So, what do you all think of Celtic Rock? The first time I got into celtic music was through Leahy, who definitly is not traditional, but not repulsively modern, either. Because of this, I tend to like the more modern type of celtic music, which is pretty much all I listen to. I think that this new style of music is a great way to lure younger musicians to the traditional music they never thought they would like. What do you think?
I am inclinded to agree with you. I got into trad by hearing Flogging Molly when I liked Punk Rock, of cousre now I am a total Trad head and listen to nothing else. Whether it be modern trad or old style.
I don't mind hearing Irish or "celtic" music fusion provided the musicians doing the fusion are well grounded in the tradition before they commence with the fusion. For example: the way Lunasa pushes the envelope is fantastic and very entertaining -- as well as just good music, and Moving Hearts was great for the same reason. There are a few other good examples as well, but the problem I have is when people who have barely learned the traditional music style seem to get bored with the discipline it requires and decide that adding electric bass and drums is what the music really needs. It ends up sounding like bad garage band noise pollution with annoying celtic melodies taped onto it. Then they think they need to dress up in leather and lace outfits to look like renaissance zombies that live among the standing stones. The whole thing bores me to tears.
I'll listen to just about anything. And I like most everything. I'm not near as much of a musical snob as I pretend to be. Although I do prefer straight traditional music and 'softer' music. I've heard some really cool music including a piece that I cannot locate at the moment that is Celtic fusion and uses a pipe organ with electric guitars. It's cool and proves that fun things can be done with music (of any kind in my opinion) even if it breaks 'traditions' and still be fun to listen to.
Not to be indelicate--and it will be interesting to see if the web gremlins censor the following, but...
Of course, Celtic rock ("Celti-crock" according to some) doesn't amount to a pimple on the ass of the real thing.
But I might never have discovered The Music if I hadn't, after years of self-taught fiddling with rock bands, stumbled into a Pogues cover band. And then heard cuts from the Coolfin album (not Celtic rock, certainly, but not Pure Drop either).
Considering the plethora of music--and near-music, and non-music--competing for the attention of the general public, I have to vote in favor of Celtic rock. If it helps steer people in the direction of the Good Stuff, more power to it.
I'll confess to some ambiguity about it... I like the Pogues, I've had fun with some Black 47 stuff...
One night we were in Tralee, really worn from traveling, and the locals were telling us that Tralee was a town for poetry and theatre, not tunes... <G> We had a late dinner and just walked around town. Turning a corner heard a button box and brightened up. We found the Oak Bar and walked along the long bar to the big back room, following the sound of the box. When we got to the big room there was a downtown NYC punk drum & bass pumping with a guitar player and this other guy leaping about playing trad tunes on a box at like 250 beats per minute... We were delighted, it was a great time, and that's how we met the Prodigals. So my notion of Celtic rock got a boost.
Back here in the States, the only CR bands I know are pretty generic bands who are using some sort of "Celtic" identity as a marketing tool, a logo or a hook... a gimmick. That's pretty disappointing.
We have played some festivals that are heavy with CR (for various reasons, but mostly like the above, a marketing gimmick), and I keep going to hear them hoping for some kind of soulful substance or ... some real relationship to the tradition. I don't even require the sort of virtuosity from them that I have found from the great majority of session players I meet all over the place. So... more or less, I haven't felt real good about it.
Pogues... I got the feeling that Shane McGowan might be a trad player, but he really 'speaks' rock, that's his first language so it's ok somehow because he can feel his way back to the tradition and hook up with it...
Maybe I just don't get it... As a recording engineer I have worked with all kinds of music and I've enjoyed 99.7% of it, and I've been able to feel the motive or the message or the impulse of the artist to express themselves. I have a prejudice, I guess... I want more from CR than just to have a rock band with a piper doing songs that could be done as Cajun or bluegrass or punk or... whatever other style is handy. There's some substance of the tradition that the CR bands I've heard don't bring along with them. It doesn't infuse the material...
It seems easier for a trad band to 'rock' hard than it does for a rock band to bring what it really is to that format.
But... I'd like to hear it, to find it. I keep listening.
Yeah, I agree with the publicity thing. One time I heard (completely by accident, let me assure you) a heavy metal band with a bagpipe. Quite possibly the most insulting thing I have ever heard. A lot of rock bands sound good with a fiddle, but they certainly shoudn't go advertising themselves as Irish. There is a fine line between good CR and complete crap. If you are on the good side, it's awesome. On the other side, it's just more heavy metal.
Anyone ever heard 'Iona'. They have a very talented ulliann piper/whistle player who doubles a lot with the lead guitar/keyboard/composer/arranger. They have a unique sound and don't really fit neatly into a category (a good sign in my opinion). Superb musicianship and writing (both musically and lyrically).
Newgrange is a "Celtic Rock". Irish traditional music, played to a rock-n-roll beat, is quite different. While the Pogues were an interesting take on 80's rock music ( but not the only members of this genre- anyone remember Dexy's Midnight Runners? No? Me either ), "Dropkick Murphy's" and "Flogging Molly" are just sad, unimaginitive copycats 20 years later that are jumping on a bandwagon of exploiting American's fantasies of loutish,fighting, drinking ancestors. If that is what it takes to "lure younger musicians" to ITM, that's a bad comment on todays youth. It would be as if one's introduction to Jazz was Sting's first solo album.... Of course, some purists would say the same about the Chieftains, which I would disagree. At least they approach the music from a background of tradition and respect. I doubt that anyone in the "Dropkicks" or "Flogging" would know what to do in the presence of real Irish trad musicians. Maybe yell and drink a lot. Oh, and wear kilts. Whatever that's about.
I liked Horslips,that French band Gwendal,Fungus from Holland but that is going back a bit.As for the Pogues,Flogging Molly and the like I'd call that genre Cetic Punk.I suppose that the first Steeleye Span album with Gay and Terry Woods could be classed as Celtic Rock.Sweeney's Men,The Johnstones.Five Hand Reel and the JSD Band in Scotland.
There are some serious traditional musos in that last list of yours, dafydd ! Maloney and Brady in the Johnstons, etc....And the later Steeleye with Peter Knight, till they started writing their own tunes to the songs, had a lot of cred IMNSHO.
I am so old that I remember the predecessor to 5Hand Reel, Spencer's Feate, and there were some serious musos there, Clve Woolf was ass. librarian at C Sharpe House as well as being one of the young turks of the DADGAD guitar school.
On the other hand, at Ponterdawe Festival many years ago, there seemed to be a school of new songs, written in Welsh, with R'n'R backing + a couple of irish musos to make it celtic. It obviously had local appeal, but not to me as a musician.
And what about Horslips? [that takes me back]. Their 'Táin' album was a classic. Even though I was a teenage diddley dee-er [over 30 years ago ] I loved the energy of the band and the way they took trad tunes and jazzed them up. Real ground breakers and I loved their music.
I like some of it, other stuff in the same genre I don't. For example, I am currently in mourning, because I waited too long to buy tickets to see the Canadian group Great Big Sea at the Somerville Theater in Boston this weekend, and now they are sold out.
I just have to remember ear plugs--my aged ears are not used to the loud noises after years of acoustic playing.
The French band Malicorne springs to mind - some heavy electrification but unashamedly traditional in sources and harmonies. Check out "Voici le St Jean" or "Quand j'etais chez mon pere" - I can't help singing along at full volume, no matter where I'm listening to them. There's a very strong nationalist movement over there that is heavily into traditional music, but happy to bring it up to date through amplification. Jean Paul Rasle played some mean guitar licks as well, over the top of pure Celtic roots stuff.
I went to see the Scots band Tannahil Weavers when they had an American lead (electric) guitarist. It was in a wine cellar in Cambridge (the one in the UK, not Americay) and everything was miked up, even the bagpipes. One of the best gigs I've ever been to, but my ears were ringing for a full two days afterwards. I often played their 'Marie Christine' at parties in the days when folk was anything but trendy, and filled the dancefloor every time. It convinced a lot of people that the highland pipes weren't some archaic joke, but were an amazing instrument. As I explained it then "designed for marching to war, and for celebrating afterwards".
Yes Breandan, Horslips were a great band. I spent many a weekend night in dance halls listening "dancing" to their music. They most definitely impacted on my generation. Although I was playing before they came onto the scene, I have mates from my youth who if not for Horslips would probably not be playing ITM today.
I’ve been in love with various folk musicks for (oh, lord!) fifty years or more, but back in the early-mid 70’s I was getting a little bored with the American folk scene and spending most of my musical energy on classical and novelty stuff. Then I heard Steeleye Span and was immediately jerked back into the path of righteousness.
So, I like these experiments – especially when they work. And when they do work, they become self-justifying. They don’t need to be qualified as a path for Philistines to find their way to the pure drop.
london fiddler sharonn keane was a founder member of a popular folk / celtic rock band called yb sober which also featured terry domican drums / vocals john meehan acoustic guitar / vocals and gerry mcdonough on bass / vocals.
Their sound was inspiring for me as it got me reeled into mandolin and singing irish songs, their music was a mix of waterboys, pogues, dubliners, saw doctors, steve earle, christy moore along with some of sharron's finest reels,
As for power chords on overdriven electric guitars backing fiddles whistles and pipes its a bit too much like mixing honey and vinegar as is the likes of neck, flogging molly, dropkicks it just doesn't work it takes something away from the music as opposed to adding something constructive, the only exception in my ears is if the overdriven guitar is playing melody with the other instruments like johnny fean does in king of the fairy's
Bc box player,Jean Paul Rasle was never a member of Malicorne and anyway he's a piper.Hughes DeCourson was the guitarist and Dan Ar Bras guested on a couple of albums.
The Pogues were "Folk Rock". For Celtic Rock, there were many, including Fairport Convention with Richard Thompson playing melody on jigs and reels on the electric guitar. But Celtic rock is, was, and will ever be, HORSLIPS.
"Les goûts et les couleurs, ça ne se discute pas". I like most folkrock, folkmetal or folkpunk. I discovered The Music through these genres, not the other way around. And I hope that it will do so for many other people too. Celtic rock shouldn't be 'compared' with the real thing, it hasn't got the same purpose. Its purpose should in the first place be entertaining a jumping crowd of youngsters, and in the second place, lure those who are truely interested in the melodies into the real stuff.
Nonetheless, I can still equally enjoy a tune played on traditional instruments (or solo), as the same tune played with modern backup (drumset, powerchords, electric bass). Different emotions, but to me, one not inferior to the other. However I can understand that one who doesn't like punk or metal in the first place, loaths from this sort of music: just like I dislike jazzy influences in ITM (nope, still not converted :p ). However, I simply chose not to listen to it, I'm not saying it is wrong or inferior to the traditional stuff.
As you can see in my profile, I hope to play jigpunk myself one day... but it's not easy finding young, beginning but talented musicians interested in jigpunk who have a found knowledge of the Traditional music... :/ (repetition tonight though, for the first time with the drummer, i'm curious as to whether he'll be the one ! )
The JSD band were fabulous,very tight,excellent drummer.I saw them a couple of times up in Thurso and at a dance in Tain.Got me interested in playing fiddle.Take a look at http://members.aol.com/Oscarsfolk/jsdband.htm for some detail.
I guess part of the trouble is things that seemed newfangled, not part of the music etc etc, phase in as others phase out. Looking back into the murky past of all forms of trad music, for example, how many cello players frequent your session - though they were common in Scottish music 150 years ago. Guitars (acoustic) were introduced less than 100 years ago (dependant on who you believe, nearer 70), but how many how many people can say they see more cellists than guitarists in their session???
DADGAD's popularity is credited to within the last 50 years - yet how many people play in DADGAD, double-drop-D compared to those who play in standard (especially in Ireland)?
On guitar, the extended chords from jazz are (pretty much) universally credited to Willie Johnson, who in lifted them from the swing jazz of eddie lang (though alot of the rythmn cam from the piano players) around 60ish years ago, and yet this has almost become the norm in standard tuning (particularly in scottish styles), and is a great deal more venerable than rock stylings but in another 60 years it might be the norm.
Although, I draw the line at being reasonable if some bloke with an electric guitar tells the E13th I'm playing doesn't fit in trad music........
My son, who does not play Irish Music, was playing in a venue in NY with his group, Antibalas, and he had the opportunity of hearing Black 47. He asked me if I knew the group. He said it was the worst rock & roll band he had ever heard. I feel the same way about them as an Irish Band. Now you put the two together and you have 'Headliners'!!!
Try listening to a band called the tossers. They have a fairly good grip on the trad while still being sort of punkish about it all. I gave them a thumbs up when me daughter first played them for me. But then again I've always been a bit rebellious in nature.
So this post is way after the fact. I agree with the post about different genres. I love trad., but I also play in a "Celtic Rock" band. We do the band because it's about having fun. We use a lot of trad. tunes as well as some of the more popular plastic paddy because that's what some people want to hear. For Celtic Rock, we only care about having a good time, sounding the best we can while doing so, and of course, in a venue, entertaining. I mostly play my trad stuff to the birds on my back porch. So, yes, I agree that it's unfair to compare, and it's also unfair to say Celtic Rock, punk, or fusion is s--t. I think rap sounds like s-t, but I wouldn't be so snobby as to say there's no talent there... it's just not my cup o tea, and while I don't listen to it, I don't put it down to those who do, or those that play/sing, etc. that type of genre.
Celtic Rock
Celtic Rock
So, what do you all think of Celtic Rock? The first time I got into celtic music was through Leahy, who definitly is not traditional, but not repulsively modern, either. Because of this, I tend to like the more modern type of celtic music, which is pretty much all I listen to. I think that this new style of music is a great way to lure younger musicians to the traditional music they never thought they would like. What do you think?
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Ben314
Re: Celtic Rock
I'm not against it in theory, but every specimen I've heard so far has been shudderworthy.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by cathrynb
Re: Celtic Rock
I am inclinded to agree with you. I got into trad by hearing Flogging Molly when I liked Punk Rock, of cousre now I am a total Trad head and listen to nothing else. Whether it be modern trad or old style.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Why Bother?
Re: Celtic Rock
I don't mind hearing Irish or "celtic" music fusion provided the musicians doing the fusion are well grounded in the tradition before they commence with the fusion. For example: the way Lunasa pushes the envelope is fantastic and very entertaining -- as well as just good music, and Moving Hearts was great for the same reason. There are a few other good examples as well, but the problem I have is when people who have barely learned the traditional music style seem to get bored with the discipline it requires and decide that adding electric bass and drums is what the music really needs. It ends up sounding like bad garage band noise pollution with annoying celtic melodies taped onto it. Then they think they need to dress up in leather and lace outfits to look like renaissance zombies that live among the standing stones. The whole thing bores me to tears.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Phantom Button
Re: Celtic Rock
I'll listen to just about anything. And I like most everything. I'm not near as much of a musical snob as I pretend to be. Although I do prefer straight traditional music and 'softer' music. I've heard some really cool music including a piece that I cannot locate at the moment that is Celtic fusion and uses a pipe organ with electric guitars. It's cool and proves that fun things can be done with music (of any kind in my opinion) even if it breaks 'traditions' and still be fun to listen to.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by musicfan
Re: Celtic Rock
Not to be indelicate--and it will be interesting to see if the web gremlins censor the following, but...
Of course, Celtic rock ("Celti-crock" according to some) doesn't amount to a pimple on the ass of the real thing.
But I might never have discovered The Music if I hadn't, after years of self-taught fiddling with rock bands, stumbled into a Pogues cover band. And then heard cuts from the Coolfin album (not Celtic rock, certainly, but not Pure Drop either).
Considering the plethora of music--and near-music, and non-music--competing for the attention of the general public, I have to vote in favor of Celtic rock. If it helps steer people in the direction of the Good Stuff, more power to it.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by John Galt
Re: Celtic Rock
I'll confess to some ambiguity about it... I like the Pogues, I've had fun with some Black 47 stuff...
One night we were in Tralee, really worn from traveling, and the locals were telling us that Tralee was a town for poetry and theatre, not tunes... <G> We had a late dinner and just walked around town. Turning a corner heard a button box and brightened up. We found the Oak Bar and walked along the long bar to the big back room, following the sound of the box. When we got to the big room there was a downtown NYC punk drum & bass pumping with a guitar player and this other guy leaping about playing trad tunes on a box at like 250 beats per minute... We were delighted, it was a great time, and that's how we met the Prodigals. So my notion of Celtic rock got a boost.
Back here in the States, the only CR bands I know are pretty generic bands who are using some sort of "Celtic" identity as a marketing tool, a logo or a hook... a gimmick. That's pretty disappointing.
We have played some festivals that are heavy with CR (for various reasons, but mostly like the above, a marketing gimmick), and I keep going to hear them hoping for some kind of soulful substance or ... some real relationship to the tradition. I don't even require the sort of virtuosity from them that I have found from the great majority of session players I meet all over the place. So... more or less, I haven't felt real good about it.
Pogues... I got the feeling that Shane McGowan might be a trad player, but he really 'speaks' rock, that's his first language so it's ok somehow because he can feel his way back to the tradition and hook up with it...
Maybe I just don't get it... As a recording engineer I have worked with all kinds of music and I've enjoyed 99.7% of it, and I've been able to feel the motive or the message or the impulse of the artist to express themselves. I have a prejudice, I guess... I want more from CR than just to have a rock band with a piper doing songs that could be done as Cajun or bluegrass or punk or... whatever other style is handy. There's some substance of the tradition that the CR bands I've heard don't bring along with them. It doesn't infuse the material...
It seems easier for a trad band to 'rock' hard than it does for a rock band to bring what it really is to that format.
But... I'd like to hear it, to find it. I keep listening.
stv
http://cdbaby.com/Culchies
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by stv culchie
Re: Celtic Rock
It all depends on what variety.
Is it an Irish band with more than one rhythm player and a djembe player? If so, I'm alright with that, I respect that.
Is it Great Big Sea-like stuff, with a drum set, lots of original stuff and lots of vocals? If the original stuff is good.
Is it a rock band who gets a fiddler/piper/accordionist and calls it Irish? Oh my god, shoot me right now.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Zazzaliss
Re: Celtic Rock
Yeah, I agree with the publicity thing. One time I heard (completely by accident, let me assure you) a heavy metal band with a bagpipe. Quite possibly the most insulting thing I have ever heard. A lot of rock bands sound good with a fiddle, but they certainly shoudn't go advertising themselves as Irish. There is a fine line between good CR and complete crap. If you are on the good side, it's awesome. On the other side, it's just more heavy metal.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Ben314
Re: Celtic Rock
Anyone ever heard 'Iona'. They have a very talented ulliann piper/whistle player who doubles a lot with the lead guitar/keyboard/composer/arranger. They have a unique sound and don't really fit neatly into a category (a good sign in my opinion). Superb musicianship and writing (both musically and lyrically).
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by jasonlburnfield
Re: Celtic Rock
Newgrange is a "Celtic Rock". Irish traditional music, played to a rock-n-roll beat, is quite different. While the Pogues were an interesting take on 80's rock music ( but not the only members of this genre- anyone remember Dexy's Midnight Runners? No? Me either ), "Dropkick Murphy's" and "Flogging Molly" are just sad, unimaginitive copycats 20 years later that are jumping on a bandwagon of exploiting American's fantasies of loutish,fighting, drinking ancestors. If that is what it takes to "lure younger musicians" to ITM, that's a bad comment on todays youth. It would be as if one's introduction to Jazz was Sting's first solo album.... Of course, some purists would say the same about the Chieftains, which I would disagree. At least they approach the music from a background of tradition and respect. I doubt that anyone in the "Dropkicks" or "Flogging" would know what to do in the presence of real Irish trad musicians. Maybe yell and drink a lot. Oh, and wear kilts. Whatever that's about.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Farr
Re: Celtic Rock
I liked Horslips,that French band Gwendal,Fungus from Holland but that is going back a bit.As for the Pogues,Flogging Molly and the like I'd call that genre Cetic Punk.I suppose that the first Steeleye Span album with Gay and Terry Woods could be classed as Celtic Rock.Sweeney's Men,The Johnstones.Five Hand Reel and the JSD Band in Scotland.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by dafydd
Re: Celtic Rock
There are some serious traditional musos in that last list of yours, dafydd ! Maloney and Brady in the Johnstons, etc....And the later Steeleye with Peter Knight, till they started writing their own tunes to the songs, had a lot of cred IMNSHO.
I am so old that I remember the predecessor to 5Hand Reel, Spencer's Feate, and there were some serious musos there, Clve Woolf was ass. librarian at C Sharpe House as well as being one of the young turks of the DADGAD guitar school.
On the other hand, at Ponterdawe Festival many years ago, there seemed to be a school of new songs, written in Welsh, with R'n'R backing + a couple of irish musos to make it celtic. It obviously had local appeal, but not to me as a musician.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Celtic Rock
And what about Horslips? [that takes me back]. Their 'Táin' album was a classic. Even though I was a teenage diddley dee-er [over 30 years ago
] I loved the energy of the band and the way they took trad tunes and jazzed them up. Real ground breakers and I loved their music.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by breandan
Re: Celtic Rock
I like some of it, other stuff in the same genre I don't. For example, I am currently in mourning, because I waited too long to buy tickets to see the Canadian group Great Big Sea at the Somerville Theater in Boston this weekend, and now they are sold out.
I just have to remember ear plugs--my aged ears are not used to the loud noises after years of acoustic playing.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by AlBrown
Re: Celtic Rock
The French band Malicorne springs to mind - some heavy electrification but unashamedly traditional in sources and harmonies. Check out "Voici le St Jean" or "Quand j'etais chez mon pere" - I can't help singing along at full volume, no matter where I'm listening to them. There's a very strong nationalist movement over there that is heavily into traditional music, but happy to bring it up to date through amplification. Jean Paul Rasle played some mean guitar licks as well, over the top of pure Celtic roots stuff.
I went to see the Scots band Tannahil Weavers when they had an American lead (electric) guitarist. It was in a wine cellar in Cambridge (the one in the UK, not Americay) and everything was miked up, even the bagpipes. One of the best gigs I've ever been to, but my ears were ringing for a full two days afterwards. I often played their 'Marie Christine' at parties in the days when folk was anything but trendy, and filled the dancefloor every time. It convinced a lot of people that the highland pipes weren't some archaic joke, but were an amazing instrument. As I explained it then "designed for marching to war, and for celebrating afterwards".
Eno
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by bc_box_player
Re: Celtic Rock
Yes Breandan, Horslips were a great band. I spent many a weekend night in dance halls listening "dancing" to their music. They most definitely impacted on my generation. Although I was playing before they came onto the scene, I have mates from my youth who if not for Horslips would probably not be playing ITM today.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Strathfoyle
Re: Celtic Rock
I’ve been in love with various folk musicks for (oh, lord!) fifty years or more, but back in the early-mid 70’s I was getting a little bored with the American folk scene and spending most of my musical energy on classical and novelty stuff. Then I heard Steeleye Span and was immediately jerked back into the path of righteousness.
So, I like these experiments – especially when they work. And when they do work, they become self-justifying. They don’t need to be qualified as a path for Philistines to find their way to the pure drop.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Bob himself
Re: Celtic Rock
london fiddler sharonn keane was a founder member of a popular folk / celtic rock band called yb sober which also featured terry domican drums / vocals john meehan acoustic guitar / vocals and gerry mcdonough on bass / vocals.
Their sound was inspiring for me as it got me reeled into mandolin and singing irish songs, their music was a mix of waterboys, pogues, dubliners, saw doctors, steve earle, christy moore along with some of sharron's finest reels,
As for power chords on overdriven electric guitars backing fiddles whistles and pipes its a bit too much like mixing honey and vinegar as is the likes of neck, flogging molly, dropkicks it just doesn't work it takes something away from the music as opposed to adding something constructive, the only exception in my ears is if the overdriven guitar is playing melody with the other instruments like johnny fean does in king of the fairy's
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by Ripthecalico
Re: Celtic Rock
Bc box player,Jean Paul Rasle was never a member of Malicorne and anyway he's a piper.Hughes DeCourson was the guitarist and Dan Ar Bras guested on a couple of albums.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by dafydd
Re: Celtic Rock
The Pogues were "Folk Rock". For Celtic Rock, there were many, including Fairport Convention with Richard Thompson playing melody on jigs and reels on the electric guitar. But Celtic rock is, was, and will ever be, HORSLIPS.
Absolutely brilliant.
# Posted on April 26th 2006 by bodhran bliss
Re: Celtic Rock
"Les goûts et les couleurs, ça ne se discute pas". I like most folkrock, folkmetal or folkpunk. I discovered The Music through these genres, not the other way around. And I hope that it will do so for many other people too. Celtic rock shouldn't be 'compared' with the real thing, it hasn't got the same purpose. Its purpose should in the first place be entertaining a jumping crowd of youngsters, and in the second place, lure those who are truely interested in the melodies into the real stuff.
)
Nonetheless, I can still equally enjoy a tune played on traditional instruments (or solo), as the same tune played with modern backup (drumset, powerchords, electric bass). Different emotions, but to me, one not inferior to the other. However I can understand that one who doesn't like punk or metal in the first place, loaths from this sort of music: just like I dislike jazzy influences in ITM (nope, still not converted :p ). However, I simply chose not to listen to it, I'm not saying it is wrong or inferior to the traditional stuff.
As you can see in my profile, I hope to play jigpunk myself one day... but it's not easy finding young, beginning but talented musicians interested in jigpunk who have a found knowledge of the Traditional music... :/ (repetition tonight though, for the first time with the drummer, i'm curious as to whether he'll be the one !
- Vince
# Posted on April 27th 2006 by BD-
Re: Celtic Rock
Dafydd, I didn't mean Jean Paul was in Malicorne - just that he played similar stuff. And I realised I meant Alan Stivell, anyway...
=~
Who are/were the JSD band? From your list it looks like we have similar tastes, and that sounds like one I missed.
L'Eno
(That's meant to be me chuffing on a Gauloise by the way)
# Posted on April 27th 2006 by bc_box_player
Re: Celtic Rock
"I'm not saying it is wrong or inferior to the traditional stuff." - I am.
# Posted on April 27th 2006 by Farr
Re: Celtic Rock
The JSD band were fabulous,very tight,excellent drummer.I saw them a couple of times up in Thurso and at a dance in Tain.Got me interested in playing fiddle.Take a look at http://members.aol.com/Oscarsfolk/jsdband.htm for some detail.
# Posted on April 27th 2006 by lefthander al
Re: Celtic Rock
Thanks for the JSD band page lefthander al.
# Posted on April 27th 2006 by dafydd
Re: Celtic Rock
I guess part of the trouble is things that seemed newfangled, not part of the music etc etc, phase in as others phase out. Looking back into the murky past of all forms of trad music, for example, how many cello players frequent your session - though they were common in Scottish music 150 years ago. Guitars (acoustic) were introduced less than 100 years ago (dependant on who you believe, nearer 70), but how many how many people can say they see more cellists than guitarists in their session???
DADGAD's popularity is credited to within the last 50 years - yet how many people play in DADGAD, double-drop-D compared to those who play in standard (especially in Ireland)?
On guitar, the extended chords from jazz are (pretty much) universally credited to Willie Johnson, who in lifted them from the swing jazz of eddie lang (though alot of the rythmn cam from the piano players) around 60ish years ago, and yet this has almost become the norm in standard tuning (particularly in scottish styles), and is a great deal more venerable than rock stylings but in another 60 years it might be the norm.
Although, I draw the line at being reasonable if some bloke with an electric guitar tells the E13th I'm playing doesn't fit in trad music........
# Posted on April 28th 2006 by Andy V
Re: Celtic Rock
My son, who does not play Irish Music, was playing in a venue in NY with his group, Antibalas, and he had the opportunity of hearing Black 47. He asked me if I knew the group. He said it was the worst rock & roll band he had ever heard. I feel the same way about them as an Irish Band. Now you put the two together and you have 'Headliners'!!!
# Posted on May 14th 2006 by stonecrusher
Re: Celtic Rock
Try listening to a band called the tossers. They have a fairly good grip on the trad while still being sort of punkish about it all. I gave them a thumbs up when me daughter first played them for me. But then again I've always been a bit rebellious in nature.
# Posted on May 23rd 2006 by newfie percussionist
Re: Celtic Rock
So this post is way after the fact. I agree with the post about different genres. I love trad., but I also play in a "Celtic Rock" band. We do the band because it's about having fun. We use a lot of trad. tunes as well as some of the more popular plastic paddy because that's what some people want to hear. For Celtic Rock, we only care about having a good time, sounding the best we can while doing so, and of course, in a venue, entertaining. I mostly play my trad stuff to the birds on my back porch. So, yes, I agree that it's unfair to compare, and it's also unfair to say Celtic Rock, punk, or fusion is s--t. I think rap sounds like s-t, but I wouldn't be so snobby as to say there's no talent there... it's just not my cup o tea, and while I don't listen to it, I don't put it down to those who do, or those that play/sing, etc. that type of genre.
# Posted on April 28th 2009 by Fiddlechick7