I’m not really a lonely type of guy. I prefer to spend my time around people even if I don’t know them yet. But I do my best thinking when I’m alone. Except I’m only good for a while until boredom sets in. I’ve got to occupy my mind and focus on something. That something has always been music. I write, but I don’t do it to fight boredom. (I’ve always had to queue up six or seven CDs before my writing sessions.) Music keeps me busy, but most of all, it makes me feel like I’m not alone.
Part of not feeling alone means belonging to something bigger than yourself. A lot of people look to the church. In my late teens, I looked to punk music. I fell in love with a band called The Dropkick Murphys. To this day, I can pop in their live CD and seconds later, I’m in the bar, enjoying a pint of the good stuff, listening to them play with a raucous crowd around me. Is it the best music I’ve ever heard? Maybe, maybe not. My point is that is doesn’t matter – it makes me smile. It makes me feel something great.
When Greg told me he was checking out a band called Fiddler’s Green a while ago, I’d swore I’d heard of them. I mean, I had to. That was the sort of shit I listened to. He listened to Wumpscut while I skanked around the room next door. And as much as I love the stuff, a lot of punk (and Irish folk) bands sound the same when you remove the vocals. It’s easy for the mainstream music fan to brush aside this type of music as a rehash. I can’t tell you how many iPods I’ve seen with mislabeled tracks. To them, it’s just another band from Ireland. Except Fiddler’s Green isn’t from Ireland.
They’re a bunch of dudes from Germany, that for some reason, wanted to do something different. When I tried to find out via their website, I was faced with something I’ve seen a hundred times before. A press release covering their newest album instead of an actual history of the band or hell, just an explanation on why the fuck anyone in Germany would play Irish music. (Although, I’d say almost all of my Irish friends are actually half German, half Irish. Maybe two great tastes that go great together?) So, I did all I could do. I got my hands on their new album.
Drive Me Mad is fucking amazing. To start, I picked two tracks, Long Gone and Captain Song, at random. I didn’t even make it through both songs. I knew that I didn’t have to. I was already sitting there in that bar in my head listening to the band. And I had a magical pint of stout that never spilled when I danced amongst the crowd. Oh, Fiddler’s Green. You guys really know how to make me smile. The album is good to the last track. It’s got that diverse range you expect when you pop in a CD like this one. I won’t go into detail, but I will issue an apology. That aforementioned press release, while cheesy, was spot-fucking-on.
So, here’s the bad news: They’re another German band that isn’t on the road to US popularity. There are lots of bands over in the States that do what Fiddler’s Green does, if only a fraction as well. If I hand their CD to a friend (like I already have), I have to explain that we’ll never be able to see them in concert. And trust me, this is a band I can’t wait to see live. If their entire catalog is half as rocking as this new album, they could easily headline a bar tour over here in the US in an ideal world. But it’s a hard sell – try getting a bunch of Americans to listen to any German band. In that ideal world, you would Radio Raheem it and walk up the street with a boom box blasting Fiddler’s Green. But due to America’s public disturbance laws (drafted after New Kids on the Block rose to popularity), you can’t do that. You’ve got to find another way to spread the good word. And you should, as the guys of Fiddler’s Green have done all they needed to do by making a kick ass album. It’s time to… well, you know.
Bottom Line: Hand someone the CD and don’t tell them a damn thing about it until they’re smiling. (Which will be about one minute and thirty four seconds after they decide on a track.)
