The Durty Nellys

The Durty Nellys are a self-proclaimed “Irish Pub Rock” band from Saint Paul – a town whose streets a state governor affectionately described as “designed by drunken Irishmen.” On any given night underneath the red and blue lights, the Durty Nellys deliver traditional Irish tunes with roots rock growl, along with all the sneer and snarl of Irish punk and pub-forged rock ’n’ roll. Here and there talked about as “the Irish reincarnation of the Rolling Stones” and “the hardest drinking band in the business,” the Durty Nellys are best described by one reviewer who wrote, ''It's a fact that the Durty Nellys are cut from a different stock than the majority run of the mill groups here'abouts! Cheers to you all for your welcome version of madness!" The Durty Nellys make you remember why you go to see live Irish music in the first place. The band met in 2008, in an unnamed abandoned ''property'' in North Minneapolis. As Tommy says with a wink, ''It was the kind of area where we asked each other to 'keep an eye on me' when you ran to your car for anything. A perfect setting for getting together a pack of hooligans to play Irish music!'' From the start, the Durty Nellys had their own unique slice of Irish and American roots music pedigree... Tommy had been raised on traditional Irish music in his family, and came from over a decade of playing guitar in the underground world of beer and blood that is the Tex-Mex scene locally, including playing with Sangre del Alma, Max Baca (Los Texmaniacs, Los Super Seven) and conjunto legend Flaco Jimenez (Los Super Seven, Ry Cooder). John John had been crawling the shadowy corners of local pubs for years as a solo and partner performer of traditional Irish music, including stints with closing-time heroes The Drunken Uglies and The Irish Volunteers. Brother Finn showed up too, like Machine Gun Kelly walking out of the fog in Saint Paul's Wabasha Caves back in 1930, with a personal arsenal of accordions and pennywhistles that will make him Public Enemy 1 if they ever outlaw the stuff. It's always a good thing for an Irish music group to have at least one member from Ireland. On this account Kevin, himself born and raised on Irish soil as well as the real music of Ireland, witnessed the band's first forays into the pubs, swaggered over and stepped in one rowdy evening to take over on drums, and was ''in'' as far as the rest of the band was concerned. Not long after, Charlotte darkened the doorway of the Durty Nellys with a fiddle case on her back and a Russian-style fur hat on her brow. She came to the band from local Celtic rockers Twisting Hay, and besides being able to hold her own with the rest of her bandmates on any occasion, also brings along fiddle playing and vocals that, all taken together, perfectly round out the sound and stage presence of the Durty Nellys every time you see them. You can catch a Durty Nellys show at any of a number of pubs and music clubs featuring live Irish music for listening and dancing, including The Dubliner, Kieran's Irish Pub, O'Gara's, and the Halftime Rec. You can check out the Durty Nellys show calendar at www.thedurtynellys.com.