“My Big, Fat Gypsy Wedding’ - a fat, guilty pleasure - PHOTOS & VIDEO

A scene from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding

SEE PHOTOS - Images from 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding'

I'm not much of a reality TV watcher, but the constant onslaught of teasers and trailers for My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding tempted me like the smell of baked bread wafting out of an Annie’s pretzel mall kiosk.

For years I was fascinated by the traveling gypsy caravan communities perched alongside Irish roadways. The gypsies selling us oils and scarves on the cobblestone walkways were an exotic delicacy in the sea of pale people.

Thanks to the good folks at The Learning Channel (TLC), I was about to gain access into the mysterious shadow of Irish culture known as the traveler people.

Mind you, travelers was not the first name I heard to describe these people -- tinkers and knackers were more like it, with these nouns usually prefaced by the word “f***in’” thrown in for good measure.

One mild-mannered uncle on my dad’s side grips the steering wheel hard and spits curse words every time he passes the new government housing in the section of Tuam where the travelers live.

“Faith’n they’re a fair bit nicer than the house I broke my back to build,” he’d shout in disgust.
I have seen firsthand the mounds of trash they left on our family’s fields when someone encouraged them to move on, and though there was never proof, I have heard friends and family blame them for every petty crime in the bog.

Of course, these bile-tinged accusations only added to the curiosity I had when I tuned into the first episode of Wedding. Like all television in this programming genre, the camera casts a wide-eye on white trash playing into their stereotypes for the pleasure of the film crew.

An eight year-old little girl emerges on her Communion day from momma’s trailer with false eyelashes, a spray tan, faux rhinestones along her eyelids, and a taffeta dress so large it has trouble fitting between two parked cars.
______________________

Read more:

‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ an insult to Irish travelers - SEE PHOTOS & POLL

'Big Fat Gypsy Wedding' featuring Irish travelers to air in US

‘Big Fat Gypsy Wedding’ Irish Travelers plan to sue after TV show - SEE PHOTOS
______________________

She joins her little prosti-tot friends at the party afterwards, and no girl on the dance floor is over 10 with heels under six inches.

Despite assurances of purity, morality, and spirituality from a self-professed traveler expert on the program, the puddles of flesh spilling out of the tight silk gowns on the big wedding days looked more like a brothel on prom night than a bridal party.

Perceived slights from the macho young men in the trailer park are settled -- where else? -- behind the cement wall at the back of the trailer park in a bare-knuckle brawl that the announcer assures us is a traveler ritual.

The breakout stars of the show are Paddy and Roseanne Doherty, the owners of one trailer park.
“Queen Elizabeth has her place, but I swear to God and my babies, this is my Buckingham Palace,” Paddy announces before hopping into his convertible Audi (he gets a new car every six months whether he needs it or not).

A former bare-knuckle boxing champion, Paddy, 52, has painted “PD” on the blacktop in front of his trailer park, a fitting coat of arms for the likes of him if ever there was one.

He is a study in conflicts, a man that cries at his son’s grave while delivering rough justice to anyone administering domestic violence within the comfort of their trailer if it happens to be parked on his land. With his bulging biceps and affinity for sleeveless shirts, he looks like a cross between a juicing Fred Flintstone and The Situation’s Neanderthal ancestor.

“You’d never see a traveling man shopping,” he says without a hint of irony as he lies on a store mattress.
The camera pans across the store and finds his wife looking at a white lacquered dining room set that’s so gaudy it would give Elvis Presley vertigo. His purpose is soon clear when it comes time to pay the bill and Paddy takes yer man out back to hammer out a price.

“Even if you give a traveling man a pound off the price, he feels like he got a good deal,” muses Roseanne.
With her cottony bleached hair, rhinestone jewels in the shape of a crown on each back pocket and loopy mannerisms, she could easily be the main character in every Loretta Lynn or Judd song.

One recently married bride explains that education is not something that’s regarded in the traveler community.
No! Really? Ya don’t say! I kinda figured that out when I saw Irishman Johnny leave his trailer home, hop in a helicopter, ride to his reception and take the ring out of a pouch held in the talons of a trained owl that flies to him.

If he had any education in math, he’d know that money on this costly circus could be put to better use. Oh, I dunno. How about a new set of teeth for the missus?

When Paddy and Roseanne pull up to their son’s grave and she begins to sob uncontrollably while a crowd of travelers drink beer around the grave, your heart goes out to her.

I soon joined her in a cry with the knowledge that I’d never get the three hours back that I wasted watching this marathon of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding -- nor will I ever recoup the time spent watching the rest of the episodes.

SEE PHOTOS - Images from 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding'

A 'Destiny' with Teen Angst

I JUST unpacked the last bag from the school band trip down in Wildwood, New Jersey.

You would have thought I was going to the Garden of Gethsemane for a weekend of pre-crucifixion suffering the way I carried on to my wife last Friday about the long car ride alone with a gaggle of girls, the crush of crowds in the sweltering sun around the parade route, and the boring band parents in this communal adventure that I shared little in common with.

That belly-aching came to a screeching halt and a lump rushed to my throat as I watched my stunningly beautiful eighth grader board the school bus to the parade route with her clarinet and sheet music for the last time.

Another milestone in her life was whizzing by me way too fast, and I decided then and there to put the brakes on my complaining and enjoy the moment before it escaped me.

After the long march, the parents treated the girls to a pizza dinner and all the rides they could stomach on the expansive boardwalk. Each parent had just shelled out $48 a piece for the “all-u-can-ride” wrist band and against her better judgment, my Annie gave me a nervous peck on the cheek and whispered a rapid fire “thanksiloveyoudad” before her friends could see it.

We went to the first ride, an imposing bungee jump contraption, and were informed that this would cost an additional $15!

“I can’t believe you’re ruining my last band weekend by not letting me go on this,” screeched one of the girls in our party to her mother.

“Really, mom? I can’t go on? Really?!?” hissed another, stamping her feet for emphasis.

Back in the day, this kind of behavior would have gotten me what my dad described as a “a clitter on the gob.” It was then I said a silent prayer to thanks to my Maker that my daughter was raised better than that, and for the Continental Airlines customer service representative that instilled in me the lessons on how to deal with a whiner.

Dig if you will the picture -- I have just been unceremoniously dumped out of a plane in Newark, body and soul weary from a five hour delay in Cleveland. The skies spewed everything they had at our propeller plane, inspiring me to reach for the barf bag on more than one occasion.

My blood percolated to a rolling boil when the baggage carousel stopped without spitting out my luggage, and I was in such a fit of rage that I don’t remember stomping over to the customer service counter for my date with Destiny, an expansive black woman clad in a blue flight suit two sizes too small.

I repeated the above paragraph to her, only I laced it with profane language and in my “outside voice.” She sat back, chewed on the inside of her cheek for a moment, and nodded appreciatively until I had no more bile to spill on her face.

“You done?” she asked gamely.

“I guess,” I shouted back.

“Well, there’s two of us that give a s*** about your bags right about now and one of us is losing interest real quick,” she replied in an icy yet calm tone.

Butter would not melt in this woman’s mouth as she cleared her throat.

“So, why don’t you take five steps back, think for a few moments about the tone of voice that might best convince me to help get your bags back, and then come back to the counter and we’ll start this joyride all over again. Ya think ya can do that, sugar?”

I learned then and there that it is difficult to walk backwards when your tail is between your legs. It also taught me a valuable lesson in raising teenage girls -- nothing good can come from matching their hormonal drama with melodrama.

“There’s two of us that care about you going on that $15 ride and one of us is starting to lose interest really quick,” would have been the ideal thing for these mothers to say as they diffused the teenaged hormonal bomb ticking on the boardwalk.

My two girls have heard a variation of this sentence applied to so many situations that they don’t even bother pulling that malarkey on me any longer.

“Oh, brother,” my daughter said aloud, rolling her eyes. “It’s just a ride and there are tons of other ones on this boardwalk. Let’s just go on something else!”

The gaggle of girls flounced behind her as they lined up for a roller coaster, and the two mothers stared at me with their mouths open.

On a weekend that found me suffering through bum notes on the tuba and missed cues from the drum corps, I relished this moment that was music to my ears.

(Mike Farragher has written a book of essays just like this one. For more information, log onto www.thisisyourbrainonshamrocks.com)

The Script cause waves of summer madness in US and Ireland

Congratulations to our friends in The Script, who took New York’s Rumsey Playfield by storm last week.

They are set to continue their push for world domination by returning to Northern Ireland and headlining the first day of the resurrected Tennent's Vital Festival in Bangor's Ward Park on August 23, according to Hot Press.

They will also appear at the massive Oxegen Festival while over on the auld sod before they return to the U.S. in the autumn for a 31-city tour. And in between all that, there's the small matter of a headline date at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin next month.

Frontman Danny O'Donoghue is delighted to be heading up North, having enjoyed success there in the past.

“Our two shows at the Odyssey were mind blowing so it’s fantastic to get the chance to come back to Northern Ireland," he tells Hot Press.

"We love playing live, it’s such an incredible buzz to experience that connection with your audience. Headlining such a major outdoor festival will be really special.”

Joining the hard-working lads for Tennent's Vital at Bangor will be local heroes Two Door Cinema Club, who are also enjoying international acclaim at present.

If your travel plans take you to Ireland this summer and you can’t wait for their return to the U.S., tickets for Tennent’s Vital go on general sale from 9 a.m. on Friday, June 17 via Ticketmaster. Tickets are priced at £34.50.

Damian McGinty’s chances on “The Glee Project” looking good

Though the concept has grown a bit long in the tooth for my liking, let’s give Phil Coulter and producer Sharon Browne their props. Celtic Thunder is just as much a glitzy Irish show as it is a launching pad that develops and showcases new talent coming out of Ireland and Scotland.

Damian McGinty, the youngest member of the troupe, has been selected as one of the Top 12 contenders out of 40,000 hopefuls who competed for a coveted spot on The Glee Project. The winner of the show will be cast in a seven-episode guest role in season three of hit show Glee on Fox.
___________________
READ MORE: 
Celtic Thunder hits the wrong note with new album


Open letter to Celtic Thunder fans

‘Glee’s’ Lady Gaga-based anti-bullying episode causes protests - VIDEO
___________________

The Glee Project premieres Sunday, June 12 on the Oxygen network at 9 p.m.

After selling over one million CDs to date with Celtic Thunder and traveling the world, the 18-year-old McGinty is no stranger to success. He joined Celtic Thunder at the tender age of 14 in 2007 and has seen the group increasingly gain popularity in the U.S. due to its constant touring schedule, four hit PBS specials and multiple national television show appearances.

Celtic Thunder’s rabid fan base flood their official YouTube channel, “Thunder Tube,” which has received nearly 19 million upload views since its inception in 2008, while McGinty has thousands of fans following his personal Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Most recently Celtic Thunder’s new album, Heritage, was ranked number one on the Billboard world album chart, and this fall the group will embark on a 45 city tour to support it. For more information on tour dates go to www.celticthunder.com

Don’t get me wrong -- I am rooting for the kid and think he has crazy-mad talents. I just question the rationale behind him taking one of these coveted spots to stardom.

McGinty already has a launch pad that has exposed him to millions, making a top-selling solo album a no-brainer. There’s something a bit greedy in my mind to grab this launching pad out of the jaws of an actual unknown who may never get his or her chance because a bona fide star hogged this slot.

McGinty has progressed from a boy soprano in the original Celtic Thunder show to baritone in Celtic Thunder Christmas, essentially growing up before the eyes of millions.

His performance of the Coulter original “First Christmas Together” in the PBS Christmas special is another example of exposure that 99.9% of the population would harvest a kidney to get.

There. I feel better. Okay. I’ll get off the soapbox now.

Now I’m all set to cheer McGinty on!

A wonderful life for Joe Hurley

Congratulations and a tip of the hat to our good friend Joe Hurley for winning the Audie, widely considered to be the Academy Award among audio books awards!

Hurley, who narrated the critically acclaimed Keith Richards’ autobiography Life with Richards and Johnny Depp, accepted the prestigious Best Audio Book of the Year Award at the 2011 Audie Awards Ceremony in New York.

According to NJStage.com, Hurley took the stage to accept the award and through a surge of emotions, told the story about seeing the Rolling Stones in London, his first rock concert, and now turning to this great privilege in his life which he simply described as a "helluva joy ride."

"When I heard they needed me on this project, there were no questions asked," said Hurley. "I was sound checking Singing Back Home in Paris when I got the call.

“I went straight to the airport, flew for hours, lost my luggage and had no sleep, but we recorded it on time and the result is this amazing memoir to music icon Keith Richards."

For anyone who has heard Hurley sing or speak, the choice to have him voice this book is obvious. Every crack in his smoky and deep register hints at the decadence and seen-it-all swagger that Richards embodies.

As a singer, songwriter, actor, playwright and voice-over artist, Hurley is a creative dynamo who also leads Joe Hurley and the Gents and Joe Hurley and Rogue's March.

He is the founder and curator of the Allstar Irish Rock Revue, a musical/literary homage to the great Irish songbook celebrated annually around St. Patrick's Day.

In a weird way, it doesn’t seem like the Big Green Holiday unless I hear Hurley sing Johnny Cash’s outlaw anthem “I Walk the Line” at the annual revue.

Raised in London to Irish parents, Hurley now lives in New York City. Check out Joe Hurley by visiting www.roguesmarch.com.

Jameson's Revenge create Irish music for the rest of us on their new CD

Fiddles? Check. Bodhrans? Check. Tin whistles? Check.

A trad party? Whoa -- wait a minute! Not so fast!

The instrumentals that make up Jameson’s Revenge’s new disc, While Yer Up, break the mold of traditional Irish music. That is by design, according to singer and vocalist John Walsh.

“The way we were going about it was to create Irish music for the rest of us,” he explains. “We are not purists. It’s not like we don’t get along with everyone, but it’s just that we feel the traditional music players don’t like when you mess with the formula that is set in stone.”

Truer words have never been spoken. I have met many a pretentious trad purist in my day, unwilling to update the sound while simultaneously wondering why fewer people attend these seisiuns and buy albums at Irish festivals.

The collection begins innocently enough, with “The Durty Konway/Hogan’s Hill,” a feisty workout of acoustic instruments that sounds suspiciously like a trad ditty.

The bodhran work of percussionist Brian McCarthy takes some refreshingly funky turns on tracks like “The I-Hop” as Andrew McCarrick layers sweet flutes and whistles on the beat like syrup on a pancake. The woodwinds add a Jethro Tull drama to the mix, turning this traditional reel on its ear.

“Mama’s Porch” has the sweet hayseed charm of a slow dance at the barn, and though “The Golden Shower” title makes your mind make a beeline to the gutter, the tune has the sweetness of morning dew.

It’s that irreverent play on words and sounds that makes While Yer Up such a winner.

The musicianship, in a word, is second to none. The flute solo at the start of “In the Loo/The Moyside Hotel” that anchors the track is intricate and muscular, while Walsh’s strumming accompanies it with acoustic guitar strumming that is simultaneously old world and new world at the same time.

Walsh spent his childhood and early adult life in Co. Kilkenny where he took up the guitar and surrounded himself with the rich musical heritage from that region of Ireland.

Regarded by many as one of the best Celtic guitar players in America, he frequently accompanies some of the biggest names in Irish music today, most notably Paddy Keenan, the legendary uileann piper from the Bothy Band. I guess living bicoastal like that is the reason his playing sounds like Paul O’Simon!

“We’re hoping to bring our friends and fans into the traditional music,” Walsh says.
“We like listening to trad just like the next man, but we are trying to take this elitist attitude out of it. It should be fun.

“If we don’t loosen it up a bit and bring some new ears to it we may lose the tradition altogether. It’s like the Rolling Stones and what they brought to the blues. It would bring other listeners into this world.”

According to the band, they learned about playing trad from one of the greats in that genre. Like many Irish-American kids growing up in "da" Bronx in the late seventies and eighties, Jameson’s fiddler Denny McCarthy was a student of legendary teacher and Limerick fiddler Martin Mulvihill.

McCarthy says he learned early-on from Mulvihill the importance of always maintaining a healthy respect for the "tradition" of Irish music while at the same time never being afraid to put his own stamp on the tunes.

During those few years under Mulvihill's guidance and encouragement he developed a style of playing that helped him win numerous All-Ireland titles on the fiddle in solo competition, as well as an All-Ireland title in duet competition with his brother Kevin on the piano accordion.

McCarthy splits his time with Jameson's Revenge and the New York-based group Shilelagh Law, a muscular Irish American rock outfit that peels paint off the wall with a molten sound of aggressive fiddling.

“I think McCarthy’s work with the Law bleeds into his playing here,” reasons Walsh. “He definitely plays with this aggressive stance which is really cool. It’s a huge part of the energy he brings to the band.”

The album promotional tour begins this weekend with a series of shows around New York, but the album has already taken off based on great word-of-mouth buzz, according to Walsh.

“We’ve been lucky. It’s been on the top 100 in the world music charts on iTunes without even promoting it,” he says.

“We sold much more downloads than we did CDs. We’ve been really surprised by the action.

“The lads from the Paddy Keenan Bothy Band said, ‘It wasn’t made for the establishment, it was made for you.’ You can’t get much better than that.”

With While Yer Up, Jameson’s Revenge has produced a traditional Irish album that breaks with tradition to create a modern Irish American classic.

The band plays Connolly’s Klub 45 in Times Square on June 11 and September 16, and the Staten Island Irish Festival on June 12. For more information, visit www.jamesonsrevenge.com.

Thank God It’s Friday - Gavin Friday’s first album in 16 years

Punk legend. Painter. Provocateur. Musician. Soundtracker. BFF of Bono.

You can call Gavin Friday many things, but a Catholic? On his first album in16 years, Friday nicks the capital “C” in the title to make catholic, a gorgeous album that honors and challenges the religious beliefs of love and loss.

“The Roman Catholic took the name ‘catholic’ from the Greeks, which means universal for the common man. This is in contrast to what Pope Benedict does at the moment,” Friday explains during an extensive interview with the Irish Voice.

“The small ‘c’ is my way of claiming it back. The church customs are all velvet and rich in color. I wanted the music to have that. I don’t practice the religion, but it is in me.”
Sound theatrical enough for you? That’s the intent.

Friday’s career has been dominated by cinema, soundtrack and theater. So it’s no surprise that this shadowy pomp and circumstance looms over catholic.

Country heartache, Bowie-synths, sci-fi swirls, epic strings, trance, and chilly Germanic rhythms run through an album that is a glorious study in contradiction.

“Able,” the album opener, has a crisp eighties pop sheen that you’d hear on a Psychedelic Furs album, while “Song that Hurts” has a lazy, acoustic cabaret feel underneath the singer’s cracked falsetto.

The lyrics are equally gorgeous. “I want to be able to hold my own/to breathe without drowning/to find a home,” he whispers on “Able,” a song that brings the man out of the dark and into the sunlight of bold survival in 4:46.

“Did you know the best is yet to come/it’s all ahead of you/if you want it/it’s all behind you if you can let it go,” he pleads on “It’s All Ahead of You,” a song representative of a recurring theme that lets go of the past and move forward.

Then there’s the album cover, a stark work of art shot by Italia Vogue photographer Perry Ogden, depicting a deceased Friday laying in state, a crucifix on his heart and an Irish flag draped over him. To be sure, it is an artistic statement in and of itself, a commentary on Ireland’s current spiritual, financial and moral bankruptcy.

“We just had the IMF come to us and say, ‘Look, Ireland, you’re broke and f***ed. We’re taking you over,’” Friday declares. “This album is political but in a very un-political way.

“I categorize it as an emotional album. It’s about loss on many levels, but also deals with hope. No one in life has not had a tough time. We get stuck in stuff -- a bad marriage or relationship or your family. Sometimes you can grieve, but you really can move on and get out of that rut.”

Friday has firsthand experience of this -- he grappled with the death of his father, which flavors the lyrical content on catholic.

He has, in between solo albums, immersed himself in award winning soundtracks -- William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, In America, The Boxer, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (with Quincy Jones) and three songs for In the Name of the Father which featured two collaborations with Bono and a Golden Globe nomination for “You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart” as sung by Sinead O’Connor.

It’s as though all of that work was merely an apprenticeship to catholic, a gorgeous, captivating, and conflicted masterpiece.

We spoke for just under an hour in a rambling conversation that never lost potency or charm. Here are the best bits:

How did the album come together, and how would you describe it to someone who never heard it?
Wow. That’s tough! When the songs were written they were quite minimal. A song like “Blame” was written on an acoustic guitar. I really wanted to get the situation to get lost in music.

A lot of music is so ProTooled. It’s so hard to surprise any more. I took all these songs and at the time and wanted to take a surreal country ballad and add the moon to it.

That’s the surprise element that is missing in so much music today. I see an album in an old school way -- spend 50 minutes with this instead of just hacking it up into singles.

There are so many layers to it – very dense. How long did the process take?

I have been writing ever since the last album came out, which was 16 years ago. I wrote most of this after my dad died five years ago. It was then I went on this fast track of writing.

As far as the complexity you hear, we find a song and then it will tell us what it needs. A domino effect that also came from not knowing the people playing this album real well. There was no familiarity; we were feeling one another out so that an element of freshness and risk was there.

One thing you bring back is the album cover. It’s genius and a real work of art. The image of you dead with a cross on you and the Irish flag might be a symbol of death of the country and religion. Is that fair to say?

It is fair to say, but it isn’t a deliberate commentary. Most of it isn’t about religion.

“Blame” is about telling people you f***ed over that you love them, not about sinning. So it’s more personal and less spiritual, although there are those elements as well.

Where did the idea come from?

I went to the Sir John Lavery “Passion and Politics” exhibit in Dublin at the Hugh Lane Gallery last September. The images were of statesmen of the 1916 Rising. They were all these remarkable dead men -- murdered or assassinated by the Irish and the British alike.

I was struck by the genius and promise lost by those lives cut short. There was an image of Michael Collins lying in state. The cover is homage to that.

Is the cover art and an album about moving on a commentary to the transformation in Ireland?

Being Irish and 51, you see the rags-to-riches and back again many times when you reach this age. Now we are seeing the Catholic Church lose this dictatorial grip on us. We were subjected to no condoms in the wake of AIDS. Homosexuality was illegal. Divorce was illegal.

We are all just waking up and saying, ‘This is ridiculous’ and people are moving on.

Is it not the job of a writer to put a finger in the air and taste the molecules and express what’s going on? The same can be said for our government.

I tackle these things in emotional terms on the album, not political barbs. I am being political in an un-political way.

You couldn’t have produced better reviews if you had written them yourself. What do you make of the critical praise the album has received?

I didn’t know what to think. I made it the way I wanted. Europe is strong for me. Fifteen years is a long time, and it’s going to be a hard slog to re-introduce yourself to the audience.

In talking to journalists, they are responding to the notion that a 51-year-old man made an album he wanted to make. That appears to be a unique concept now. Journalists are so sick of hearing the absolute s*** passing for music. There are a lot of people that are 40, 50 and 60 that like music.

You also have those middle-aged people bringing their parents or kids to shows, as I do with a band like U2. So, appealing to that group may mean getting three generations into your music.

Exactly. I brought my godson to Leonard Cohen and he was completely blown out. Cohen got critical success but never had commercial success and you wonder -- who makes that decision? Record companies? Music stores?

I mean, you go into an HMV store now and they don’t even sell albums -- they sell $200 headphones and iPods. I mean, what is going on with the music business now?

So, the house is on fire and you have to get your favorite album. What’s in your hand?
A David Bowie album. Hunky Dory or Low probably.

Friends are coming over for dinner and you have to hide the most embarrassing album. What’s in your hand?

I love kitsch, so that list would be long. For instance, I like this English singer Rumor. She sings like Karen Carpenter only not as good, so I went back to the Carpenters and rediscovered them. Even kitsch ages well. A Flock of Seagulls wrote some great stuff that I thought was terrible at the time. I love ABBA. Old glam rock. The list goes on.

When will we see you perform here?

I’m doing some festivals in Europe this summer and I would be there mid-to-late autumn. I’ll probably stick to the big cities -- not sure if all of America is ready for this!

(catholic is available on iTunes and other digital outlets. For more information log onto www.gavinfriday.com)