Barkeep, another Guinness please, with a chaser of Irish if you will. Yes, I’ve just listened to far too much really bad Irish and Irish-American music this afternoon while attempting to find one or two discs which our readers won’t question me sanity for thinking they’re good. And if I hear one more $#*! harpist who thinks she can sing, I swear by the name of all that’s Holy that I’ll give the disc to Maggie, our resident corvid, to tear apart! I reached the point where I was muttering not very quietly an hour ago, ‘What the fuck’s this? Another bloody group with a drunken attitude trying to do Sean McGowan and the Pogues one worse? And what kind of shite is the phrase ‘Psycho-Ceilídh’? Surely this is just another drunken bunch of Irish-Americans who can’t play and certainly can’t sing.’ Oh, but I was so wrong.
Though I didn’t realize it when I started listening to here’s mud in yer eye, I had heard the band before, as they’re on Shite ‘n’ Onions, Volume 1, a compilation CD that one of our favourite record companies, Omnium, released a short while ago. Checking the Green Man mp3 archives, I see Neck had two cuts on the compilation — ‘The Holloway Hooley/Shite’n’Onions’ and ‘The Star Of The County Down (Busta Hollywood Mix)’, two cuts that would have definitely caused the Gentry to have sour looks on their faces! (The Gentry are group of The Fey in Ireland. They like traditional music, smoking, and a properly poured pint. They do not like this sort of music.) Now I was not terribly impressed by the sum total of that album, which I listened to but with scant attention, so I remembered not ‘tall hearing Neck. So in came this CD along with dozens of similar CDs including the previously mentioned cursed harpists — I wasn’t expecting anything terribly interesting.
(Am I jaded? Fuck yes. I’ve heard so much shite between reviewing for Green Man and promoting Celtic bands over the years that I know before hearing a CD the odds favour it being truly bad.)
I put it on … On came ‘McAlpines Fusileers’, a full-bore assault on anyone who thinks that music should be dignified and well, respectful:
‘as down the glen came McAlpines / men with their shovels slung behind them / it was in the pub that they drank there sub / or down in the spike you will find them / they sweated blood and they washed down mud / with pints and quarts of beer / and now were on the road again / with mcalpines fusileers’.
On they moved to more really fast, almost overwhelming, music that reminded me of what the Pogues could have been if they had been a little less political and more interested in just having a good time. They may not technically be the best Irish band from London I’ve ever heard, but they are certainly one of the loudest. Decibel for decibel, they’d give both the Pogues and the Popes a run for their Guinness! Indeed there’s a connection to the Popes as the Neck website notes, ‘Led by song-smith Leeson O’Keeffe (formerly of Shane MacGowan’s Popes), Neck are a six-piece London Irish band playing PSYCHO-CEILÍDH [sic]. Their songs reflect the life of emigrant and second generation Irish, combining the rip-roaring spiritual abandon of Irish songs and tunes with the vibrant electric guitar driven energy of punk rock: This heady mixture is evident in the line-up of whistle, fiddle, banjo, punky guitar(s), bass, drum and vocals — the overall effect is one of total release!’
It didn’t surprise me me ‘tall that they’ve played with bands that I like — Black 47, Kila, The Levellers, The Men They Couldn’t Hang, and The Popes, all bands heavy on LOUDNESS and angry, often political music. Somewhere along the line, punk died and a more traditionally based music, mainly using Irish music as its core sound, emerged. Be it the Pogues, McDermott’s 2 Hours, the Levellers, the Oysterband (on much of their material) or Neck, the result is music that retains both the spirit of punk and music that’s interesting to listen to repeatedly. And I do mean repeatedly. Just make sure that you play it loud enough to rattle the fucking walls as it deserves that treatment. One final note — the moshers would love this album, as it’s also great head-banging stuff!
Barkeep, set ’em up ‘gain. This is music worth drinking too!
(Hibernian Records, 2004)
