REVIEW OF QUINN'S DIARIES!
by Art Ketchen
From Celtic Beat Magazine - Vol.9, #6
The Donegal X Press is one of the new spar of Celtic Bands which mix traditional music with biting commentary. They can, indeed, use their words and music like battleaxes and claymores. It should be a badge of honor for them, and for bands like Black 47, that they probably would be kept out of plantations like Manchester, New Hampshire, where the police chief and young McQuaid of the Union Leader stand guard against anything that might interrupt the dream of lies of wannabe Grand Inquisitors, Fuehrers, and Lord Protectors.

From the start of Quinn's Diaries, it is clear that this band owes a strong debt to what is now the tradition of Beat Poetry. They could fit very easily into a coffeehouse, with pieces like 12-Round Knockout. But neither have they forgotten their roots amidst the acid burn of their satire and anger, as the most capable Gifts Do I Bring(Minstrel Boy), and Roan(Streets of New York), demonstrate. The skill of these musical artists is demonstrated again and again, notably also, with Hills of Marna, with its fine instrumentals and running script of an immigrant's lament.

Tell Me Ma, would definitely have them close in battle with the less than rational, less than truthful, less than human "defenders of morality." I particularly loved the much overdue and so well merited slam at "Amazing Grace," - the slavers song anthem of 19th Century Christian rapine and murder.

Pissed Off Paddy Barman uses all of the language that Manchester wants to protect its population from. It exploits the language and caricature of the Irish - the difference here from a metal band is that The Donegal X-Press uses these "earthy" expressions to truly draw a picture and make a point.

Dangerous Games is one of several introspective pieces, beautifully done. Much of The Donegal X-Press material refers to Ulster's Troubles. A province, with so much blood spilled, that the dumbass evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong once referred to as one of the most moral places on earth - yeah, while people (of all religious stripes) are in terror of their lives - peculiar definition of moral.

Shane O'Neill makes of that figure more of a hero than he deserves. This grim musing (musically most effective) is the wish for the return of a legend that was in fact quite as depraved as any of the foreigners whose evil has been visited upon Erin's unfortunate shore. Shane was a torturer, a sell-out of those institutions in Ireland worth defending, a breaker of contracts. He tried to decimate the military forces in Ireland that were professional and effective (he was one of the first heads of state to institute the draft in the modern sense, in one way he lost because of that). And he fell for a little Welsh redhead, who very definitely did not have Irish interests on her mind. And in the end he paid for those crimes at the angry hands of those he wronged. He would have been as bad as an Edward I, or a Cromwell. Helluva of a way to be a winner. But he never got the chance to be "el supremo," and so in legend he is a hero that The Donegal X-Press can wax nostalgic (though that is too weak a word - for everything The Donegal X-Press sing, they sing strongly and with a bite) for.

Dustbowl has a universal message of anyone uprooted, be they the Gaelic victims of An Gorta Mor or the Gaelic-Cherokee American victims of the Dustbowl of the 30s.
Down at O'Shea's has echoes of John Whelan and Kips Bay Ceili Band. Nice treatment indeed!

Here is the award-winning Omagh. This reminds me of Country Western singers like Bobbie Jo Gentry, but its direct relation of a horrible human tragedy (in this case the Omagh Bombing) is way above and beyond what most saccharine Country Western artists can manage. Here the American genre is used in a repetitious refrain that really drives the message home - tersely, harshly, and for keeps!

Raise Your Glasses reminds me of the Beatles, only the substance being imbibed here definitely is Guinness. If nothing else this serves to illustrate how really versatile this band is.

Quinn's Diaries end, as they begin, with Jazz and narration. This is the title cut, combined with "Danny Boy." A most original treatment.

I look forward to future releases by this band. They have something to say, and they say it so well - combining traditional Irish music with other genres, making it their own.