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No Chance [EP]

by The Whisky Priests

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1.
No Chance 03:21
NO CHANCE Tim Malone took the long road home As the night was closing in And the cruel wind struck and wailed in angry moans With his scarf wrapped tight around his neck And his cap pulled over his eyes He fought to keep the cold out of his bones As he passed by closed down factories Waste ground and crumbling walls He recalled the evening's events oh what a story The cinema's woodbine smells The patriotic war film as well And the end to the tune of 'Land of Hope and Glory' "Cheer up there bonnie lad" Says the man who knows no cares "It's no use crying needlessly" (I'm all right Jack) "Get up off your backside" Says the man who knows it all It’s no use waiting until your boat comes in (I see no ships round here) "Because you'll find out son it's never coming in" At the shipyard on the quayside He watched the men come out And the boss said "Are you looking for a job" He sang "Weel may the keel row" To the tune of fifty quid But the boss said "Try some busking with your gob" (Weel may the keel row that my laddie's in) He'd sit and curse at four grey walls And watch his life go slowly by Waiting for next pay Friday to come Then he'd sit and sup his beer Watch people come then disappear And wonder if their lives were fashioned out of stone (Gary Miller)
2.
THE COAL-DIGGER’S GRAVE There had just been a big cave-in in the depths of Belly Row And Jim Greenwood was stretched out on the ground And those with no guts were smiling at the back While the strong men had failed to bring him round The burial party had just reached the top of Dead Man's Hill It was well past closing time and all the men had drunk their fill They were starting to shovel the soil over his head When he jumped up and yelled, "Give us whisky!" The top men are calling for enquiries round the town They've got a lot of face to save And they've sent out appeals for the men to rally round "Will someone put a body in the coal-digger's grave?" Jim Greenwood had survived many pitfalls in his time And the thinkers couldn't think what else to do "We cannot starve your family and we cannot steal your home But somehow we're going to get you" And they sent him off to fight in the war And the bullets knocked him to the ground And they said, "That's the end of you my son" But the bugger he came back round (Gary Miller)
3.
The Hard Men 03:15
THE HARD MEN In the wild bad lands of England where the law is our own We'll cause such a bloody riot you'll be trembling in your homes We'll lie in wait to ambush you in an alley that's our lair Whichever town you go to you will always find us there We've never tasted whisky just lager and red wine But by Christ we can't half knock 'em back when it comes to judgement time We'll take you on at drinking and if you lose we'll skin your hide Then you'll say we're the hardest gang in town and we'll go home drunk with pride We'll leave our calling card if you're passing by our way If you're looking for a fight we can lick you any day We'll take you for a drink just make sure you can pay We're the hard men We know you've worked hard all your life but we couldn't give a damn Because we're all just lazy bastards as I'm sure you'll understand And don't you be misled by our deceptive words of grace Because there's nothing we'd like more than to smash a bottle in your face We'll leave our calling card if you're passing by our way If you're looking for a fight we can lick you any day We'll take you for a drink just make sure you can pay We're the hard men There's always at least ten of us just for company you see The sticks and stones we carry are just our imagery The long knives in our pockets are just for carving meat But human flesh is favoured if it's helpless in the street We're meaner than Clint Eastwood and we're tougher than John Wayne We hate you if you're better than us we're all the fucking same We're like an evil disease spreading through the land We have the Devil in us and his will is our command We'll leave our calling card if you're passing by our way If you're looking for a fight we can lick you any day We'll take you for a drink just make sure you can pay We're the hard men (Gary Miller)
4.
Wise Man 02:52
WISE MAN On an empty seashore says the old book of lore Lives a man as old as the world He’d traveled around and been up and down Places of which you’ll never have heard As wise as an owl he prophesied doom And things not yet come to pass In the ways of the world he was very well versed For he’d seen all these things in his glass He sailed on a ship on a round the world trip Skippered by an old Geordie sea dog The ship capsized and the crew lost their lives But he made it to shore on a log He discovered a land that was covered in sand And the water was dry in the well And when the folks didn’t blink who refused him a drink He knew he had landed in Hell He saw cannons and guns and big heavy bombs That could blow a whole city in two He saw idiots debating the world they were wasting Like monkeys down at the zoo He saw lions and donkeys obeying the monkeys The donkeys leading the lions to their death And the sheep in the field were following the lead Of one that didn’t know its right from its left He learnt what it was like to be thin as a spike When there wasn’t enough food to go round He saw mothers crying while children were dying And others lay dead on the ground It was worse than that hell where the rain never fell And people prayed for deliverance to come But their prayers went unheard by that chap with the beard Who despaired at what his children had done He saw lights in the sky that slowly passed by And he knew from whence they had come He saw night in the sky for the rest of all time After the death of the sun He shook hands with the Lord who took him on board Like he’d done with Ezekiel before Then he knew in a flash why men fought for cash# And why they were obsessed with war He saw towers of fire with smoke rising higher Which gave off a very bad smell He saw green become grey and grass become hay As Eden was turned into Hell He had a fear in his head that filled him with dread That tomorrow the sky would fall down But he knew in his heart that whatever he thought Tomorrow would never come round (Gary Miller)
5.
THE BONNIE PIT LADDIE The bonnie pit laddie The canny pit laddie The bonnie pit laddie for me oh He sits on his cracket As black as his jacket And brings the black siller to me oh He works hard And he brings me all his money oh He takes me in his arms And calls me his hinny oh The bonnie pit laddie The canny pit laddie The bonnie pit laddie for me oh He sits on his hunkers And hacks at the bunkers And brings the black siller to me oh He comes home And he tells me all his troubles oh He's had a row with the gaffer About his lazy marrers oh The bonnie pit laddie The canny pit laddie The bonnie pit laddie for me oh He sits in his hole As black as the coal And brings the black siller to me oh (Trad. arr. The Whisky Priests)

about

Reviews:

“The natural fad heirs to the jangle bands are the anarcho-folkies – among whose number I guess we can include The Men They Couldn’t Hang.
To say The Whisky Priests resemble The Pogues would be like saying a brick with two corners chipped off resembles a brick with one corner chipped off. Eh?
Truth be told, these accordions-on-acid boys are closer to the madcap mayhem of We Free Kings and, despite the folky pointlessness of it all (and probably because of it), this five-tracker is compulsive dementia.”
Joint ‘single of the week’, ‘Sounds’, UK, 30th June 1988.


“5 tracks in all on this 12” EP, and you know, there’s not a bad track in sight, why aye!
The first three songs are played at a fast ‘n’ furious break-neck speed akin to The Pogues thrashers, but musically they’re as tight as Thatcher and her cronies when someone mentions the N.H.S.!!!
Gary Miller (guitarist, vocalist and bouzouki) who writes their lyrics has managed to produce some excellent images of life in the working-class North-East in the past and the present day, the main theme being the pits, their social history and humour, much in evidence on ‘The Coal-Digger’s Grave’.
Musically their sound is based around some great Accordion work, with Bouzouki, Mandolin and Harmonica thrown in for good measure, with the rhythm battered out by Sticks on drums.
The last track, ‘The Bonnie Pit Laddie’, is a traditional song arranged by The Whisky Priests, which they do handsomely.
One band to watch out for; can’t wait for their LP!!” Sean McGhee, ‘Rock ‘N’ Reel’, #1, UK, Autumn 1988.


“The Whisky Priests sound as if the Devil himself is after them, as they clatter and rattle through ‘No Chance’ – we’re firmly in new wave folk territory here, 85 m.p.h. and a vocalist who sounds like a Geordie gargling glass. All the Priests apparently love traditional music and let it affect their writing. Five tracks long, this EP proves that quite conclusively, with mandolin alongside standard punk back line. Songs about miners dying, getting beaten up by local hooligans and a roustabout version of ‘Bonnie Pit Laddie’ litter the vinyl. If there’s one fault, it’s that the whirlwind pace of everything does tend to tire you and The Whiskies could do to include a slow number or two on their forthcoming album, which, if it’s half as canny as this, will be worth a shufty.”
Simon Jones, ‘Folk Roots’, UK, 1988.


“The Durham lads take a backhander from The Pogues, and embark upon a crusade to popularise their native north eastern folk tradition, with accordion, mandolin and harmonica, and gritty booming vocals. With the hobnail boots, cloth caps, braces and mufflers, and bottles of Newcy Brown, they look the part too. Aye – but listen to the lyrics, if you can keep your feet still long enough, that is. The Whisky Priests put the boot in where needed, their feet are jigging in the 1980’s, not the thirties. They blast the lager-casual coward gangs that the Sun has just discovered terrorising every town and city in the land, and lament the crushing despair of unemployment, exploitation, and warmongering. But there’s a hell of a lot of humour here too – a drunken burial party begins to bury the coal-digger who jumps up to shout “Give us whisky!”. Well canny.”
‘Ket’, #1, UK, 1988.


“Those preachers of hard drink, hobnail boots, cloth caps and woollen mufflers are gracing vinyl again with their sermons.
The Whisky Priests have released a five-tracker on their own Whippet Records, distributed through the Cartel.
Again, the backdrop for their musical tapestries is the closed and crumbling factories, the lingering smell of a Woodbine, and pictures of the iron men who worked the pits and shipyards of yesteryear.
In true Priests fashion, it’s only a straitjacket or a good keelhauling that will prevent the listener from reaching for a bottle of Newcy Brown and dancing on a window ledge to this infectious sound.
The single, due in the shops in a fortnight, opens with ‘No Chance’, a sad lament of a young man growing old in the desperate search for work, killing time with visits, when he can afford it, to the cinema and watching the war-effort film and singing the final notes of ‘Land of Hope and Glory’.
Next comes ‘The Coal-Digger’s Grave’, an hilarious account of a coal-digger caught in a cave-in. The burial party reaches Dead Man’s Hill (well after closing time) and begins the burial only for the deceased to jump up and shout, “Give us a whisky!”
The remaining songs, including a traditional arrangement of ‘The Bonnie Pit Laddie’, are in the same vein.
So next time there’s a man on a window-ledge, stay calm: it won’t be a stockbroker ending it all – it’ll be one of the Priests’ fans enjoying himself.”
‘Sunderland Echo’, UK, 2nd July 1988.


“With a whiff of Newcastle Brown, flat caps, ‘dance to thee Daddy’ and Players’ cigs, The Whisky Priests do a marvellous gravel-voiced stomp on Geordie folk songs. With all the delicacy of a sledgehammer, they rattle and roll through Tyneside life with muscley reality.”
‘City Life’, UK, 1988.


“The first song on the album is ‘No Chance’, a rather sad little tale about an unemployed youth, who spends his time hanging around the quayside waiting for his boat to come in and watching films at the local cinema.
‘The Coal-Digger’s Grave’ continues the North-East mining tradition, with a tale of a man caught in a cave-in.
The other side of the album is more traditional and raucous. ‘The Hard Men’ echoes the folky overtones of the record and it’s quite easy to imagine arms flailing and dancers rucking when they play this live.
‘Wise Man’ will get the feet of even the most miserable person dancing.” ‘Side Track’, UK, July 1988.

credits

released June 1, 1988

The Whisky Priests line-up on this recording:

Gary Miller – Lead Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Bouzouki, Mandolin
Glenn Miller – Accordion, Backing Vocals, Bouzouki
Michael Stephenson – Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
Bill Bulmer – Mandolin, Harmonicas, Bouzouki, Backing Vocals
Sticks – Drums

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Gary Miller Durham, UK

Gary Miller first rose to international prominence with folk-punk/rock pioneers The Whisky Priests (1985-2002), founded with his twin brother Glenn - “the Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of Folk Music". He now performs as a solo artist and with his new band 'Gary Miller's Big Picture' whose debut album is coming soon. ... more

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