Irish Catholic cougar looking to prey

Perched atop a rustic bench in the snug of an Irish pub with a full pint at the end of a bent elbow in a tony suburban Orlando neighborhood, I was ready for what I thought might be the toughest writing assignment of my career.

My friend was dealing with a very lonely Irish mother in law and he was hoping to find her someone for the holidays. I was told that she was an extremely devout Catholic woman originally from Offaly who decided to set up shop on dating websites after a daughter and two girlfriends found love online and I was pitched as “the funny New York writer” in town to compose a snappy profile that would attract Mr. Right.

She took a stab at writing about her ideal man and I rolled my eyes when I read in her email about the blessings of her grandchildren and how she was “looking for a man that knows his place on this earth as a servant to our Lord.” Jesus, take the wheel because I had some work to do here!

While I was told she was well preserved and certainly could appreciate the beautiful daughter she created for my friend to marry, I was still expecting Susan Boyle’s older ugly stepsister to walk in the door all the same.

My jaw dropped when I locked eyes with my friend and saw the impossibly curvaceous sixty seven year old woman standing next to him. She had cat-like eyes and a porcelain complexion that lurked beneath luxuriant waves of bleached blonde hair. Her alluring voice was roughed up by cigarettes and the brogue was fighting the good fight against a skuzzy southern drawl.

After composing myself and ordering a round of drinks, I expressed disbelief that she would be seeking companionship. In the course of an hour, the puzzle pieces started to fit.

Like so many of us, a ghost of some frigid grade school nun was screeching in her ear about the sins of the flesh. You know the rap: sex is something not to be enjoyed, certainly not before marriage. After faithfully serving two deceased husbands and raising churchgoing adult children, I’m sure our charitable Maker would look the other way if this good woman rounded the bases of love in her last few innings.

Brides of Christ back in the day may have been excellent public servants and educators, but looking back, one can’t help but think they were trying to stamp out sexuality with the same sensible shoes that stamped out their own. A nun like the one Meryl Streep played in “Doubt” educated me on the birds and the bees, and I still remember how her face looked like she had a rotten wedge of grapefruit in her gob as she described each sin in detail and what menu of punishments waited for us in Beelzebub’s Buffet. To this day I see her in my head with a straw broom every time I have trouble brushing an impure thought away on my own.

I figured if we were going to hell for helping this active senior sin, we might as well have fun this evening, so I ordered myself a whiskey and began with my one-liners.

“Not looking for a man to turn loaves into fishes, but if you can raise the dead in bed, fair play to you!”

She gazed at my friend with a look that said “I told you this wasn’t a good idea.” I fretted with the fringes of my cocktail napkin nervously.

“OK, how about ‘my list for the confessional is boring and I am looking for new sins to fry my friar?” She blessed herself and cackled. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

Negotiations ensued that made Hilary Clinton’s Pakistan trip look easy, and soon we were making considerable headway as the evening wore on.

The liquor massaged our cerebellum as we got up and stumbled into the night air, but not before logging onto her account from my Iphone and uploading the following post to her profile page.

Catholic Cougar Looking to Prey

Are you tired of getting disappointed by lovers promising to turn water into wine? Yeah, I know the feeling. Good Irish Catholic woman looking for a reason to stay in bed on a Sunday morning, providing we make it to 5:30 Mass the night before.

Seeking a clean guy older than the Son of God but younger than Abraham. Jesus is my ideal man, but kindly click your mouse somewhere else if you are 33, single, into piercings, and living with a mother who thinks you walk on water. Been there, done that.

I’m not looking for marriage, though it would be nice. I guess I’m just looking to turn a love life of Sorrowful Mysteries into something joyful. Wink if interested.

Who Killed Mike Ward?

You’d know a man like Michael Ward from a mile away. The yellowed shirt had seen whiter days and it was tucked underneath a well worn suit and below a thatch of wiry white hair. Yet his appearance somehow revealed a certain level of bohemian elegance.

He was threadbare, not in an unkempt way, but in a warm and appealing manner akin to the catcher’s mitt that has seen its share of fast balls.

If you let your mind wander, you might make up a story that this elderly Leitrim bachelor moved to America to escape the harsh Irish economy of the Seventies, He got caught between the Ireland that rolled on without him and the adopted city that most of his friends had long since abandoned when things got good again back home.

I have been haunted by the news of Michael Ward’s death. He was mowed down by a hit-and-run driver on the corner of 1st Avenue and 84th Street last Friday, left to die on a grimy Manhattan curb by someone apparently too impatient to wait for an 85-year-old man to cross the street.

I can’t get the image out of my head of this kind soul convulsing in shock on the pavement as the blood poured out of a man who had such a lust for life.

I met Mike only once, at my uncle Bobby Cleary’s funeral last December. With Bob plucking the strings of a banjo and Mike hunched over the squeezebox in the pubs around Bainbridge Avenue, the pair formed a musical conversation in a group called The Limerick Weavers and created a deep friendship that lasted through the decades in the process.

They must have delighted thousands of lonesome Irish with songs over the years and would go on to book regular gigs at places like Gorman’s, The Bainbridge Cafe, Ireland's 32, and Fiona's. I pray some of those fans remember Mike in their prayers this week as a way of saying thanks for providing a slice of home when they needed it most.

When a man of his age lugs a heavy accordion over his shoulder and crosses three state lines to pay a musical tribute to a friend, you don’t need to know much more about the measures of his loyalty and love that are woven into the fabric of his character.

“Good on yeh, girl,” he would probably have grunted as Dawn Mulvihill, Bobby’s devoted partner of 22 years, played heartbreaking airs on the violin near his coffin.

Dawn took the place of Bobby as Mike’s sparring partner during the luncheon that followed my uncle’s burial and I marveled at how Mike, this wee colorful character single-handedly lifted the heavy burden of grief from our family’s shoulders. Inspired by his effervescent spirit, many of us took turns on the microphone or the guitar to participate in the joyous musical conversation that brought Mike and Bobby together in the first place.

“I play the accordion for the old folks in the homes now,” he said, completely oblivious to the fact that he might have been a good deal older than many of the blue-haired residents in his audience.

He had no sense of his own mortality at all when he strapped on the accordion as the years melted from his small frame. When I mentioned I would be writing about this day in my Irish Voice column, he beamed.

“Yerra, someone had to die for me to get my name in lights, and sure, that’s the sad state of affairs for yeh.” With that said he threw back his head and let out a tight laugh, but not before reminding me that his name was spelled with no “E” at the end of it.

You want to believe that the hit-and-run driver kept going because he or she may not have even known they hit something.

“I heard a noise and went to look out the winow and I saw an old guy fall down to the floor,” said witness Oswado Xique.

“I’m not surprised,” said witness Fredda Stimell. “Sometimes the lights aren’t long enough for elderly people to walk across and some of the drivers are not very careful.”

It might have been a pothole that made that loud thump and in this frantic time we live in, the driver’s eyes might have been on some mobile device instead of on the road where they belonged.

You don’t want to believe that the person behind the wheel of the gold Nissan Maxima decided to carry on that night, discarding this kind soul onto the curb like an empty soda bottle. I didn’t know the man well, but I know he deserved a more dignified end to his life than what was doled out.

I’m told this eccentric character Mike Ward was a doorman for decades and I can’t think of a better person to greet you when you got home after a long day at the office.

He, no doubt, would delight the residents of the building he guarded with a song from his encyclopedic knowledge of Irish music or a story about the auld sod.

You could say that we live in a cruel world that tosses an old man to the side without any regard for the dignity of human life, but I prefer to think that St. Peter had a sudden opening for a doorman at the pearly gates and knew just the man for the job.

Rest in peace, Mike, and tell Bob his nephew misses him deeply.

Showband legend Jimmy Smith reveals all

I know it’s only rock and roll but y’all like it, but let’s talk about books this week. Specifically, the raucous story of Ned the Bed, written by showband great Jimmy Smith.

Smith was the founder, leader and manager of the Mighty Avons, back in the heyday when showbands ruled the Irish music scene. I’ve often heard my parents talk about “the showband era” which swept through Ireland in the 1960s and ‘70s. Chances are, the very mention of the word showband conjures up vivid memories for a generation of Irish immigrants that have seen their 60th birthday come and go (how’s that for being diplomatic?)

My grandfather on my mother’s side worked the rural areas of Limerick with a clarinet as part of the Joe Farrell Band, and my father can recall the great craic seeing the local boys play in and around Tuam.
“Ah, that was music,” he sighed over the weekend as he fondled the book binding of Ned the Bed.

“There were five show bands working in Tuam at one time -- Johnny Flynn’s Showband. Jerry and the Ohio, Liam Ivory’s band. The Times, which had my cousin Walter Lynch as drums.”

With Smith at the helm, the Mighty Avons would go on to see major success all over the world, playing in such hallowed venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York and the Royal Albert Hall in London.

They made the British charts with a 40-week run of their debut record, one of the first Irish bands ever to do so.

Smith’s book Ned the Bed is a tale of the fictional Nova’s Showband and their leader, trombone playing Ned Brady.

Smith is a potent storyteller with a wicked talent for writing dialogue. Ned the Bed has movie written all over it, with characters that jump off the page and into the bed of a waiting groupie.

Ned uses his trombone to knock the strap off the dress of a hapless fan sitting at the side of the stage in the hopes that he could lure the lass to the couch-like row of seats on the back of the tour bus. Smith gives Jackie Collins a run for her money on the shags-per-page department.

“Back in the 1960s and '70s the showband boom was at its height, and to succeed in this very competitive business the band had to give 101% on stage to make sure the dancers had a good time,” explains Smith during a rollicking chat with the Irish Voice.

“Then afterwards, you had to be ever ready with a big smile, followed by, ‘Hello gorgeous, where did you spring from?’ If that approach worked, then along came the courting and in some cases the lovemaking, which a lot of the time was just plain shafting.

“Because time and space was mostly unavailable back then, most of it was done in the good old knee trembler fashion. Ned Brady took to all of this like a duck to water, earning at a very young age the nickname of Ned the Bed.”

Ned’s story is an impossible one to put down. You can see the storms of ego and power brewing within the band from a mile away, a dynamic made worse when the musicians score a minor hit that opens the door for tours of England and America.

There are hilarious stories in this book, like the time Ned has to fend for himself as a regular punter at a Belfast dance. He can’t get a girl to dance with him to save his life and gets taken down a few pegs when he discovers that without the trombone and the stage to assist him, he was just a loving legend in his own mind.

“It’s very realistic and I know so much about the scene that I was able to pump into the story,” says Smith.

“While it is fictional, I think it is the best possible portrayal of what life was really like on the road in one of these bands. I’ve read another book about the scene called Send them Home Sweating and none of it made sense at all.

“It was written by a non-show band guy interviewing people in the bands. A lot of what was written was third hand. I was in the middle of it all, and I think that makes this book authentic.”

Smith says his writing career began after his musical career ran its course. He went into the security business where there were plenty of hours doing nothing as a night watchman.

“I got a scribbler, put the time and date on it, and off I went,” he says nonchalantly. “I wrote the whole book by hand and would start each page with the question, ‘Where am I going to go next?’

“It took me four years and two centuries to do it. I started it in 1999 and then picked it up a few years ago.”

This isn’t Smith’s first foray into literature. He wrote a popular political satire thinly described as a kid’s book called Animal Mountain in 1989. It was about former Irish Prime Minister Charles Haughey as a hedgehog.

“You’d have to drop money at him and he would roll in it,” Smith says.
Animal Mountain is indicative of the anti-establishment vibe you pick up when you talk to Smith. Though he is a spry, optimistic storyteller, he’ll tell you that he has been burned so many times over the years by many a shady music business character.

Ned the Bed’s sharpest words are reserved to describe the characters trying to separate the lead singer from the fictional showband.

“There are plenty of people in the music business who don’t know musical notes,” he says sarcastically. “They only know pound notes. I lost every penny I had doing the right thing for the bands I was associated with.

“There was always someone whispering in the talent’s ear when they got big enough. ‘Smith can take you no further. I can make you a star.’ I learned the hard way that you have to copyright the name of your band and you must lock up the lead singer in a contract for at least five years.

“Don’t blame the singer when he makes you wrong; blame the vulture. Many people with no talent whatsoever made it in the music business by riding the back of the lead singer. Contracts are the only thing that keep the vultures away, and believe you me, there’s a vulture on every pole in the music business!”

The showbands were a cultural lifeline to the rural west of Ireland. Their covers of songs from Buddy Holly, Jim Reed and the Beatles might have been the first time some people heard those songs.

Though the stories are racy in spots, Ned the Bed provides the reader with a critical piece of musical artifact from a bygone era.

“No one has any interest in Irish showbands anymore, and it is a sin how the Irish music business is more interested in the international acts than the home grown ones,” he laments.

“RTE puts on these talent shows and they are awful. There’s this brand new station in Ireland now dedicated to classical music. I like that kind of music as much as the next man, but there aren’t that many classical music acts running around the back roads of Ireland trying to make a living.

“The showband era consisted in its heyday of 5,000 musicians and another 5,000 roadies and bus mechanics employed to support it. That’s a lot of people employed by the show bands and there is still a market for it. There are more talented country guitarists in Ireland than there are in Nashville, but the radio stations think it’s uncool to play this music.”

You’re only a few pages in before you realize that Ned the Bed is too cool for words! No Irish beach blanket should be without Ned this summer.
Ned the Bed is available on Amazon.com. Smith will launch the book at a party at Paddy Reilly’s (519 Second Avenue New York; 212 686-1210) Thursday, July 15, from 6-8 p.m.

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.