Even as O'Malley tries to limit his performances with the band to one Saturday night per month, it is being booked into larger, more prestigious venues, most notably the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, where it will share the bill with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra [...]. Not bad for an outfit recently advised by Baltimore Sun music critic J.D. Considine to hold onto their day jobs.

Happily, O'Malley's callings are not mutually exclusive--although the attendant responsibilities do sometimes coincide. St. Patrick's Day weekend, for example, is a busy one for mayors and bar bands alike. In the former capacity, O'Malley will serve as grand marshal of the city's annual parade. In the latter, he'll belt out Irish rave-ups from a pair of Guinness-soaked Baltimore stages.

"He's very passionate about Ireland," says Mick O'Shea, co-owner of the pub where O'Malley's March has played for many years. "I've traveled there with him and he definitely knows the history."

Barbara O'Malley--the mayor's part-German, part-Dutch, part-Irish mother--says her son takes pride in his Irish ancestry, although it wasn't a big part of his childhood. Records by the Clancy Brothers were played only on occasion. It wasn't until O'Malley heard the Wolfe Tones playing one day in the Gonzaga High School locker room in Washington that he tuned in to his heritage. This music had a harder edge and was more rebellious than that of the Clancy Brothers--but it was still indisputably Celtic.
 

Washington Post Friday, March 17, 2000 ; Page N40

"INSIDE THE CELT WAY; THE MUSIC OF ST. PATRICK'S DAY

It's St. Patrick's Day, and the sound of uilleann pipes is in the air. Fortunately, that's not all. It's the one day of the year when Celtic music is as ubiquitous as Guinness.

Everywhere you go, it will be hummed and shouted, strummed and crooned in bars, on street corners and in the hearts of patriots who believe that Ireland's music embodies the country's majestic and tormented soul. (Of course, Celtic music is not exclusively Irish--it is rooted in the traditional music of the Celts, those of Scotland, Wales, Brittany and Galicia as well as Ireland.)

Local Irish bands like Donegal X-Press, Brendan's Voyage, Peat Fire and the Fabulous Potato Heads are headlining at the area's numerous Irish pubs. And nowhere will the spirit of populist camaraderie be more apparent than in Baltimore, where the mayor plays in an Irish bar band of his own.

If there's one parallel between Martin O'Malley, mayor of Baltimore, and Martin O'Malley, lead singer of the Celtic rock band O'Malley's March, it's his effect on an audience. At city hall news conferences and on stage at Mick O'Shea's pub on South Charles Street, O'Malley's spirited performances can stir even the most cynical souls.

"[Playing in the band] is part of who I am," says the 37-year-old politician. O'Malley, who sings lead and plays guitar, is joined onstage by bassist Bob Baum, drummer Jamie Wilson, flautist Paul Levin, guitarist Ralph Reinoldi and multi-instrumentalist Jared Denhard. "I get a real charge from my music," he continues. "It helps me become a whole person. When I come back [to my office] I have a fresher perspective for sorting out the tangled mess of politics."

 

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O'Malley learned how to play the tin whistle, the bodhran and the uilleann pipes. After that he started a pub band called Shannon Tide with his high school football coach, Danny Costello. His mother says her mouth dropped open when she walked into the pub and heard her son sing for the first time.

"We were not a musical family," she says. "He learned on his own, he was self-inspired."

"Wait for Me," what O'Malley likes to call his "smash hit CD," is the band's attempt to expand the appeal of traditional Celtic fare. "We're trying to make Irish music accessible to a larger audience without hurting its integrity," he says.

 

It's something he's tried to do before. Several years ago, the then-owner of O'Shea's chided O'Malley for adding a drummer to the band's lineup in defiance of Irish tradition. O'Malley brought the drummer to the band's next gig. He explained the situation to the crowd and asked everyone to express their opinion on index cards he handed out. At the end of the performance, O'Malley collected the cards and dumped them on the bar.

A week later O'Malley was driving by the pub on his way home from work and saw a large banner hanging on the building. It read, "Martin you win, bring the drummer." He did.

It stands to reason that a band that performs Sinead O'Connor and Elvis Costello covers is not composed of strict traditionalists. On the new disc, the group's second, they also experiment with trombone parts and Afro-Cuban rhythms in an effort to balance traditional and contemporary Celtic sensibilities. While it contains enough sentimental sing-alongs and rousing choruses to satisfy purists, it is on the five instrumental tracks that the band is at its best.

Yet "Wait for Me" marks a turning point for O'Malley the songwriter. The band's first CD, "Celtic Fury," was aptly named. In "Ned of the Hill," for example, O'Malley raged, "A curse upon you Oliver Cromwell/ You who raped our motherland/ I hope you're rotting down in hell." The new songs are more philosophical. In "Song for Justice," for instance, O'Malley is downright contemplative:

This is not a song for ancient wounds

I think we've bound them all we can

This is a song for justice and peace in Ireland

If the laughing tides of history can wash away

The years of hate

If the boundaries of empire can open to

A nobler fate

And if the Berlin Wall can crumble down

And Mandela can walk free

And we hope that in our lifetime

Ireland will go free

O'Malley, who says all of his songs are for justice, draws inspiration from books such as Robert Kee's three-volume history of Ireland, "The Green Flag," and "The Great O'Neill," Sean O'Faolain's biography of 16th-century Irish chieftain Hugh O'Neill. His favorite Irish musicians these days include old favorites like the Clancy Brothers as well as contemporary artists like Mary Black, the Saw Doctors and Shane MacGowan.

No matter how experimental the band may become on disc, its stage performances are firmly rooted in Celtic music's rabble-rousing tradition. Two weeks ago at the Shamrock 2000 fund-raiser for Baltimore's St. Patrick's Day Parade, O'Malley was the undisputed life of the party. For 90 minutes he jumped, danced, sweated and played the guitar horizontally, vertically and over his head.

Such antics are part of what make O'Malley a magnetic performer--and, of course, being the city's highest elected official isn't exactly bad for business, either. The crowds coming to see O'Malley's March are getting younger--and bigger--all the time. "We used to get the 50-plus crowd," says O'Shea, obviously happy about the boom in business, which bartenders say has increased by 40 to 50 percent since O'Malley was elected.

O'Malley's day job hasn't spoiled him. He acts the same as the other band members, readily moving equipment, getting mikes ready and adjusting the lights. He's even tried to foist his trademark muscle T-shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal sculpted biceps, on the other musicians. At Shamrock 2000, minutes before the band launched into its opening tune, he strolled over to piper Paul Levin and started rolling up one of his sleeves.

Of course, celebrity isn't for everybody. Levin slapped his hand and down went the sleeve."

  Washington Post Friday, March 17, 2000 ; Page N40

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