The Wearing Thin Of The Green

The wind blows right through you/ It s no place for the old"

And when it really whips up it s no place for the (relatively) young either. Shane MacGowan may have been describing a New York Christmas when he penned the above words but they apply equally well on the morning of la fiile Padraig, as what s been a hitherto pleasant spring week suddenly turns very nasty indeed.
At home we ve become used to the Paddy s Day climate being on the inclement side, but this blast of freezing wind seems like a form of cosmic revenge for the excesses of Gaeldom which reach their nationalistic nadir today. In the past couple of days the major networks have served up Leapin Leprechauns and The Legend Of Saint Patrick (starring the expressive moustache of wannabe punk singer Patrick Bergin) and just as the morning s live coverage of the celebrations cuts to the Paddy Cole Showband performing a jazz version of Hail Glorious Saint Patrick the entities have cried Enough! and dumped a shitload of snow on the city. Fair dues!
If you thought March 17th was bad enough in Ireland then nothing could prepare you for the Darby O Disney drivel which dominates the day in New York. Bars offering complimentary bacon n cabbage dominate the ad listings in The Irish Emigrant, Irish Echo and Irish Voice while the entertainment guide features such delights as T.R. Dallas, The Wolfe Tones, The Chieftains, Riverdance (now with thatched cottage sets and added ceilis . . . fucking hell!) and, bizarrely, The All-Star Irish Rock Revue, a multi-handed troupe performing the music of The Pogues, Undertones, U2, Lizzy, Rats and others whose line-up includes T.Rex and Ghostown producer Tony Visconti, Willie Nile, former Television guitarist Richard Lloyd, one-time Voidoid Ivan Julian and erstwhile Dream Syndicate mainman Steve Wynn. Weird.
"A lot of what goes on in New York on Paddy s Day has absolutely no connection with the Ireland of today" says Robert Young, the promoter of The Viper Ball, a series of alternative events taking place over the Paddy s weekend. "All that green beer and rebel ballads stuff is really for another generation . . . and the Americans who like to be Irish for the day . We re supposed to be a hip, happening country, so it s a bit daft to expect people who ve been regular clubbers or gig-goers back home to suddenly turn into Wolfe Tones or Brendan Shine fans the minute they get past Customs in JFK."
To cater for this new generation, The Viper Ball offers a collection of bands and DJs split across several venues, with the main action on the day itself taking place in Solas, Sammy and Leonard O Connor s ultra-hip bar on 9th street between 2nd and 3rd.
The highlight of a frenetic night in Solas is a memorable gig by Pierce Turner. Armed with only an acoustic guitar and accompanied by a violinist (not a fiddler), the Wexfordman in exile unleashes as much power and passion in the space of an hour as many a multi-amped combo could manage in a month, his set culminating in a furious version of Wicklow Hills .
Meanwhile back in the bar area of Solas the eclectic soundtrack is maintaining the evening s energy level, and imagine my surprise on discovering that the man steering the wheels of steel is none other than former Golden Horde guitarist Des O Byrne.
"What the fuck are you doing here?" asks the shaven-headed one. Er, I was about to ask you the same question. "I ve been DJing for quite a while now," he says, " I just got bored with the whole band thing and wanted to try something different. Cool place this, isn t it? A well hip crowd and not just all Paddies either, it s a bit of a different story over in Queens, to put it mildly."
Ah yes, Queens. Across the East River the following night we encounter the closing chapter of The Viper Ball, with Blink headlining at The Wall, a down n dirty (in the best metaphorical sense) rock n roll venue run by the hirsute Peter Maguire. The crowd are certainly raucous and up-for-it, standing shoulder-to-shoulder and barely restrained as Blink somehow shake off their travel-weariness (having just got back from a week at the South-By-Southwest bash in Austin,Texas) and plough through another blazing set.
"What we re aiming to do with The Wall is to expand the options available for bands coming over from Ireland," says Peter. "Most of the gigs the bands do are in Manhattan but there s a huge population of Irish people in Queens, many of whom wouldn t cross the river in a fit, unless they were going to the airport. So it makes sense to have a good, medium-sized venue over here that way the bands can make the most of a trip to New York."
The Wall certainly fulfills Peter Maguire s intended function and the next outfit from Ireland to tread its boards are Sack, with more to follow in the coming months.
So, Paddy s Weekend in New York and the only green liquid I saw was absinthe . . . but that s another story entirely.