The Dream Becomes Reality

Most of the plot lines on reality TV shows are paint by numbers -- a fat guy emerges from The Biggest Loser camp with six pack abs here, a drag queen lip-synchs for his life and transforms into a gender confused butterfly on RuPaul’s Drag Race over there. And of course, American Idol is the mack daddy of them all.

I wish I had a camera to capture what has been going on with Beannacht over these last few months. I could sell it as Irish American Idol to one of the networks!

Faithful readers of this column will remember the story I wrote about Thomas Johnston, my mild-mannered accountant and financial planner who told me at tax time that he was going to pursue his lifelong dream of performing music. He raved about his niece, Deirdre Margaret Forrest, 21, and how they would combine their love of Irish and contemporary music in a folk milieu.

“Beannacht is the Gaelic word for blessing, and that’s what this is,” Johnston says. “For this opportunity to come my way at this stage of my life is amazing.”

Since our chat, the duo has become a whirling dervish of music! What started out as a few gigs near their Readington, New Jersey base has snowballed into gigs on the main stage of the Stone Pony in Asbury Park, perhaps the most famous stage in the Garden State.

I caught up with them at that gig. Their set was peppered with both traditional (“Foggy Dew” and “The Parting Glass”) and twisted -- a slow burn acoustic read of Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” was a particular crowd pleaser.

“We like to do these familiar songs our own funky, twisted way, and people really respond to that,” gushed Forrest after their set at the Pony.

Johnston says the duo was so excited by the praise they got for their harmonies and unique approach to music that they have been writing songs that combine their love of rock and culture. A backstage chat with Clannad’s Moya Brennan gave them a sense of urgency.

“She encouraged us to move forward and wants to hear our music when it comes out, so we better get her something before she forgets who we are!” jokes Johnston. With that, recording begins this week on the first Beannacht release.

“Lead you to the promised land/flaxen haired vision I see you in my dreams,” sung Forrest from the stage. The hippy poetry has flourishes of Dungeons and Dragons in it, just like a good Robert Plant song should!

“This year pushed me out there to just go for it,” she says with determination.

What’s your excuse for not going for it? Reality television may not always intersect with reality, but they do have something in common -- the best things in life are achieved when you step outside your comfort zone.

This reviewer tips his hat to the birth of Beannacht! Become their friend on Facebook or visit their Myspace page and follow them following their dreams!

Anthem Is a Gas, Gas, Gas!

Long before New Jersey’s the Gaslight Anthem released their new album, American Slang, this week, comparisons to another famous Garden State rocker have followed them every step of the way.

Both Bruce Springsteen and Gaslight Anthem’s Brian Fallon are proud Irish Americans that display an uncanny ability to tell stories, which is an Irish custom.

“We had the greatest expectations/I saw tail lights about my first wife in the dream I had last night/everybody leaves, why wouldn’t you?” sings Fallon on a track from their classic The Old 59, a song from their last album that personifies the stories of love lost on the open road that made The Boss the great American poet he is today.

To ice the cake, Gaslight Anthem is the highlight of a busy summer schedule on the Stone Pony’s summer stage (they play there August 5), which is the house that Bruce built in Asbury Park.

Musically, Fallon and Springsteen couldn’t be more different. Guitars slash through Anthem’s rhythm section like a rusty razor blade as Fallon pleads his case to the American people.

“Look what you started/I seem to be coming out of my skin/look what you have forgotten here/the bandages don’t seem to keep me in,” he pleads on the title track, kicking off a collection of wickedly addictive songs chock full of unvarnished riffs.

The album is released on the punk label SideOneDummy, and the tattoos that paint Fallon’s forearms give off a brawny aggression as his hands move up and down the frets, but the band knows better than to kill a good melody with speed.

“She Loves You” has a closing time vibe of handclaps and lazy guitars that shake off a night’s worth or drinking, like some of the best songs of the Faces. You find yourself joining the band as they huddle around a microphone for the sing-song chorus of “if all was well and your heart could find the words/would we be for better, baby/would we be for worse/if there was a way to navigate your seas/if tonight my true love/they’d belong to me.”

“The Queen of Lower Chelsea” consists of a restless beat married with a spaghetti western melody created by watery guitars. This is a trick most one-dimensional punk rockers could never pull off.

“We wanted to get away from the big open chords of folk strumming chords,” Fallon explains on the promotional interview video. “This music is in parts, they are riffs like Keith Richards.”

Fallon says he took out the first three Clash records as an influence.

“London Calling is slower and more confident than just making noise, like they did on their first two albums,” he says. “That album was my assurance that I am on the right track. I wanted to make a Clash album that was missing in my record collection.”

There are elements of Paul Westerberg and the Replacements amidst the catchy riffs, Motown chorus and bleak stories. “The Spirit of Jazz” sounds like something from the Replacements’ Pleased to Meet Me, which is just about the highest compliment this reviewer can give.

“You’ve gotta give people something worth buying, something that is worth spending time with. I don’t know if this is a great record, and I don’t know if everyone is going to like it or not, but I do know that it is worth a listen,” says Fallon.

I’ll drink to that. Just when you think everyone is GaGa over pop, along comes an album like American Slang to restore your faith in rock and roll.

The Gaslight Anthem is “born to run” for years to come.

More to Jersey Shore Than ‘Jersey Shore’

I AM MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!

New Jersey has always been the butt of jokes, and as a proud resident of the Garden State I get my back up when I hear jokes about the state bird being the mosquito, or how everyone in the state is connected to the waste management business like in The Sopranos.

TV has been particularly rough on New Jerseyans, with shows like Real Housewives of New Jersey, Jerseylicious, and MTV’s abominable Jersey Shore getting huge ratings on cable. One friend remarked that all of this publicity was making New Jersey hip, but I am deathly afraid that people living in Oklahoma watch these shows and think we all have big hair and fake orange spray tans.

This fear was confirmed over the weekend, when I was at my aunt’s house for a barbecue welcoming some Irish relatives on holiday. “You all seem normal,” says one in a British accent. “None of you look anything like ye do on TV.”

Jesus, take the wheel!!! This drivel has even reached Ireland!

Well, I am writing this column to tell you that the Jersey Shore I know is more green and Gaelic than it is gaudy and Guido, and I encourage the Irish music fans that read this column every week to come on down the Garden State Parkway for the sun and great sounds!

“The Irish here at the Jersey Shore are a lot like those in Ireland,” jokes Mary Reilly, owner of the Irish Centre on Third Avenue in Spring Lake.

“You stop and ask them where there’s a good place to eat around here and they answer your question with a question -- what do you feel like? Where are you from? What are you in the mood for?”

If you are in the mood for a buffet of Irish music, there are a number of Irish festivals in June. The New Jersey Irish festival takes place this Saturday, June 12, at the Lakewood Blue Claws First Energy Park (located right of Exit 89 on the Garden State Parkway).

This is a huge show that continues to draw people from three states, and the talent is exceptional. Philadelphia’s Blackthorn, led by blues great Seamus Kelleher, shares the stage with Celtic Cross from New Jersey and New York’s Jameson’s Revenge. Willie Lynch and the Bantry Boys round out the lineup, along with Girsa, a troupe of wildly talented young gals serving up fiery traditional music.

The green of the ballpark is the perfect place to display your Irish pride. Throughout the perimeter of the field are a host of Irish vendors and foods, with bagpipers snaking their way through the onlookers. This week’s back page ad has all the info you’ll need to get you there.

On June 19, the town of Spring Lake will host the first annual Irish festival in the center of town (Third Avenue). “All of the local merchants chipped in and the proceeds are going to repair the clock in the center of town,” reports Reilly.

“There are four sides to the clock and each one of them tells the wrong time, but they all point to a happy hour time – four, five and six o’clock. Now that’s an Irish town!”

The festivities take place from 1-6 p.m. and features local talent like the Snakes, Bantry Boys and Paddy and the Pale Boys.

Reilly has been a cheerleader of Ireland in a corner of New Jersey that has earned the nickname the Irish Riviera.

“We named the store the Irish Centre because we wanted this to be a lot more than a shop,” she explains.

“We started the shop because a lot of people didn’t feel like paying high prices for Belleek at department stores, but now we host book signings with people like Larry Kirwan, artisan shows, opportunities to meet craftsman from Ireland, and of course, Irish crystal and china.” In keeping with the times, you can visit them online at www.theirishcentre.net.

Reilly has seen the rise and fall of Irish festivals in New Jersey over the years. The festival used to take place at the PNC Bank Arts Center but now has splintered into a number of events throughout the summer.

“There used to be two times to be Irish on the Jersey Shore -- at the Arts Center, on St. Patrick’s Day,” says Reilly. “Now, we have events happening all summer, which is great for our culture.”
Irish festivals also take place on September 18 in Sea Girt and September 23-26 in Wildwood.
My father often tells me about the wicked Irish hooleys that took place at Jimmy Byrne’s, a family nightclub in Sea Girt that gave birth to showmen Mike, Jimmy and Bobby Byrne. When that place closed, no one really kept the tradition of regular Irish music shows alive.

Mad props must be given to St. Stephen’s Green, an authentic Irish pub on Route 71 in Spring Lake Heights. It is rare that a pub in Manhattan hosts a midweek Irish seisiun, but you can witness a ramshackle band of musicians gel into something magical and marvelous most Tuesdays.

On the weekends, local Irish rock bands like the Snakes and Turnpike Mike delight the crowd with diverse selections of songs. If you ever wondered how an Allman Brothers tune might sound next to “Dirty Old Town” on a set list, drop by the pub some Saturday night. For a schedule of music, log onto ststephensgreenpub.com.

If you think you’re gonna see tacky characters like Snooki and The Situation in this neck of the woods, fuhgeddaboutit!

Guggenheim Grotto still laughing

The opening line in the song “Trust Me I’m a Thief” from the new Guggenheim Grotto album, The Universe Is Laughing, sums up the band’s life perfectly.

In the three years since their first album hit the top of iTunes folk charts, Mick Lynch and Kevin May have criss-crossed America to cultivate an audience one gig at a time.

Along the way, they have lost a member (Shane Power was in the band when they first came out), had songs used in major network primetime TV shows like One Tree Hill and Brothers and Sisters, and garnished rave reviews from influential outlets such as Paste magazine, the Boston Globe and the Washington Post.

“I’m throwing myself at the world like a lunatic,” and “if we don’t break, we’re not trying hard enough” are lines from the reflective “Wings and Feathers,” words that May says encapsulates the fierce effort on the duo’s part to find their audience.

“Not everything I write is autobiographical, but that song really sums up the road for us,” he says. “It is a strange time to be an independent band at the moment.

“Sometimes you feel when you are traveling this huge country and you’re in the middle of nowhere playing to 15 people and you say, ‘What are you doing?’ You think you’re a madman when you think about what goes into this life we’ve chosen for ourselves.”

Though their pace might be frantic, the music on The Universe Is Laughing is far from it. It is an album of reflective, beautifully constructed ballads laced with highly literate poetry.

For this reviewer, playing this music in the background got the creative juices flowing as I wrote this review and it stayed on the background as words were crafted for my second book.

“That’s one of the best compliments we get,” says May. “I’ve heard people say they put our music on when they are painting or writing, and it is really neat if your music becomes a part of their creative process.”

This disc is great even if you don’t have a creative bone in your body. It is full of sonic delights that lower your blood pressure.

“Wisdom” breaks up the balladry with a strutting beat and an Israeli violin scratch. “You feel scared/Jesus is your bodyguard/you feel alone take a look in your backyard,” May sings before warning that “a wasted life is a life lived unaware.”

“This is the first album that just the two of us recorded,” May says. “Shane Power was in the band for the first album and did a lot with us behind the scenes on our last one. This is the first one where we played the role of engineer.

“We were recording this while we were stationary in Ireland, and some of it was recorded in a mobile studio while we were on the road. We recorded songs in difficult environments, and I think that is what framed the album.”

They will be playing their new music in a set of showcase gigs in June, playing each Wednesday at the Bowery Electric (327 Bowery, New York, 9:30 p.m. show, $10 admission) and each Thursday at Philadelphia’s Tin Angel (20 South Second Street).

In between those events, they will play gigs in Boston, Maine, and Pittsburgh. Check out the gig section of www.guggenheimgrotto.com for a full list of dates.

“I really feel that the states are a bunch of countries,” says May. “The vibe from area to area is huge. You try to build the good markets that you have and do reconnaissance work in places where you are not as well known.

“Our label is here in New York and it helps. We do better on the East Coast because the cities are closer and it is easier to make a gig pay for itself when there is only a short drive between them. On the west, you have to drive great distances to a gig.”

If you live in Manhattan, you won’t have to drive to hear the great music of the Guggenheim Grotto and The Universe Is Laughing (available on UFO Records). Make it a point to catch this Dublin duo sometime in June.