If you celebrate Christmas like me, and you haven’t even started to think about buying your first gift, worry not. You are not alone! Year after year, I let the pre-Christmas stress build like a killer Nor’easter. Not quite sure why I torture myself every year. I guess I know no other way.
But as stressful [...]

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This Thanksgiving, my family and I received an unwanted guest, in the form of a stomach virus. Evil shit, I tell you. If someone can tell me how it’s anatomically possible to puke motor oil, I’d like to know!
But worry not: inspired, witty, highly entertaining posts will return from my neck of the woods soon. [...]

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A look back at more of the music that makes me tick. This is my favorite Waterboys song. From their great 1988 album, Fisherman’s Blues, it’s a bittersweet, nostalgic look back at the singer’s past loves. He sends them all his love, and a bang on the ear. No, not a wack upside the [...]

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In 1990, this song became Ireland’s biggest selling single of all time. In 2007, it finally reached my ears thanks to Larry Kirwan’s Celtic Crush show on Sirius. Apparently, the Roman Catholic church raised a stink at the time because of some suggestive lyrics mentioning the church…
Well, I used to see her up [...]

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With St. Patrick’s Day quickly approaching, and the Pogues set to play two sold out shows at the Avalon in Boston this weekend, what better way to celebrate than with a Pogues show from the very same venue twenty years earlier? It was called the Metro back then, and this was the period when Joe [...]

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Well the weekend is almost upon us again, and what better way to start it than with some Pogues reissue news and a live show from their prime? Rhino keeps impressing me with the choices of their expanded reissues of great albums. This time, they take on the Pogues, with five expanded and remastered [...]

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I thought I’d pass along a nice one I heard on Larry Kirwan’s Sirius radio show Celtic Crush. Saturday mornings are great at the House of Ickmusic. A morning paper, highly caffeinated Colombian coffee, the almost 3 year old bouncing around the room, all to the accompaniment of quality Irish music courtesy of Larry K. [...]

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Another tour debut the other night at Madison Square Garden. The working title we’re going with is “American Land”. It’s not really known yet whether this is a new Bruce tune, but according to Backstreets, “More likely a traditional song with some new Springsteen lyrics.”
“This is an immigrant song for New York City,” Springsteen said [...]

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St. Patty’s Day, our adopted amateur drinking holiday, is upon us again. Gone are the days when I took a day off from work to meet my friends at Murphy’s Irish Pub before noon, and stuff my face with corned beef and cabbage and a multitude of Guinness pints. The family man can’t negotiate great [...]

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In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a Chieftains tune that I used to play incessantly on the jukebox at Murphy’s Irish Pub in Tempe, Arizona (back in my “socializing days”).
The Chieftains - Boil the Breakfast Early (mp3)
Buy Chieftains music.

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