Black 47: not your usual diddly diddly dee
Live in New York City
Black 47
Gadfly Records
E-mail <gadfly1@aol.com> for details or order from <http://www.black47.com>
Review by Bill Nevins
1847 was the year of starvation that drove many Irish to take up arms and others to flee to the New World, where they found their fight had just begun.
When I was a student at Iona College, outside New York, our Christian teachers snarled at any mention of that time and of Queen Victoria's lackeys who caused the holocaust. After classes we drank deep, listened to old Celtic laments and the Stones on the juke box, and vowed sentimental vengeance for the Old Country. Some day.
Named for that apocalyptic memory, Black 47 is pissed-off, in-your-face New York attitude rock laced with Irish trad and reggae lilt. Lead singer/writer Larry Kirwan wails, invoking the angry ghost of Irish rebel Jim Connolly, "marchin' down O'Connell Street/the Starry Plough on high", while blasting his Stratocaster over a hard-arse brass and rhythm section.
Co-leader Chris "Seanachi" Byrne growls hip hop curses on "that scumbag, the mayor" and the Sassenach (English) enemy while hammering his bodhran drum or riding soaring Uillean bagpipe lines.
This is not the sedate Chieftains or the tasteful Altan, nor is it the stupid green beer singalongs of a thousand St Paddy's Day bar bands you wish you could forget. This music has guts and brains and a fierce determination to say what boils in the souls of so many immigrants and their children.
This is what happens when the Irish come to the United States and seriously mix it up with the wide world. Lyrics in Gaelic, "Spanglish", even voodoo Haitian. Songs about Paul Robeson, drug dealers, interracial romance, a dying New York cop and a two-fisted gay construction worker from County Cork. Not your usual diddly diddly dee.
And never mellow. Kirwan has been known to tell hecklers to "Shut yer fuckin' faces", and on this CD, Byrne, an ex-cop, scolds rowdy slam dancers, "Hey, fellas, ya know alternative radio don't play us, so we don't have to put up with that alternative bullshit, so quit pushin' the people up front!".
Black 47 shows tend to be rough, rowdy and raucous (the town of Hoboken, New Jersey, was shut down by authorities when 30,000 fans overwhelmed an outdoor gig), but tremendous fun. This live CD, recorded on St Patrick's Day 1998 at New York's Wetlands, captures that wild spirit more than any of their five studio albums.
There are no breaks between songs, so the effect is of one long, mad whiskey-dance building through many crescendos. There are a lot of laughs along the way, as Kirwan hams the role of rogue in "Funky Ceili" and "Different Drummer", and Geoff Blythe (saxophone veteran of Dexys Midnight Runners) and Fred Parcells toss snippets of every Irish tune you half remember into the instrumental gumbo.
Drummer Tom Hamlin and bassist Andrew Goodsight ground it all with a heavy backbeat and infectious rhythmic interplay. The effect is literally intoxicating, with or without pints of Guinness to wash it down.
"The Reels" is a showcase cut of this whirling Celtic dervish, while "Fanatic Heart" is the high point of Kirwan's dramatic incantation: a scary tale of a working stiff pushed to the wall and beyond by the murderous forces of history.
This CD is not perfect, and not for every listener. The voices crack and break, and the players sometimes step on each other. But for all the ragged edges, you can feel the sweat and the moving hearts behind the music. It's a very street-level feeling, shoulder to shoulder with the millions who shove, claw, connive and joke their way through the jungle furnace of our capitalist utopia. Black 47 touches the pulse of that struggle, stares into the horror of it all, and laughs straight back at it!
And any CD which opens with the hopeful Bob Marley cover "Three Little Birds" and closes with Dylan's bleak "Like a Rolling Stone", both flavoured with idiosyncratic Black 47 flourishes, is worth having. This CD is one weird trip, but I think you'll enjoy the ride.
[Bill Nevins is a resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico. He has written on Irish politics and cultural topics for a number of progressive publications.]