THE musical force of nature that is Jinx Lennon and Limerick’s Theme Tune Boy will join forces for a evening of punk poetry and rabid ranting this weekend. Part punk folk poet troubadour, part gospel music energy preacher, Jinx Lennon hardly needs introduction. Now on his fifth album campaign having recently released ‘Hungry B**tard Hibernia’
Jinx was the subject of a documentary on Irish national TV and recently appeared at the Galway Theatre Festival. His lyrics deal, often humorously, with the minutiae of everyday life in a bleak Irish country town on the very hip-hop influenced new album.
Theme Tune Boy is, of course, Niall Quinn, drummer/songwriter with The Hitchers. His first TTB long-player, ‘Return of the Living Dead’ has been recorded with the musical muscle of Dutch punk band Cooper as backing band. Theme Tune Boy has told Limerick Post that the album, “which has been in the pipeline so long it’ll likely be released by dynorod”, is now being mixed in The Hague and will hit the streets in January. We invited the duo to answer some pertinent questions.
Limerick Post: Name and theme of your new album?
Jinx Lennon: “The last one was called Hungry B**tard Hibernia it might have been a mistake as people want to listen to nice happy bearded men and girls that look like they are five years old and look like they would break in two if you touched them, all singing in churches.”
Theme Tune Boy: “‘Return of the Living Dead’ it’s just the name of one of the songs on it rather a brazen statement about a supposed comeback. I’m afraid I’m not capable of placing myself in the presence of pure thought that led to say, Robbie Williams making a high-brow, cerebral, existential statement by releasing a cover version of a George whats-is-face’s song ‘Freedom’ thus indicating that he had found – freedom. My loss I suppose.”
Limerick Post: What is the most positive thing about being a songwriter based in Dundalk/Limerick?
Jinx Lennon: “There’s a wealth of stuff to sing about in Dundalk , i always thought that my hometown was full of mad b**tards that should be writing and singing unfortunately the best of them end up insane or alcoholics and never get a pen to paper”
Theme Tune Boy: “The good and positive things haven’t changed at all -namely for a town it’s size Limerick continues to box above it’s weight in terms of producing a diverse range of writers/performers, bands etc in many genrés. So it’s quite stimulating that way. It’s probably to do with our relatively young population profile and one in five being students that there’s a lot of creativity about. But the challenge always has been and I suspect always will be providing outlets, support and opportunities for those people to get seen and heard. It’s probably harder than ever these days but if rock’n’roll can take some heart and inspiration from what other branches of the arts are managing to do here – well, then there’s plenty of reason to be positive.”
The full unedited interview with Jinx Lennon and Theme Tune Boy is on the blog www.musiclimerick.com. The duo play Foley’s Upstairs venue this Saturday November 12.
