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

We take Christmas very seriously at London Celtic Punks and so begins the countdown to the second best day of the year! Expect much Christmas themed Celtic-Punk in the coming weeks but in the meantime here’s this months biggest yet round-up of all the band news, record releases and videos from bands big and small from across the Celtic-Punk scene.

6’10 the utterly brilliant offshoot from Flatfoot 56 just put out a new video to accompany ‘The Road’ taken from their awesome last album, Carried In Retrospect.

We missed the release of the new SHANGHAI TREASON single but needless to say it is again fantastic fast and punky Celtic-Punk and quite unlike anyone else knocking about. The album draws ever nearer and we cannot bloody wait to her it! Catch’em on tour in the UK with The Rumjacks soon.

It is probably easier to stop a train going at full speed than to convince the former members of the Black Tartan Clan to put an end to their musical adventure. After a small pose due to a change of line up at the end of 2017, the black kilt wearers have reformed ranks and changed their name, becoming BLACK TARTANS. The new group has a solid experience of live and studio work and continues to bring an energetic mix between trad Celtic instruments (bagpipes and banjo) and Punk-Rock. Here’s some footage of them playing live from their Facebook page. They’ve also started a You Tube channel so give that a follow if you can. Lots of new footage promised.

A little late for Halloween or especially early for next years? PADDY FINNEGAN’S GREEN MACHINE is no other than London Celtic Punks columnist Raymond and he put out a five track EP of scary covers and originals just in time to go trick or treating!

Another Halloween release we missed (except this was from last year!!) was When The Tombstones Speak a 4-track EP from Chicago band WORK THE COUNT. A collaborative music project that draws inspiration from American and Celtic Folk, Punk and Pop. Available as a ‘name your price’ download.

While it’s been many a year since The Dublin Castle in Camden has been much of a Irish pub Peggy Conlon talks about life behind the bar at the iconic pub.

THE RUMJACKS released a new video last month for the lead single off an upcoming new release. A eight track EP titled Brass for Gold is due out 11th February 2022 and is available for pre-order. 

BLACK MATILDA are a new Celtic-Punk band from Lunenburg, Nova Scotia in Canada and just put out their debut song, ‘I Must sail Away’, on You Tube accompanied by a fantastic stop motion animation video. You can find the band on their Instagram page.

THE CUNDEEZ new single ‘The Stornoway Stomp’ is out now on major download sites along with the bands brilliant Scottish football anthem ‘Kilts On Taps Aff’. Both tracks are taken from the forthcoming album ‘Geeez It’ and the song tells the tale of a trip to the Isle o Lewis.

Acclaimed Pirate band and pure theatrical spectacle YE BANISHED PRIVATEERS announced the release of a Christmas themed album next month and I am really hoping we get a copy! A Pirate Stole My Christmas comes out on December 3rd and is on preorder here: https://smarturl.it/APirateStoleMyXmas

London Gaelic Athletic Association launched a commemorative 125th anniversary booklet, which lays out the history of the county’s past century and a quarter. You can read it here.

Speaking of Instagram (Remember it is owned by Facebook so none of your photos are safe!) THE TENBAGS from Birmingham have just discovered it and have been posting some great content on their page. Well worth looking up.

I’m not much of a whiskey man I’d be the first to admit. My father-in-law always gets the Bells out for me and my brother just shakes his head disappointedly when I put Cola in but here’s a good wee video from a couple of Aussies reviewing THE POGUES Irish whiskey.

HAWTHORN are from Tucson, Arizona and just released their second album, All The Light We Cannot See. An aggressive mix of raw energy and fast punk rooted in traditional Celtic music.

SONS OF CLOGGER are a well known fixture on the English Folk-Punk and festival scene with a good few releases behind them. On finding a bass player they are now casting their net out for a rhythm guitarist and keyboard player so if you live anywhere near Staffs. give them a shout on their Facebook page. ‘Siabost Beach’ is taken from their last album The Neolithic as filmed in the Outer Hebrides/ Western Isles.

Irish born Barcelona based tongue-in-cheek singer-songwriter CAL MURPHY released The Partin’ Rocky Rattlin’ Lass 4-track EP earlier in the year but we only just got round to hearing it. All cover versions the EP covers modern day Irish music pretty damn well from the Celtic-Punk of ‘Will Ye Go, Lassie, Go’ to it’s polar opposite ‘The Parting Glass’ stripped down to just vocals and acoustic guitar. 

THE OUTCAST CREW – Myths And Yarns (review coming)

WHISKEY OF THE DAMNED – We Made Bail

BRIAN FALLON – Night Devine

THE GROGGY DAYS – Grog ‘o’ Clock

HAWTHORN – All The Light We Cannot See

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

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. Games against Newcastle Falcons December 4th, CA Brive in the EPCR Cup December 19th and the first home fixture of the New Year against Bath on Monday January 3rd.

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. Well here’s a band that are still together and playing. FALPERRYS are one of them actual Celtic-Punk bands from an actual Celtic country (I use to call that Keltic Celtic-Punk) in Galicia. Do Amor e das Mentiras was their debut album from 2011 and is available as a ‘Name Your Price’ download as is their more recent album Nova Abordagem.

Everyone is wetting themselves that THE DROPOUTS are fronted by former Booze & Glory singer and guitarist Liam well we remember his glory days when he nonchalantly would play the banjo for London Irish Ceilidh rockers Neck whilst dreaming of the day he could be in a Oi! band! A top geezer he moved off to Sydney a couple of years back and hasn’t looked back since. This self-titled release is the bands debut and though only seven tracks it’s all great stuff and perfect melodic and hard hitting Punk Rock.

The more I see of Facebook the more and more I dislike it. It has a stranglehold on all forms of expression and this isn’t good. Anything that breaks their monopoly is a great thing (except Twitter equally as shit!) 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, don’t miss a single post and even receive the odd exclusive and special offer! https://t.me/londoncelticpunks/  

We’re not beyond a wee bit of crass commercialism so just to let you know that London Celtic Punks merchandise would make great Christmas presents! We still have a handful of Green’n’White ‘Skully Cap’ ringer t-shirts available in all sizes from Small right up to XXX-L from our online store. Also available are 2 other shirt designs so click the link below for our 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!  https://the30492shop.fwscart.com/

On the live front here in London town we have the return of London Irish Pyscho-Ceildh rockers NECK to the New Cross Inn on December 10th with support form the awesome CROCK OF CELTS. The following day sees THE MEN THEY COULDN’T HANG at the Subterania in Ladbroke Grove and then  a choice of the London Folk legend SEAMUS MOORE at the Sporting Green in Enfield EN3 5JF or THE FIREPIT COLLECTIVE Irish-Folk offshoot from the Inner Terrestrials at the New Cross Inn sees us into Christmas on Sunday 19th. There was also talk of a secret POGUES TRADERS afternoon show somewhere in Central London. Keep an eye out for that. Lots of gigs being announced check the LCP FB events page but the new year will see the return of our dedicated London ‘What’s On’ page.

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 you and me. Like and join in the fun!

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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.

NO ODDS’N’SODS NEXT MONTH BUT IT WILL RETURN FOR FEBRUARY

LONDON CELTIC PUNKS PRESENTS THE BEST OF 2019!

Well here we go again. It only seems like five minutes since I was compiling all the votes into last years Best Of that saw The Rumjacks romping home with Album Of The Year. This year has been a bit quieter on the Celtic-Punk front but as last year was so busy that is perhaps not surprising. That’s not to say their weren’t some fantastic releases as their were plenty and it was still really difficult to come up with the various lists below. Not so many big bands this year so it was left to the lesser known bands to shine but remember this is only our opinion and these releases are only the tip of the iceberg of what came out last year. Feel free to comment, slag off or dissect our lists. As a bonus we are adding the Readers Poll again this year so you can even vote on your favourite release of 2019 yourself. If it’s not listed then simply add your choice.

We don’t pretend to be the final word as that my friends is for you…

(click on the green link to go where you will find more information on the release)

1. THE WALKER ROADERS – Self Titled

2. MICKEY RICKSHAW – Home In Song

3. FEROCIOUS DOG – Fake News And Propaganda

4. GREENLAND WHALEFISHERS – Based On A True Story

5. BARLEYJUICE – The Old Speakeasy

6. THE NARROWBACKS – By Hook Or By Crook

7. McDERMOTTS TWO HOURS – Besieged

8. PIPES AND PINTS – The Second Chapter

9. THE RUMJACKS – Live In Athens

10. SELFISH MURPHY – After Crying

11. TORTILLA FLAT – Live At The Old Capitol

12. FIDDLERS GREEN – Heyday

13. THE RUMJACKS – Live In London Acoustic Sessions

14. THE WHIPJACKS – This Wicked World

15. 13 KRAUSS – Redención

16. ALTERNATIVE ULSTER – Craic Agus Ceol

17. AIRES BASTARDOS – Self Titled

18. THE TEMPLARS OF DOOM – Hovels Of The Holy

19. THE FIGHTING JAMESONS – A Moment In California

20. ANGRY McFINN AND THE OLD YANK – Songs of Whiskey, Women & War

21. THE SHILLELAGHS – Ripples In The Rye

22. HELLRAISERS AND BEERDRINKERS – Pub Crawl

23. BODH’AKTAN – De Temps Et De Vents

24. HEATHEN APOSTLES – Dust To Dust

25. SONS OF CLOGGER – Return To The Stones’

26. THE CHERRY COKE$ – Old Fox

27. THE FILTHY SPECTACULA – The Howl Of The Underclasses

28. THE POTATO PIRATES – Hymns For The Wayward

29. TC COSTELLO– Horizon Songs

30. THE TENBAGS – ‘Bags o’ Craic’

How to compete with last year? Every single top band in the genre released an album so things were always going to be a bit quieter for 2019. Top spot this year unsurprisingly goes to The Walker Roaders Celtic-Punk super group! With Pogues, Mollys and Dropkicks making up the team how could they possibly go wrong! Everyone’s ‘next big thing’ Mickey Rickshaw came in a well deserved second and Ferocious Dog took third after releasing their best album, for me, since From Without. Greenland Whalefishers celebrated 25 years on the road with their best album for quite a while and what Best Of would be right without some bloody brilliant Irish-American bands challenging at the top too. Pipes And Pints new album with a new singer received acclaim from across the Punk media and The Rumjacks couldn’t follow up last years unanimous victory despite having two album releases (both sort of live) in the top thirteen. Fiddlers Green continue to make consistently great albums and go into 2020 celebrating thirty years together! Good to see homegrown bands The Whipjacks, The Tenbags, The Filthy Spectacula and Sons Of Clogger making it too. The top thirty was made up of thirteen countries from USA, England, Norway, Czech Republic, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, Argentina, Japan, Quebec, Hungary, Spain and Japan.

1. THE LUCKY TROLLS – Self Titled

2. DRUNKEN DOLLY – The Party

3. LORETTA PROBLEM – The Waltz Of My Drunken Dream

4. THE CLOVERHEARTS – Sick

5. KRAKIN’ KELLYS – Irish Tribute

6. THE PLACKS – Rebellious Sons

7. GYPSY VANNER – Five Distilled Celtic Punks

8. THE RUMPLED – Grace O’ Malley

9. FOX’N’FIRKIN – Hey Ho! We’re Fox n Firkin

10. SHANGHAI TREASON – Devil’s Basement

The Lucky Trolls took #1 spot with their brilliant self-titled EP following on from fellow countrymen the Krakin’ Kellys multi award winning 2018. Trust me it would have taken an exceptionally good release to keep The Party by Drunken Dolly off the top spot but that is what happened. Dolly’s excursions over to these shores this year j=has seen them grown in stature and you can’t go to a Ferocious Dog gig without spotting at least a dozen of their shirts. Loretta Problem wowed us with their single ‘Waltz Of My Drunken Dream’ which took us right back back to The Pogues glory days and what about that accompanying video too!! If we had a award for best video then that would have walked it. The Kellys had a quiet year with comparison to ’18 but still managed a respectable #5 and great debut releases from The Placks our sole representative from a Celtic nation (big things are going to happen to this band in 2020 mark my words), Italian/Aussies The Cloverhearts and, from just down the road from my Mammy, Shanghai Treason from Sheffield who only put out one song… but what a song! Eight countries represented from Belgium, Netherlands, Finland, Italy, Scotland, Argentina, Australia and Yorkshire!

AIRES BASTARDOS– ‘Self-Titled’

Argentina is becoming a bit of a hot-spot for Celtic-Punk with not only some well established bands but also some new ones starting up too and with this release Aires Bastardos announced their arrival on the international scene too. Not afraid to dive straight into a folk number after a Cock Sparrer cover they veer from standard Celtic-Punk to Folk and back to fast as hell Punk but in that really accessible way that only Celtic-Punk (and maybe Ska-Punk) bands can do.

1. THE DREADNOUGHTS – Into The North

2. CROCK OF BONES – Celtic Crossbones

3. 6’10 – Where We Are

4. BRYAN McPHERSON – Kings Corner

5. CALLUM HOUSTON – Gravities

6. PYROLYSIS – Daylight Is Fading

7. SEAMUS EGAN – Early Bright

8. LE VENT DU NORD – Territoires

9. DONNY ZUZULA – Chemicals

10. DERVISH – Great Irish Songbook

The Dreadnoughts don’t really think of themselves as Celtic-Punk so I reckon they’d be happier to win this than Celtic-Punk Album Of The Year. A superb collection of sea shanties that is a pleasure to listen to that was always going to be #1. Crock Of Bones representing the London Irish in 2nd with an album of trad folk with punk rock attitude and it’s especially good to hear some originals done in the style of the ‘auld ways’. 6’10 challenged for the top spot as they always do with everything they release and Bryan MacPherson and Callum Houston both produced great releases of singer-songwriter acoustic folk with Irish roots.

Sadly the Celtic-Punk world has shrunk a little regarding Web-Sites. Winners of the last two years the Mersey Celt Punks have been slacking (sort it out lads!) and enjoying their gigs too much to tell us while Shite’n’Onions have been too busy transferring everything onto a different platform and preparing for a bit of a re-launch I expect. Sadly celtic-rock.de have shut up shop after twelve years so it just makes it all the more clear how much we all miss Waldo and his fantastic Celtic-Folk-Punk And More site. As regular as clockwork and all the news that was ever fit (or not!) to print. Closing down the site in its 10th year in March must have been a tough decision to make and so this year we award best Website to Waldo and let it be known that no Celtic-Punk site will ever come close to replacing you. We would certainly not exist without his kind help and inspiration. All the best comrade enjoy your retirement! One welcome addition is Michu and his Celtic-Punk Encyclopedia site from Poland. Worth checking out especially if you are in a band.

We are not alone in doing these Best Of 2019 lists in fact all the major players in celtic-punk do them so click below to check out what they thought.

THE CELTIC PUNKCAST

FOLK’N’ROCK

MERSEY CELT PUNKS

So there you go. Remember we don’t pretend to be the final word on things in fact if you check the other Celtic-Punk media I’m sure we’ve all come up with relatively different lists. Our Best Of’s are cajoled and bullied out of the admins from the London Celtic Punks Facebook page. The assorted scraps of paper and beer mats were then tallied up please remember not all of us heard the same albums so like all the various Best Of’s ours is also subjective.

This is our 8th year of making these Best Of lists so if you would like to check out out who was where in our previous ones then just click on the link below the relevant year.

https://wp.me/p3Huvn-es

https://wp.me/p3Huvn-Oq

https://goo.gl/RXNtMC

https://wp.me/p3Huvn-21o

https://wp.me/p3Huvn-29L

https://wp.me/p3Huvn-37h

https://wp.me/p3Huvn-3EI

Last year we introduced a new feature THE READERS PICK. We had no idea if it would work or not but it was a raging success so we going to do it all again this year. With well over 500 votes cast you lot chose the debut album from the Krakin’ Kellys as a worthy winner. Only the Top Ten albums are listed but there is an option to write in your favourite release or just to send us love… or abuse!

You are allowed to vote twice but not for the same artist.

The Poll will close at midnight on Friday 31st January with the result announced soon after.

remember any views, comments or abuse or slander we would love to hear it…

 Sláinte, The London Celtic Punks Crew- January, 2020

ALBUM REVIEW: THE TENBAGS- ‘Bags o’ Craic’ (2018)

Crusty punk troubadours from the middle of England playing Anarcho-Celtic-Punk ballads and rampaging through folk tradition!

Bags o’ Craic arrived at London Celtic Punk Towers towards the end of 2018 on a scruffy home made CDR with a basic photocopied cover and a couple of stickers that wouldn’t play on any of the CD players in my house or my laptop!! So it was with great relief that the band recently stuck it up on Bandcamp so I could finally get round to hearing it. Having checked them out on Facebook they seemed like they were a band i would be into and after a couple of listens this was confirmed!

The Tenbags a true Brummy mix of backgrounds including – Scottish, Irish, Jewish, Indian, Trinidadian, English, Italian, Roma Gypsy and Punk!! From left to right: Neil Harvey – Washboard and Guitar * Johnny (Kowalski) Noblet – GuitBanj and Voice * Niall Singh – Guitar and Voice and Poems * Benedict Davenport- Mandolin and Tenor Banjo * Sam-uendo – Fiddle.

Bags o’ Craic is twelve songs that fly past in an incredibly quick twenty-four minutes. Songs beloved by the folk snobs purists are stripped right down to basics and played without frills or flourishes which for many of these songs that is exactly how they were meant to be played when first written. The roots of The Tenbags lie in Niall and Ben’s meeting at Birmingham art school back in 2009. A shared interest in folk music thanks to Ben’s Irish background and Niall who had grown up obsessed with Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie and The Pogues before getting into Punk. Coming from a half Scottish/half Indian background he ingested the folk music from his Mam’s record collection and the Pogues from Celtic Supporting, Celtic-Rock loving Uncles!

The album kicks off with ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ a song originally penned by folk legend Leon Rosselson which tells the story of the Diggers (English radicals seen as forerunners of anarchism) rebellion on St. Georges Hill in Surrey in 1649.

“The sin of property we do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell the earth for private gain
By theft and murder they took the land
Now everywhere the walls spring up at their command”

It has been recorded by several artists with perhaps Billy Bragg’s 1983 version the most popular. Here it is played fast with sparse backing of acoustic guitar, fiddle and mandolin with Niall’s vocals leading. These days their is such a market for Irish music that the temptation is to perfect and polish everything so that the pub cover gigs keep rolling in. This is a long way from the roots of Celtic-Punk and Shane could never ever have been accused of trying to croon his way through things and it is to Shane’s tradition that Niall continues. This is followed by a cover of ‘The Blackleg Miner/ You Made Your Bed’, a song that has recently been covered by Ferocious Dog and regularly features in their live set. From the mid 19th-century the song is set among the Northumberland pit villages and spits vengeance against strike breakers otherwise known as scabs to the miners and their families. A subject close to Niall’s heart as his family in Scotland were from the mining community, seamlessly flowing into the original track ‘You Made Your Bed. One of the best tracks here is the cover of Tom Paxton’s ‘Johnny Got a Gun’. The heartbreaking tale of a child who is bullied at school so gets the means to defend himself that ends in utter tragedy and contains one of the best lines I’ve ever heard.

“Johnny’s mum and dad still work long hours
And knock on the unit door
They sit with Johnny in the visitor’s room
And his feet don’t reach the floor”

Niall’s voice may not be the polished article but that is far from why The Tenbags are doing this and their is more emotion in this song than many of the albums that have featured on these pages over the years. Do yourself a favour and check out the great Tom Paxton’s version as well here. Next up is a spoken word piece ‘Banned From The Tesco’ where Niall spits out the words at us in just seventy seconds leading into a couple of covers of minor classics starting with the Crass song ‘Securicor’ and followed quickly by The Exploited’s ‘Alternative’ sounding as unlike Crass and The Exploited as you will ever hear. The Tenbags take the songs and breathe a life into them I would never have thought possible. That anarchic punk rock spirit shines through in the spoken word sections. These use to popular in Punk Rock, especially on Oi! compilations, but has all but disappeared these days so the thirty second angry anti-war rant ‘Grandad’ is both a blast to the past in subject matter and its very existence. The covers chosen here sound to me to have been picked very carefully and Bob Dylan’s  ‘When The Ship Comes In’ leads us into another anti-war rant in ‘Warlords’ before the album’s highlight hits the airwaves and in ‘Bella Ciao’ Niall perhaps comes as close here to singing in tune! The Italian anti-fascist anthem dates from the rice fields of the late 19th century but it was revived by the anti- fascist movement active in Italy during the Second World War with it’s lyrics updated. The next song also harks back to Crass in the albums second original track ‘The Man Who Spoke To God’. There follows a couple of minutes of silence which may be a nod to Crass and their problems with the song ‘Reality Asylum’or could be that the final song is meant to be a hidden track! The album comes to an end with the classic Irish traditional lament ‘The Parting Glass’. It was maybe too obvious to cover something that Shane was well known for singing but The Pogues did get round to singing ‘The Parting Glass’ and here The Tenbags keep it simple an play the song as it is meant to be played, slowly.

So an album that you will either be able to get past Niall’s style of vocals or not but as I’ve said we are in a scene where we worship a man who couldn’t sing for toffee so you should never let that put you off. The music is extremely well played and the arrangements sparse with the songs chosen far beyond ‘folks greatest hits’ and with some great and unusual and unexpected punk covers thrown in to. The energy and passion here is evident on every single track and with the band having made the album available for free download you have no excuse not to get a copy. Simply click where it says Buy Digital Album and this will take you to a page where you have the option to name your price where you can simply type in £0.00 and you will receive the link for your freed download.

(listen to Bags o’ Craic for free on the Bandcamp player below)

Download Bags o’ Craic  Name Your Price Download  Contact The Tenbags  Bandcamp  Facebook