With kids these days being more au fait with Premiership football teams than local sporting outfits, with techno and drum'n'bass having more musical import than traditional music, and with continental-style bars replacing the venerated pub, the time has come to re-establish Irish values and pull this country away from the malevolent shadow of all manner of "foreign" influences. Cometh the hour, cometh the man: the newest musical icon on the block is a fearless and uncompromising interpreter of the great Irish ballad tradition, a man who, unlike so many of today's "trendies", is not ashamed of his heritage. His name, and remember it well, is Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly and he fronts a unreconstructed trad band called "The Hairy Bowsies", who are real contenders to follow in U2's successful international footsteps.
A sincere, if voluble, spokesman for an almost forgotten generation of brave and true Irishmen, Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly's life story mirrors that of the nation itself as it strove to rid itself of the yoke of oppression, to go marching boldly into a bold, tricolour sunset. Modern types, and those who subscribe to cable television, may sneer at the man's romantic idealism, but if ever we needed a Ding Dong, now is the time.
To understand the unique creative contribution this true patriot is making to the canon of Irish music, it is first necessary to empathise with the socio-cultural conditions that created him: "I was brought up in Inchicore, the son of a fish-seller, and was educated by the Christian Brothers and then at reform school," says Ding Dong. "After a spell in prison in the North for asserting my belief in national self-determination, I decided that music would become my dominant means of cultural expression. One of the first bands I was in was The Wild Mountain Badgers, who were a geographical folk group in that they were always singing about mountains and rivers," he remembers fondly. "I then decided my true calling was in re-establishing traditional Irish values of fighting, drinking and hating the English, so I formed The Hairy Bowsies. I was convinced that I could do more for Ireland through my music than through my pretty impressive violence skills, and I was desperate to rehabilitate the status of the rebel ballad."
Along with his drinking pal, Scribbler O'Donohue - "he's a true Irish intellectual who, like me, is more interested in `The Cause' than The Corrs", The Hairy Bowsies have re-sculpted the musical landscape with a number of visceral and emotionally resonant cris de coeur about the Irish cultural condition. Their landmark song, The Crack We Had The Day We Died For Ireland, is an elegiac masterpiece that bares (sic) comparisons with Woody Guthrie and all other musical voices of dissent down through the decades. Equally moving, in a most poignant manner, is the mournful ballad Flow River Flow (F. . k Off To The Sea) which crystallises all possible nuances of the post-colonial condition. The rousing patriotic anthem, My Heart Is So Full, You'd Swear I Had Tits is undoubtedly a watershed moment in indigenous musical expression, while their heart-rending and lyrical account of this country's Great Famine, The Potatoes Aren't Looking The Best, reduces grown men to tears.
To his critics, who invariably are of the so-called "post-modern" school of critical thought and find his brand of true rebel music to be "dated", Ding Dong replies in a stream of expletives with overt promises of violent behaviour. This of course is understandable, in that like all great artists, Ding Dong, as an honest and authentic voice of the people has to suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous and trendy media. Like Elvis, Bob Dylan and The Velvet Underground before him, Ding Dong Denny O'Reilly is a true innovator, someone who advances music as an art form by not recognising convention and blithely ignoring bourgeois dictates. The one caveat the patriotic critics have about the man's creative output is the inclusion of the controversial (to liberals) song Spit At The Brits. Surely someone as artistically aware as Ding Dong would realise that we are now trying to formulate a new vocabulary with which to articulate the complex, but enhancing, relationship we enjoy with our near neighbours? "I couldn't give a f * *k," is his considered response. The sheer humanity of the man moves me.
The Hairy Bowsies play Whelan's, Dublin on Monday night. Their debut album, A Celtic Dream, will be released shortly.
LOCAL guitar heroes Sack play their first headlining gig in ages at the Temple Bar Music Centre tonight (8 p.m.) before heading off to New York to showcase their considerable wares at the College Music Festival. Expect new material and plenty of the old favourites from the criminally under-rated band . . . Pere Ubu have just been confirmed for a Dublin gig, it's at The Mean Fiddler on November 25th . . . The U2 greatest hits album is in the shops on Monday, but if you just can't wait, The Virgin Megastores in Dublin and Cork will be opening at midnight on Sunday to satisfy demand. For a limited period only, there's an extra CD of B-sides available free when you buy the album.
