Pipes, fiddles, bodhrans, a jig, and a reel are as essential to Irish music as green is to garments on St. Patrick's Day. Today, even U2 is passé as far as deflecting the stereotypes is concerned. Fortunately, then, there's a new crop of Irish émigrés whose irreverence and insurgence are as critical to that seasonal soundtrack as leprechauns and shamrocks are to the old country's folklore.
Stateside surrogates -- Black 47, Flogging Molly, and Dropkick
Murphys -- either have a new album out now or are on the verge of
releasing one. In addition, Ireland's finest native sons, the Saw
Doctors, have a recent effort that's well worth revisiting for this
occasion.
Arguably, no one group offers a better example of modern Irish music than New York's Black 47. The band's new album, A Funky Ceili, finds this often-insurgent combo tampering with the formula with tongue firmly planted in cheek. The basic ingredients are still there -- the rollicking rhythms, the dashed, defiant vocals, and the irreverent attitude that's shaped its sound for the better part of the past 20 years. World music, klezmer, blues, brass, rock, and even rap have been integrated into their standard menu of spit and sass, resulting in a lively if unlikely mix. It's hard to imagine that "Hava Nagila" would find common ground with a brassy Irish reel, but somehow they manage an effective merger on "Izzy's Irish Rose." Likewise, with strains of "When the Saints Come Marching In" setting the stage for "Those Stages," a common culture of celebration becomes all too apparent. Cool, clever, and otherwise unimaginable, A Funky Ceili clearly lives up to its title.
