SOD IT: Donegal X-Press Gets Its Irish Up
by Eileen Murphy
From the City Paper - March 17, 1999
During a 1997 open-mike night at Mick O'Shea's, a handful of Towson University theater students took to the stage, armed with a guitar, bass, and harmonica. In keeping with the bar's Irish theme, the musicians spoke with exaggerated brogues and declared themselves the Donegal X-press (DXP). To the delight of the twenty-something crowd, the kilt-clad, half-Filipino singer grabbed the mike and delivered a rousing rendition of "McShaft."

In the two years since, DXP has left its gimmick-laden act to focus on Irish-flavored rock music. Morgan Stanton - the kilted singer - has left the group to concentrate on his theater work, and a fiddler and a keyboardist joined to flesh out the sound.

"The whole thing started because of a fist-fight," DXP harmonica player Jason Tinney says. "Brad (Dunnells) and I had gotten in a fist-fight, and he called and said he wanted to go to Fell's Point, have a few beers, and stare at the wall. It was really just a way for the two of us to say we were sorry for the fight."

Tinney and Dunnells did more than make up; they took their male bonding to another level by deciding to start an Irish-rock band. The idea wasn't completely outrageous. The two friends are, as Tinney puts it, "full-blooded Irishmen," and Dunnells was a seasoned guitarist. Tinney, already a prose writer, felt ready to try his hand at song lyrics.
"We wanted to do 'theatrical' music, and Irish music lends itself to being theatrical," Dunnells says. With traditional Irish songs, "a lot of the times the story is blown out of proportion - it's always larger than life," he adds.

The friends drafted Stanton and bassist Lyle Hein to join the band, and Tinney took up harmonica to have something to do on stage. That St. Patrick's Day the band played a private party in a friend's basement. Before long they were toting their instruments to Mick O'Shea's for open-mike nights.

In its first year, DXP was content to have fun being "theatrical." The crowds liked it, but some of the band's members aspired to something more than fooling around. DXP recorded its first album,Whiskey Bars A-Go-Go, and started thinking about the long term.
"We were either going to do this full time- really start doing gigs and working at it-or we were not going to do it at all," Tinney says. Stanton left the band, which by now included Skye Sadowski, a step-dancer and fiddler, and Laura Hein, a keyboardist and bassist Lyle's sister.

Last month a more determined, more professional DXP traveled to Nashville as one of three headliners for the Rocky Road To Dublin, a Celtic music series. On March 14, the group fulfilled the role of Mick O'Shea's house band for the St. Patrick's Day Parade concert. Despite better billing and bigger venues, DXP hasn't really changed its act that much: "We're a bar band, and that's what we enjoy. We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we have worked to do more songs that are political, that speak about the Irish-American experience."

The band's interest in its heritage hasn't necessarily translated into a loyal ethnic following. In fact, Tinney says, "A lot of Irish people don't like our band - they think we're disrespectful." Considering the clubs the DXP plays - Mrs. O'Leary's Pub in Montgomery County, Baltimore's European Union and Mick O'Shea's - offending their fellow Celts isn't the goal. Dunnells believes being Irish-American isn't Irish enough for their more traditional listeners.

"Lyle wrote a song called, 'Pissed-Off Paddy Barman.' It goes through a lot of stereotypes about Irish people - mainly drinking," Dunnells says. "The Irish have been poking fun at that stuff for years, but the fact that we're not native Irish somehow makes that wrong."
On the other hand, DXP's more serious songs don't always go down a storm with un-Americanized Irish either. "Sometimes it's something in the news, something about Northern Ireland," Dunnells says. "I gather the facts and then sit down and write about it. With a lot of the political stuff, people say, 'You don't live in Ireland, you've never lived in Ireland, how can you have anything to say?"

The songs on Whiskey Bars A-Go-Go provide a nice balance between the facetious material that earned the band its early fans and the more political tunes that matter to Tinney and Dunnells. "McShaft" is in there, as is the eponymous "DXP," but the CD opens with "Michael Collins," a fiery ode to the celebrated Irish rebel. You'll swear the Pogues are performing the title track, but there's no trace of that spirited defiance on the elegiac "Dear Old Donegal."

Those different moods are the point of DXP; Tinney, Dunnells, and company want to break open traditional Irish music and see what's there for contemporary Irish Americans. And they intend to have a good time doing it.