the band that best addrsses 'Irishness' and the subject of Ireland

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (124 of them)

View Previous Page...

None of them.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 08:56 (9 years ago) Permalink

― Michael B, Tuesday, 18 May 2004 09:06 (9 years ago) Permalink

and they're German!

― Michael B, Tuesday, 18 May 2004 09:07 (9 years ago) Permalink

THE UNDERTONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 09:09 (9 years ago) Permalink

Microdisney and The Fatima Mansions quite obviously own this thread.

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 09:10 (9 years ago) Permalink

"Well, who are the band that best addresses "Swissness", and the subject of Switzerland?"

NEUTRAL milk hotel! *winks*

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 09:13 (9 years ago) Permalink

> Geez Palomino, way to take the fun out of this thread.

Bah, humbug.

― Palomino (Palomino), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 09:57 (9 years ago) Permalink

really who gives a shit?

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 10:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

correct.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 10:28 (9 years ago) Permalink

itr's the thing i hate abt irish music more than anything else - its obsession w/ self/ makes it horribly parochial and popular with people hung up on "the old country". drives me nuts.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 10:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

That's interesting DS: do you think it differs much from Jamaican music (and music of the Jamaican diaspora) in the 'self-obsessed' and 'harking back to the old country' stakes?

(Possible answer: JA music seems to be on a tip of continuously re-telling / mythologising the present day...).

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 11:03 (9 years ago) Permalink

well there was a thread abot englishness with this exact title and this thread was just meant to be a partner/response to that (it got a lot of lengthy responses and none of these "who cares?" ones, but y'know, i wouldn't want dave to miss another opportunity to be a crushing humourless bore so carry on i guess)

― weasel diesel (K1l14n), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 11:32 (9 years ago) Permalink

and the actual answer is: warlords of pez

― Conor (Conor), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 11:45 (9 years ago) Permalink

the wolfe tones, hairy, wankers.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 11:47 (9 years ago) Permalink

Ha ha

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 11:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

well, tim i guess as i'm not in any way shape or form jamaican i can tolerate it better. being 75 percent irish, this is closer to home for me and i find it very boring. the main thing is that i don't find a similar cloying romanticism in jamaican music harking back to the past...

oh for the days of coffin ships and potato famines.

ps kilian, thank you, you lovely man, you.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 11:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

try living here.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

to be honest, ronan, i reckon liverpool, with its large diasporic population, new york, boston and place like that are worse. and btw kilian, athough it may be "crushingly boring" a huge amount of the bands quoted here are not even irish, its exactly this... 2nd, 3rd and 4th generational whining.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:06 (9 years ago) Permalink

"Not even Irish"

Roy Keane to thread!

There's plenty of romantic sentimentalisation of Africa in Jamaican music though DS, yes? So it's really the Irishness which you find cloying?

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:17 (9 years ago) Permalink

(My ultimate point I suppose being that if people want to self-identify with racial / national / cultural pasts - maybe partial, maybe invented - then that's fine by me and I tend to be uncomfortable with the excoriation of same.)

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:21 (9 years ago) Permalink

I agree, unless it's the House of Pain.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:24 (9 years ago) Permalink

"POGUES TO THREAD, WTF YOU GUYS??"

Ummmm, did The Pogues actually reflect the genuine experience of Irishness and being Irish or did they (and similarly The Men They Couldn't Hang) not in actual fact reflect the (inevitably somewhat distorted and romanticised) impression of Irishness and being Irish that you'd get from growing up (as most of them did) as 2nd generation Irish immigrants listening to their ex-pat. parents sentimental reminiscences about their home land?

Please note I'm not trying to detract from the Pogues in any way, merely to identify them as what they were - a bunch of London punks with Irish parents.

Stiff Little Fingers and Saw Doctors OTM.

How about The Chieftains, The Dubliners, Christy Moore?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

oh well, as ever sorry for having an opinion. off to drink guinness and eat champ in memory of my forefathers

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:27 (9 years ago) Permalink

Top o' th' moring to ya Dave

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:28 (9 years ago) Permalink

Top o' th' morning to ya Dave

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:28 (9 years ago) Permalink

Oops

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:28 (9 years ago) Permalink

2nd generation Irish immigrants listening to their ex-pat. parents sentimental reminiscences about their home land?

... this is kind of my point: that's been one of the key experiences of 'Irishness' for a long time, hasn't it?

Dave, I was trying to make conversation because I'm interested in this subject: I wasn't trying to shut you up.

― Tim (Tim), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

okay, can i say that i don't find irishness cloying in itself? what i do find annoying is the continual romanticizing of a place many of said "irish music"'s fans (and practitioners in the case of the pogues etc) have, at best, a tenuous connection with. i find all this "celtic consciousness" stuff insufferable. it irritates the crap out of me. that said, i do think shane mcgowan was a great lyricist (but of course, he would be wouldn't he, son of the that mylesians that he is). i don't get this from bhangra or dancehall.

― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

I don't like the sectarian connection.

Christy Moore is a good nomination, for this thread. Probably the best I can think of.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

What do you mean by "sectarian connection"? You mean The Pogues' sectarian connection? If so, agreed.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:51 (9 years ago) Permalink

Yes. And Wolfe Tones etc.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 12:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

That Petrol Emotion an' all

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 13:31 (9 years ago) Permalink

"... this is kind of my point: that's been one of the key experiences of 'Irishness' for a long time, hasn't it?"

I dunno about "Irishness" - it seems to be a basic element of human nature that people of all nationalities become increasingly anxious to develop and cling to an increasingly romantic and idealised version of their homeland the longer they're away from the dreary realities of it, yes.

I imagine that if I were forced to spend the rest of my days on some horrible Caribbean island right now, within a couple of years I'd probably start singing mournful songs about how much I miss the joys of driving 'round the M25; the efficiency of South West Trains; the exemplary levels of cleanliness, service and excellent cuisine at the Moto services on the M4; and the wonderfully refreshing rain that occasionally interrupts the glorious sunshine than glints enticingly off the abandoned shopping trolleys that have been dumped in the Kennet canal.

There again....

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 14:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

The real actual answer is: The Moustaches

― Graeme (Graeme), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 14:07 (9 years ago) Permalink

"Banana Republic", The Boomtown Rats

― Stephen Boyle (SBoyle), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 16:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

An Irish band who were truly addressing the burning issues of their country would be writing songs about foreign holidays, house
prices and hospital waiting lists, because they're the kind of things that people here are concerned with.

This makes it sound like Ireland needs a Manic Street Preachers.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 16:36 (9 years ago) Permalink

(Also Irish people can be sentimental self-mythologising alcoholics just as well as "Irish" people, possibly more so)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 17:18 (9 years ago) Permalink

cf the loudest and most (ahem) impassioned singalong I have heard in a pub being to "Lullaby of New York".

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 17:21 (9 years ago) Permalink

singalongs surely are no gauge for anything.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 17:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

> This makes it sound like Ireland needs a Manic Street Preachers.

I'm saying we don't need a house band at all. My thesis is that we no longer have any stories worth singing about.

Actually, there's a native comedy troupe who occasionally appear (Mighty Wind-style) as fake-folkie balladeers, satirising the whiny, recriminatory self-pity that pervades so much of Ireland's "trad" songbook.
They're called The Hairy Bowsies*, and their songs tackle Perfidious Albion (Ye Dirty English Bastards) and sacred cows such as the 1916 Rising (The Craic We Had The Day We Died For Ireland) and the Potato Famine (Jaysus, The Spuds Aren't Lookin' The Best).

(*"Bowsie" is a Dublin slangword connoting a man of low breeding and unpleasant personal habits.)

― Palomino (Palomino), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 19:46 (9 years ago) Permalink

there must be some decent Irish music but I've yet to hear it. I guess the dance scene isn't bad, but maybe it's easier to be passable in the dance scene.

― Ronan (Ronan), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 20:11 (9 years ago) Permalink

The dance scene? You mean Michael Flatley and that shit?

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 20 May 2004 08:55 (9 years ago) Permalink

no dance music
house techno etc
(i presume)

― robin (robin), Thursday, 20 May 2004 18:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

that was lame dada

― Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 20 May 2004 18:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

3 years pass...

philomena begley

― gershy, Thursday, 24 May 2007 07:17 (5 years ago) Permalink

I always wondered if "the ambulance . . . took little Jim away" in the Undertones' song because he committed suicide or because a bomb got him.

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Thursday, 24 May 2007 07:37 (5 years ago) Permalink

What, no-one's mentioned The Cranberries yet :-)

― ailsa, Thursday, 24 May 2007 07:43 (5 years ago) Permalink

No Foster and Allen? It's a disgrace, so it is.

― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, 24 May 2007 07:45 (5 years ago) Permalink

Re: The supposed Irishness of the Pogues. The line-up in their mid-80's heyday was as follows:

Shane McGowan who was born in Tunbridge Wells
James Fearnley who was born in Manchester
Spider Stacey who was born in Eastbourne
Jem Finer who was born in Stoke
Andrew Ranken who was born in London
Cait O'Riordan who was born in Nigeria (before moving to London)
Darrell Hunt who was born in Hampshire

but(although he didn't join till Rum, Sodomy etc)....
Phil Chevron was born in Dublin YAAAAAY!

― everything, Thursday, 24 May 2007 08:35 (5 years ago) Permalink

A lot of 19th century National Romantic composers, painters and authors preferred to live outside their home countries.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 24 May 2007 08:37 (5 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 24 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Women from the UK/Ireland area have the most soothing songs/voices. This girl, Enya, Leona Lewis, Dolores O'Riordan from the cranberries to name a few.
Just something about celtic women singing that calms the soul.
Jarsia 1 year ago 34

― pizza pizza and cult jam (crüt), Saturday, 28 April 2012 07:40 (1 year ago) Permalink

has never heard Dolores O honk like a sealion on "Zombie" i take it

― seapunk run. run punk run! (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 28 April 2012 12:19 (1 year ago) Permalink

the band ronan was looking for singing about young posh middleclass upwardly mobile ireland (but well aware of cultural nationalism's importance to edge in the celt angle) are probably bell x1 tbh, cf reacharound

― diafiyhm (darraghmac), Saturday, 28 April 2012 16:05 (1 year ago) Permalink

but i mean the chieftains were suckin diesel last night on jools holland and if we can go back to the dubliners, those are good answers too.

― diafiyhm (darraghmac), Saturday, 28 April 2012 16:09 (1 year ago) Permalink

just think of all those douce celtic sirens like sinead o'connor, jessie j and the melifluous cerys from catatonia

― Ms Tum-Bla-Wi-Tee (nakhchivan), Saturday, 28 April 2012 16:11 (1 year ago) Permalink

― Dr X O'Skeleton, Saturday, 28 April 2012 16:14 (1 year ago) Permalink

NPR says they deliver “a brilliant co-mingling of electronic music and anthemic pop rock”.[4] The band is named after the Bell X-1, the first supersonic aircraft in history.

― Ms Tum-Bla-Wi-Tee (nakhchivan), Saturday, 28 April 2012 16:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

co-mingling

― Ms Tum-Bla-Wi-Tee (nakhchivan), Saturday, 28 April 2012 16:15 (1 year ago) Permalink

The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem

― Tarfumes The Escape Goat, Saturday, 28 April 2012 20:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

They're called The Hairy Bowsies*, and their songs tackle Perfidious Albion (Ye Dirty English Bastards) and sacred cows such as the 1916 Rising (The Craic We Had The Day We Died For Ireland) and the Potato Famine (Jaysus, The Spuds Aren't Lookin' The Best).

I thought this was Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly, one of whose tunes is reputed to feature the lovely lyric "Flow river flow / fuck off to the sea".

I understand that the same person was also behind Tony St. James and the Joshua Trio.

― The New Dirty Vicar, Saturday, 28 April 2012 21:56 (1 year ago) Permalink

an old website: http://indigo.ie/~lwp/dingdong/

― The New Dirty Vicar, Saturday, 28 April 2012 21:59 (1 year ago) Permalink

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.