On 'Celtic Punk'

Kill your heroes

I was dancing around with my 2 year-old the other day, and I put on the Pogues If I Should Fall From Grace With God. He careened around the room with me as the title track played, stopping only to pick out instruments he was hearing: “Dada, is that a violin? Is that an accordion? Dada, is that a whistle? Is that a cello?” (Answers: no, yes, yes, and definitely no, why would you even say that).

Soon the jig-punk “Bottle of Smoke” came on. I remembered my ma telling me that my sister and I used to call it the “screamy song” when we were kids. I told Luke that it was the screamy song, and before long he was screaming along to the bits when MacGowan lets loose with that inimitable howl.

All of this reminded me of how deeply Irish and punk-themed Irish music goes into my personal history. When I rediscovered that Pogues album as an 18 year-old, I immediately picked up the mandolin and learned how to play the entire album back to front, all the instrumentals, everything. I started a ‘celtic-punk’ band that essentially tried—and of course failed—to recreate the Pogues magic. It was the new millennium, Flogging Molly was tearing up the universe and the genre was breathing with new life. It seemed like every city had its own Celtic Punk band, and I madly consumed a huge number of lesser-known bands like The Skels, The Tossers, The Greenland Whalefishers and Waxie’s. I guzzled Jameson and played 40 songs a night at Irish pubs all over Canada and Europe, and I became a useless shit-faced prick just like MacGowan. I did the whole thing.

But I was living a mistake.

If I could send one message back in time to myself, it would be: “don't do that thing with the raccoon, the raccoon isn't going to like it, and you're not going to like it, and it only seems like a good idea because of the LSD”.

If I could send TWO messages back in time to myself, it would be that first one, plus this: you can't become your heroes by copying them, because they didn't copy anyone, that’s why they’re heroes. One of the things that made The Pogues so brilliant—before the wheels fell off the wagon around 1989—is that they were constantly transcending themselves, rushing into new genres, pushing the boundaries while staying true to the core sound. Most fans don’t know this, but their brilliant track “Fiesta” from that same album, mixes an original Spanish horn riff with a traditional German polka. The Pogues did Polka, guys, not because it was a gimmick, but because the Liechtensteiner Polka fucking slaps. They constantly dared their audience to try to put them in a box, because there was never going to be a box.

Slowly, but surely, all of this dawned on me. And when the Dreadnoughts got through releasing a few of their first albums, I turned around to look at the Celtic punk scene I had once loved and quickly realized that just about everyone in it was desperately trying to put themselves in that box. Everyone was singing about whiskey, bar fights, the IRA, and about how amazing it is to be a useless shit-faced prick. They were cosplaying a 1915 British Black and Tan's Ultimate Irish Stereotype:

Fig 1: Your latest Celtic-punk hit, “Everyone’s Drunk, Even The Children”

The bands I listed above avoided this, but many did not. Paid subscribers get to read more honest snark below, where I call out a song, released in 2010, that represented the end of the genre, its final collapse into absurdity, the moment it Jumped the Shark.
So look, if you are an artist or creative type with a hero, take it from me: your number one job is to kill your hero, to find your own voice, to make something they would not have made. There's no formula for this. That's why it's called creativity.

The result was that by 2009, the Dreadnoughts were storming on stage, asking if anyone wanted to hear some Irish Punk music, waiting for the inevitable cheers, and then screeching out a horrible falsetto version of “Tell Me Ma” or some other nonsense before shouting “FUCK IRISH MUSIC!”. Oh look, it's even on video:

I am proud of that. No one in the genre had done it before. Maybe it looks a little childish now, but it had to happen. Kill your heroes.

(Also, should we have recorded that “Beer Beer Beer, Irish Beer” song from the video?? Comment below!)

And now, paid subscribers, prepare yourselves for some gloves-off snark, as I name and shame the song that foretold the end of the Celtic punk genre…