3-17-08 Gogol Bordello

Ah, faith and bee-gooraaaahhhhh, ’tis time for St. Patrick’s Day – time fer 19-hour Quiet Man marathons where ev’ryone talks like Lucky in th’ Lucky Charms commercials and fer pretendin’ that we like bagpipe music when we really think it sounds like a sack full o’ cats bein’ tortured and fer drinkin’ green beer and eatin’ corned beef an’ cabbage an’ then pukin’ green vomit all over th’ green clothes that we only wear once a year cos beer n’ cabbage just don’ agree wi’ us and fer James Joyce an’ Dylan Thomas t’ start their annual spinnin’ in their graves, don’ cha knoooooow.

NO! Must resist stupid ethnic stereotypes and conditioned holiday responses!… Must fight it… MUST… FIGHT… IIIIIITTTTTT NYAAAAAARRRRRRGH SOO-PER SAI-YEN!

Ah! I’ve broken free of the St. Patrick’s Day Frankenstein Controls! And crapped my pants, too! Let’s get to your neat thing today.

As you might have guessed, I have a little problem with the whole “Irish for a Day” thing. Call it an emotional issue (one of many, I assure you). So I’m gonna let the Central/Eastern European bits of my heritage out to play, knocking over all the good green china, with a little gypsy punk from Gogol Bordello.

Needless to say, I first learned of Gogol Bordello from that bottomless well of all things good or at least discordant, WFMU. Also needless to say, I learned of them from Maria Levitsky’s show, which seems to be providing a third to a half of your neat things lately.

Gogol Bordello was formed in 1999, with many of its members coming from Eastern Europe and Russia. Its lead singer, Eugene Hütz, is descended from Romani and fled from the Ukraine after the Chernobyl meltdown disaster; he lived much of his life in refugee camps before coming to the United States. So yeah, their gypsy punk has some real gypsy cred to it.

GB tugs at me German and Polish heartstrings (yes, I am a mutt) with accordions, saxophones, acoustic guitar and violins, then slams me back into the snake pit with good hard beats and some growling and screaming from Hütz, who sounds like he’s two seconds away from a meltdown himself. It doesn’t sound like it’ll work – mournful klezmer and Romani music with post-punk – but it does.

Me likes. Me likes a lot.

Your first neat thing today is GB’s Not a Crime, off their album Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike. This gives you some idea of what their live shows are like (which I frickin’ missed on Saturday, and I’ve been kickin’ myself since). Thanks to thepebs for putting this up.

Your next is Start Wearing Purple, also off Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike. Thanks to mikevance for putting this up.

The third is Wonderlust King, off Super Taranta! Thanks to squeakypants for putting this up.

And, to wrap things up and cool things down a bit, an acoustic version of Supertheory of Supereverything, also off Super Taranta! and recorded at Pinkpop. It’s a bit toned down; some of the people on YouTube commented that they sounded tired. But then, acoustic versions always sound a little tame. Still rockin’, though. Thanks to snempaa for this.

I part with this strange thought: Godzilla vs. Begorrah, in which Tokyo is stomped flat by a 300 foot-tall leprechaun.