The true history of the Kelly gang

What do Nick Cave, Marilyn Manson, Kelly Willis and Yothu Yindi have in common? Apart from the odd bad hair day, that is? They’ve all co-written songs with Paul Kelly, the most enduring singer/songwriter to emerge from Australia, with a career that kicked off in the mid 1970s and hasn’t really ever shown any sign of slowing since. Although he has taken the odd musical detour here and there, like on 1999’s Professor Ratbaggy where the general vibe was dub reggae and the same year’s collaboration with Uncle Bill ‘Smoke’ which was essentially a bluegrass record, he is best know as a folk singer and can often be found batting away claims that he is ‘the Australian Bob Dylan’.

Like Mr. Dylan, there are courses devoted to studying Kelly’s lyrics (and it’s a pretty bizarre experience to see links to study guides on a musician’s website). He’s published two collections of lyrics and there are a couple of tribute albums, including one, Women At The Well, featuring artists such as Bic Runga and Kasey Chambers. However, he does seem to have a fairly healthy sense of humour about the whole thing. At the moment on his website he’s is the process of giving away roughly one hundred downloadable tracks, in alphabetical order month by month. His recent concerts in Australia have followed a similar pattern with him performing one hundred songs in alphabetical order pretty much solo over a number of nights.
He is appearing at the Button Factory in Dublin’s Temple Bar for a single night on Friday August 8, so it’s doubtful he’ll get through a hundred songs but nonetheless he may make his way through the alphabet.
This year’s incarnation of the Flat Lake Festival is secure as the team behind Ireland’s most boutique festival have hooked up with Pat The Baker in a deal that ensures that when Pat McCabe gets behind the mike to present the festival’s Radio Butty he’ll be well stocked up with hang sangages.
Although the festival defies classification it straddles literature, music, art happening and general anarchy. The literary line-up is especially impressive: assembled under one roof are Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Gerald Dawe and Edna O’Brien. Taking just as idiosyncratic an approach to the music programming as they do to everything else the festival combines the smoothness of the Brad Pitt Light Orchestra with the fiery rhetoric of Jinx Lennon and Miss Paula Flynn. It’s obvious though that the organisers have a warm spot for the Neath Male Voice Choir – yes – all 60 of them. They have already apparently recorded the Pat the Baker song and it may well make its way to an advertising slot near you before the festival even gets out of the traps. Also fighting the good fight will be Paul Brady (there’s a definite North of the border bias going on here) while Sarah McQuaid has now also been confirmed as the latest to grace Hilton Park in Clones over the weekend of August 23-24.
I got a copy of the new Southern Tenant Folk Union CD Revivals, Rituals & Union Songs in my post box the other day. It’ll be officially released here on RMG’s Cavallero imprint on September 12 although it’s been available for a couple of months now in the UK on the band’s own Ugly Nephew label. They’ve wisely decided to avoid any kind of studio trickery and it’s recorded pretty much as it’s played. Having seen them last year in one of my favourite gigs of the year I recognised most of the tracks, they certainly aren’t stingy when it comes to the live sets, playing two long sets with a bit of a breather in the middle. Most of the albums tracks are bluegrass tinged country but the Eamonn Flynn penned ‘Cocaine’ has a touch of Brecht and Weill about it and Frances Vaux’s keening violin on the track has a taste of the Threepenny Opera. I’m delighted to report that there’s a return visit in the offing.
They’ll be back in September for a tour built around their appearance in Belfast as part of the Open House Festival where they’ll be appearing on Thursday September 25 after which they’ll be taking the road south for a further nine Irish dates starting with a return to Dundalk’s Spirit Store on Friday September 26, after which they dogleg across the country to play Barry’s of Grange the following evening. A long trek south brings them to de Barra’s in Cork for the night of Sunday September 28. There’s a Cork City gig on Tuesday September 30 at the Old Oak and the following evening they’ll be in St. John’s Theatre in Listowel. Thursday October 2 finds the band in the Crane Bar in Galway and Friday October 3 they’ll be playing in the Dunamaise Theatre in Port Laoise before the tour winds up with a Dublin date in the Cobblestone on Saturday October 4.