Recently, I’ve been listening to some Celtic rock and Celtic punk bands. Not because I felt an overwhelming need, a musical itch I had to scratch, much like my recent compulsion to listen to Radiohead’s OK Computer<\/i>, a compulsion that burned itself out after two days.<\/p>\n
Rather, it’s for research purposes.<\/p>\n
Part of “THOD<\/a>” revolves around a Celtic punk\/rock band named Arbroath.<\/p>\n As in Arbroath<\/a>, Scotland, the site of the signature of the Declaration of Arbroath<\/a> in 1320, which I learned about when I read Michael Lafosse’s book, The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland<\/i> about ten years ago. The name of town sounds crisp, it sounds like the kind of name a Celtic punk band would have.<\/p>\n Which means there probably is<\/i> a Celtic punk band named Arbroath out there.<\/p>\n In any case, I’ve had to get a “feel” for what Arbroath sounds like.<\/p>\n I knew what Arbroath didn’t<\/i> sound like. They weren’t the Pogues. Or the Tosser. Or the Dropkick Murphys. Or Flogging Molly. In short, they weren’t Irish. These are all bands that I enjoy. But they’re not at all<\/i> what Arbroath sounds like in my head.<\/p>\n I mentioned in June<\/a> that they sound, at least as I imagine them, much like Washington Irving<\/a>, a Glasgow-based folk band. And their song “The Magician” is<\/i> rather close to the sound<\/i>. But still, not exact<\/i>.<\/p>\n Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to find an exact match for what I “hear” in my head. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n The Real McKenzies<\/a>, whom Steve Roby recommended on Psi Phi years ago, are in the neighborhood of Arbroath. So, too, is a Nova Scotia-based band that’s long since disbanded that I recently discovered — MacKeel. What do they have in common? Bagpipes. Distorted and overloaded guitars. A really loud sound<\/i>.<\/p>\n And Arbroath may owe a little to Sonic Death Monkey as well.<\/p>\n I’ve recently worked out Arbroath’s set list at a gig. A couple of standards, a couple of off-the-wall tunes, and there’s a showstopper that, well, I’m not exactly sure how or why my mind latched onto the band playing that<\/i> song, but once I thought about it, I realized how much it worked<\/i>, in spite of the non-standard instrumentation.<\/p>\n Sometimes, my mind surprises me. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n I’ve no musical talents. I can barely carry a tune. But this aspect of “THOD” is fun.<\/p>\n And as for the music I’m currently craving, I’m currently absolutely jonesing<\/i> to listen to The Who’s Tommy<\/i>, only I’ve no idea what I’ve gone and done with my CD. I thought<\/i> I’d left it at the office, but it wasn’t there. And as I’m sitting here at my desk, I feel like it’s right here<\/i>, yet I can clearly see that it’s not<\/i>.<\/p>\n Oh, look. Alex North’s 2001<\/i> score. Oh! And my Dido CDs. Nope, no Tommy<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I’ve been listening to some Celtic rock and Celtic punk bands. Not because I felt an overwhelming need, a musical itch I had to scratch, much like my recent compulsion to listen to Radiohead’s OK Computer, a compulsion that burned itself out after two days. Rather, it’s for research purposes. Part of “THOD” revolvesContinue reading “On Musical Musings”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[166,690,4102],"class_list":["post-2414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-celtic-rock","tag-thod","tag-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2414\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}