The Music
The Style
Well I suppose you could class our style as "Thrash Paddy
meets Jed Clampit". Although primarily an Irish Band playing tunes and
ballads made famous by the likes of The Chieftains, The Pogues, The
Dubliners etc. there are a lot of tunes that forge a link between the Irish
and Blue Grass styles. For example the tune "Miss McLeod's Reel" is as
popular in Irish as it is in Blue Grass.
A few of our 3 part sets tries to capture this spirit,
such as :-
Botany Bay (Irish), Angeline the Baker (Blue Grass),
Miss McLeod's Reel (Both)
Now... we don't do country music... , but we don't mean to
denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate
means 'put down'
(Bob Newhart)
The Magic
The charm of Irish music lies in its ability to appeal to people of all
ages, this is an essential part of its spirit and allure.
Popular music tends to be generational, connecting listeners in one
generation, but dividing them from those in others. In Ireland, because
traditional music has been respected and virtually unchanged for hundreds of
years, you'll often find, as one Irish musician observed, "the tiny tot
sitting down with the pensioner and the judge or lawyer and playing music with the
common man of the street."
Simply put, it is music that somehow helps us cross the barriers of class, age
and ethnicity and makes us feel that we are all in this together. Lord knows,
there is not enough of that going on in the world today.
This, I believe, is the real magic of Irish Music.
The Music
I suppose you can define Irish Music into 3
categories. Traditional, popular and modern. Traditional tends to fall into
the category of the reels, jigs, hornpipes etc. that everybody enjoys a dance
to while popular can be classed as "the old favourites" such as The
Irish
Rover, Star of the County Down and Fields of Athenry.
In recent years modern Irish Music has
become extremely popular. With bands such as Solas, Moving Hearts and
The Pogues all helping to bring this type of music to the forefront of the
music industry. I think it takes a strong willed man not to join in the chorus
of " A fairytale in New York" There are so many new and inspiring artists and
song writers around today such as Christy Moore, Mary Black and Jimmy McCarthy
whose popular songs of today will be the classics of the future.
An example of this would be the song "
Back home in Derry"
Although I did not agree with his politics this was penned by Bobby Sands,
while on hunger strike, shortly before he died. Superbly written this tells
the graphic tale of Irish prisoners deported to Australia at the turn of the
17th century.
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