Flogging Molly

Drunken Lullabies (Side One Dummy)
by Grady Gadbow

I really like Flogging Molly. I’ve taken a lot of shit for it, though. A guy I used to work with kept saying “This is the best renaissance fair ever, dude!” whenever the flutes and fiddles chimed in. So yeah, some of this stuff is kinda corny, but when they get rolling, they rock. Drunken Lullabies relies heavily on the same musical tactics that I liked so much on Swagger. The sound comes in layers. A lot of songs start with the traditional Celtic half of the band. Dave King’s lyrics lament lost love and dear old Ireland etcetera until he stops short and the boys bust down the door with a fine American Telecaster/Marshal crunch. Drummer George Schwindt does a lot for these dynamics. His snare sounds a lot like a twelve-gauge shotgun fired off indoors. Backing vocals are good and strong on the climactic chorus parts, but they really shine at live shows where about a hundred people always seem to know the words.

King has been quoted emphasizing that there should always be room for spontaneity live, but when I saw them last year, they played everything on Swagger in the same order and pretty much verbatim, so I’m not sure what he meant. I suppose the live sound varies from city to city. I’ll bet the back-up bits are big in Boston, but I’d love to see what they could do to Butte, Montana, arguably the most Irish town west of Greenland.

To my cynical coworker: Dis on McDuff, but don’t let me catch you tapping your foot.
(PO Box 2350 Los Angeles, CA 90078)