Top 5 Irish Bands

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, so rather than bore you with the preachy rant about the horrible shit that St. Patrick actually did and what “driving the snakes from Ireland” means and all that nonsense, I thought I would rather share with you my favourite Irish bands. These are bands you’ve probably never heard of before, and many of them had songs I listened to while writing my debut novel that is partially set in Ireland, MOTHER OF ABOMINATIONS.

So, I’m going to count down to my favourite and suggest some tunes for you. Enjoy!

5. Therapy?

This band is a question. They are the most well-known band on my list, so I put them first, but you might not know they are from Larne, in Northern Ireland. Therapy? provided some much needed metal in the grunge era. Somewhere between industrial, goth and alternative, they scratch a lot of itches.

This song, “Screamager” comes from their poppiest album, Troublegum, but it might be my favourite Therapy? song. So here it is:

4. God Is An Astronaut

Post rock/electronica is not usually my bag, but I got into these guys because their name comes from Clive Barker’s film, Nightbreed. It’s good writing music and they come from County Wicklow, Ireland!

3. Mael Mordha

Mael Mordha hail from Dublin and, admittedly, take a lot from my number one band. They’re the first band on my list that take traditional Celtic music elements and inject them into their sped-up version of doom metal.

Here’s their song “All Eire Will Quake”:

2. Cruachan

I listened to a lot of Dublin’s Cruachan while writing the book. There’s a lot of bile and intensity in their brand of folk metal. A lot more Celtic influence in their music as well.

Here’s their intense war cry, “Blood for the Blood God”:

For a good chunk of the band’s existence, they had a second singer, Karen Gilligan, who offered a softer, more melodic side to the band. Here’s “The Fianna”:

Their album Folk-Lore was produced by legendary Irish musician/drunk Shane McGowan who also sang on a couple tunes of theirs. Here’s the best: “Ride On.”

1.Primordial

Black/doom/celtic metal band Primordial hail from Skerries in County Dublin, but they often feel like they come from the battlefield. After the battle, mourning their dead, but rejoicing in their victory. Primordial is a band like no other.

“Babel’s Tower”

Their album The Gathering Wilderness is a current favourite. It’s meaty but subtle. Here’s “Coffin Ships”

The title track from their latest record, Where Greater Men Have Fallen stays away from the local political themes and instead provides a true and enduring reasoning for the abolishment of war.

And finally, they do a killer cover of the traditional Irish song, “Foggy Dew.”

Enjoy your St. Patrick’s Day. Stay safe and come home alive. If not, may you be in Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you’re dead.

Update

Just a quick update on me.

It’s been a busy few days, but I noticed that Kindle sales have now opened up at Amazon.ca here in Canada as well as the regular site. The novel (MOTHER OF ABOMINATIONS) appears to have started off doing pretty well there, so that was cool to see.

To find out more about the novel, check out my interview at Darkness Dwells with my buddy Jason White. We had a solid hour long conversation about my podcast, my novel, my next novel and my time living in Scotland among other things. Check it out here.

Frankie listens, so should you!

Speaking of my podcast, this week my buddy Darryll and I covered the two Lost Skeleton films from Larry Blamire (THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA and THE LOST SKELETON RETURNS AGAIN) as well as my review of season one of FEAR OF THE WALKING DEAD. Check that out here.

Growr!

Novel #2 is coming along nicely. I said I will be first drafted at the end of spring break (which starts this Friday) and I still think I’m on track to do that.

Until next time!

Those poor bastards…

In the last two days since the last post, I have written 2000 words. I think maybe all I needed was to publicly shame myself. Even if only four people are reading this. Spring Break in a week and a half. By the end of Spring Break, I will have finished my first draft of my second novel.

There. I said it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I was in a writing slump, and I think it’s because the stuff I’m writing is really bleak at the moment. Which is weird, because bleak is kind of my stock and trade. I wallow in it. I prefer those kinds of stories to read, watch and, yes, write.

So why then?

This is the first time I’ve delved into the misery in the long form. All of my bleak stuff has been in short story format thus far. I’ve been putting these characters through shit for so long now, that perhaps I’m beginning to resent myself for doing it.

And so…I will continue.

Those poor bastards.

There’s not much else going on. School’s been crazy busy, but for the past two days I’ve really just been listening to tunes and setting up my classroom. It’ll look good when it’s done. I’ll post pictures.

 

Already lazy

So, it’s been close to a week since I’ve posted something. That doesn’t mean that stuff hasn’t happened.

It’s been a banner week at work. The school I’ve been teaching at for almost a decade closed down. In essence, a building closed down. Our work continues at another location, but, since I’ve spent almost my entire career in that building, it still hit a little hard. Tomorrow, I go back to work and set up a classroom. The first classroom I’ve ever had to myself. I’m excited.

On top of that, I have finally been able to break silence on my participation in the Fright Night Theatre Film Festival. For the past few months I’ve watched close to 80 films (16 features and the rest shorts) in preparation to select a line-up for the two day film fest. Out of those, myself and a half dozen others put together a schedule of five features and fifteen shorts spread out over March 11th and 12th in Hamilton, Ontario.

Check out the link above for tickets and rundowns of the films. But, for a better idea of the films, this week’s episode of Dread Media features my interview with Aaron Allen, film festival director and lead programmer of Fright Night Theatre Film Festival. We talk about basically everything you’re going to see at the fest, so check it out.

Other than that, I’ve been pretty unproductive in my writing. I really haven’t written anything since I started this blog. That’s not a good sign.

Though, I don’t think the blog’s to blame. It’s my innate ability to let self-doubt kill my momentum. Now that I’m roughly 5000 words away from the end of my second novel, my brain has decided to stop me from completing it. I’m aware of it, and I won’t let it stop me. I’ll push through and finish it and fix it later.

That’s all. Less time between now and next post than the last time. Promise.

Round-up

Hola! It’s Monday and it’s already a busy week. This morning the fifth and final episode in Dread Media’s Feral February was published in which my friend Darryll and I discussed the senior citizens vs. werewolves feature, LATE PHASES.

On top of that, Rich, the Monster Movie Kid reviews that other Lon Chaney Jr. werewolf film, FACE OF THE SCREAMING WEREWOLF. Then I do solo reviews of author Gregory Lamberson’s BLACK CREEK, the remake of MARTYRS and the low budget horror flick A PLACE IN HELL, both out now from Anchor Bay in Canada. Check out the episode here.

On top of all that, I was delighted to be interviewed by author and reviewer Amanda M. Lyons about my book MOTHER OF ABOMINATIONS. The webpage consists of not only a great interview with me, but also a sweet picture of me and my late pet duck Howard who has since been killed by a bear.

As far as a tease for next week’s episode of Dread Media is concerned, I can finally reveal that for the past few months, I have been a programmer for the Fright Night Theatre Film Festival in Hamilton, Ontario. As part of those duties, I have watched somewhere in the vicinity of 50-odd short films and 16 feature films. The cream of the crop – including the sexy and deranged HARVEST LAKE, which is frontrunner for my favourite film of the year – will be screened at the Staircase Theatre in Hamilton, Ontario  on March 11th and 12th.

Don’t wait to hear what Film Festival Director Aaron Allen and I have to say on Monday the 7th and buy your tickets now!

That’s all for today.