticpunks@hotmail.co.uk or via the Contact Us page.
We start with some interesting news from 
The Swamp Rabbit Accordion Festival in South Carolina at the end of the month has had to be re-branded as The Swamp Rabbit Celtic-Punk Festival after several cancellations forced the hand of TC COSTELLO. Currently whooping it up in Madrid TC will be back home soon so if you are anywhere nearby be sure to spread the news.
“Through Dark Valleys,” says Seth, “is both part of a half-decade long project and a fairly sudden decision to finish an album, however unconventionally, that resulted in an unusual and explosive collaborative final recording process.”
Seth follows this with an interpretation of Mother, Sister, a poem by Kim So-Wol, a Korean poet under Japanese colonisation. Providing lead vocals on Mother, Sister is Gwon Jaehyoung, a Korean folk musician and leader of SMB mountain school. Martin joins him, and Seoul singer-songwriter eeho adds some wonderful background vocals. Next comes “Don’t Forget It,” which Seth wrote in 2014 when he was hiking in Korea, falling in love with Lee Nan Young, now his wife, and decided to move to Korea. The track begins with a familiar refrain from a classic children’s song about a bear that went over a mountain, but these lines are soaked in a current and heavy feeling of loneliness fitting the times we are in, and carry added significance given the mountain symbolism and themes that run through the project. There is also the Korean symbolism of bears and mountains being referenced here, adding to the beauty and intertwined, heavy history in the song, personally, and with Korea-US relations generally. As the song winds and rambles down its path, it features some truly impressive violin work from Zoe that really adds unexpected rhythms and several climaxes to the song.
It is a mixture of David’s experimental mixing, and banjo chiming alongside a field recording of a Korean grandmother singing a satirical tune in protest of a gentrification project in (A Seoul neighbourhood), in which a group of newtown apartment folks pressured the local government to bulldoze her small diner along with many other streetside shops, to “improve” and “widen” and make more safe a street between an outdoor market and a school. The grandmother is calling out the apartment collective defiantly. Her shop had been a popular stop for locals for around 3 decades, and was called “Little Giant.”
BATALLON DE SAN PATRICIO- 
massacre of 2020. Pompey born Tim is not a artist I was familiar with before this and when I looked him up and saw he was in album release double figures I felt shivers go down my back. Now the last thing you want to be doing as a music reviewer is have the eleventh album release of an artist land on your doorstep. That’s just his studio albums as well he has a host of live and split recordings under his belt as well. It’s fifteen years since Tim began on the path that would change his life. Fifteen years on the road touring pretty much every country in Europe, Iceland, Japan, Australia, USA and Canada playing anywhere between 250-300 gigs a year continuing to seek new adventures and build upon the hard work he’s already put in.
On the very first listen it struck me that it reminded me of someone but I couldn’t for the life of me think who. It was probably on the 20th listen seconds after I had shared that dilemma with TC Costello that I remembered who. Everlast. Yes he of Gaelic Hip-Hop legends House Of Pain. You may scoff but I’m sure anyone familiar with his solo work, especially the Countryfied ‘Whitey Ford’ material will get it straight away. How it is a man from the South coast of England can nail that American drawl is another thing but then if your thing is ‘mutant delta blues’ then it’s really not that difficult! As I said I’m not familiar with his previous work bar an afternoon spent whiling away watching his You Tube channel so Come is a new start for me. The album may be a nominally solo effort but here he is backed by a full band including a
Written over five years i
The album is out on A
Next is a cover of George Gershwin’s bluesy classic “Summertime.” It starts pretty traditionally, with some jazzy accordion licks the mandolin emulating some high-on-the-neck jazz guitar. Little did i know Trulove, Lingo and English were biding their time before launching into a high-octane, almost hardcore punk second verse. When I first heard it live, I wasn’t totally enamored with the idea, but the Muckers won me over, and by the end of it, I was moshing alongside Trekkies. Closing the album is the country-tinged title track. While mysterious in its origins, the term “Irish Goodbye” means leaving without announcing your departure. Shaw uses this as a metaphor for his divorce: “While we were still together we had a fight, and when I woke up she was gone. That wasn’t the real end of the relationship, but that feeling of waking up and finding your partner has left is what I based the song on.”
T.C’s voice is a very acquired taste but what it lacks in melodic beauty, it more than makes up for in passion, expression and wild abandonment in a similar way to MacGowan and Strummer. As a musician he is quite remarkable and completely fearless, with strange instruments dropping in and out all over the place. Imaging the first Roxy Music album lead by an accordion with Ferry on a mixture of absinth and amphetamine, Eno tripping his bollocks off in a room full of chimes bells and whistles, and Manzanera’s strat replaced by a bunch of strange acoustic stringed instruments from the four corners of the earth, and you may have some idea of what you’re gonna get on his latest offering.
Of what I remember, though, one of the highlights of the festival was local Armagh punk band Anti-Depresants.
1. 
years so it just makes it all the more clear how much we all miss Waldo and his fantastic 
One of the most memorable nights of music I had in Korea was a concert he organised with his students and some local, mostly American, folk musicians in Seoul. His students performed, Pansori, Korean drum-and-vocals storytelling music and and samul nori, Korean drum music, which sounds a bit like 100 bodhrans caught in a thunderstorm! We foreign folkies played songs from our backgrounds. I did some American tunes, an Irish immigration ballad, and tried a Gypsy-Punk reworking of a Korean indie hit. These shows he organised brought together people of different ages and backgrounds who would otherwise never meet, let alone end up performing alongside one another. At these occasions, Martin created a melting pot of folk music that was unlike anything else in the massive capital city.
Next, Seth performs a medley of two introspective love songs: ‘I Still Love You’ and ‘Pushmipullyou’. After that, he grabs a another song from Korea’s tragic history with a rendition of ‘Mother, Sister (Let’s live by the River)’ – I added the brackets. The song was by Kim Sowol, a famous – and famously hard-to-translate – Korean poet and journalist who worked during the Japanese occupation, and he seems to have taken his own life at the age 32. He follows Kim’s poem with the original anti-war song, ‘Feeling so Cold’, telling of a soldier returning home after seeing, and indeed committing, unspeakable wartime atrocities. While it seems to fit the narrative of an American soldier returning after the Korean War or a Japanese solider’s return after the occupation, Martin says it’s not specifically about Korea, though “it fits certainly in that narrative.” After the heavy subject matter, Martin follows with a an another song about returning home, though not without darkness. ‘Winding Down’, is a reflection upon return home and seeing familiar roads, mountains and rivers.
With ‘Looking for the Leatherwinged Bat’, in a shocking reversal of nature metaphors, Martin takes an old English Folk song about different species of birds’ courtship rituals, and takes most of the birds out of the song. Instead it becomes a less-than-flattering walk through an America consumed by corruption poverty and pollution, replacing the birds with such characters a bigoted billionaire, a police officer harassing kids and “the dog at the top of the pile.”
You can catch TC Costello live at the moment over here in the UK as he is doing a bunch of dates with his friends The Brandy Thieves as well as a load of solo dates including a special London Celtic Punks show at The Lamb in Surbiton in SW London. TC will be supported on the night by Suckin’ Diesel a new traditional Irish folk band featuring current and auld members of The Lagan and headed by Lagan front man the mega talented Brendan O’Prey. All happening on Monday 17th June live at the best boozer in the area The Lamb just a couple of minutes walk from Surbiton station which is only 20 minutes from Waterloo. Live music begins at 8pm and ends at 11pm. Entrance is **FREE** you lucky devil’s so you can spend more on the lovely beer on sale at The Lamb.
Tune in again in just a few days time when its TC Costello’s turn under the London Celtic Punks microscope. In a perfect world we ought to have got one of The Templars Of Doom to review TC’s new album but there you go. TC has just released his sixth album of his career and the self released Horizon Songs is certainly one of his best and judging by the crowd that night down The Lamb in Surbiton were selling like hot cakes! So come join us again for that….
Chatting to the punters ahead of the EP, ‘The Devil’s Wine’ launch at the Soundhouse in Leicester it became clear that I was in for “a hellava good show!”. The Brandy Thieves have a varied local fan base from punks that are old enough to remember seeing The Clash at Granby Halls, now a car park for The Tigers Rugby ground, to ska fans who had been encapsulated by the Two Tone launch just up the M69, through to ex-ravers disillusioned by the commercialisation of the scene, bearded lovers of country folk and exuberant students.
This was more than a gig. We had a magician compère, fortune telling, belly dancers and free shots of brandy. Having already appeared on Monday at a London Celtic Punks show TC Costello, self proclaimed punk folk accordion player and part time Brandy Thief entertained the crowd with his highly entertaining solo slot, The Splitters supported with their tight, edgy rock/ska sound with added sound effects, like the embodiment of Mick Jones’ mind somewhere between the Sandinista album and Big Audio Dynamite. They played their way right through a blown amp!
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