Flogging Molly | Brian Yaeger: Beer Writer

Almost from the first of dozens of mixed tapes I made for friends (and myself) back in the years when an adolescent me made mixed tapes, I’d kick them all off with a different Violent Femmes tune. That idea followed me to college where, during my years of broadcasting on our college radio station, every single show began in the same fashion. Somehow, I only saw them live a small handful of times unlike, say, Flogging Molly, who I’ve easily seen a dozen times beginning with the in-store they did at a punk rock record shop when their debut album came out.

So imagine my delight in having them both perform here in Bend on the same bill (along with another band I really dig, Me First & the Gimme Gimmes). So, despite the preponderance of my stories for Bend Source Weekly covering beer, and nearly all the rest rounding up doughnuts so I can continue to write off all my doughnuts, I pitched my editor on previewing the Femmes show. This story reads more like a love letter and by far the best part about it was having a stranger at the show recite my opening line, “If nothing else, the … Violent Femmes have ensured that (we’re all) able to count to 10.”

A few weeks ago, I saw Irish folk-punk band Flogging Molly. I first saw them 18 years ago and have seen them, on average, once a year. That said, it’d been a few years since I’d last seen them (which, I’m happy to say, was at the Oregon Zoo with my baby boy and it’s incredible to see how many kids were at this recent show, most of whom were really into it). When they first started making a name for themselves at the start of the 21st century, I considered myself a music writer. I self-published a music zine and wrote for some others (a couple even paid, unlike mine). As such, I had the opportunity to interview them a few times (and it helped that they liked my red-headed Irish-American girlfriend at the time).

During singer Dave King’s between-song banter, he talked about the importance of voting even though, as an Irishman who I guess still isn’t an American citizen, he cannot do. It’s not new territory for him. You can pick up the political bent in many of his songs’ lyrics, because the world is always a mess thanks to politicians.

So I decided to dig through my old files and find some of those interviews from way, way back. And then friend and author Jeff Alworth proposed that it’d make a good e-book, a short read that I could offer for $0.99. Cut to: it’s now ranked #1 in 30-Minute Politics and Social Sciences Short Reads. (Aw man, it WAS. It has since slipped to #2. So please shell out nearly one dollar and watch it skyrocket back to #1. Please.)

The e-book is awfully short, but to give an even shorter synopsis, the ever-sagacious Flogging Molly frontman Dave King shares his ruminations on the state of American politics (whether you swap “Bush” for “Trump” or not) and America itself. They ring truer today than they did back then. Maybe there’s something in the water they drink in the British Isles or that surrounds it, because I’ve had a song on replay in my head from a singer named Frank Turner, who I discovered when he opened for Flogging Molly on their 2016 tour. The chorus of the title song from Frank’s new album, Be More Kind, goes “In a world that has decided / That it’s going to lose its mind / Be more kind, my friends, try to be more kind.”

Brian Yaeger: Beer Writer

Beer. Words. Stories.

Tag Archives: Flogging Molly

Every Mixed Tape and Play List Starts with the Violent Femmes

Flogging Molly “Book”