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Reviews SOUND WAVES
By Steve Irsay (From the Long Beach Gazette) Musicians often talk about their band mates being like brothers. Drop the “like” if you’re talking about The Irish Brothers. “The name is not like the Ramones,” said drummer David Irish. “We’re actually brothers and our last name is actually Irish.” So, you guys are, like, Irish too? “We get that a lot,” he joked. “But no, we’re not. We’re more Scandinavian than anything else.” This band of brothers — Karl, Keith and David — play their own unique brand of rock ‘n’ roll, marrying the finger-picked nicety of roots rockabilly and the smoldering intensity of Stooges-style proto-punk. It’s a refreshing, energetic, melodic mash up. The brothers grew up and still live in the city of In the late 1990s, Karl and Keith had a band called Orange Cicadae. At the time, David was studying sound engineering at “I needed a band for my senior project and they were it,” he said. Like so many bands, Orange Cicadae had gone through its fair share of drummers. After the college recording sessions, they lost another one. So the brothers looked in-house to fill the vacant stool. “They knew I was pissing around with the drums a little bit,” David said. “Since I recorded all the songs, they thought it meant I knew them.” He didn’t. And he had five days to learn them. He played his first show with his brothers in September 1998 at the Doll Hut in The Irish Brothers sound began to gel about four years ago, David said. Area gigs started piling up and in July 2001 they released their first full-length, “Bruce Lee Rockabilly.” The album leaned heavily toward the rockabilly/country side, with a few harder “cow punk” tunes thrown in. David said people seemed to gravitate to that edgier rock ‘n’ roll sound. “We decided we should hone our sound and incorporate the roots music into what we are doing, but come up with better focus,” David said. They accomplished that on their 2002 EP “I Will Never Marry.” The leadoff track, “Deconstructive Dentistry,” has a certain On standout track “Singular Fascination,” Karl’s countrified, jazz-influenced finger picking is dirty enough to rock, while Keith attacks his electric bass with the percussive snap of an upright. And David has come a long way from hiding behind his brushes, mixing up galloping train beats with straight-ahead rock. Lyrically, the song is a revealing call out to Ma and Pa Irish. “Forgive me my singular fascination, the source of your frustration,” Keith sings. “You won’t approve my choice of direction but I’ve got to do it, it’s my obsession.” After all, what kind of rock ‘n’ roll family outfit would this be without some good old-fashioned parental disapproval? “They think we are just too loud,” David said of the folks. “And they don’t quite understand it.” Join the family and check out The Irish Brothers tonight (Thursday) at Alex’s Bar ( The Irish Brothers "I Will Never Marry" CD Review From Rocknrollpurgatory.com This 7 song EP starts off with “Deconstructive Dentistry,” which is a really bluesy rocker that opens up with some menacing canines: a really good slab o’ rock’n’roll. The following tracks are more laid back and some actually have a little more of a western feel, but still with a full guitar sound and a nice sense of melody. The singer sounds a little like Eric Clapton in places, but better thankfully. “Circular Square” and “Hot as Texas” bring more of their rockabilly/roots rock affections to the surface. The last song, “My Lullaby” is a beautiful acoustic number, well-sung and reminiscent of country blues and hillbilly – complete with some inventive yodeling. Best track certainly. All in all, this was a good listen by a competent band that doesn’t make for easy comparisons. Worth looking up. - BL
By Bridget Hall
Our last name’s Irish and
we’re all brothers,” explains Keith, bassist and youngest of the Irish
Brothers. “But we don’t play Irish music,” adds lead singer Karl, the
eldest of the trio. Sitting down to chat with the three brothers, I discovered that their shows are so fun not only because their music is awesome, but because they are too. They’re an amiable trio with great senses of humor and who like to feed people cake when it’s Keith’s birthday...In all, they’re probably the most affable band you’ll ever meet. It’s the brotherly blood tie, though, that gives the trio an edge over most other bands. Being related doesn’t guarantee an easier time in the band, but it does help. As Karl points out, “[A good working relationship depends on] how much people are willing to work together…but I know that my brothers are the only ones who can put up with me. I have these, like, diva qualities – they’re the only ones who know how to work with [that].” As the three brothers all live in the same city, they’re able to keep in constant contact with each other – “it makes it a lot easier [to organize anything],” adds Keith. This familial relationship, according to David, even helps the music: “I can tell what [Karl’s] songwriting is going to be like. [When Karl brings in a new song, I] can just tell…where he’s going to go with it before it even happens.” While the brothers have been playing together for about four years, they didn’t always go by The Irish Brothers. “We were called Orange CKD first,” explains Karl. “And had a different drummer,” finishes Keith. The idea was to write “CKD” in an orange pen; hence, Orange CKD. Unfortunately, pronunciation was an ongoing problem. “Everyone called us Orange Chickadee, Orange Soda, Orange Cyanide,” remembers Karl, “Yea, then we got [David] on drums.” The three brothers played their first show together at the Doll Hut in Anaheim – “I had basically played drums for five days…I was pretty bad for like six months,” says David with a chuckle. A month passed and the brothers were still struggling to find a good band name. Finally, while playing a show at the Tropics Lounge in Fullerton, serendipity kicked in. “Our friends just started screaming ‘Alright! The Irish brothers!’ [We thought] ok, we’ll use that name,” laughs Keith, “we couldn’t come up with anything and since our last name sucks so bad, we had to – we couldn’t think of anything else.” This isn’t the only time the brothers have let their friends inadvertently help them along the way. With a first album titled “Bruce Lee Rockabilly”, one would assume the three are kung fu fans. One would, however, be wrong – as Karl explains, “The story is our friend [was playing a show] in San Francisco and…some guy said, ‘You guys sound loosely rockabilly.’ [The friend] didn’t hear right; he’s all, ‘What? Bruce Lee rockabilly?’” With Bruce Lee Rockabilly out
now for about a year, the brothers have been hard at work on new material
and playing as many shows as their schedules allow. They’re even putting
together a split-7 record with the San Diego-based band, the Scotchgreens,
on the aptly named independent label, Split Seven Records. “They’re gonna
do ‘I Will Never Marry’ [an Irish Brothers song], we’re gonna do ‘Hot as
Texas’ [a Scotchgreens song], and we’re each gonna do originals,” David
elaborates. Karl adds, “We’re just kinda working on writing the songs and
putting [the new album] together.” With eight new songs and more on the
way, the brothers are eager to have to new album out in the following
year. Playing largely in Orange County, they do travel to other venues in Los Angeles, San Diego, even Las Vegas. Because their music is such a high-energy mix of rockabilly and punk, they’ve been booked with a wide – sometimes surprising – assortment of bands. “A lot of our big shows have been with swing bands,” observes David. “Yea, it’s kinda bizarre,” adds Keith, “but we always seem to go over pretty well. I don’t know what it is; I just think it’s a pretty good mix I guess. We played in between the Rumble Cats and LaVey Smith once. We were definitely the oddballs, [but] people seemed to like the switch.” Even though they often sound different from the other bands on the band list, the brothers are still appreciated and encouraged. Bands like Royal Crown Revue and Big Sandy and his Fly-Rite Boys have not only enjoyed the brothers’ music, but have also offered their support. Through it all, the brothers remain humble and good-natured. As Karl explains, “Anytime an [established] band says ‘You guys are good; keep doing it’…” “…Or they thank us from the stage,” adds David, “they don’t have to so it’s really cool. Eddie Nichols [from Royal Crown Revue], halfway through the set, he’s all ‘How ‘bout those Irish Brothers? Those guys are really cool!’ That meant a lot…you know, they don’t have to say stuff like that.” As with any hard-working band, the Irish Brothers have a realistic perspective on the band’s direction. They hope the band will take off, but they’re willing to start small. While they play primarily in Southern California in venues about the size of 100, they are hoping to expand into travelling up and down the West Coast and possibly linking onto tours like the Warped Tour. “Even if you’re just playing some tent stage or something like that, there is some name recognition on that,” explains David, “I hope good things will happen. We work hard at it.” What will happen to the band once they get huge? Well, they certainly won’t lose their senses of humor. “Our sister does make-up,” says Keith, “so if ever we go into the whole Alice Cooper thing…” “…She’ll do our make-up,” finishes David. “If we got super huge,” grins Karl, “I’d want to really glam it up.”
By Marcia Taylor Possibly the start of an annual tradition, the Lots-A-Palookas Festival was organized by the Cadillac Tramps, Loudenergy.com and Sellout Productions. Black Flys, Lucky 13, Johnny Suede, OC Grease and Von Dutch sponsored it, so there was a definite car club ambiance to the event, like the Hootenanny. According to the ad I pulled out of the OC Weekly, there was supposed to be a classic motorcycle show, in the Galaxy Parking lot, from 5-7 p.m. When I arrived at 6 p.m., there was nothing of the sort. Instead, there were about 50 people drinking beer inside the theatre and listening to the Irish Brothers (they really are brothers; I met them later on), performing some covers of roots classics like "Ring of Fire" and some original compositions like the high octane, "Psycho Pompadour". There were no motorcycles and no Bar-B-Que., but I’m assuming the former was due to inclement weather. This part of the event was free. At 7 p.m., those of us who were staying for the show were herded out to the front of a small line, then let back in about 7:30 p.m., enabling me to snare a seat at a table, then, for an hour, NOTHING. I wish they’d let those Irish Brothers play or something, while the rest of the folks were coming in. Sept 29th –
Oct 5th, 2000 Then came the Irish Brothers, who do rockabilly with occasional inroads into punk (Bro Keith also plays in Punk as a Doornail, a band semi famed for using a guitar made out of a skateboard). The Irish men blew out a swell mix of covers and originals, which fit the evening’s last-call mood – stuff that went from a zippy tackling of "Folsom Prison Blues" to a wild freak out deal called "Jesus Stole My Woman" to a creation called "Psycho Pompadour" which, thanks or no thanks to a crappy mic, made singer Karl’s voice sound like a shocking merge of death metal with the pipes of the Cramps’ Lux Interior. |
