When a young Shane MacGowan, a man-on-the-scene of the original London punk scene, made the conscious decision to combine his Irish and punk cultural roots, he might’ve thought it’d be momentarily popular. He might’ve thought it’d end up being a living for a while — he might’ve even dreamed of the kind of cult and even popular success his band, the Pogues, went on to enjoy.
He can’t, however, have imagined that his famously toothless maw would be the face that launched a thousand bands; that Shane MacGowan would become not just a world-touted, iconographic songwriter, but in fact an entire genre of music unto itself, with its own good, bad, and ugly. But somehow, 20 years after the Pogues drank their way into our hearts with their brilliant debut, Red Roses for Me, and 15 years after the band’s last truly great album, Peace and Love, Irish drunk-punk isn’t just a genre, it’s a thriving one.
That doesn’t mean, however, that it’s necessarily a good one. Shane MacGowan’s Pogues were a fluke of immense proportions: Rabble-rousing yet poetic, carelessly punk yet precisely musical, a band able to synthesize clichés and stereotypes into something that transcended them. But not only that, the Pogues were also the product of a very specific moment, when being London Irish — or being Irish at all, for that matter — was extremely uncool. The Pogues made it cool to be Irish — or, if not cool, at least something beyond “thief” and “terrorist”. And after doing that, making a handful of brilliant records, performing innumerous influential shows and writing a few of the truly great songs of the late 20th century, Shane MacGowan kind of called it a day, betrayed by himself and the new stereotype of the drunken Irish wild-rover poet he had helped rebirth.
That’s where Shite ‘n’ Onions comes in. Because while there are a few great tracks on this compilation of modern “Celtic/Punk bands”, for the most part it’s the dedication to the raucous boozer image that’s celebrated here. Take the Skels, a group of New Jersey cops who moonlight as one of the East Coast’s finest pub-punk outfits. Here’s a band capable of making a roomful of never-heard-of-ya’s into a roomful of best buddies over the course of three songs — at the end of a full set, you’re giving ’em the keys to your house. But on record, that energetic pint-raising ethic on “One for the Road” comes across as too close to paint-by-numbers. And it’s not just the Yanks — Ireland’s own Blood or Whiskey fall into the trap of gruffly grunted vocals and weren’t-we-drunk lyrics; London band Neck just adds distortion to the mix, à la Flogging Molly.
And none of that is to say that this stuff’s bad. Shite ‘n’ Onions’ bands tend to make up for their own songwriting shortcomings with loads of energy, and the benefit of a relatively untapped readymade lexicon. So even if you think you’ve heard the Mahones’ “Drunken Lazy Bastard” before, you’ll likely be partial to it (and its excellent mandolin solo). Likewise, there’s a lot of life in Canadian band Siobhan’s virtual Peace and Love outtake “The Kilfinane Parish” and the Steam Pig’s bizarre Celtic hardcore. (Plus, you get the Spunk Lads’ Irish-ska piss-take “Iron Lady”, with its chorus of “Margaret Thatcher’s more man / Than you’ll ever be”.)
As a resource for fans of Celtic punk, the online magazine Shite ‘n’ Onions has a far-reaching concept of its fanbase’s tastes: Stiff Little Fingers, Thin Lizzy, the Undertones, and early Pogues supporters the Clash all fall into the Shite ‘n’ Onions world. There’s some of that on the compilation: The Devil’s Advocates play Dropkick Murphys-esque street punk, and Big Black Cadillac is a great drums-and-guitars, rockabilly-inspired duo. But for the most part, even the best bands on the disc are somewhat interchangeable.
When it comes to vibrant live music, raucous shows, and trouble-filled weekends, the Celtic-punk combination is alive and well — perhaps even at the height of its powers, with groups such as Dropkick Murphys and Flogging Molly selling out venues across the U.S. and Europe. Volume 1 of the Shite ‘n’ Onions compilation shows that, like any musically specific scene, the Irish folk-punk has its ups and downs, but also that its widespread appeal (Shite ‘n’ Onions’ bands hail from Norway, New England, Canada and more) makes it a viable style to be mined. Perhaps all it needs is more willingness to stray from the unwritten rules laid down by its creators.