Enter the Bad Haggis
Words like ‘Celtic’, ‘fusion’, ‘contemporary’, ‘fusion’, ‘jazz’, and ‘fusion’ are used a lot when people describe Bad Haggis. For me though, Bad Haggis manage to fuse 1973 into 1974.
They’ve just won a shed-load of awards. I wouldn’t use the word ’sweep’, since the list of award winners is longer than a long post on Irish KC.
And that was just the album list; there’s lists for songs, video, and lyrics, at the 2006 Just Plain Folks Music Awards.
Bad Haggis came out with the following honours:
Best World Music Album—Winner with Wine Dark Sea
Best Celtic Instrumental Song—Winner with The B-52
Best Celtic Instrumental Album—2nd with Trip
Best Live Concert Video—2nd with Span featuring Rubén Blades
Which is impressive enough, but then they finished the night being awarded Best Group of the Year after performing in front of 2,000 people.
You might like Bad Haggis. I can’t take them at all, even though they’re obviously extremely good at what they do. But what they do is fuse King Crimson with Earth, Wind and Fire, and overlay some Braveheart.
I like the bass in King Crimson, and the drums in Earth, Wind & Fire, and the pipes of Eric Rigler are irresistible, but put them all together and I just find it brown, Celtic, funky, mush.
Not that I don’t like funk; early Prince for example. Or Celtic and funky; Eileen Ivers and Immigrant Soul, for example. Or Celtic and jazzy, like Millish, who were so much fun this year in Kansas City you can expect them at Milwaukee’s Irish Fest, and back in KC, next year. And I probably really enjoyed them because I like the Bee Gees so much.
But anyway, perhaps you already like Bad Haggis or Eric’s pipes and don’t know it. Aside from Braveheart, there’s Titanic, Troy, Master and Commander, Million Dollar Baby, The Road to Perdition, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.
If so, check out their website, and their MySpace for sounds and videos.
Other Celtic winners at the JPF awards were The Poxy Boggards for Best Celtic Album with Liver Let Die. And An Dochas with Dragonfly Redux in the Best Celtic Instrumental Album category.
See Also:
• 2nd Celtic Music Awards
• Eileen Ivers in Missouri for Christmas Thing
• Top Funeral Songs
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