Dropkicking the Sox

I don’t like the Red Sox but I don’t hate them like, say, the Yankees, although I hate any team that is beating the Indians when it counts. But I do like the punky blarney of Boston toughs the Dropkick Murphys, and I can certainly respect them rallying behind their poor, rich team, which hasn’t won the World Series since women couldn’t vote.

And after they blew it in the playoffs against the Yankees last year, they are once again underdogs – rich, loaded with purchased talent underdogs, but underdogs nonetheless.

And so to the Murphys – when most teams try to revive the “glory days,” they don’t have to go back 100 years (chuckle):

The band that best embodies the spirit of working class Boston has joined with the team that is the soul of the city, as DROPKICK MURPHYS and the Boston Red Sox have given a modern treatment to “Tessie.” The song – originally a Broadway hit – became the anthem for a growing band of Boston diehards known as the Royal Rooters and helped spur the Red Sox (then known as the Boston Pilgrims) on to a dramatic come-from-behind victory in the first World Series in 1903.

Hang on to that memory, all you centenarians.

Now, more than 100 years removed from that inaugural World Series, DROPKICK MURPHYS have given the song a facelift at the behest of Red Sox Executive Vice President Dr. Charles Steinberg and Boston Herald beat writer Jeff Horrigan. With the help of Sox center fielder Johnny Damon and pitchers Bronson Arroyo and Lenny Dinardo, the MURPHYS have recorded a new version of the song that is sure to become the rallying cry of Red Sox Nation as the team seeks to end an 85-year championship drought.

….The profits from “Tessie” – set to be released as a single in time for the All Star break in mid-July – will benefit the Red Sox Foundation.

While “Tessie” and the Royal Rooters (whose ranks included John “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, grandfather of President John F. Kennedy) helped weave the Red Sox into the fabric of New England as the team won five of the first fifteen World Series, DROPKICK MURPHYS felt a fresh approach was needed if they were going to resurrect the old fight song.

“Jeff Horrigan sent me the song, but we didn’t really like it. It was so old,” recalls MURPHYS bassist KEN CASEY. “But we liked the story behind it about baseball fans using it to annoy the other team, so we rewrote it ready to annoy a whole new generation of baseball fans.”

“Tessie” is hardly the first time DROPKICK MURPHYS have proudly shown allegiance to their hometown teams. The closing sounds of their 2001 album Sing Loud, Sing Proud! pay tribute to legendary Boston Celtics broadcaster Johnny Most.

Meanwhile, “Time To Go,” a rambunctious ode to the Boston Bruins on their latest CD Blackout, led to a rare combination of punk and puck this past season. The Bruins invited the MURPHYS to perform during the second intermission of a game against the Vancouver Canucks last November.

What kind of idiot sport has TWO intermissions?

The band followed the Bruins’ 2-1 overtime victory with an additional 40-minute set after the game in front of a sold-out crowd upwards of 17,000 at Boston’s FleetCenter, joined on guitar by Bruins Nick Boynton and Brian Rolston (who netted the game-winning goal).

Pasty toothless Canadians and various thuggish Eastern Europeans – no wonder they don’t have a broadcast TV deal.

DROPKICK MURPHYS are currently off to Europe for a string of tour dates, including several festival shows.

They had a bit of an issue in Germany:

The Dropkick Murphys banner was stolen from the club tonight in Weisbaden Germany, someone came into the venue while we were setting up, grabbed it and ran away. The banner measures 30 x 15 feet so it’s not exactly something you could hang up in your bedroom so we are not sure what the person who took it plans to do with it – there’s probably better (and smaller) souvenirs that they could have taken. It is also the only banner we have that is big enough to use at festivals. We would really like to get the banner back so if you are the person who took it, or know the person who did we are offering a $500 cash reward for its return. We will also offer tickets and backstage passes for our next show to the person who returns the banner to us in one piece. Any details please contact [email protected]

You get more bees with honey, although they didn’t mention anything about not kicking the fuck down the stairs after he gets his $500 – only seems fair to me.