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Black 47's Irish rock is no sham

By Michael Horowitz

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

There's a compelling duality to the Irish rock group Black 47. Its songs can shift from hilarious doses of mischief to powerful tales of tragedy in a heartbeat. Larry Kirwin, the band's articulate frontman attributes the group's ability to bounce between laughs and tears to its very nature.

"I'd say that's an Irish personality trait," he says. "You can laugh and cry about the same subject and do it all in the space of minutes."

Fans will have an entire set to hear the band promote its sophomore release Home of the Brave in concert at the House of Blues Thursday. They'll get an earful of Kirwin's politics, storytelling and anecdotes from an exciting life. All sang to music rife with melody and beat, collected from centuries gone by.

"They're old, traditional melodies I adapt," he says. "Sometimes I'm working with melodies that have lasted for three hundred or four hundred years in some form or another. They're in for the long course."

"When I use an old melody like that I'm forced to write something to complement it, as strong as it so it can fit in seamlessly," he stresses. "It makes your melodic writing have to rise to a certain level. If you do anything that's flippant or just fashionable it will stick out like a sore thumb."

So far in the young band's career, the only thing that has stuck out to observers is its talent and undying passion for live performance. Its shows at Paddy Reilly's bar in New York City brought the band into the public eye and its debut album Fire of Freedom vaulted it into national critical acclaim.

Kirwin who writes the words he sings founded the band in 1989 with an NYPD cop Chris Byrne and the rest of the group is now rounded out by Geoff Blythe, Fred Parcells, Thomas Hamlin and Kevin Jenkins.

Aside from frequent autobiographical foci, much of Kirwin's writing centers on figures of historical impact. "We make sure all the characters are real in the song so everyone can relate to them," he says, "in the same way that Marley or Springsteen do. They're masters at writing a character-driven thing, making them seem like people you know too."

"Take 'Big Fellah,' " he says, referring to a track from the new album. "Michael Collins is a real larger than life person in Irish history, not so along ago that people that knew him, or were very familiar with him. He's someone who's almost a part of the Irish character and his death is still having an impact on modern Ireland."

"When I write about a character it's not someone who's from the mists of time, it's always someone whose life, or death, as it may be, is still having an effect on present day."

It will surprise no one, especially Kirwin, that his overtly political lyrics draw frequent comparisons to another Irish band of considerably greater popularity, U2. What does shock Kirwin however, is that U2 has been labeled "political" in the first place. He holds that it has never attained such a reputation in Europe.

"I think U2 is a tremendous band, but quite often I'm asked about U2, that they're a political band and I've never seen it," he says. "Granted, I'm not that familiar with all of their songs, but I've never actually seen them take a strong political stance on anything. It's always more of a general thing that everybody agrees with."

The example he's most practiced at shooting down is "Sunday Bloody Sunday." "What are they saying?" he asks. "The original Sunday I presume he's talking about is the Derry Massacre in 1972, which John Lennon dealt with in much better in his song 'Sunday Bloody Sunday.' It was more specific. I like the song by U2, but I actually don't know what it's about! It's using a theme, but what is it actually saying?"

Black 47 picks historical markers with slightly more substance and specificity. "James Connelly" from Fire of Freedom details the fight of an Irish union leader bent on justice through revolution. "Paul Robeson" is Kirwin's attempt to restore the civil rights activist's rightful glory in American history.

Yet as political as the band members can be, they warn against audiences viewing the band as preaching or lecturing. Kirwin is just as happy when fans enjoy the music and atmosphere and not neccesarily his strenuously penned lyrics.

After all, he knows what it's like to be a concert-goer. "Sometimes I want to just go out and get drunk and not totally get into the lyricist's head," he says, "but go out anyway and get into the crowd."

"If people pay their money to go in, they can do whatever they want to do," he stresses. "I'm totally happy as long as they're having a good time with it."

CONCERT: Black 47 at The House of Blues. Dec 1. For tickets or information call (213) 650-0247.

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