Flogging Molly – The Lights Have Gone Out On The Working Class

PLEASE NOTE: FLOGGING MOLLY’S PERFORMANCE AT NOT SO SILENT NIGHT HAS BEEN CANCELLED
THE BAND HAS ANNOUNCED A SHOW ON MARCH 14 AT THE OGDEN THEATRE

In the early and mid 19th Century, coffin ships brought Ireland’s poor and disenfranchised to the shores of America.  These ships had high mortality rates as they were crowded and disease ridden, with poor access to food and water and Sharks could often be seen following the ships because so many bodies were thrown overboard.  The facts are that conditions on the ships were brought about from the ship owners focus on turning a greater profit.  Famine and the demise of the family created the Irish Diaspora.  This scattering of a people and it’s culture created a new working class that longed for the American Dream.

Perhaps an Irish American Punk band like Flogging Molly has never been more relevant than now as the Occupy Movement fills the nightly news coverage.  The Occupy Movement was created by individuals who gathered together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, and a disdain for large corporations. The Occupy Movement believes that corporations place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality.  Corporations have essentially stolen the American Dream away from the working class, and have directly contributed to the undue hardships that have befallen them.

Founded in Los Angeles in 1997, Flogging Molly infuses punk rock with Celtic instruments—violin, mandolin and the accordion—and they merge blues progressions with grinding guitars and traditional Irish music.  The bands 2010 release Speed of Darkness is filled with odes to the working man and battle cries against the elite establishment.  This is apparent on  the tracks “The Power’s Out.” (“The power’s out, there’s fuck all to see/The power’s out, like this economy/The power’s out, guess it’s par for the course/Unless you’re a bloodsucking leech CEO”), and “Rise Up” (“Rise up/Stand and be counted, stand and be counted/On that let’s agree/Rise up/Dig out the cancer, dig out the cancer of all human greed.”)

Speed Of Darkness could be the soundtrack to the Occupy Movement, it is music to play as you suffer from loss, and music to listen to as you dream of better things for your family and country.  Grab a copy of this album now at iTunes or at Borstal Beat, the bands own label.  Make sure you catch the band live on December 6th at the 1st Bank Center as they perform as part of KTCL’s Not So Silent Night.  KTCL’s Not So Silent Night will now feature Rise Against, The Flobots, Calibrate Me, and Air Dubai.