Paddy Rock Radio Top 25 CDs

Being of a certain age in Dublin when The Pogues arrived on the music scene with a kick in the backside for the very music it embraced, and a charismatic swagger that Shane Macgowan has somehow maintained for over twenty years, well, it left an imprint.

Not only does hearing a slow air on a fiddle feel like it's being played on the veins in your arms, but, but it also makes you want to shout, kick your shoes off, Shout, throw your hands up, Shout, take your pants off, and that general sort of behaviour.

And just like the Irish Tenor John McCormack, and the original Celtic Soul god himself, Van Morrison, the Pogues have left us with ganseyloads of copycats. But more than that, and they're not even finsished themselves, The Pogues left us with a genre. And in the 21st century, a genre means an internet radio station.

Paddy Rock Radio, the Celtic Rock & Punk webradio site, is where I go for my Psycho-Ceilidh fix. And here's their Top 25 CDs for 2005, from which I count five friends of Kansas City, between smaller gigs and Irish Fests. It even includes Kansas City's very own Elders at #13, and who knows, one day the Holy Grail of Irish Fest quarries, The Sawdoctors, might join that shortlist.

The list was composed based upon listener requests and editorial opinion, which means whatever you want it to mean:

#1 Sharky Doyles : Back Of The Yards
#2 Blaggards : Standards
#3 The Tossers : The Valley of the Shadow of Death
#4 Young Dubliners : Real World
#5 Charm City Saints : Never Go Home Again
#6 Dropkick Murphys : Warriors Code
#7 Real McKenzies : 10,000 Shots
#8 Saw Doctors : The Cure
#9 The Prodigals : Momentum
#10 Switchback : Bolinree
#11 Black 47 : Elvis Murphy's Green Suede Shoes
#12 Bluestack : The Last Set of The Night
#13 The Elders : Live at the Gem
#14 Blood or Whiskey : Cashed Out On Culture
#15 Great Big Sea : The Hard And The Easy
#16 Larkin : Reckoning
#17 Ceann Na Caca : Almost Irish
#18 Bloody Irish Boys : Drunk Rock
#19 Meisce : Meisce
#20 Icewagon Flu : Mr. Norman