··For Irish bands, green ·.. comes in many shadeS
tomorrow night. Stockton's Wing, a By Jim Sullivan veteran Irish traditionaVrock band, GLOBE STAFF makes its first Boston St. Patrick's ith St. Patrick's Day Day run, playing six area concerts, almost upon us, Irish including one for the mayor and the music is in the air, public at Boston City Hall on Friday. and Irish bands are Black 47, America's best-known booked into pubs, Irish-oriented band, is at the Para Wclubs and concert halls. dise Tuesday. The Wolfe Tones, an The st~dard-bearing, Grammy anti-Engish, {ll·o-reunification band, winning Ch;eftains are here, of just put 1,000 fol~nto the IBEW couTse, at the sellout Symphony Hall CELTIC, Page 26 26 THE BOSTON GLOBE • SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 1995 For new Irish bands, green comes in many shades
• CELTIC "J have to s:-ty we did, really, find fair chance it will be melancholy; if the Undertones, Boomtown Rats, Continued from Page 21 maybe the saddest song in the whole you're up and about, you want to Stiff Little Fingers and Virgin Hall in Dorchester. Irish traditional canon," says Faith write reels and jigs." P1·unes. Out of punk came the main What explains the appeal of Celt full, "the real heartbreaker." She Larry Kirwin - an h·ish-born stream breakthrough of artists such ic music? says the other song she'll sing to singer-songwriter who immigrated as U2, Sinead O'Connor and, most Let's first ask an English singer morrow, Mary O'Hara's "I Know My to the United States in the mid-'70s recently, the Cranben·ies. who has spent most of her recent life Love," is "a lot cheerier." - ti·onts Black 47, a New York-based Robert Young, a native Dubliner in America, living outside Boston for The success of "The Long Black band that plays the Paradise Tues who relocated to the Boston area, a couple of years during the mid-'80s Veil" - it recently went gold, signify day. Black 47 mixes the up and the has assembled a trio of Irish bands - and now in New York. ing sales of 500,000 copies in the US; down, and they've made im·oads in Blink, Frames DC and the Pale - "It's soul music," says Marianne it is Top 20 in many countries - has both alternative rock and Irish music that v.-ill frequently share a bill at Faithfull, on the phone from New shocked a lot of people, including the scenes. "We play two different cir m·ea clubs in the upcoming days. The York. "And it's got a very charming, Chieftains, says their publicist cuits," says Kirwin. "The rock circuit timing is certainly right if you're silly side to it, too, which r think peo Charles Comer. "They're an over and a circuit of our own, where we talking about people's thoughts turn ple like as well. [The Irish] don't night success after 31 yean;," says just take over an Irish bar and play ing toward Ireland around St. Pa take themselves that seriously, Comer, with a laugh. "I don't think for the door, circumventing the rock trick's Day, but these bands aren't therefore when they want to be in the Chieftains realize it yet." The 'n' roll machine." cut from traditional cloth. credibly serious they can." Chieftains, led by Paddy Moloney, Kirwin pens character-based, "It never played a part in my Faithfull knows of what she were featured on no fewer than sev story-driven songs. He explains life," says Blink singer Dermot Lam speaks. She collaborqtes with her en national TV programs yesterday. Black 47's ethos as "coming from bert. "There have been a few bands I longtime pals the Chieftains on the Morris Lennon, fiddler for Stock that [Irish] scene and a1ticulating like who used the music in a sort of ' best-selling "The Long Black Veil" ton's Wing, offers this take on the what Irish-Americans feel, both po modern, pop-culture format, but I album, and she'll be singing two popularity of Celtic music: "I think litically and socially. In no way do we personally didn't like what [many] songs with them tomorrow, includ the appeal comes from fact that it's feel ashamed of it; we feel proud did with it. I was brought up on punk ing "Love Is Teasin'," the most dance music. It's in the rhythm. And we're representing, to some degree, rock. When you're a kid you want to wrenching song on the album. "Love of course, the melodies - Celtic 44 million Irish-Americans. I would listen to something loud. ·is a treasure when first it's new," melodies tend to be 'ear friendly.' sooner be influenced by Irish tradi "We're fundamentally a rock croons Faithfull in her trademar k l1'he emotional range] is full scale. A tional music th.an R.E.M. " band, but we derive a lot of influ cracked voice. "But as love grows lot of the music we write is deter All that is rish is not, of course, ences fi·om the dance culture as well. older, then love grows colder I And it mined by your own frame of mind. If traditional. Va Morrison fans know We use a guitar-bass-keyboard faci es away, like fhe morning dew." you're not feeling great, there's a this, as do pu k fans of bands like sound; we also use loops and sam- Black 47, a New York outpost of new Irish music. pies. We're from Ireland, and that ers, too." kind of stuff, but somebody says a Frames DC were slated to open band is from Ireland, the flrst thing for former Pogues lead singer Shane I think of is trraditional Irish music MacGowan at Avalon before he can and we're very far from that." celed after a close friend's death. "If Lambert was awed to work with there's a word for our songs," says producer John O'Neill, a hero from Hansard, "I'd say 'redemption' songs the U nde1tones. "I was 7 when they - about not giving up. It's been a were doing their business," he says, "but I remember it well. [Meeting tough few years and you sink or him]was like bumping into a! eg swim. Our music goes from_ hard to end." soft, a whole spectmm. If you had to Lambert says he was initially compare, fit might be] a Grant Lee hesitant about joining up with the Buffalo or R.E.M. sort of thing." other two Irish groups - "sort of like Black 47 sees itself as a New flying the Irish flag, waving the Pad York answer to the Pogues, who in dy shamrock," he says - but became the mid-'SOs brought an influx of convinced that exposure to US audi young listeners to Celtic music. "The ences and record companies would great thing about the Pogues," says be beneficial. Kirwin, "was they took Irish music Glen Hansard, singer for Frames and put it through the filter of street DC, concurs: "There's this whole Irish circuit thing going on and what life in London. We took Irish music we're trying to do is keep away from and put it through the street life of going straight to our own people .. New York. The links go back to Ire The Irish are great; they turn up for land, but they come through New you - our gig in New York wai:l York with the reggae, hip-hop and packed - but we want to reach oth- . punk."