Top Five: Week Four (Happy late St. Patrick's Day!)

It's been over a month since I last posted. In my defense I haven't had a real secure place to live so I haven't had much internet. So, here I sit at my good friend Josh's house the day after Saint Patrick's day while he and Raven naps. If I find work, I might move in here... Until then, here is a new top five. I figure since I had a pretty good time on my holiday, I'd make a list for my top five Irish-Punk bands. Here we go.

5) Swingin' Utters ($wingin' Utter$): A pretty good band that's been around since the late 80's. Over 20 years now. They're influenced by one of my favorite bands, (that didn't make the list) The Pogues. They have a sound kind of like folk rock meets The Damned or Stiff Little Fingers... basically 70's British Punk and Irish Folk had a crazy orgy and Swingin' Utters was born. One of my favorite songs by them is, "Black Mountain Rain".

4) Ceann: An Irish band that sings about being Irish American. They play beautiful Irish music and many originals by them. A lot of them are extremely funny. Great folk-y tunes mixed with some of the wittiest lyrics I've ever heard. The band comes from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The singer even sings a song about being one of the few famous people out of Allentown. Awesome. Some of my favorite songs include, "Almost Irish", "Pretty on the Inside", and of course, "The Worst Pirate". I recommend listening to them to anyone who hasn't gotten a chance to yet.

3) Street Dogs: The first of two bands on the list coming from one of my favorite towns, Boston, Massachusetts. Also the first band that has Mike McColgan as the singer... Second band, first on the list. Dropkick Murphys is the band he previously sung for. McColgan left Dropkick back in 1998 to pursue his dream of becoming a firefighter. After 4 years, he decided he missed music and made Street Dogs. It sucks his dream wasn't what he thought'd it be, but damn lucky for us. Or at least me. I seriously cannot get enough of their music since hearing "Final Transmission" of of their third album "Fading American Dream" which was released in 2006. 4 years later than when they started, but luckily they're still around for me to dream about seeing live. Anyone wanting to hear some amazing Irish-Punk, give a listen to "Two Angry Kids". If you want some more peaceful, beautifully written songs, give a listen to "Final Transmission", I could not imagine anyone regretting listening to it.

2) Flogging Molly: A lot of my friends are huge Flogging Molly fans. I'll admit, I do love them and they put on a great show, but everytime I see them live, I still believe the bassist is holding a grudge on me for making fun of his hat in 2004. Jeff Weasel and Kori Foster will remember that, so will my father. But, he deserved it, his hat was stupid. Anyway, back to my point. It seems 50% of my friends love Flogging more than Dropkick, and the other half love Dropkick more than Flogging. I'm with the latter of the two, as beautiful as their music is, as amazing as the violin is, as sexy as the violinist is, Dropkick just makes me want to jump around so much more. Flogging Molly is great music to relax or dance to, but not jump around and punch people in the face to. Sometimes, that is all I ask for. Like I said though, they have great music to them, flute, violin, accordion, banjor, mandolin, not all played at once, but fusing beautifully into one of the greatest Irish-Punk bands ever. Just not good enough in my eyes. Some of my favorite songs include, "Drunken Lullabies", "Devil's Dance Floor", "Seven Deadly Sins", and "What's Left of the Flag".

1) DROPKICK MURPHYS: Formed in Quincy, Massachusetts, this band used to play in the basement of a barbershop. That'd be an amazing band to see after a haircut, so much better than a barbershop quartet. Another band influenced by The Pogues and Stiff Little Fingers, they were even influenced by The Dubliners and Swingin' Utters. How awesome is that? Influenced by another top five's influences... I'm not making this up, it is actually awesome. They were formed in 1996 and Mike left to years later only to be replaced by one of my favorite singers from an Oi band I've loved for a while now. That's right, Al Barr from the Bruisers! As much as I loved (and love via Street Dogs) Mike's vocals, Al Barr just has something about him that makes me want to jump around and set things on fire, mosh, and hug people at the same time. I get more done listening to Dropkick than any other band. It's as if they infuse shots of adrenaline into each and every record they sell and it seeps in through my ears. Some favorite songs include, "The Gang's All Here", "Dirty Glass", "Dirty Rats", and their beautiful heavy version of, "Amazing Grace". If I am not buried to that song, I will come back as my own version of the Jersey Devil and terrorize people for centuries.

That's pretty much all for this week, I'll try to log back in sometime soon and post my next top five or so. The way I see it is, I update more frequently than some webcomic creators do so I'm not doing to bad. They complain of power outages, try homelessness buddy. I still rock the blog while looking for work and places to live. "That's punk rock". Haha, please.