Flogging Molly
Celtic barroom punk rockers Flogging Molly (whose local contingent once operated a Carlsbad rock club, Hensley’s Flying Elephant, later known as Stag and Lion) had one helluva 2017. They scored several radio and streaming hits with their first studio full-length in six years, Life Is Good, released in June via Vanguard Records and recorded in Ireland with Grammy-winning producer Joe Chiccarelli (U2, Beck, White Stripes), including “The Hand of John L. Sullivan” (which preceded the album by almost a year) and “Reptiles (We Woke Up).” The latter track came with an animated video directed by the band’s longtime friend Richie Smyth, who did similar work for U2 and the Verve, featuring a marching army of suit-wearing, guitar-playing lizards interspersed with band-performance footage.
Always canny in their marketing, the group courted high-profile tastemakers by offering exclusive advance posts of new tracks to sites such as Brooklyn Vegan (“Welcome to Adamstown”), Consequence of Sound (“The Days We’ve Yet to Meet”), and of course Billboard (“The Guns of Jericho”). It’s this sort of savvy 21st-century self-promotion that has kept the group perpetually on the road and atop the waves (for their annual multiband cruise) ever since first forming a little over 20 years ago, with a March 14 date slated for Observatory North Park, near the end of a tour that wraps in April with the next Salty Dog Cruise.
