The singing Henry Sisters shine

The Henry Sisters. 

Amazing the things you find on Facebook. I saw my friend, the jazz chanteuse Tara O’Grady, was raving about the Henry Girls in one of her posts.

I dug a little further and came up with my new favorite band! Their most recent album, December Moon, is a rewarding trail through the Appalachian Trail by way of Donegal.

Karen, Lorna and Joleen Henry make up the band and they have three more sisters called Clare, Maureen and Anita. According to Lorna, they have been playing music together since we were children.

“There was always a sing-song going on with a few tunes.  It was very much part of family life,” Lorna says.

“In 1999 all six of us were asked to play at a festival in Italy. This was very successful but also a turning point for our other three sisters as they decided not to pursue it as a career. They didn’t like performing. The rest of us decided to make a go of it formally back in 2002.”

You can tell how close the family is based on their pitch-perfect harmonies. They are part country, part folk and mostly sass. If the Corrs and Dolly Parton had a baby, it might sound like the Henry Girls.

“Our musical influences are very similar -- traditional Irish music being a huge part of our musical landscape,” says Lorna.

“We all love harmony groups like the McGarrigle Sisters, the Andrews Sisters, the Everly Brothers. We are also fans of Bruce Springsteen, the Eagles, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits...the list goes on and on!”

Their cover of Costello’s “Watching the Detectives” is pure acoustic reggae fun!

“We did try to give Elvis a copy of our album when he was in Ireland two years ago.  We are told it made its way to him but we never got any personal feedback from him,” Joleen says. “We are however listed on his official Wikipedia page for covering the song!”

Their breakout hit, a cover of the blues staple “Ol’ Cook Pot” made famous recently by the Duhks, tells the story of a widow selling the cookware to feed her large family.  Mandolin, fiddles, and harp make the recipe for a southern fried coating to this homespun story about not having enough to eat.

They got funding from local businesses and the rural development board to make their first CD and haven’t stopped since.

“We consider ourselves a folk band,” Lorna says when asked to describe her sisters’ sound.

“Harmony is a key part of our sound. Also the harp, fiddle and accordion. We play rootsy music with a range of influences including traditional Irish, bluegrass and jazz.”

The band is setting their sites for a return to the U.S. in March. For more information or to check out their sound, log onto www.thehenrygirls.com.

A new dynamic due Anto Thistlethwaite and Leo Moran hit the road

Anto Thistlethwaite and Leo Moran.

Let's turn back the clock — May 1, 1988 in Galway to be exact. A young band called the Saw Doctors was playing at the Late Late Breakfast Show in the Warwick Hotel, a fundraising event for the Galway Arts Festival.

Eleven miles away in the seaside village of Spiddal, the Waterboys were creating their new record Fisherman’s Blues.  Waterboy Anthony “Anto” Thistlethwaite arrived at the Warwick with his sax and got up and started blowing along with the band.

It would start the musical friendship between Saw Doctors guitarist Leo Moran and Anto that will be on full display this month as the duo tours pubs and parlors for an acoustic tour of songs you know by heart.

The show will include different takes on well-known Saw Doctors songs.  “We’ll be playing songs acoustically in our own style — well-known, lesser-known and unknown ones, and telling stories and sharing whatever else comes to mind as we make our way from show to show in our Dodge Avenger rental car,” says Moran.

“It’s all new and fresh and challenging and scary and exciting! It’s going to be a quieter affair. Because it’s just myself and Anto, it is very new and a bit scary. But it will be great fun and let’s face it — I have a 25-year apprenticeship on dealing with audiences and life on the road. I’m not too concerned.”

The big elephant in the room, of course, is the state of the Saw Doctors in the future. Will the band carry on or, as Black 47 announced last week, will they call it a day after their wildly successful 25th anniversary tour earlier this year?

I posed this and other questions to Moran during an exclusive chat over the weekend. Here’s how it went.

We spoke last March and it seemed the Saw Doctors were up in the air and that you were going to go back to your respective corners for a while.  Where is the band now?

We’re taking the time off and it is exactly where I left it with you last. We will have no real discussions on it for the next few months. Believe it or not, it’s almost too late to book something for March of next year in the States now even if we changed our minds, so I could tell you for certain you won’t be seeing us next winter.

Faced with that, some of us are looking forward to the break. But for Anto and I, we would have been bored just hanging around so we decided to record an album and get on with it.

How are you feeling about the Saw Doctors hiatus? Angry? Relieved? Confused?

I went through all those things. I love touring and playing. If that happens inside the band, great. But I like to live in the present. Touring and recording as a duo brings us new challenges.

Since we stopped playing with the Saw Doctors I’ve had time to reflect on the band and what it was and what it wasn’t. I always wanted to make it something more.

If we do get back together, I would want to go about things a different way. But for now it’s in the rearview mirror.

I would imagine this will be a lot different for you, touring as just a duo. 

Yes! We are driving ourselves around. There is no sleeper bus chauffeuring us from gig to gig in the middle of the night.

I am really looking forward to it. Looking forward to avoiding highways, getting lost on the roads, exploring. There are only 100 miles or so between gigs, so we will have the opportunity to do that.

We are selling the CDs and booking the hotels by ourselves. A whole new experience.
Tell me about the album.

We recorded it at Anto’s house.  He has recording stuff in his loft. We figured out how to work the songs in new ways.

We hit on some Saw Doctors songs that are lesser known. There were some unrecorded tracks that both Anto and I had laying around.  Our motto on this project was, “It didn’t come out as bad as we thought!”

What was the recording process like? 

It’s liberating and scary. We are the only two human beings that heard it because it was done in Anto’s house. Usually you have engineers, managers and other band members weighing in on what they think of things. We had no independent judge, which was strange in a way.

We brought it to Sun Street in Tuam to have it mastered. Kenny is our engineer. His first comment was the sound quality, with Anto’s prowess with the recording knobs. He did a great job mastering it, from making it into a tape form into a record.

It’s not a groundbreaking, bestseller kind of record. This is going to be more or less what they heard of the night, not much fancy stuff on it.

What have been some challenges around putting this new project together?

For one thing it has become awfully difficult to enter the U.S. You have to get your visas and tax stuff before you come in. If it were myself and Anto we never would have figured it all out. Thank God we have management.

There’s this feeling within the Irish musical community that coming to America is more hassle than it’s worth nowadays, and that is sad because it deprives American audiences of some great new Irish voices.

How have fans reacted to the duo? 

You don’t get a huge reaction when you’re announcing small stuff, the micro goings-on of the people. We are getting great reactions to the shows and selling shows.

For a full listing of tour dates and to buy tickets go to: http://www.leoandanto.com/

A momentary detour: roaring back to work after a sudden layoff

Mike Farragher "Will write for food"

With seven words uttered during a hastily arranged conference call from the corporate office, your life has detoured into the dark neighborhoods of one of your worst nightmares.

I’m afraid your position has been eliminated.

This is communicated to you in a heavy German accent, which makes the word “eliminated” sound like it was dug from the plot of a James Bond novel. You half expect your home office chair to drop when the trap door springs open below you, a maniacal laughter echoing as the super-villain relishes his upper hand.

But none of that transpires; the conversation shifts to a bloodless business transaction in which a Human Resources representative beeps in with the details of your separation  package while the document he is reading from gets dropped in your email box “real-time.” The whole thing takes 15 minutes and ends with the most awkward attempts at well wishes imaginable.

You text your wife who is pacing in the other room: “I am being let go.” The call ends and you hug briefly but your mind is not in the moment. No, the calculator inside your head is whirring on overtime as it attempts to determine just how many months the severance will last before your family of three women and two dogs are forced to live in a discarded shipping container along the New Jersey Turnpike.

It is not until later that evening when you actually have to vocalize your news aloud for the first time (instead of merely texting it) that the emotions come like a torrent of white water through an echoed mountain cavern.  A raging current of anger, grief, shock, and anxiety violently rips your boat from the anchors momentarily, leaving your hapless friend on the bar stool nearby to grip your shoulder in an attempt to shield your red-faced blubbering mess from the other patrons.

A stiff drink is called for and the stiff reality sets in.

“Thank God you have this writing career of yours to fall back on,” says the friend. But only your accountant and 90% of published authors know that the royalties from the thousands of books you’ve sold over the last year amount to little more than scotch and vacation money compared to the take-home of your day job. 

You decide not to tell your kids or your parents just yet, refusing to build “worry factories” around you at a time when you have to stay positive. Makes sense, though you’re not fooling anyone. Your kids look to you as a hero.  Your parents are the architects of your success; their Irish immigrant dreams were the blueprint and the overtime shifts and waitressing tips are the foundation and scaffolding that produced your rise in the corporate ranks. The thought of letting them down is excruciatingly painful. Despite writing two books of essays that profess your new found freedom from the Irish Achilles heel of “worrying about the neighbors think,” you are confronted by the concerns you have about how this layoff stuff will play out inside your family. You muster the courage to speak to them and when your little one shrugs and says, “this will turn out because you are awesome, dad,” the blubbering red faced guy on the bar stool makes an encore appearance.

You are a proud and vain Leo, the elder brother and cousin who swoops in to guide the young’uns from time to time. You are a contributor. You are not someone used to having others contribute to you, which is why those first few phone calls to old bosses and colleagues asking for their help are so difficult. Will they take your layoff to mean that you are no longer good enough? You are bolstered by their responses and your LinkedIn profile is soon stocked with one glowing colleague testimonial after another.

Vulnerability is not a suit that fits at first, but you soon pair it with a power tie and make it work.

You are an overweight white middle-aged middle manager. What this means is that career pursuits as an American Idol contestant or an on-camera porn star are ill-advised and soon ruled out.

What this doesn’t mean is that your best days are behind you. Your last performance reviews were outstanding and you produced breakthrough results that changed paradigms inside your company. You take stock of your accomplishments and more importantly, forgive yourself for everything you did and did not do in your last role. That clear space floats your clear-eyed confidence that this restructuring had everything to do with your company’s choice to shift focus and nothing to do with your performance. “I will not be marked down and my next employer is extremely fortunate to nab such a high performer” becomes your mantra.

That ground of being serves you well and it becomes a yardstick that measures your every thought; if your current mindset or actions do not bring you any closer to that new position, you drop them and find something else to do and be.

That’s not to say that you are immune to low moments. The emails stop immediately after the news of your separation, putting your actual significance in the business world and its inhabitants in proper perspective. The loud pulley on the flatbed that jerks your corporation’s Mercedes onto the back of the tow truck startles the neighbors, who bend their vinyl blinds slightly to survey the scene with their jaundiced eyes. The status symbol on your driveway is gone, “Mind giving me a ride to small claims court?” you joke gamely as you wave to them from across the street through a crocodile’s smile.

You are consumed in the preparation for final interviews in three different companies.

You read somewhere that Olympian athletes at peak performance still rely on coaches with sometimes opposing perspectives to make the difference between the gold medal and the bronze one. You stare at your iPhone, confronted by the calls you have to make asking for help yet again. When you push through, you are overwhelmed by the amount of people that move heaven and earth on their schedule to help you. Leaders that you deeply admire get on the line for “clearing calls” before your final interviews to sweep any dis-empowerment from your gray matter and help you paint the ‘eye black’ on for your best game face.  

The youngest daughter starts high school this week with butterflies about this next chapter in her life. You know the feeling. This new job you’ve just accepted offers more intellectual and financial nourishment than you could have hoped for and the road ahead will certainly be winding and bumpy as you come up to speed on a new culture.

You replace the Mercedes with a Lexus, paid in cash not only because you can, but because no one will ever repossess your wheels ever again. Life motors on with more horsepower and the detour fades into the rear view mirror. 

Mike Farragher's essays can be found in his essay books. For more information on them, check out www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com.

Saw Doctors take a sabbatical while planning acoustic road show

Leo Moran and Anthony Thistlethwaite.

After their sold out March 2013 tour of the U.S. and after touring for 25 years, the ever popular Irish rock band the Saw Doctors decided to take a year-long sabbatical.

However, knowing that rust never sleeps, two band members and friends, Leo Moran and Anthony Thistlethwaite, have decided to team up and put together an acoustic show to take on the road.

They hit the US on September 20 with approximately 22 gigs and may add some more as they go.  The show will include different takes on well-known Saw Doctors' songs.

“We’ll be playing songs acoustically in our own style -- well-known, lesser-known and unknown ones, and telling stories and sharing whatever else comes to mind as we make our way from show to show in our Dodge Avenger rental car,” says Moran.

“It's all new and fresh and challenging and scary and exciting!”
I will have a full interview with Moran next week, but for now start booking these shows into your calendar. For a full listing visit www.leoandanto.com.

Celtic rock band Black 47 announce plans to call it a day

Larry Kirwan of Black 47.

Black 47 has been an institution in New York for almost a quarter century, single-handedly creating an Irish American music scene where there was none.

For many, like myself, the band spoon fed us our Irish culture and history atop power chords and block rockin’ beats along the way.

Now, the band itself will become history. Founder Larry Kirwan has decided it’s “last call” for the band within the next 12 months as the band tours behind their new album, Last Call.

There won’t be any Behind the Music documentaries about the disbanding of his band because of ill-will, according to Kirwan.

“There's perfect harmony in the band, no rows or personality problems.  We just decided that we'll have played exactly 25 years, the band is sounding great right now and why not go out at the top of our game playing new material. I felt it was the right time, and when I spoke with the band they felt the same way,” he said.

Kirwan was readying a new compilation CD, Rise Up, which are more political songs. As soon as he came up with the idea of disbanding in 2014, a gush of new music flowed out of him.

“I hadn’t written anything for the band in a couple of years,” he says. "Then I wrote 10 songs in three weeks. I could hardly stop it! A lot of the songs are organic, very up, very New York, which would highlight the band a bit more.

“I wanted to make a more bluesy, driven Black 47 sound and then it just really flowed. After five songs, it was like, f*** it, let’s go all the way and do an album!”

Black 47‘s sound has been unclassifiable. A typical live set would touch on the fury of punk, the melody of Irish trad, and the occasional lick of reggae for good measure.

Kirwan hopes to bring that same diversity to the Last Call, as it would be the ultimate tribute to his adopted city.

“New York was never a place that had this precise sound,” Kirwan says. “Detroit sound has its stamp. New York musicians don’t have that, and we have always explored what it sounds like to be a band on this island.

“So, we have this slap-happy feel to it where it would not be uncommon to have salsa, klezmer and jazz in the same set.”

Kirwan is mindful of the impact that stepping away will have on the Black 47 community, with fans meeting in groups and planning their travel to coincide with the band’s gigs on both sides of the Atlantic. He hopes the long goodbye will give everyone a chance to see the band.

Because of the rabid following the band draws, Kirwan thought it best to give the fans  at least 12 months notice.

“People will see when we’re playing and then they make plans to travel to where we are and make a weekend out of being in New York or whatever city we’re playing,” he says. “It’s a year away and I want to give everyone the chance to see the band if they want to.”

This writer has seen this coming. Kirwan is so busy with a weekly newspaper column, producing Sirius Celtic Crush radio shows, book and play writing, soundtracks, musical theater production and solo touring.

It would seem as though Kirwan has diversified in an attempt to gracefully step away from the rigors of touring. Not so, according to himself!

“Black 47 is always a positive thing,” he insists. “I’ve always written music inside and outside the band. Black 47 is this magic place where there are five other guys to get energy from. So, Black 47 was always liberating, not limiting.

“Yes, getting in a van and driving 400 miles can be draining, but we always had a great time in the van and then you had a great time onstage and then you get back in the van. Even in the most stressful times it was a comforting place to be.”

Once I was done holding my breath until my face turned blue, Kirwan reluctantly handed over a rough draft of his new book, tentatively titled Celtic Crush.

I’m about a third of the way through it and it is a delightful read that blends Irish musical history with notes in the margins from a music fan that was there for most of it. Of course, Kirwan’s razor wit keeps each page sharp and tart!

“I drew from my friendships I have with the likes of Horslips and knowing them.  I knew their roots, and seeing them come over here and how they integrated American music into their sound,” he says.

“I had a good seat as watching these trends emerge. I mean, I saw Van Halen open for Horslips in the Palladium. I think Rory Gallagher was the one thing we had that was ours and better than everyone else’s. I remember that and I explored my feelings about that. In that reflection, I think a lot of the music I wrote for this album came out of the experience writing the book.”

Recalling his life and the impact music had on it gave Kirwan a new appreciation for the melodies that inspired him to get into the rock and roll business.

“I went back to the music I first heard while in Wexford and putting it against the fact that all Irish music was affected by the Troubles in the North, what it was like to feel the American influence once you came over, Irish and American music as I saw it,” he continues.

“I can hear in the cadence of Van Morrison the hymns that I remember hearing from the Pentecostal churches when my uncle took me to Belfast.”

The book firmly in the horizon, Kirwan prefers to think in the here and now. There is an album to record, a farewell tour to plan.

“It's been an amazing run,” Kirwan says.

“Looking back, the career of the band is almost a mirror of Irish America in particular and America in general. From the early Irish political days with the Guildford Four and Joe Doherty campaigns through 9/11, Iraq War, financial collapse.  I’m not sure how I will feel when it all ends but I’m feeling great about meeting our old friends on the road for one last call!”

New Jersey will get their first shot at a “last call” with the band at the Red Bank Oyster Festival on the 22nd, the Jersey City Irish Festival on 28th, and Johnny Mac’s in Asbury Park on October 13. For a full schedule, visit www.black47.com

Here's Black 47 singing "Funky Ceili":

Halfway to St Patrick’s Day New Jersey Irish festivals on tap

Celtic Cross.

September is not only the marking of back to school season, it also marks halfway to St. Patrick Day!

The 2013 Irish Festival at the Jersey Shore will host its 15th annual event at Sea Girt National Guard Armory on Saturday, September 14. Chairperson Jack Sullivan expects this to be the best festival yet.

“We have three stages of music going on all day long, Irish step dancing, ceili dancing, a Civil War reenactment, and a Catholic Mass in Irish,” Sullivan said. “We have an Irish language class. All the kids come and get their name tags with their names written in Irish, not English.”

The event will feature local and international bands including Derek Warfield and the Young Wolfe Tones, Celtic Cross, the Bogside Rogues, Round the House, and the Birmingham Six from Philadelphia. Celtic Cross has been dropping some smokin’ new tunes from their upcoming new album into their sets so you will not want to miss this!

The Irish shopping village will offer a wide assortment of vendors. The festival runs from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Admission is $7 in advance, $10 at the gate, and children under 12 are free.  Visit www.njshoreirishfestival.com.

On September 17, the actual half-way to St. Patrick’s Day, there will be a hooley at Blackthorne in Kennilworth, New Jersey.

I will be reading from my book, This Is Your Brain on Shamrocks, while Patrick Clifford will thrill the crowd with original and traditional Irish ballads as Irish step dancers high-step it.

This will all be staged to raise awareness for bone marrow registries. The Love Hope Strength Organization will be on hand to collect cheek swabs from attendees that will in turn produce DNA samples that will be logged into a bone marrow registry. So, get cheeky with us at the Blackthorn (651 N Michigan Avenue; 908-687-3311.)

Damien Dempsey rocks Asbury Park

Damien Dempsey.

There was an ecstatic greeting for Damien Dempsey when he hopped onstage at Six Ten Bangs, a new trendy bar and nightclub in Asbury Park. He responded with “Negative Vibes,” the  reggae-fied anthem for positive thinking.

“I’m never gonna let/your negative vibes get through to my psyche,” he shouted, empowering the crowd to sing along.

He toasted the crowd with a Guinness. “My ancestors put all the Guinness kids through college with their pints,” he joked. “Of course, they never got around to putting us through college!”

Dempsey’s new album Almighty Love was well-known by the fans, and the songs fit well with the ones from his rich back catalog. On the new song “Canadian Geese” he uses the flock of birds flying over the homeland as a visual to describe the emigration of Irish youth during this desperate economy.

He has chronicled Irish life throughout the years, including the Irish slave trafficking by the British on 2007’s To Hell or Barbados, or the rampant drug trafficking that was ushered in by The Celtic Tiger on “Ghosts of Overdoses” from 2004’s Seize the Day.

Like many great artists, Dempsey’s songs are so much more than tunes. They tell stories of Ireland in the same spirit that Bob Marley describes the island of Jamaica or Bruce Springsteen sketches the shadows and light in the neighborhoods of Asbury Park.

Dempsey took the opportunity to tip his hat to Springsteen. He said he is still buzzing from supporting “The Boss” during his wildly successful Irish tour during the summer.

“It’s a month later and I’m still up on a cloud thinking about it,” Dempsey said from the stage. “I still can’t believe I hung out with Bruce at the hotel, singing songs until three in the morning.

“If that wasn’t enough, he shook my hand after that and said, ‘Thanks, great show.’ I haven’t washed my hand since. He’s the best performer I’ve ever seen.”

This reviewer might say the same thing about Damo and his crackerjack backing band. They breathed new life into his classics like “Sing All Our Cares Away” from 2005’s Shots, and new classics like “Bustin’ Outta Here”  and the call for tolerance that is “Chris and Stevie” from Almighty Love.

“Even big gorillas like me need love,” he said as he introduced “Hold Me,” his disarming romantic ballad.
“Girl I've been hurt in the past, cut up/I find it hard to bring down my guard/Hold me closely and softly sweetly kiss my lips, my lips,” he sang.

With the combination of his square jaw, trim physique and the salivating female bartenders nearby that were looking on adoringly, this writer suspects Damo doesn’t go without “spooning” for too long when he’s on the road!

The unclassifiable Damo shifts gears from the romantic to the hardscrabble realities on Dublin’s streets in the set. “Some boys want to get me / Because I hit one back / I still can hear the crack / Of his head on the concrete / Doin' drugs and drinkin' / Makes you so depressed / And then you think you're blessed / When you're dropping a tablet,” he sings on “Factories,” a set highlight.

“They’re trying to wean Irish students from their history in schools nowadays, and I think it is my duty to keep that history alive through songs,” Dempsey announced defiantly.

He showered the crowd with a number of traditional ditties, including a rap-ified “Rocky Road to Dublin,” “What’s the News” and “The Auld Triangle,” which closed his two hour set.

Hop a flight, get a babysitter, and do whatever you have to do to see this Irish treasure on our shores!
For tour dates, visit www.damiendempsey.com

1st Irish Theater Festival turns to music

Mary Courtney.

The Origin Theatre Company’s annual 1st Irish Theater Festival has become a staple in Irish American culture as it runs the full month of September.  This year the festival is bringing a musical component to the performances and presents the first annual 1st Irish Music night.

Taking place on September 20 at Arlene’s Grocery (95 Stanton Street), the show will include some familiar faces as well as fresh voices on the scene who will get the recognition they deserve.

Mary Courtney is a staple of the Manhattan music scene, and she will kick things off at 8 p.m. sharp. The 26 year-old Belfast singer Gareth Dunlop might be new to some music fans, but his tune “Wrap Your Arms Around Me” has been featured on the movie soundtrack to Safe Haven.

Ashley Davis’s ethereal spirit makes for a memorable show when she blows into town and takes the Joe’s Pub stage by storm. She will play at 10:40 p.m. John Munnelly and John Gribbin round out the list of old and new faces.

You can get tickets on the 1st Irish Website and directly at Arlene’s Grocery.

The Moz's movie "Morrissey 25: Live From Hollywood High" (VIDEO)

Since catching Morrissey live over the last few months has been tough, given his many cancelled shows and illnesses, you might have to settle for "The Moz" on the big screen.

Eagle Rock Entertainment's legacy concert film, Morrissey 25: Live From Hollywood High, the first authorized film about the legendary musician in nine years, will open in cinemas across the U.S. this month.

Filmed live during Morrissey's most intimate gig in decades at the Hollywood High School in Los Angeles on March 2 of this year, the film celebrates 25 years of the solo career of one of the world's most iconic and enigmatic performers.

The film opens with fan tributes, people talking about their unwavering devotion to the singer and the unique appeal of this unusual venue - a striking contrast to the sold out arena concert at the Staples Center on the previous night.

Tickets to the concert in the 1,700-seater school auditorium were sold out in 12 seconds, and this now legendary concert became Morrissey's penultimate performance on his U.S. tour.

Featuring many classic tracks from the artist's prolific repertoire including "Meat Is Murder," "Everyday Is Like Sunday," "Please, Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" and "The Boy With the Thorn In His Side," Morrissey 25: Live From Hollywood High is a must cinema event for his fans.

Singer has a talent that is Everlasting

Everlast.

Everlast has shed more skins over the years than a rattlesnake and now he has done it again with The Life Acoustic.

He began his career as lead rapper for the House of Pain, the Irish American rap group that produced "Jump Around."

While he has kept up the hardened street cred with the occasional return to rap or House of Pain reunion, Everlast in recent years has been known for his bottomless baritone that drips with soul.

He has had a string of successful albums that mix rock with hip hop beats (download his fantastic cover of Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues" and you'll see what I mean).

With The Life Acoustic, the artist formerly known as Erik Francis Schrody has re-imagined some tunes from his back catalogue to make them safe for consumption at your nearest coffee house.

For the most part, this works like a charm. The cocksure MC that used words as bullets on "Children's Story" back in 2000's Eat at Whitey's has been replaced by an urban poet 13 years later.

The turntable swishes of the original have been replaced by blues chords on a piano, and Everlast's grizzled voice ensures he "keeps it real" in this new rendition.

"They call me white center/black martyr/live wire/firestarter/jungle brother/redneck cracker/sex junkie looking for a dealer," he sings on "Black Jesus."

The lyric describes his artistry perfectly. Everlast has gone from inspiring white rappers like Eminem to penning theme songs for television shows (Saving Grace), playing both sides of street cred and industry cred without a hint of irony or in-authenticity. On The Life Acoustic, he does it again.

There is one bum note on the disc.  He puts a question mark at the end of "Jump Around" on the track listing, and with good reason. The song is a pointless shuffle that is so bad that I had to immediately jump around to the original House of Pain version to cleanse my eardrum.

Other than that, The Life Acoustic is a life worth hearing. Check it out on Everlast's website at http://www.martyr-inc.com.

Foy Vance, the joy of nothing is something

Foy Vance.

Fair play to Foy Vance, who impressed the tastemakers on iTunes enough to make his swooping single, " Closed Hand, Full of Friends" the "free tune of the week."

Vance was born in the Northern Ireland town of Bangor before settling in Oklahoma. He was raised on southern fried sounds that he heard when he traveled with his dad in the deep south and it shapes Joy of Nothing, his excellent new disc.

"I have known your love and I have known your hate/I have watched you devastate to liberate," Vance sings with a sense of urgency that calls to mind when that "screen door slams" during Bruce Springsteen's "Thunder Road."

Vance is a devastatingly potent storyteller. He has toured extensively with some of the biggest names in music, including Bonnie Raitt, Snow Patrol and Ed Sheeran.

Many of those artists have returned the favor. Raitt adds her sandpaper vocal to "You and I," a beautiful acoustic ballad, while Sheeran pitches in for the haunting "Guiding Light" that closes the album.

"Ed is inspiring to be around, he is connecting with his generation," Vance tells the Limerick Post about his friendship with Sheeran, who is single-handedly causing a folk revival here with some massive acoustic hits.

"He is the most unlikely pop star ever, 'cos he is so down to earth in many respects but he can make everyone feel like they are the only person at the gig. We have been writing music together. He has become a very close friend. We keep in contact all the time."

Vance also scored the Oscar-winning short-film The Shore with David Holmes, who collaborated with Vance on his 2012 Melrose EP.

A more apt name for his Joy of Nothing album might be No Joy in Love.  The songs chronicle love lost, karma biting you where it hurts and the feeling of hopelessness when you get kicked to the curb.

"Paper Prince" starts out with a sluggish strut and a slinky bass line as Vance chants, "I'm on my own again as the sun still shines."

"I tried to do what I felt was right/but I know I f***ed it up sometime/but at least my heart was open/you were the one who crossed the line/but you could not go the extra mile/so I did what you were hoping/at least my blood keeps pumping/I have known your love and I have known your hate/" he sings on the brilliant "At Least My Heart Was Open," an album standout.

Like a Pixies song, Vance's music goes from a quiet acoustic strum to a lush, dramatic burst of sound on the stop of the dime and as the mood fits.

"Regarding Your Lover" is an example of the unflinching honesty that makes Vance such an urgent voice.

"I was tired of you telling me you're leaving every time it came to blows/it was hard to be jealous/I was supposed to be having the time of my life," he sings before shouting "that's the way I held you/though I never will again," and the strings wash the track into an emotional crescendo.

Fans of Sheeran, Damien Rice or David Gray will fall in love with Vance.

Producer Michael Keeney's soft touch on these tracks is the right call. He opens the microphone and lets Vance do his thing with minimal interference.

"He's just an amazing performer and I just tried to capture that," Keeney says of Vance on the promotional video on the website.

There is something that connects in your soul when you listen to the songs of the broken soul that wrote Joy of Nothing. It is fitting that the disc drops on the last week of summer as the seasons change and the bones shiver with the impending winter's cold.

Like the seasons love runs hot and cold, and Vance has a reporter's eye for detail as he chronicles every treacherous step along the way. Check him out at www.foyvance.com

Dubliner’s Empire Circus “Stands” for Greatness

Empire Circus.

I’m sitting in a hotel room on vacation and the kids are glued to the MTV Music Awards. As I watch one untalented processed pop star after another strut across the stage (did the crowd really lose their minds when a lame band like NSYNC reunites?), I cant help but raise a defiant fist to the heavens and complain to my Maker that a great band like Stand never made it big.

This Dublin rock outfit moved to America (not far from the same Barclays Center hosting MTV’s event) with an eye on one prize -- world domination.

It didn't quite happen, despite a parade of brilliant songs like “Olivia” and albums like 100,000 Ways to Harvest Hope over a half dozen years or so. Drummer Carl Dowling left the band, they went back to Ireland, singer Neal Eurelle opened a music school, and that was supposed to be the end of that.

Now come news that Alan Doyle, new drummer Brian Ellis and David Walsh have regrouped with Eurelle and have rebranded. They are now back as Empire Circus with an album of the same name.

“We felt like reinvention after our original drummer Carl left Stand,” Eurelle tells the Irish Voice.

“Everyone was a little down at the time, and the thought of doing another Stand record didn't seem appealing at all. Later that year we met Brian. It took a year for us to gel and form properly as a Band and we started writing songs for the Empire Circus (EC) project in October 2011.”

According to their website, they "are a four piece alt pop outfit who have tapped into the panache of Two Door Cinema Club, the demeanor of Arcade Fire and the general cool suave of Gorillaz… then morphed out at the other side with a resonant sound under the guise of Empire Circus."

That sounds about right. The band definitely has a more contemporary feel to the arrangements and mixing.
Their 12 new tunes, according to the band’s advanced press release, made them want to "sing, dance and get silly."
Robin Thicke's new album makes you want to sing, dance, and get silly. This music does not. If I can offer one bit of criticism, I would say Empire Circus's music falls flat in the self-expressed silliness department.

That's not to say that the album fails. It is excellent throughout and approaches downright brilliance more often than not.
But the underlying theme that runs through these songs has more to do with the joy that comes from emerging from a dark period into the light than, say, a carefree night at a club with your friends and the dancers in Thicke’s “Blurred Lines” video.

If you did find yourself in a nightclub with your friends, some of the dance-y beats Empire Circus lays down would be welcome if they were thrown into the mix. "There Is Light" borrows an electro-drum loop from Nine Inch Nails as Eurelle sings, "There is a sun in my sky even though its late at night/there is a light at the end of the tunnel where it never shone before."

The disc begins with “Lights Out” and the lines, “The past tense is now coming back now/there’s been a change of heart tonight/so leave the past behind.” Easier said than done.

Try as they might, these lads are incapable of dropping what made them great as Stand in the first place. Like most of Empire Circus the album, this track rocks with an urgency that you might hear on early U2 records with just as much earnestness.

“True Believer” mixes electronic flourishes with a taut bass line and a killer guitar hook. “A Day In the Life of a Superhero” is a chugging rocker with a soaring chorus that is about as perfect a rocker as you can make, the kind of song that Snow Patrol would give their eye teeth to write.

Empire Circus’s sound is not as straightforward as the rocking anthems the foursome produced under the name Stand.
Producer-engineer-mixer Bryce Goggin (Ramones, the Morning Glories, Antony and the Johnsons) adds some delectable sonic surprises to the mix.  “Everything Amounts to Nothing” is a sweet slice of eighties bubblegum pop that is pure summer fizz.

Despite the devastation that no doubt came with losing the original drummer, this fan of Stand still wonders why the band needed to rename itself. To borrow a line from my business school days, I worry why they sacrificed the “brand equity” they built with Stand and potentially risk not being heard by their loyal fans in the confusion brought on by calling them Empire Circus?

But the songs on Empire Circus so enthusiastically embrace the new with great fun and great music that it is hard for me (or any Stand fan) to hold a grudge for too long!

Then again, if lightening up the mood a bit and re-naming Stand gets Empire Circus songs on the radio with massive overexposure like they so richly deserve, then fair play to them. Heck, if Empire Circus ends up with a “Moon Man” statue at the MTV Awards next year, this old Stand fan will have nothing to complain about! You can check out the new music at   www.weareempirecircus.com.

I caught up with Eurelle about the new project. Here’s how it went.

What brought on the renaming?  

After a few short months we were introduced to Brian Ellis, who just brought a ball of energy and positivity to the mix. We decided to start writing and working on songs with him. It was so fresh and different to anything we'd ever done as Stand that we decided to change everything including the name. It just seemed right to leave the past behind and follow this new trail.

Music is our passion. Creating it and playing it live. All anyone wants outta life is to do what their passionate about. Agreed?

When you're not getting the recognition you feel you deserve, especially in your own hometown, that’s when something is wrong and that’s when it's time to change. That’s what we did.

Was it like the Beatles with Sgt. Pepper in that you could pretend to be someone else? 

Not really. But I get what you mean. We definitely took on new personas, but that was due to the upbeat energy in the music and not to any "mind expansion.”

It was more like this -- Stand is like the ex-girlfriend that broke all our hearts. We tried and tried and we're constantly ignored by most. Think of Sisyphus rolling that boulder up the hill only to watch it roll all the way down again just as he reached the summit. That's what it was like. Twelve years of hard work and "Everything amounts to (almost) nothing.

How would you say the sound of the two bands are different? 

Empire Circus is a lot more positive and upbeat. We wanna make people dance and feel good. It's more mature and sounds so much better than anything we've done with Stand, which is largely due to Bryce Goggin producing and engineering. Look him up. Amazing guy.

Compared to EC, Stand is like your moody little brother who sits in his bedroom playing Warcraft while picking scabs off his knee caps.

How would you describe this band to someone who has never heard you? 

Empire Circus are here to make you move. Inside and out!

I would also be curious as to what the reaction was of your old fans to the music? 

The reaction so far has been very positive, and we're flattered that so many people already know the words given that the album isn't out until September 12. We released some singles and an EP earlier in the year so people have either bought that or listening to our songs on the net.

Some people want us to break out the occasional Stand song but we're sorry, it won’t be happening any time soon. This is our way forward. All I know is, our radio play is up, our revenues are up and our spirits are high. Reason enough for any change.

The other option was admit defeat and lay down and die. No way, not happening.