No round up last m onth so welcome to a bumper edition of all the news fit to print on what’s going in our wonderful Celtic-Punk scene. From the scene’s bands big and small, established or just starting out it’s all in here!
Fresh from storming off with #1 Roots/Folk album in our Best Of awards here’s a new video for one of the best tracks off How To Draw Everything the last album from BRYAN McPHERSON. The good news is we will be helping out with his Ireland and England tour in the Summer. Expect a couple of local gigs!
Nothing beats Aussie Celtic-Punk and MEDUSA’S WAKE are up there with the very best. Here’s a fantastic dozen minutes of them playing at the Hobofopo ’22 festival in Tasmania put on by our friends The Dead Maggies and Folk Til Ya Punk Records.
The internet is awash with incredible footage from the DROPKICK MURPHYS recent tours. We saw them at Wembley Arena and it fair knocked our socks off. The energy throughout was amazing. Maybe even the best I have ever seen them and i saw their first ever gig in London! Here’s ninety minutes of their set. watch it before it gets taken down!
THE CLOVERHEARTS arrived in England from Italy for a short tour last month and we caught them at a busy and lively show at The Black Heart in Camden. Here’s footage of their encore. Looking forward to seeing them again already.
Love THE KINGS BUSKATEERS. Be sure to check out all their videos on their You Tube channel. Here they are doing a ‘Alt-Country Celtic-Punk Labor medley’.
German Celtic-Punks TIR NA OG with a new video and tour dates announced for the next few weeks.
South-Western English band THE JAMESTOWN BROTHERS have a new video and song taken from their new single ‘Just Is’.
We love a new Celtic-Punk band and there is nothing better than a Celtic Celtic-Punk band. TECOR SOCIETARIO hail from the Celtic nation of Galicia currently occupied by Spain. We will be featuring these guys very soon. Love the Peter And The Test Tube Babies t-shirt by the way!
North London junkyard Folk and skeletal Blues group LOCKS have a new single out now called Nola https://lnk.to/NolaLocksSgl and a new You Tube site too.
YE BANISHED PRIVATEERS a monstrous Pirate themed ensemble from Scandinavia teamed up with the Umeå Musiksällskap Symphony Orchestra for this incredible concert. An emotional hurricane.
SINFUL MAGGIE consider themselves a Punk band with an accordion but we think of them as one of us. Sorry folks! Whatever it is it’s bloody marvellous.
THE IRISH AND CELTIC MUSIC PODCAST an award-winning free radio show of some of the best Irish and Celtic music online had their best of recently and you can check it out here https://marcgunn.com/best-celtic-music-of-2022/
The annual St. Patrick’s day Celtic-Punk album release fest is on it’s way with albums from CONTINENTAL, THE GO-SET and FIRKIN already announced and many more to come I’m sure.
RUSTY NAIL – Burnt Prairie, Illinois
DROPKICK MURPHYS – This Machine Still Kills Fascists : Expanded Edition (Extra songs!)
CAROTTE – Glouton Gluten
THE SMITH STREET BAND – Life After Football
Remember we can’t review it if we don’t hear it!
Born and raised on the New Jersey shore Irish-American singer-songwriter SEAN TOBIN has been compared to another famous Irish (and a bit German) American from the same place but he’s much better. Sean has a new 4-track live EP out the end of last month
Amazing Brazilian Folk Metal pioneers TUATHA DE DANANN have a new single ‘The Nameless’ that came out on New Year’s Eve.
From Bern Switzerland the old-school No-Hit Hobo Psycho-Western-Punkabilly sensation BOGOS released their debut album. Punk v/s Ennio Morricone. Closer to Psychobilly but with some amazing Folky touches I’ve been playing this album to death recently.
FOLLOW THE CROWS are a London-based folk-rock outfit with distinct overtones of bluegrass, Irish trad and Americana. A typical setlist blends original material with unique interpretations of folk standards. Expect hard-driven vocals fused with guitar and mandolin mayhem, all underpinned by riotous folk rhythms of rebellion and redemption.
We love Lincoln, Nebraska Folk-Punkers THE KILLIGANS and they seem to have picked up the pace somewhat with plenty new music coming out.
DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS will release The Feminine Divine, their first full original album since the masterpiece One Day I’m Going To Soar was released a decade ago this coming summer! In Kevin Rowland we trust…
The Salty Dog cruise line up is out and it’s very disappointing if you were expecting to see a few Celtic-Punk bands with only HOIST THE COLORS and FLOGGING MOLLY in the line up. Still it does have a free bar! https://www.floggingmollycruise.com/
Sea-Punk, Folk, band hailing from the Cornish coast the Piratey Punks JOLLY ROGER have released a new live album recorded at The Globe Cardiff and Leamington Spa Assembly when they supported Ferocious Dog on tour in November.
We’ve been doing this now for nearly 10 years and in that time we have covered 100’s of bands and musicians but still plenty of bands have passed us by. We can’t see everything after all so this column is to remind us of bands that never made these pages at the time but deserve another mention. These hopefully come with a free download like today so you can help yourself to some free music. Today we head to God’s Own Country to Yorkshire and the debut EP from Sheffield’s WHAT THE FOLK. Tom one of the scenes best banjo players would later go on to be in Shanghai Treason so whether we will see anymore from these is a mystery. They have three releases all available for ‘name your price’ download.
After January when Celtic-Punks in London were spoilt for choice Feb is a bit thin on the ground but things are hotting up for St. Patrick’s this year. Having been robbed of two we gonna make this one awesome! Next month’s Odds’n’Sods will have full listings for London area. The highlight for me so far is DAMIEN DEMPSEY at the Electric in Brixton on the 18th. He has many who try to copy him but there is only one! The founders of Alt-Country THE LONG RYDERS are coming back to these shores with a full Europe and UK tour.
London Celtic Punks presents another night of rip roaring Celtic-Punk and Irish-Folk
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 rubbish and I can’t wait to see it fold. It has a stranglehold on all forms of expression that is not good and it’s no surprise 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 group on the phone app Telegram. Similar 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/
The response to the new London Celtic Punks badge has been amazing. Not surprising really as they are just about the nicest bit of merchandise in Celtic-Punk if you ask me! Comes with butterfly clip and made in Ireland (Guaranteed Irish!) available for just £5 – UK and £7 – EU post-paid and we’ll throw in a few stickers and a button badge too. For further overseas contact us and we’ll work it out. Send to Paypal (friends & family) to londoncelticpunks@hotmail.co.uk
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!
Hello to our friends in Indonesia THE WORKING CLASS SYMPHONY. Check them out. If they were American they would be massive! Facebook YouTube Instagram. These are the guys that Flogging Molly should be taking on their Cruise!
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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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