Category Archives: News

The Dreadnoughts: Roll & Go

Canada or maybe the worlds only Celtic polka punk klezmer band have a new single, Problem, and a new album, Roll and Go, out soon. From the press release……

https://thedreadnoughts.bandcamp.com/

The Dreadnoughts have just announced their new single Problem to support the release of their upcoming full length out June 24th on Stomp Records. The new album “Roll & Go” was written primarily by singer/guitarist Nicholas Smyth in his one bedroom apartment in New York City at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic, with a newborn infant, during lockdown. With band members based in New York, Vancouver, London, and Edmonton, the band decided to record in the unlikely location of Norwalk, Connecticut at the Factory Underground Studios. After ducking and weaving through countless travel restrictions, the Dreadnoughts managed to learn, record and mix an entire album in nine days. It was a harrowing, intense experience, one made even more intense by the fact that six guest musicians were recording their own parts in six different cities around the world, and that all of this had to be coordinated with virtually no time.  But they got it done! The result is Roll & Go: the Dreadnoughts fifth, and possibly finest, studio album.

Reflecting on the meaning behind the advance single Problem, Smyth remarks, “This song is about our love-hate-mostly-love-but-sometimes-really-hate relationship with Poland, a country we’ve toured many times.  In particular, it’s about a winter tour we did where everything just kept breaking and going wrong, and we kept fighting it and raging against it until we realized that this was normal in Poland, and that you needed to just do what everyone else did: sit back, have a beer and a smoke, and say “to hell with it.” The Poles are amazing at this, it’s actually a really healthy attitude to have in a lot of situations.  The song’s title comes from a word that means the same in English and Polish, and we quickly realized that we were going to hear it from our tour manager (who spoke no English) about 18 times a day.  ‘Ah…’ he would say, his face scrunching up and worry-creasing his forehead… ‘Problem’.”

The best of 2021

Best album

#1 The Peelers: Down and Out in the City of Saints

The best band in the whole Celtic-punk universe and another great album.

#2 Ferocious Dog: Hope

Hope is FDs breakthrough into the big time. 

#3 The Dropkick Murphys: Turn Up The Dial

A nice back to form album. No surprises but we don’t want or like surprises from the Murphys. 

#4 The Rumjacks: Hestia

Still fighting strong after the messy departure of original vocalist, Frankie. 

#5 Blaggards: Blagmatic

Blagmatic may have taken a while but it was worth the wait.

Best new band

The Dead Rabbits: 7 Ol’ Jerks

Not exactly a new band but new to Shite’n’Onions. Pure Celtic-punk.

Best acoustic solo album

Finny McConnell:The Dark Streets Of Love

I’ve always said Finny is a first class song writer.

Best Celtic-punk zine

London Celtic Punks 

Well written and always new content. The go to news source.

https://londoncelticpunks.wordpress.com/

Best Celtic Punk memoir

Celtic Punk Superfan (Recaps & Reflections Chapbook, 2002–22)

by Michael Croland

Special shout out

Trouble Pilgrims: Blood, Glass & Gasoline

The Best of 2020 (and 2019)

I didn’t put out a best of 2019 list on St. Patrick’s Day 2020 and the whole world went to shite. So, in my attempt to fix the strange vortex we have been in since, here with no further ado is the Shite’n’Onions best of 2020 (and 2019)

The Top 6:

#1 The Go Set: Of Bright Futures….and Broken Pasts

#2 Greenland Whalefishers: Based on a True Story

#3 The Walker Roaders: The Walker Roaders

#4 The Real McKenzies: Beer & Loathing

#5 The Tan & Sober Gentlemen: Veracity

#6 Bodh’aktan: Ride Out The Storm

Best 30 Year Retrospective:

The Mahones: This Is All We Got To Show For It (Best Of 1990 – 2020)

Best Debut (single):

The Placks: Rebellious Son (7”)

Best Other Shite:

Flogging Molly – Swagger 20th Anniversary Edition

The Pogues ‎– BBC Sessions 1984-1985

The Radiators: Ghostown 40th Anniversary Edition

The Placks: The Sabbath

Scotland’s The Placks, have a new single, The Sabbath, out today. This is the bands fourth single in the last twelve months and it’s a fun, sing along. I’m guessing the subject matter refers to Scotland’s sometime strict observance of the sabbath and what folks will go through get a beer on a Sunday.

https://www.facebook.com/the.placks

Dropkick Murphys: Turn Up That Dial

The Dropkicks drop (good ‘eh?) their new album, Turn Up That Dial, on April 30th. The first single from the album will be “Middle Finger”. Turn Up That Dial is the bands 10th studio album and here’s to hoping that its more rowdy celtic-punk’n’roll – I somehow suspect it will be.

Track listing:

1. ‘Turn Up That Dial’
2. ‘L-EE-B-O-Y’
3. ‘Middle Finger’
4. ‘Queen Of Suffolk County’
5. ‘Mick Jones Nicked My Pudding’
6. ‘H.B.D.M.F.’
7. ‘Good As Gold’
8. ‘Smash Shit Up’
9. ‘Chosen Few’
10. ‘City By The Sea’
11. ‘I Wish You Were Here’

http://www.dropkickmurphys.com/

Gary Moore: New Celtic-rock (possibly)

Looks like there may be new Celtic-rock material from legendary guitarist and Celtic-rock innovator Gary Moore coming out. Just prior to his death in 2011, Moore was working on new Celtic rock material. Moore was a member of Thin Lizzy (3 times) in the 1970s and played on their Celtic infused 1979 album Black Rose as well as recording his own Celtic metal opus Wild Frontier in 1987. From 1990 onwards Moore turned to the blues and had a very successful career. 

The Peelers: Prizefight

Prizefight the new single from The Peelers is now available on Spotify. The new album ‘Down & Out in the City of Saints’ out March 12th.

‘Down and Out in the City of Saints’ features 10 songs, recorded in Montreal, Dundee Scotland, and Vancouver between December 2019 and June 2020. In keeping with their more recent material, Dave Barton’s songs reflect the North American experience of the diaspora with a tip of the newsboy cap to the Quebecois narrative and the lure of Boston and New York; blending truth and fiction, glory and sport, love and loss, darkness and despair, while introducing composites of individuals, companions, friends and foes met along the punk rock journey.

Tracks
1. Give Us A Roar
2. Down and Out in the City of Saints
3. Prizefight
4. Spirits Seldom Sober
5. Stick and Move
6. Rakes Around The Point
7. Glad To See The Back Of You
8. Last Glass
9. Harder They Fall
10. From Here To Halifax