HEAVY MUSIC HISTORY: The Gang’s All Here – Dropkick Murphys
Twenty five years after its release, The Gang’s All Here feels like the seed of the DROPKICK MURPHYS sound we’ve come to love. But it’s more than merely a starting point. It’s the record which took the DROPKICK MURPHYS from local heroes to punk icons.
At the turn of the millennium, the DROPKICK MURPHYS were the biggest local band in the Boston Bay Area, and the classic lineup we associate with the band was partly in place. After Mike McColgan’s departure, Al Barr of THE BRUISERS had been recruited to fill in on lead vocals, and while they’d later swap guitarists as well as adding bagpiper Spicy McHaggis and Ryan Holz on tin whistle for their next record, they were roughly the Murphys we’d recognise today. In the minor drama surrounding McColgan’s departure, the band took great pains to say that he was not leaving to become a firefighter, instead focusing on how “he is no longer interested in being a member of this band or the movement of which we are a part”, though, of course, McColgan did become a firefighter a few years later. DROPKICK MURPHYS would partially reconcile with him a decade later when they shared a stage with his band STREET DOGS. At the core of the lineup on The Gang’s All Here was bass player Ken Casey, the only original member still in the band. In these early releases he seems content to take a supporting role, present but not taking the lead vocally. It’s comforting to listen to these early DROPKICK MURPHYS recordings and still hear his gruff tones in the background.
The DROPKICK MURPHYS were still young men, all around thirty years old, when they recorded The Gang’s All Here. It seems fitting that they’d be with a young record label for its release. This would be their second album on the legendary Hellcat Records imprint, the offshoot of Epitaph run by RANCID‘s Tim Armstrong. It’d only existed as a label for around two years before the DROPKICK MURPHYS signed and barely released more than a few HEPCAT and AGNOSTIC FRONT records. RANCID themselves were firmly in their ska phase at this point in their history, searching the two tone archives for “a glimpse of things to come”, so to sign the DROPKICK MURPHYS seems like an odd choice. That’s only because we now think of the DROPKICK MURPHYS as punk rock leprechauns whose music is intrinsically Celtic.
The most shocking thing about The Gang’s All Here upon re-listening is the lack of overt, cliched Irish flag-waving. They were two years away from playing The Wild Rover or dancing the Spicy McHaggis jig, and there’s very few hints that this lay in their future. The claps and bar room energy of Curse Of A Fallen Soul perhaps serve as a tester, as if they’re dipping their toes into the Atlantic that separates them from their ancestors. And yes, there is their update of Amazing Grace: equal parts reverent appreciation and punk satire, it’s probably the biggest Kelly Green flag about their future ambitions. The DROPKICK MURPHYS clearly saw themselves as Irish-Americans, but their identity wasn’t performative. Or rather, they were more focused on being Irish as part of a wider American working-class status; this is a boots to the floor Oi record in all but name. The DROPKICK MURPHYS have a long association with Oi bands like THE BUSINESS or COCK SPARRER, and this album is re-interpretation of the skinhead sound with an American soul. They’ve returned to their interest in exploring a working class identity in recent years through their WOODY GUTHRIE covers albums, albeit in a far softer, intellectual way. When you listen to The Gang’s All Here, you don’t stop to consider whether you support the strikes: you’re already swept along in the riot.
This is also an incredibly serious record. There’s no whimsy, no good rats drowning in beer, mockeries of Christmas songs or dated anti-emo rants. It’s absolutely solid, without a second wasted on silliness. The set of songs on here are now largely absent from their set lists, and that’s a shame. Of course, with ten albums released since The Gang’s All Here, they’ve now got a far bigger selection of tunes to pick from live. But there’s so much to love here, so much fire and intensity that would draw in the crowds who remember DROPKICK MURPHYS as being more than just the soundtrack to St Patrick’s Day. Once upon a time they were a proper punk band.
It’s this serious side which must have appealed to Armstrong and Hellcat. RANCID have had a long association with the oi and skinhead scenes, including guitarist Lars Frederiksen briefly joining the UK SUBS. Even though they were “sipping cocktails in a squat on Avenue C” at this point in their career, RANCID were in the middle of recording their self-titled, and rather hardcore, fifth album. They recognised that this scrappy gang from Boston had a hell of a lot of potential, but Hellcat weren’t the only entity that noticed the DROPKICK MURPHYS in 1999. The video for Ten Years Of Service was picked up by MTV, giving the band their first mainstream exposure. This was also the song which Barr performed as his audition piece for the DROPKICK MURPHYS, and it’s got everything we associate with the band: union solidarity, brotherhood, americana, a slight tinge of heartbreak and an unforgiving riff. Of course it’s rough around the edges and slightly disjointed compared to their later, cleanly-produced singles, but it’s a short burst of pure gold.
The relationship between Hellcat and the DROPKICK MURPHYS would continue until 2007, and they’d be featured on MTV for at least another decade. This was the last record they’d make that was purely punk though. “I’m on the straight and narrow now, but sometimes I miss the thrills,” Ken Casey sang on 2021’s Smash Shit Up, and you can’t help but wonder if he’s reminiscing about the early days of the band in this era, when The Gang’s All Here held the promise of taking their authentic punk sound from the streets of Boston into the rest of the world.
The Gang’s All Here was originally released on March 9, 1999 via Hellcat Records
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