Ballydowse
The Land, the Bread, and the People
Reviewed by Doug Van Pelt
Flash back to the Cornerstone festival (any of the last three years will do): You're freshly toasted after four hours of intense skanking, moshing, surfing, pogo-ing, and screaming your face off to some killer hardcore sets at the Underground Stage. You head over to the food vendors to quench your diehard thirst with a lemon shakeup. Besides, that tongue piercing you got the week before itches so much that you've cause your upper lip to become chapped. Anyway, you are heading up to the vendors and you come upon the most amazing sight. The Crossing is jamming at the Compassion Stage, and there's hundreds of people cutting a jig out in overflow areas outside the tent. You have to move along or get danced on, so you begin to skip and dance a jig yourself over to the stand. All of a sudden it hits you: Someone should marry the fun and melody of this kind of Irish music with the brash energy of street-wise punk. A day or two later you happen upon a similar experience at The Electrics' performance. You say to yourself, "This is the beginning of the answers to my daydream idea. Won't you be surprised this year when you see Andrew Mandell co-fronting Ballydowse, a crazy hybrid gone wild but nary too far from the Irish influence. Every few songs on this 13-song disc cuts loose with a tightly- played jam that may just be too fast to jig in any "proper" sort of way. The songs in-between are slower and more melodic. This fine band of eight experimenters do a swell job of playing a proficient line that converges with the others in a full and glorious symphony (ie. those violins and whirligig sounds mesh well with the guitars, bass and drums!). For a good example, give a listen to "The Banshee Song" or "Walkin' On" (which features multi vocal lines that could have been found on an early Rez album); or, better yet, take a listen to "Sails" on this issue's Hard Music Sampler CD. Can punk be eclectic? Sure it can. Look at emo or indie rock. The occasional distorted guitar adds the spice to this mix that will unify the old school punk fan with the coffee-drinking poetry-reading beard-wearing Irish music lover. Me thinks the results of this experiment are wonderful. The odd mix isn't cacophonous nor is it a big mess. If you're wondering who wins the "battle" between the two styles (as far as which sound dominates). I'd have to say it's the Irish. Another characteristic it shares with its punk brothers is that it requires commitment. It's hard to just sit down and listen to this music. You kinda have to just jump right in. \