Ballydowse
Chicago, Illinois10 reviews across 2 releases
Ballydowse was a Chicago Celtic folk-punk band formed in the late 1990s by musicians connected to the Jesus People USA community, including former Crashdog members. Andrew Mandell brought a street-punk vocal attack to a large ensemble built around Celtic instrumentation and sounds borrowed from other traditions. The 1998 debut, The Land, the Bread, and the People, combined gritty electric guitars with fiddles, mandolin, pipes, didgeridoo and group vocals; its lyrics addressed addiction, abuse, political power and Christian responsibility. The music moved between fast, danceable passages and minor-key melodies, while the rough production sometimes obscured the words. Out Of The Fertile Crescent retained the heavy folk-rock base but expanded the Eastern European side, with klezmer and Yiddish elements alongside its protests against sanctions on Iraq.
After Out Of The Fertile Crescent appeared in 2000, Ballydowse continued performing in the Christian punk and alternative circuit, including a 2001 show in Illinois. The group disbanded in 2003, ending a project that had grown out of Crashdog's 1998 indefinite hiatus rather than replacing it as a conventional successor. The two bands shared members and a commitment to political writing, but Ballydowse's wider instrumentation and communal vocal approach gave the later group its own identity. Andrew Mandell and Brian Grover remained associated with the JPUSA and Crashdog circle, while no third Ballydowse album or later permanent lineup is documented.
2 releases reviewed
The Land, the Bread, and the People
Out Of The Fertile Crescent