Hard Folk is probably the best description I can come up for Stoke-on-Trent, England’s Jug’o’punch. Part Pogues, part Dubliners with a touch of American bluegrass and blues (lots of harmonicas here). Like The Pogues before ’em, Jug’o’Punch mix the romance of Irish dreams and yearning with the gritty reality of life in the UK Those like me who loved “Fiver on the horses” and “Cold” from the recent EP will love this full length
August 2005
I’m going to try and kill two birds with the proverbal one stone here by squishing the reviews of both Barley Juice CDs into one review. First up is 2001’s self titled ‘Barleyjuice’ a collection of traditional drinking, fighting, courtin and sailing songs which is more Dubliners then The Pogues and much more Clancy Brothers then anyone else, both in song choice and performance. 2005’s ‘Another Round’, follows on in the tradition of the debut but adds in a few originals which stand up well to tradition staple of covers. ‘Scottish Samba’ is a classic. If you haven’t made up your mind were your going to be next Paddys Day then where ever these guys are playing would be a very fine choice.
August 2005
First off this is the first time I’ve tried to review a album so go easy on me. That and I never got around to finishing high school and learning that grammar and spelling BS. Anyways, On to the review. You might know John Allen (lead singer of BBB) as the guy playing whistle and singing with DKM on there song “Far Away Coast” That’s the first time I heard him at least.
The bands lineup consists of John (Vocals, Whistle, Squeezebox), Pino (Guitar, vocals, keys), Ernie Wilson (Bass/Vocals) And Sal Vega (Drums) which Is a fairly light mix of traditional instruments compared to most of the Irish rock bands out there. At least half of the tunes on the CD have no or hardly any trad instruments at all. The bollocks however can outplay (and probably out drink) most of those bands easily, using a mix of great music writing lyrical storytelling and plain craziness.
To me the bands style makes me think of Irish folk, some good old fashioned rock ‘n roll with some great football terrace choruses thrown in there. All the whistle/accordion driven riffs, Rolling Stones esque guitar and Oi! Oi!’s you could ask for.
So a little about some of the songs: Big Bad Bollocks is the bands anthem and sports a awesome driving accordion riff, ‘The pubs of Liverpool’ and ‘Drunker than I was’ could possibly be two of the best songs to swing a pint through the air to. ‘Motorcycle jacket’ is a distorted guitar driven song of teen angst, and ‘Night on the tiles’ chronicles all to well the mess that I and probably most of you find ourselves in every weekend night.
All in all this album is the best that I’ve found in a quite awhile. It stands out from the crowd of folk rock and doesn’t really sound like any other band I’ve listened to before (in a good way) Defiantly going in my top 8 folk rock albums.
Its really a shame that information and music for these guys is almost impossible to find.
August 2005
By Ben Taylor
It’s almost October, and this is my choice for album of the year!I’ve been waiting to hear this album for years. Even before I’d ever heard the album, or even heard of The Zydepunks, I’ve been wanting to hear Cajun-punk. I remember discussing the idea of starting a Cajun-flavored punk band with a few friends years ago as a joke, it sounded like a great idea. Too bad none of us had any clue about Cajun music, Zydeco music, or anything remotely close. We figured there were probably a few bands in Nawlins already doing it, and our discussion altered into who was buying the next round. A couple of years later at a BBQ, I heard a Zydepunks song and got so excited, I attempted a drunken back flip, and landed on my head. lying upside down between the bushes, grass, a fence, and dog shit, at the edge of my buddies yard, I screamed “FUCK YEAH!” It was so original, fresh, and exciting. A totally new sound. I couldn’t get enough. (True story!) The Zydepunks like to call their flavor of music: Bayou Gypsy Punk. It’s a combination of: New Orleans-Cajun-Irish-Breton-Klezmer-Slavic-Zydeco, and let me tell you, since the BBQ, I’ve been listening to it non-stop. If the combination of genres isn’t enough for you, maybe the combination of languages will wet your whistle. The Zydepunks sing in English, French, German, Spanish, Yiddish, and Portuguese. The album “And The Streets Will Flow With Whiskey” is all over the place. The placement of the songs seriously reminded me of listening to The Pogues album “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” for the first time. The songs are all over the place. You’ll be smiling from ear to ear with an irresistible urge to dive nose first into a bowl of gumbo. (Maybe that’s just me.) It’s an album you’ll play in it’s entirety, you won’t want to skip a track. After a description like that, what more needs to be said? A whole helluvalot. According to their website, the quick history of The Zydepunks goes something like this:Five years ago, Eve Venema and Christian Kuffner met while street-performing in the French Quarter with a clown on a unicycle and a white rapper supposedly on the run from the FBI. A number of raucous shows at the notorious old Hi-Ho Lounge followed, planting the seeds for what was to come. The Zydepunks are moving from being a traditional folk band (or a glorified cover band) to creating original music inspired from their diverse backgrounds and instrumentation. From the heart of New Orleans, the Zydepunks tear it up on accordion, fiddle and drums, playing their own breed of Bayou Gypsy Punk. Singing in six languages and deftly mixing styles in a frantic pace, they take the audience from Louisiana Bayous to Berlin cabarets and everything in between, mixing traditional folk tunes with their own originals. Playing dance music that is popular across all ages and crossing all genres, the Zydepunks force their audience to get up on their feet and stomp through hours of music1. Madeleine (trad. Acadian)
2. Satan/Dance You Fukr (trad. Klezmer)
3. Lowlands of Baghdad (trad.Irish arr. by Christian)
4. A Fistful of Oysters (original)
5. Bwamba’s Rambles (original)
6. Eve’s (original)
7. Tumbalalaika (trad. Jewish)
8. Reel & Jig Set (trad. Irish)
9. Con tí se va mi corazón (original)
10. Romanian Hora & Bulgar (trad. Klezmer)
11. Johnny Can’t Dance (trad. Acadian)
12. Die Schwimmbadpiraten (original)
13. Mabel’s Got the Blues (original)
I’m sure what happened to New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast is still in your thoughts. I’d like to happily mention that even if the members of The Zydepunks are temporarily scattered across the globe. (From North Carolina to Austria) Not even a fucking hurricane (Or two) will stop them, or their music. They’ll be playing a Halloween show in Memphis, so make sure you support them when they come through your town. Even their CD’s have been saved from the storm. So make sure you pick one up if you’re lucky enough to see them live, or if you live too far away, you can order it from their website: http://www.zydepunks.com/store.php So, if you’re looking to hear something somewhat similar to Celt-Punk, but with a spicy Cajun twist, I suggest picking up a copy right now, play it at a backyard BBQ, and keep an eye out for the village idiot attempting a back flip into the bushes.
August 2005
I was out in Chicago very recently and the one thing that struck me most was the sheer scale of the place – fuckin’ huge doesn’t do justice to the place. Sharky Doyles are a very Chicago band, ‘Back of the yards’, being the stock yards on the south side, is their debut CD. Like their home town these guys are huge – riffs big enough to knock you on your ass and vocals that will stomp on you when your down – south side Irish are the tough guys in Chicago. Fans of crack it up, chant it out, punk rock’n’bag pipes like Dropkick Murphys, Real McKenzies and The Go Set will love this.
August 2005
The Tossers remind me of an old baseball player on steroids – years of slugging away, playing decent but never going to make the all-star-team. Then the coach suggests steroids and suddenly its frigging home runs galore. “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” is The Tossers on steroids (or some other not too good for you substance). Now, I’ve always liked The Tossers, thought they were a good band, and especially on their last CD “Purgatory” but to me they were always going to play second fiddle to the likes of Flogging Molly. Never did I think they would make something as good and as powerful as “….Shadow of Death”. Most of you will have heard or seen (here) the riotous first single “goodmornin ‘da” and it’s a great introduction to the full CD thought the rest of the CD is not as instant and much more dark and moody then the introduction offer. Very reminiscent of The Pogues at their best and I’m going to be so bold as to say it’s the CD The Pogues should have made to follow up “If I Should Fall From….”. Flogging Molly lookout, The Tossers are going to bite you on the ass very soon.
August 2005
Billed as delivering a treasure chest of “Punk Rock, Sea Shanties & Appalachian Death Polka”, Seattle’s Wages of Sin do not so much fuse disparate musical elements as revel in the direct lineage of their influences. Sharp tense ‘50’s rock & roll hooks mesh with mountain fiddle stomps in a ballsy reminder that the two styles are just a short shuffle down the holler from each other; mountain music is the raw-handed grandfather of rock & roll after all. And, of course, bluegrass and Appalachian music are the frontier offspring of the Celtic and British ballad and dance music traditions. The Wages plunder these histories with total affinity and come up with a blend as clean and warm as a mouthful of Jamaican rum.
Steaming out of the yard with a version of the traditional ‘Railway’, complete with a chorus of navvies snarling and hollering in a shanty tent, the band are soon on a south-bound route with ‘Lay Me Down’ and its ‘Devil Went Down To Georgia’-style barnyard swing. The bull fiddle snaps, the mandolin rings and the rain drives down. ‘The Angel’s Share’ continues the singalong with a bottle of sly grog passed around the back pews of a lonesome Baptist church. And then we get to ‘The Tyburn Jig’which tells the grim tale of villainous wife-slaying cads and their road to the end of a rope. If this song is not on the next Shite’n’Onions Best Of, I will eat my scally cap for breakfast.Onto ‘Baptized by Fire’, which takes us back to that junction in the holler where rock’n’roll left home. The opening hook reminds us that for all the candy floss in the ‘50’s hit ‘Wake up Little Suzie’, the Everly Brothers themselves were coming out of an old and often wild tradition. That sense of history through music runs like a thread here, not unlike Steve Earle’s classic ‘Copperhead Road’.
‘Django’ sees us in Sergio Leone territory; with a respectful nod to the vastly underrated Pogues (with Shane) swan song ‘Hell’s Ditch’. ‘Buccaneers (of Elliott Bay)’ has gotta be another S’n’O Best Of contender. ‘Graveyard Blues’ is virtually a tribute to the most desolate of Appalachian ballad forms, and a cover of the classic porch knees-up ‘Salty Dog Blues’ is one for the whole family. It sort of reminds me of the Muppets’ Jug Band, and I mean that as a serious compliment! Despite the name, ‘Heave Away’ is a cool cat strut – you can just see the cigarette smoke pooling above the double bass and neon beer signs.
‘Jolly Roger’ is an album favourite, a fat cannonball of pure pirate punk. ‘Dia de los Muertos’ tells the wayward tale of a gringo’s narrow escape in a way that brings to mind Shane MacGowan’s ‘Mexican Funeral in Paris’. ‘Drinkin’ Days’ is a honky tonk classic, complete with a time-to-clean-up-my-act sentiment that is designed to make you want to drink even more.
The voyage – or was that railroad trip – ends with ‘Saturday Saints’, a good bonding pub song complete with some classy Irish fiddle work as a closer. And then you hit ‘Replay’ and do it all again.
Great stuff. Get it.
August 2005
Review by Will Swan
It’s not too often I’m ever at a loss of words, but every so often some random band comes along and commands my complete attention. Boys From The Hill are one of those bands. This Welsh trio have been playing various clubs, pubs, festivals, and whatnot for the past fifteen years and sure enough, I just now found out about them. Better late than never I suppose! Actually, they were recently recommended to me by Alistair Hulett, and in some circles, that carries some serious weight. Boys From The Hill play their own acoustic brand of Welsh urban folk that leans pretty heavy on the political, maritime, industrial, and historical issues that surround the culture of South Wales and beyond.
Just about every song on this album carries the raw energy of acoustic punk to that grand ole table of celtic folk we all love so much. The power of the 11 tracks on this album are undeniable. Pure, honest, and real. A must have album for any Shite’n’Onions reader/listener. Some of these songs are originals, and some are not, but then again, they are all songs worthy of a good listen. This self titled album is actually a few years old, but the years don’t really matter when the topics are as timeless as the ones mentioned here.
These are powerful songs that speak of everything from forced labor camps in depression era Britian, to immigrants in Western Australia that were forced to work in the death plauged asbestos mines due to two-year government bonds, to tales of exploitation in the valleys and towns of South Wales. Other songs reflect the strong maritime history of the area, including Track 5. “SS Agnes Jack” a mournful song telling us the tale of the steamship Agnes Jack which ran aground and all it’s passengers that drowned within sight of villagers who could only watch in horror as they tried to help. Other tracks include a latin flavored tune about the Sandinistas of Nicaragua on Track 6 cleverly titled “Guitarra Armada”. There’s a medley (Track 3) that contain a song written by Alistair Hulett, (Blue Murder) that turns into a foot stomping original, (Ffwrnanji) that eventually becomes a song not Welsh in origin, but in fact, Macedonian (Zletovsko).
Here is the tracklisting:
1. Brechfa Jail/The Ballad Of Ben Russ (Russ/Original)
2. Theme Park (Original)
3. Blue Murder/Ffwrnanji/Zletovsko (A. Hulett/Original/Traditional)
4. Bells Of Rhymney (Words:Idris Davies-music:Pete Seeger)
5. SS Agnes Jack (Tomi Jenkins)
6. Guittar Armada (Gary Phillips)
7. Lifeboat Mona (Peggy Seeger)
8. Waltzes For Nolwenn/Polka Dim Enw/South Glower Breakdown (Original)
9. Ffarwel Fo I Langyfelach Ion (Words:Siam Twrfyl)
10. Miner This, Miner That (Jock Purdon)
11. Dark Eyed Sailor (Traditional)
The band continue to write new material and develop their sound and they will be releasing an EP available for Download from their site (www.boysfromthehill.com ) around November, and their second album early in the New Year. Keep your eyes & ears open for these upcoming releases.
August 2005
Review By: Barnacle Brian Gillespie
You may have heard of these guys already. If not, now is a great time to tune in. I swear I wasn’t going to do this, but I can’t help it! If you miss that early Dropkick Murphys sound, then “Knuckles Up” will probably make your day! That’s right, some top-notch sing-a-longs, a whole lotta street-punk, a little bagpipe, some mandolin…You get the picture. Let me also mention, Flatfoot Fifty-Six sound amazingly tight. It probably helps when 3 out of 4 of the band members are brothers.
Flatfoot 56 call the thriving metropolis of Chicago home, and are currently enjoying, and contributing to some of the great music currently coming out of the Big Windy right now. I must apologise, I’ve been holding on to this album for 8 or 9 months. (Misplaced during a move.) I’m sure they sound even better with almost another year under their belts. If you haven’t heard these guys yet, they have MP3’s up on their website: http://www.flatfoot56.com (And have songs up on the very addictive Myspace.com)
Here’s what I got from the website: Flatfoot 56 was formed during the summer of 2000 on the southwest side of Chicago as a three piece punk band.The brothers, (Tobin Justin and Kyle) started writing songs and putting a line up together in the fall of 2000 and by Christmas time of the same year they were playing their first show. In January of 2001 the band added the one man powerhouse of Josh Robieson to the line up and the band started working on including the bagpipes and a second guitar into its sound. With the addition of a new member, Flatfoot began to perfect their live show and build their fan base. In 2001 they recorded their first demo and the band got busy. In the summer of 2002 the band hit the studio once again to record their first full length album titled The Rumble of 56. This recording was done in Rockford IL. In a studio called the Noise Chamber. After the release of the rumble of 56, Flatfoot 56 was ready for the recording of their second album called Waves of War (2003). This second album saw great advances in the bands popularity. Flatfoot’s song That’s Ok saw some heavy radio play throughout radio stations across the mid-west. The band began headlining shows and even got a chance to play with some major acts in front of large crowds. Things seemed to pick up and the following year Flatfoot found themselves playing on a stage at cornerstone in front of an audience of over 700. It was at this show that the band released their latest album titled Knuckles up. This album has since been the bands best selling record and has shown no signs of letting up.
There’s a few rumors out there regarding them as a “Christian” punk band. Let me be the first one to say… “WHO THE FUCK CARES!” Sure there’s a lyric or two that mentions that topic, but is it going to stop you from enjoying the album? I should hope not. Any band that has influences that range from: The Pogues, The Real Mckenzies, The Street Dogs, The Proclaimers, The Business, Johnny Cash, Blitz, The Clash, Cock Sparrer are more than welcomed in my record player. I’m sure you’ll agree.
August 2005
Review By: Barnacle Brian Gillespie
I would wager that The Kissers have played every pub, club and toilet in the US at least twice in the last twelve months, or so it seems from their touring schedule. The hard work though has really paid off on their latest CD; “Good Fight”. “Good Fight” is easily the bands best release and that’s not a knock to their last release “Fire in the Belly” which is a fine CD in its own right. But on “Good Fight” the band really have their shit together – great playing, super tight and ultimately great songs. The Kissers started off as a Pogues cover band and yeah the Pogues influence is still strong but now they are also swigging from the same whiskey bottle as Johnny Cash (and maybe Jeff Damiler – I guess that’s a Wisconsin thing but these guys can be dark, very dark.) It’s hard to pick highlights cos’ their all highlights but if someone put a gun to my head it would be; the rockin’ opener “What they can”, the redneck version of “Mursheen Durkin”, the gospel rocker, “Kicked in the head” and an anti-war song that would get GWB moshing.
August 2005
Shite'n'Onions 