Tomorrow Night: Flogging Molly @ House of Blues

Anybody who reads this blog anywhere in the vicinity of St. Patty’s Day knows how big a torch I carry for any even remotely related to Irish folk music — I’m a genuine West European mutt, but the closest tie I’ve got to that other hemisphere is on my mom’s side, with both my Great-Grandma & Great-Grandpa Donovan emigrating (separaretly, despite already having the same last name) to the Bronx from County Cork and someplace vaguely “in the North of Ireland,” respectively.

So I’ve long felt the pull of Ireland in that goofy, half-adopted way only Americans apparently can (as a Dubliner gently pointed out to me the one time I’ve been able to visit, “how would you like it if a bunch of Irishmen came to your hometown and ran around claiming they were long-lost relatives?”), and that definitely extends to the music. There’s something awesomely poignant and beautiful and raucous and irredeemably wild about the sounds that come out of that tradition.

And while they’re based in California, Flogging Molly definitely fall into that tradition, roaring along in the tracks left by everybody from The Pogues to The Young Dubliners to The Tossers and combining trad-folk instrumentation with punk guitars and breakneck rhythms all while holding tight to that wistful, wide-grinning, celebrate-as-the-world-ends ethos that makes all the best folk songs work. Sadly, I’ve never been fortunate enough to see ’em live, but just listening to the albums makes me feel like I’m sitting in some dimly-lit bar, feeling the walls & floor vibrate with the sound, a big smile plastered across my face.

But hey, you don’t need to be me and just have to sit there with headphones on: you can get on out to the House of Blues tomorrow (Wed., February 9th, no-calendar-having slackers) and check ’em out live and in-person.

They’re still touring on their 2008 release, Float, I believe, but I know they’re spent a fair chunk of this past year working on the followup (which doesn’t yet have a name, apparently), writing & recording songs up in Detroit with producer Ryan Hewitt. You can download an MP3 of a track from the forthcoming album on SideOneDummy, “Don’t Shut ‘Em Down,” by subscribing to the band’s mailing list using the handy-dandy widget below:

It’s a little different from Float — a lot more “straight” rock, to my ears — but I’m liking it so far, even still. Well worth checking out.

Trivia Time: I honestly had no idea ’til today that FM frontman Dave King used to sing for the old-old-old-school metal band Fastway. Holy crap. I remember hearing those guys back in the way-early ’80s, during my misspent metalhead youth — I never saw the reportedly-cheeseball Trick or Treat, but at one point I had a copy of the soundtrack those guys did for it living in my boombox. Weird how things come around…