Review

Bates Motel: Peppermill

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Christ where d’ya start? Lets take the name, it should tell you that if you’re into non-threatening armchair beard growing folk noodling then this really ain’t the band for you! If on the other hand you like your Celtic/Folk Rock on the dangerous side of scary then pull up a chair …this could take awhile – ‘cos we’re about to define a whole new genre.

Cornwall, England’s Celtic out-post – sleepy, laid back and easy going picture postcard Cornwall has had the good fortune for us to produce four of the angriest men on the planet. Lucky then they happen to play the fiddle, drums, bass and guitar while screaming out lyrics saturated in uncompromising lucid anger.

Nothing special there I hear you chuckle, yes I know that the Levellers, NMA et al have covered the same ground before but have any done it to a pounding rhythm section that could kick an Elephant into orbit? Have any done it with a big big fiddle sound that owes more to the rolling guitar breaks and riffs of Nirvana and The Cult rather than it does to a twee theme night in an ‘Oirish’ pub? I think not.

Welcome people, we’ve just found ourselves in a brave new world of Celtic grunge, a world where Bates Motel are the un-doubted kings. The opener ‘Here’s To You’ intros with a fiddle line chunky enough to floor Lennox Lewis before tearing the place apart with thumping drums and bass aplenty. Track two ‘Branches’ a tune with more understated menace than the Yorkshire Ripper on a shrinks couch, climbing heights that would give lesser bands vertigo before descending into troughs of near acapella vocals before throwing you on the back of the richest fiddle hook you’ll ever hear and back up to the heights.

They just keep coming, ‘Talking To The Ghost’ a dub-ska number fully loaded with enough crunching fiddle and guitar to keep the average metal-head drooling for weeks. ‘Twistabout’ a full on folk-punk rage against the world, ‘Final Stretch’, ‘Pigs’ and the glorious ‘For The Cause’ only serve to show the band as unique in a mostly bland and tired scene that relies far too much in what’s gone before.

They are hard, they are heavy, they leave the jigs and reels that the middle classes love alone and concentrate instead on producing a power fuelled look into the future of Celtic Rock that would stand tall amongst any other style of music that you could put against it. It’s as commercial as it is credible, It will only take the first major label to sniff around and you’ll be hearing a lot more of Bates Motel.

Harvey- bass, Paul – fiddle, Andy – guitar and vox and Nimbo -drums, stand up I salute you and thank you for restoring my faith.

October 2002

Review by Steve Davies

Review

The Honeymans: Stompin’ Grounds

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Now this is going to be interesting, an attempt to review an album that is almost impossible to describe! The sound of The Honeymans is somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle, one piece is Celtic Folk, another piece is funk, another is piece of punk, a few small gypsy pieces, and yet another ska/reggae piece. Put the shite together and……it’s The Honeymans!! No questions needed! When it comes to the live shows, Joe Keithley of D.O.A. fame, explains it best, “The Honeymans are truly a unique musical act…. Perhaps most surprising is that they can play in front of punks, hippies, folkies, rockers, and thrill-seekers and they all go away happy.” It made D.O.A. so happy, they invited The Honeymans to open up for them on D.O.A.’s Canadian tour last May.

They are a good time kind of band that include tracks like “Ska Wars” An obvious skankin’ ska song about the Star Wars movies, with lyrics like “R2-D2 when do I get to meet you, no garbage pile is ever gonna eat you…” Another great is the Nomeansno cover, “The Day Everything Became Nothing” Or the one minute track, “Johnny Fire’s Ring Of Cash” complete with perfect Johnny Cash sound alike vocals! “Kneel’s Reels” will please Shite’n’Onions readers the most, with some catchy fiddling, but it doesn’t end there. Every track is a surprise of how much they can twist up different styles of music like a pretzel, eat it right in front of you, then spit out the chewed up pretzel in your face, Honeymans style!! Enough funk to make Flea get up and skank like a Mexican jumping bean on angel dust. If you are in need of some catchy funk-punk ditties with some ska/reggae/Celtic-folk overtones check out this album. Or check ’em out live. With upcoming tours planned for Canada, USA, Europe, & Australia, no one has an excuse not to miss it. (including me, Procrastinator Extraordinare)

October 2002

Review by Brian Gillespie

Review

The Whiskey Rebels: The Whiskey Rebels

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I was very curious to hear this CD after reading GMM Records description of the band as California’s Dropkick Murphys and while certainly this CD starts off brilliantly, Dropkick style with the eponymous “Whiskey Rebels”, with a punky acoustic intro ala “Boys on the Docks” then bursting into the explosive street punk the DKM’s used to do so well on “Do or Die”. The remaining 15 or so tracks unfortunately don’t reach the high’s of the title track. Don’t get me wrong its good street punk and while similar to early DKM’s (musically & lyrically), if you’re going to claim to be anyone’s answer to the Dropkick Murphys you better hit the target every time, and with the exception of “Whiskey Rebels”, the Whiskey Rebels just miss the mark.

October 2002

Review

Lisa Rahon: This is the Lisa Rahon Show

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Boston’s Lisa Rahon is at times a solo artist, at times a front person and at other times a backing musician to bass player and musical partner Phil Laubner’s vocals on her debut CD, “This is the Lisa Rahon Show”. Lisa’s (and Phil’s) music runs a wide range of alternative influences from 60’s garage punk to the Velvet Underground with Nico to the alternative pop of the Breeders and Luscious Jackson. Loads of grungy guitars, strong vocal harmonies and clever arrangements and lyrics. Expect to hear on a college station near you.

October 2002

Review

The Electrics: Livin’ It up When I Die

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Every now and then a CD pops through the door from a band that you really should have heard of before, The Electrics being a case in point. A Scottish band from the “dancing drunk around yer pint glass” school of Folk/Celtic Rock that has left this particular reviewer in a semi-conscious heap on many a Saturday night, and for that I would like to take the opportunity to thank such bands and landlords everywhere.

Anyway back to the Electrics, the rabble rousing leads off with the knees-up ‘Party Goin’ On Upstairs’, a kind of Pouges-ish / country rock romp call to arms led by a redneck fiddle exchanging leads with a breathless whistle, together driven along by a punching drum line. Damn fine start this…you can almost taste the snakebite kicking in!!

The volumes up to the ceiling now and I’m waiting for the next track to give my bouncing soles a lift around the living room, I’m not disappointed as ‘Rollin’ Home’ lets rip. The intros a swirling version of ‘Amazing Grace’ before breaking into a glorious floor-breaker of Slade type proportions with the Whistle as ever leading the way. Carries a big sound this one, due in no small part to the late Stuart Adamson guesting – Big Country being one of the best Celtic Rock bands since God first threw back the curtains.

This is what the Electrics do and do well, big noise big hook lines and even bigger choruses. Mad as it sounds it’s as if they are the bastard sons of seventies glam rock out on a drunken date with the uninvited crusties hanging around the entrance to Glastonbury, madder still – it works as well as a lock in with free Guinness on tap!

The wheels start to fall off around the same time as ‘Come Back Down’ comes out of the speakers, far to close to the Pogues to be decent boys…no I won’t go on – we’ll leave it there. ‘Yer Man McCann Can’ picks up the Magpie mantle with gusto, sounding for all the world as if Dire Straits have entered the building circa ‘Making Movies’. Mind you two turkeys out of eleven ain’t bad is it?

The rest of the album stays on track, hi-energy accordion, whistle, fiddle, big beats and hook lines strong enough to reel in a whale a good time make. All this from a CD sent to me that is SIX years old, if they’ve ironed out the plagiaristic tendencies they should be a band deserving of a lot of attention. You just know that ‘Livin’’ was a CD made by a cracking live band who happened to find themselves in a studio, I’m guessing now that if they were back in a studio they could produce a killer album. Certainly a better cover – a William Wallace look-alike playing flying a V guitar whilst surrounded by pissed off looking Vikings really is as tacky is it sounds.

October 2002

Review by Steve Davies

Review

The Mahones : Here Comes Lucky

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I fuckin love this CD, I’ve had it over a year, reviewed it once already and just can’t stop playing it. I’ve about 500 CD’s at home and this bastard keep screaming at me from the pile “PLAY ME” and like a crack whore I’m back for one more score. Fuck, I left my copy of “Drunken Lullabies” beside this bastard and it melted it. This is everything “Drunken Lullabies” should have been and don’t get me wrong, “Drunken Lullabies” is great CD. This is just greater, much greater. The perfect combination of the Pogues and the Replacements, every song an absolute classic.

Read no further, turn off your computer, go down to the local record store and buy this CD, and if they don’t have it slap the clerk about the head (hard) and order it. October 2002

Review

Stiff Little Fingers: Inflammable Material

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“If it wasn’t for your stiff little fingers Nobody would know you were dead.” – The Vibrators
If any band on Earth at any time was purely fucking incendiary – able to produce the soundtrack and atmosphere of riots, chaos, bombs, explosions, strife, hate and hope – it was certainly Belfast’s Stiff Little Fingers circa the late 70’s. Hailing from a city full of violence and disdain, SLF weren’t some kind of art-students singing about pasting the Queen or Parliament, they were dodging gunfire and landmines, by God – and their attitude reflects this. Recognizing they had a life different from bands like the Clash who had inspired them, but wanting to be part of the same movement, SLF sprang to life. Spurred on by their manager/journalist Gordon Oglivie to write about what they knew, SLF would go on to become one of the greatest punk bands the UK would ever produce, mixing personal agendas with political upheaval to produce scathing melody, truly defining the over-used punk adjective “energy.”

Led by the often imitated but never duplicated gravelly voice of one Jake Burns, SLF sprang to life in Belfast, in 1977, complete with a moniker taken from the above Vibrators song. With guidance from Ogilive, and musical backing from Henry Cluney on guitar, Brian Faloon on drums and Gordon Blair and Ali McMordie on bass, respectively, Burns was soon churning out such slice-of-life classics as “Suspect Device” and “Wasted Life” which would appear as staples of the debut LP.

Released in 1979, Inflammable Material debuted at #13 on the then-important UK Charts. The album itself is a burner. SLF classics fill the LP, from the aforementioned “Suspect Device” and “Wasted Life” to the classic rally-cry of “Alternative Ulster,” it’s a blistering journey through a teenagers Belfast. From the top-speed “He We Are Nowhere” to the musings of “Barb-Wire Love”, all bases are covered. The LP also introduced the bands talent for fusing reggae and punk, by covering Marley’s “Johnny Was.” Throughout their career, the band always retained their love for reggae.

This is Irish punk in its purest form – as in punk from Ireland, from the heart, nothing more, nothing less. No mandolin or tin whistle present, it’s simply geographically and politically a disgruntled bunch of Irish teens that vent their aggression and frustration with everyday life onto one of the best punk albums ever made. So many bands have covered so many songs from this LP, it’s influence cannot be overstated. No excuses for missing this, kids….listen to it and feel what it was like to be blown to hell by a landmine in Belfast…and to survive and persevere.

July 2002

Review by Sean Holland

Review

Donnie Munro: Across The City And The World

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Where do you go after fronting one of Celtic rock’s biggest bands? Obvious really – you head off “Across The City And The World”, the second studio album that Donnie Munro has released since leaving behind Runrig and heading off into the Skye sunset back in “97.

Donnie’s a different musical beast now that’s he’s left to fend off the wolves without the swirling, anthemic song writing of the MacDonald boys. Taking on the writing duties on all but two of the ten tracks sees a mellower side appear, though never completely leaving behind the ‘feel’ of the past – due in no small part to the production being handled by Runrig’s sound squelcher Chris Harley.

The albums at its best when Dave Paton – drums, Duncan Chisholm – fiddle and Sandy Brechin on squeezebox are given their heads to chase the vocals up to ‘jigging’ pitch – “Sweetness Of The Wind” and “Highland Heart” being the best examples of Donnie picking up a pint and pulling on his dancing boots. “Sweetness” especially showing a light for song writing that could’ve been hiding behind a “MacDonald” bushel for far too long.

“Weaver Of Grass” stands out as a song that will live with him forever, a pounding modern classic based upon a tragic story of society’s failings. Building slowly on a guitar intro until the drums are invited to the cause, from which point you can fairly taste the sweat as the vocals are delivered with a passion that must’ve had the veins on Donnie’s neck bursting. This’ll have crowds baying and punching the air from Uist to Utrecht and back again.

Shame then that he felt the need to give Daniel O’Donnell a run for his money with “She Knows Love”, blandness only matched by the sugar coated “You’re The Rose” – the new record company must be demanding a chart single! Finishing on a high with “Calum Sgaire” a Gaelic beauty of a song that sees the man right at home, near acapella with a chorus of Celtic angels behind him. A great way to end – it’ll leave you gagging for the tour to come a knocking. This ain’t no “Big Wheel” – you wouldn’t expect it to be, but it’ll certainly keep him up there with the big boys and after Hypertension’s investment – must have chucked a barrow load of filthy lucre at the C.D.’s sleeve alone – they’d expect nothing less.

July 2002

Steve Davies

Review

Pronghorn: Faster Than A Speeding Mullet

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Debauchery can be a beautiful thing, even more so when it comes with the Pronghorn stamp all over it. Those familiar with the work of Pronghorn – of which there must be many, given the bands almost god like status on the south-coast (of England) festival circuit, not to mention their one band assault on the near continent (Belgium, Holland and Germany) – will need no introduction to any of the tracks on the bands forth studio c.d., “Faster than a speeding Mullet”. A collection of tunes that contains more hits and misses than a drunken Granny out on her first possum shoot.

From the opening bars of “Lady-boy of the Night”, “Irish Thing” and “Don’t Get On My Banjo Case” the band are in to their trademark 100mph banjo led chaos curtsey of Lamma, complemented by a fiddle sounding not unlike a fly-past of particularly ticked off hornets, brought to our ears by Ffi – don’t ask it’s a Welsh thing! When all seven members kick in with “Blue Moon Of Kentucky” the C.D. fairly screams in pain at what its being asked to do. Ah boys and girls this is a masterpiece of Hillbilly mayhem. If the burgers hadn’t have made Elvis leave the building; this would have had him running for his life – glorious.

Pronghorn may never win prizes for subtlety – previous c.d.’s include titles as “Still Inbred With Me Doner”, “Ten Gallon Nads” and “Fat of The Band” – but this is a group that could get the Pope whooping like Naomi Campbell on acid, they truly are Johnny Cash’s bastard son’s. Banging out a brand of Country- Punk that is all their own with a hard-edged attitude that would spit out the likes of the Dropkick’s at first glance and capable of turning any dance floor into the most dangerous mosh pit in Christendom within seconds.

Where this c.d. differs from the earlier stuff, is on the tracks “Roobarb and Kurdish”, “Jewish Thing” and the guaranteed attention grabber “Euro 2000, Disco Hell Mix” worthy enough tunes, together an anarchic trio of Klezmer/Ska influenced numbers that leaves for dead the bands detractors who are usually to be found screaming “one trick pony” and “play a song…they couldn’t play a fruit machine!” into their lonely sherry glass. Which may augur well for the bands musical creditability but well. It just ain’t what Pronghorn are about.

They fill venues with the promise of reckless partying and raising Cain like no other band of the genre. Oh and how it’s needed, gloriously low down and dirty, blatantly irreverent and terrifying to non-believers of good old working class stomp music. In Pronghorns callused hands the squeezebox, harmonica, banjo and fiddle are not so much instruments, more offensive weapons that take no prisoners and long may it continue! If the dalliance with all things musical gathers apace the arts centers will start to circle like hungry vultures waiting to carry the corpse of a once great band in the dreary mediocrity of the middle classes. Oi! Pronghorn stay with cider guzzling Glastonbury and stay away from wine sipping Womad. You know it makes sense.

July 2002

Steve Davies

Review

The Life We Lead: Episode 3 Dropkick Murphys (TV Show)

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“The Life We Lead” is a public access cable show on Boston’s channel 23. Now I know you’re thinking Waynes World, Waynes World, but this is way-way more professional then anything Wayne or Garth ever put out. PBS professional almost.

The half-hour episode is a documentary entirely based on the Dropkick Murphys St. Patrick’s Day(s) Boston homecoming. With loads of behind the scenes footage, interviews with band members and some spectacular live footage from the gig.

If your in Boston and have cable then definitely check this out. It’s on Wednesdays at 10:30pm on channel 23. If not you can purchase copies of past episodes from Sean Hick.

July 2002

Potato-eating, Whiskey-drinking, Bog-trotting, CELTIC PUNK ROCK