All Posts By

Denise Foley

How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Eileen Ivers is also coming to town.

Take a break from all the holiday hustle and bustle this weekend. There are some great local acts playing at area pubs, like these on Saturday night:

  • The Fair Trade at the Sligo Pub in Media, PA
  • The Broken Shillelaghs at Clancy’s Pub in Brooklawn, NJ
  • Jamison at Kildare’s West in West Chester, PA

There’s nothing like some rollicking Irish music and a pint to help you forget that you’ve just spent your children’s college money on their presents.

And mid-week, what a treat! Eileen Ivers and her band, Immigrant Soul, will bring their Irish fusion music to the stage at the Sellersville Theatre. I’ve seen Ivers perform many times and she never fails to bring the audience to their feet. In fact, she’s gotten more people up than TV healer Benny Hinn and she is way cuter.

Our calendar also says there’s an EP release party for the group Sylvia Platypus, “Philadelphia’s and possible the world’s only psycho-celtic glam blues band” on Thursday, December 22. This is the first we’ve heard of them but we’re intrigued. We want reports back!

Speaking of treats, one of our all-time faves, John Byrne of the John Byrne Band, is offering a freebie as his gift to you this Christmas: free downloads of some new songs, some old songs, and the band’s new Christmas single, “St. Stephen’s Day.” In the holiday spirit, you may also enjoy the band’s version of “Fairytale of New York,” the fabulous Pogues Christmas song. Also free: the audience favorite, “To Patsy.” Thanks, John!

Find your free gift here.

You probably know what’s happening next weekend. St. Nick is on his way, expected to touch down on a rooftop near you on Saturday night into the early hours of Sunday. We don’t know exactly what you asked for, but what we hope you get are “tidings of great joy.”

Don’t forget to shop Irish! Especially at the shop of our newest advertiser, McKenna’s Irish Shop in Havertown! It’s where all the Irish go. Really. Click on the ad and it will take you to McKenna’s online store.

December 16, 2011 by
Music

An Afternoon of Magic

Donie Carroll and Gabriel Donohue at The Shanachie.

For the CD, “Irish Musicians for the Mercy Centre,” nearly 20 musicians and groups donated tracks to help raise funds for the Mercy Centre, which provides services for orphans, street kids, and children and adults with HIV/AIDS in Bangkok Thailand. So, appropriately, last Sunday some of the top Irish musicians in the Philadelphia area came to the Shanachie Pub in Ambler to help launch the CD with an afternoon of musical magic.

Musician Donie Carroll, who produced the CD, came down from New York to join Gabriel Donohue who mastered it, as well as local talents Marian Makins, Timlin and Kane, the Jameson Sisters (Teresa Kane and Ellen Tepper), Kitty Kelly Albrecht, Mike Albrecht, and Paraic Keane on stage for an afternoon of Irish music. Marianne MacDonald, host of the WTMR 800AM “Come West Along the Road” Irish radio show, helped organize the event.

We were there and, of course, took photos, which you can see here.

December 16, 2011 by
Arts, Music

CD Review: “Another Side of Town”

Seamus Kelleher

When Seamus Kelleher left what’s arguably the best gig on Philly’s thriving Celtic rock scene—lead guitar for the SRO band, Blackthorn—it was for a rite of passage only those of a certain age can understand.

In the 1990s, he and wife both worked at the World Financial Center. When  the towers fell on 9/11, six people from their town, Cranford, NJ, never came home. Then, a little more than four years ago, Kelleher tumbled down a steep staircase, fracturing his skull and suffering a traumatic brain injury.

Apologies to Emily Dickinson, but when death stops for you, even if it’s only as a reminder of your mortality and not, mercifully, the last ride, you pay attention to everything you’ve left undone. Kelleher had some musical wings he needed to stretch and working fulltime, being the father of four, and gigging with Blackthorn didn’t allow much time for writing and singing the songs he knew were in him.

So he took off on his own. His first solo CD, “Four Cups of Coffee,” was not just a musical autobiography, it was a revelation of the eclectic roots of a musician who is equally at home with Irish music—he’s from Salthill, Galway—as he is with folk, rock, black blues, Irish blues (think Rory Gallagher) and the finger-picking guitar style of Chet Atkins.

And while “Four Cups of Coffee” was smokin’, it nearly pales by comparison to Kelleher’s latest offering, “Another Side of Town,” which was recorded at Cambridge Sound Studio in Newtown, PA.

People who know me know that I almost never write music reviews because, frankly, great music tends to leave me virtually speechless or, at least, inarticulate. I turn like rote to just a few words, “wow” being the most common. In fact, if I were to review music for a living, I’d have to use the “wow” the way movie critics use stars and restaurant reviewers use spoons or, like the Inquirer’s Craig LeBan, bells, but without the insightful commentary.

From the first track of “Another Side of Town” to the last, I was wowing all over the place. The first wow was for Kelleher’s voice. Like his guitar playing, honed by years of studying with the masters like finger-picking all-star Pete Huttlinger, Kelleher has polished and perfected his voice until it’s as smooth as a single malt. He sounds a little like Willie Nelson—if Willie had stopped smoking, drinking, and taken a few singing lessons early on. The soul and heart are there, but the roughness is gone. It makes songs like “Reno Winter’s Sky,” about an encounter with a soldier at the baggage claim in Reno, all the more poignant.

“Did he leave behind a sweetheart? Did he leave behind a friend? Did his mother stay awake at night? Did his daddy ever cry?” Kelleher sings in this heart-touching story song.

If you’re a back button hitter like me, you’re probably going to have a hard time getting past the first, eponymous track, “Another Side of Town,” about Kelleher’s brush with death (and why he’s not going there again any time soon). Beautiful melody, great lyrics, that new, improved voice—to me, it’s the single that ought to be getting play on mainstream radio.

He even does a remake of his “Four Cups of Coffee,” from his first solo release, a rocking improvement spiced with harmonies provided by singer Charlene Holloway, a native Philadelphian who has recorded with Patti Labelle, Anita Baker, Teddy Prendergass, Lou Rawls, and Luther Vandross. That you’re not seeing any Irish singers in there is a testament to the risks Kelleher is willing to take to make the music better and better.

Irish country dancers are going to love Kelleher’s take on “Galway Bay,” while Eric Burdon is going to be wondering why he didn’t record “The House of the Rising Sun” in the soulful way Kelleher does it.

Where Kelleher shines—and always has—are the instrumentals. “Guitar Dreams” and “Huttlinger’s Rag” will be the first places where my CD is eventually going to start skipping. The things are plastic. There’s just so many times you can hit that back button.

“Another Side of Town” is available at iTunes and CDBaby.

December 14, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How To Be Irish in Philly This Week

Run, Santa, run!

Celtic Christmas is moving into full swing in the Philly area this week. Here’s the rundown—more details are on our calendar:

The Running of the Santas—yes, a bunch of Santas, running—kicks off Saturday  at Finnigan’s Wake at Second and Spring Garden Street in Philly, ending with some free and $3 beers at the pub and Jamison Celtic Rock performing at the Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing. Heated tent, anyone? On Sunday, Finnigan’s is holding its annual Irish Winterfest with the Bogside Rogues, Celtic Connection, and the Broken Shillelaghs, with music all day long, Irish vendors and Irish food. If there’s a hotel near Finnigan’s, you may want to stay the weekend.

The Delco Gaels will be revealing all—all the contestants of the “Dance Like the Stars” competition in February, that is—at their Christmas party and Night at the Races fundraiser at Maggie O’Neill’s Pub in Drexel Hill on Saturday night, starting at 5 PM.

If you’re just interested in taking a break from shopping and baking, head over to the Shanachie on Saturday night. Timlin and Kane are there, and they promise to play “Miss Fogarty’s Christmas Cake.” We love that one.

Sunday is a little like having so many presents you can’t see your Christmas tree. First, Oisin MacDiarmada and Teada are bringing their fabulous “Irish Christmas in America” to The Grand in Wilmington, DE. It’s been in Philly the last few years, and if you’ve missed it, it’s worth a trip south. MacDiarmada will be giving free fiddle workshops earlier in the day at West Chester University.

Head back to the Shanachie for an afternoon of top-notch musicians and some good deed-doing. Musicians Donie Carroll, Gabriel Donohue, Marian Makins, and the aforementioned Timlin and Kane will be playing and singing. Marianne MacDonald, host of “Come West Along the Road,” an Irish music show on WTMR 800-AM, and the queen of raffles, organized the day to introduce the fundraising CD, “Irish Musicians for the Mercy Centre Fundraiser.” It supports The Mercy Centre in Bangkok, Thailand, which does outreach to orphans, street kids, and children and adults with HIV/AIDS. In the world of Irish musical talent, these are A-listers: Mick Moloney, Black 47, Donie Carroll, Deirdre and Mattie Connolly, Gabriel Donohue and Marian Makins, Cathie Maguire, Jimmy Crowley, Athena Tergis, Mairtin de Cogain, Brian Conway and Brendan Dolan, and others, many of whom have performed many times in Philadelphia (and some who have moved here!).

The Donegal and Mayo Associations are holding their joint Christmas Mass and party at the Irish Center on Sunday afternoon. There will be activities for the kids and we hear that Santa may pay a visit. (You can park in the SEPTA lot on Sunday, Nick! Plenty of vegetation for the reindeer too.)

St. Malachi’s of Doe Run is also holding its annual Christmas party and concert on Sunday afternoon. They’re in Chester County.

Blackthorn will be playing at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia on Thursday, December 15. They’re also the featured band at a special invite-only event being thrown by Tullamore Dew at The Chestnut Club on Chestnut Street in Philly on December 13. We’re invited, and apparently you can be too if you go to http://www.thrillist.com/IrishTruePHL . (And we thought we were special.)

Next Friday, meet the official chaplain of “The Colbert Report,” corporate bigwig-turned-Jesuit, Father James Martin, who will be signing his new book, “Between Heaven and Mirth: Faith Leads to Joy,” at St. Philip Neri Church in Lafayette Hill. He’s a local boy—a grad of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School and Penn’s Wharton School of Business.

Even though it’s a jam-packed week, there’s still time for you to go to your local Irish shop and pick up a few things. Regular readers know we’re big proponents of shopping Irish (we even have our own guide to Irish shops in the area). When you’re shopped out for the day, head to your local Irish pub for a relaxing brew. They can use the business—and you know you want to!

Speaking of Irish gifts, you can help support Ireland (our middle name is “austerity”) and make your relatives happy by getting them a Certificate of Irish Heritage. You have to apply, and to earn your certificate, you have to know the name of at least one ancestor born in Ireland and the people in your line of descent from that ancestor. You need to supply one document referring to your ancestor that indicates their Irish nationality. That might be a census document, or a birth, marriage, or death record. It takes about 3 weeks to process the application and send the certificate, which is 11 x 14 inches and ready to be framed, though you can also buy them framed for a little more money ($15 unframed, $22.50 framed). Go to the Irish Heritage Certificate website to find out more about it.

(This certificate does not give you Irish citizenship. To get that, you must have a parent or grandparent from Ireland. If you’re interested in becoming a citizen and getting an Irish passport (you’ll breeze through customs), contact the Irish Immigration Center of Philadelphia.)

December 9, 2011 by
How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week

In the Christmas spirit: Fiddler Oisin MacDiarmada, who will be giving free fiddle workshops on December 11 in West Chester.

Celtic Christmases are happening only a couple of days into the month.

Danu kicks it off with a concert at the Annenberg on Friday night. And the Beethoven Waldheim Club—they’re singers—have their Celtic Christmas show at the club in Hellertown on Saturday night.

Starting on Saturday, Team Ratty Shoes–they’re named for a Blackthorn song–will be wrapping gifts at Barnes and Noble in Willow Grove all month to help raise money for multiple sclerosis research. Stop by their table and get your books wrapped. Books. . .you remember those. And snap up those Nooks. We have one and love it. They’ll wrap it up nice and pretty.

On Sunday, the annual Celtic Christmas in Doe Run, at St. Malachi’s of Doe Run in Chester County, features music, dancers, Celtic gifts and free holiday hors d’oeuvres.

Not a Christmas event but in the spirit of giving, the Gloucester County AOH is holding a fundraiser to help support the Commodore Barry Gate and Monument at The Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. Celtic Connection and the Broken Shillelaghs will provide the music and there will be dinner and dancing at the Rossiter Memorial Hall in National Park, NJ. In January 2011, the Academy’s Memorial Oversight Committee approved the memorial, which happened at the request of the Hibernians. Barry, an American revolutionary war hero, a native of Wexford and a Philadelphia resident, is considered the father of the American Navy (not you, John Paul Jones).

On Tuesday, join the actors from the Inis Nua Theatre Company—the only theater company in Philly to produce contemporary Irish plays—as they play rock stars on stage at the World Café Live. “Craicdown” is a major fundraiser for the company and features the talents of real singers too, including Reagan Richards.

On Thursday, Irish Network-Philadelphia will hold its Christmassy Happy Hour at JD McGillicudy’s Kirklyn in Upper Darby where you can mix, mingle, pass out business cards, and learn to ceili dance to the musical stylings of John and Jimmy McGillian.

On Saturday, December 10, head over to Finnigan’s Wake at 3rd and Spring Garden for the annual “Running of the Santas.” Imagine, a couple of thousand people all dressed up as Santa running through the streets. And that’s before you have the free and $3 beers. Celtic rockers Jamison will be performing at the Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing when the running stops. There are other groups too, but they’re not Irish so we don’t care.

Also next Saturday — the Delco Gaels GAA is holding a fundraising “Night at the Races” at Maggie O’Neills Pub in Drexel Hill. Word has it that they’ll be announcing the contestants for the “Dance Like a Star” competition that will raise money to send players to Chicago for the championships this year. We’ve already heard about a few of the contestants (from the contestants themselves!) so we know this is going to be a must-see evening.

Then, on Sunday, December 11, Teada’s Oisin MacDiarmada, an All-Ireland fiddler, will be giving free workshops for aspiring and experienced fiddle players at West Chester University’s Swope Music Building from 1-2:30 PM. For more information about the event, contact sponsor Kildare’s Irish Pub, at 610-431-0770.

Now, a little tune to get you into the spirit: Miss Fogarty’s Christmas cake featuring Mick Moloney, Athena Tergis, and John Doyle.

December 2, 2011 by
News, People

Bowling with the Stars

Boxer Micky Ward with comic Joe Conklin at the Claddagh Fund event. Photo by Brian Mengini.

Some of the things I learned at The Claddagh Fund’s first annual fundraiser, the Celebrity Rock ‘N Bowl held Monday night, November 28, at North Bowl on Second Street in Philadelphia:

Members of the Flyers NHL team are younger than my son. Some are so young that they can’t drink adult beverages.

Boxer “Irish” Micky Ward, whose comeback was chronicled in the Mark Wahlberg’s critically acclaimed film, “The Fighter,” is a wee man, unlike Wahlberg who played him on screen. He also doesn’t like bad language. No trash talking from Micky’s side of the ring.

Actor Kevin Chapman, who has played an Irish mob boss (“The Brotherhood”), an Irish fireman (“Rescue Me,” and “Ladder 49”), an Irish cop (in “Street Kings 2,” and “Black Irish” ) and now stars as an Italian police detective in the hit series, “Person of Interest,” isn’t Irish or Italian. “I’m actually French Canadian, though I could be Irish because my father was about eight different things,” he told me. He’s also the former film commissioner from Boston who was discovered on the job by the late director Jonathan Demme.

Philly people are really generous.

Okay, I knew about that last one. One Monday night, the lanes were filled with bowlers who paid plenty to play with one of the celebs, including Flyers players Matt Read, Zak Rinaldo, Jody Shelley, Harry Zolniercayk, and Ian Lapierriere; former Phillies relief pitcher Ricky Bottallico, now a Phillies analyst for Comcast; Chapman, Ward, and Ken Casey, founder of The Claddagh Fund and the Boston-based rock group, Dropkick Murphys.

A signed Flyers jersey went for $1,000 and one Philly local ponyed up for tickets to see the Red Sox in Boston. The Red Sox? Now, that’s generous.

The Claddagh Fund was founded by Casey and has raised more than $1 million for under-funded charities in the Boston area. It recently opened a branch in Philadelphia where its first beneficiary is Stand Up for Kids, a local organization that does outreach with homeless and street kids.

Since you may not have been able to be there, here are some photos from the event for your viewing pleasure.

December 1, 2011 by
Arts, Music, People

No Accident That She’s Supporting Inis Nua

Reagan Richards. Photo by Tonette Madsen

At Inis Nua Theatre Company’s fundraiser at World Café Live last year, singer Reagan Richards brought down the house with her finale—an a cappella version, in torch song style, of “Too Ra Loo Ra Loora”—after inviting her listeners to join in “if you know it, and if you don’t know it, I really think it’s considered a mortal sin.”

They knew it, which is how it ought to be when you’re out supporting the region’s only theater company producing contemporary plays from Ireland and the UK.

Richards will be making a return guest appearance at Inis Nua’s “Craicdown” on December 6, an evening of music mainly provided by actors, including some of Inis Nua’s regulars such as Mike Dees, who will be hosting the show in his character of Mr. Martyn Wallace from the company’s hit of last season, “Dublin by Lamplight.” (“Mr. Wallace” is an actor from the seedy “Irish National Theatre of Ireland” in the play, which marries Commedia dell’Arte and vaudeville. The play had a month-long run in New York as part of the city’s Irish Theatre Festival.)

Reagan Richards is the lone professional singer. She’s performed with the Les Paul Band, Lisa Loeb, and many other name acts. The Cranford, NJ, native has a powerful, emotional voice that would make her a tough act for even another singer to follow. But she’s the show’s closer—and worth waiting for.

One of her songs, “There Are No Accidents,” reflects her own “no coincidences” philosophy, which is how this non-actor got her annual “Craicdown” gig.

“I met Jared [Michael Delaney, Inis Nua’s associate artistic director] at a Duran Duran concert in 2007,” she explained in a phone interview this week from her home in New York, where she’s working on a new album. “He happened to be sitting next to me and we started talking. The thing is, we weren’t even supposed to be in those seats. The theater had some problems and the show was moved to Roseland. So he tells me he’s an actor and I say I’m a singer, and eventually we become the best of friends. So when he asked me to do the first year of Craicdown I got on board and I’m 1,000 percent on board.”

Last year’s Craicdown yielded more than just enthusiastic audience participation, which deepened Richards’ belief that everything happens for a reason. “Last year I walked in as the first or second act was on and I heard this girl and I thought, ‘I want to know her.’ PS, she’s now a backup singer in my band.”

That’s Jess Conda, who has served as actor, stage manager, house manager and casting associate for BRAT Productions, another Philadelphia-based theatre company founded in 1996 by Madi Distefano. Dublin native Fergus Carey, owner of Fergie’s Pub and several other local watering holes, is chairman of its board of directors. She’ll also be performing on December 6, along with fellow actors Stephen Lyons, Damon Bonetti, Jake Blouch, Jered McLenigan, Sarah Gilko, and Harry Smith.

Richards has been around the music business for many years. It’s part of her genetic makeup. “My mom was a big band singer and what gave birth to my involvement in music was hearing her and the music she listened to, like Bing Crosby and Judy Garland. Even when I was young I knew all the old standards. When my older sister started listening to the Beatles, I started singing them too. There’s nothing like hearing a 7 or 8 year old singing about ‘Father Mackenzie.’”

She warbled a few of the grim lyrics from “Eleanor Rigby”–“Father Mackenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear, no one comes near. . .”—then laughed. “Not the kind of thing you expect to hear coming from a child.”

Her own style defies definition because it’s evocative of all of her influences from her Big Band mother to Patsy Cline. “I’ve done alternative country,” says Richards, who recently moved back to the northeast from Nashville. “I do new wavey British pop. The truth is, an A-chord is an A-chord, no matter how you play it. Music is what takes me wherever I go and I feel lucky that I get to do it every day.”

Catch Reagan Richards and the actors-turned-singers at Inis Nua’s Craicdown event at 7:30 PM on Tuesday, December 6, at World Café Live, 3025 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. Tickets are available online or by calling 215-454-9776 for $20, or pay $25 at the door.

Check out Reagan’s video of her song, “OK,”  with Billy Burnette, formerly of “Fleetwood Mac.”

 

 

 

 

December 1, 2011 by
Music, News, People

Wanna Bowl with the Stars?

Kevin Chapman, left, with Jim Cavizel from "Person of Interest."

If you saw the Mark Wahlberg film, “The Fighter,” you know that “Irish” Micky Ward, is one tough boxer. The movie chronicles Ward’s comeback after a series of humiliating defeats led him to abandon what had been a promising boxing career (he once knocked Sugar Ray Leonard, a fight he lost on points).

On Monday, you can see what kind of bowler Micky Ward is. He’s one of the celebrities who will be trying to score for charity—in this case, The Claddagh Fund, a nonprofit founded by Ken Casey of the Boston Celtic punk group, The Dropkick Murphys. Casey will also be there, along with actor Kevin Chapman, co-star with Jim Cavizel of the hit CBS-TV series, “Person of Interest,” and some Philly stars, including Ian Laperriere, Jody Shelley, Matt Read, and Zac Rinaldo of the Flyers. Local comic Joe Conklin will also be on hand to provide laughs, if the amateur bowling isn’t enough.

The Claddagh Fund was founded in 2009 to help raise money for underfunded nonprofits in the Boston area. It raised more than half a million dollars in its first year, supporting a diverse group of organizations mainly serving children, veterans, and people in recovery, including the Dorchester Boys & Girls Club, The Franciscan Hospital for Children, and the Greater Lowell YMCA. Since then, they’ve gone international, donating to The Belvedere Youth Club in Dublin Ireland, Springboard Opportunities in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the Hope for Haiti Children’s Center in Port Au Prince.

This year, Casey brought his charity to Philadelphia, where the Dropkick Murphys have a large fan base, and chose as its first beneficiary, Stand Up for Kids, a virtually unknown nonprofit organization staffed almost entirely by volunteers, that does outreach with homeless and street kids in the city.

In September, in announcing the expansion to Philadelphia, Casey told us that choosing the city was virtually a no-brainer. “It is just a natural fit,” he said. “There are so many similarities between the two towns. They both love their communities, families, and sports teams. Philadelphians are good hardworking people and have always been good to the Dropkick Murphys. We want to do what we can to give back to a community that has been so good to us.”

The First Annual Claddagh Fund Celebrity Rock ‘N Bowl event is Monday night, 5:30 PM to 11:30 PM at North Bowl, 909 North 2nd Street, in Philadelphia. It costs $50 to attend, which includes two drink tickets, viewing, plus having your picture taken with your favorite celeb. A Rock ‘N Bowl package is $150 per bowler or $800 per team of six, that gets you into the VIP cocktail event, a bowling shirt, and best of all, a chance to bowl with a celebrity.

For tickets or more information, contact Kate McCloud at 267-644-8095 or Kathleen.McCloud@claddaghfund.org.

November 25, 2011 by