Neck is easily one of the best Folk-Punk bands presently on the scene today. Leeson O’Keeffe has almost the perfect pedigree, an ex-Punk right down to the authentic Cockney accent (the real thing not the phony Green Day accent), was raised on the same street as Johnny Rotten, in the same North London neighborhood as the Pogues and apprenticed under the master himself Shane MacGowan as a member of the Popes.
Necked (A Few Odds From The Oul’ Sods), is really just a compilation of tracks taken from the “Psycho Ceilidh” EP and various demo’s and out-takes recorded over the last couple of years, specially pressed to help finance the just completed US tour and as a stop gap till the first real album is released.

It’s really great to now have some of my live favorites on CD – “Hello Jakey!” is fast punkie and Irish, “Loud ’n’ Proud ’n’ Bold” is Loud ’n’ Proud ’n’ Bold, “Shite’n’Onions” (where I nicked the zine name from) is a frantic jig/reel and “I’m a Man You Don’t Meet Every Day” is played loud, fast and totally different from the Pogues version of the old Jacobite song. “Fields of Athenry” is good, but Brush Shields does it better – sorry guys. “Topless Mary Poppins” (the best song title of the year) is again Irish in a Flogging Molly style and the excellent and strangely titled “Here’s Mud In Yer Eye” is a tale of an old Rebel and a classic in the style of Luke Kelly or Shane MacGowan.

If you haven’t already picked this up at one of their recent gigs then I strongly urge you to get in touch and order a copy before they disappear.

October 2001