Wichita Falls’ newest Irish rock band “Thee Wilde Hares” just formed in February, but they have already booked and performed several gigs. The band debuted to a full house at the soft opening of The Highlander on March 11th, followed by headlining their St Patty’s Day grand opening on March 17th. They hydrated their sore heads and went at it again the following night at Stick’s Place.
The group features James Ivey on trombone and banjo, John Tucker on bass, Beau Dameron on vocals, Nathan Jun on keyboard, Adam Lynskey on percussion and Brandt Jalowy on guitar.
“We play rock renditions of Irish ballads and other forms of traditional Irish music: jigs, reels and such. We play some covers of other contemporary Celtic rock and punk bands like Dropkick Murphy’s and Flogging Molly, as well as originals,” said Jun.
Jun uses a midi sequencer to emulate traditional Irish instruments like bagpipes and accordion. Irish fiddlers, pipers and accordion players are hard to come by in Texoma. He has prior experience playing the accordion in Polish polka bands, but last summer he began experimenting with using computerized synthesis which gives him a greater range of sounds to experiment with.
As for the band’s name, Jun said: “Wild hares are prolific in Ireland and there’s something about the way that the hares frisk about the heather and fight with each other and such. It sort of evokes the spirit of traditional Celtic music. Our spelling of Wilde is, of course, a reference to Oscar Wilde.”
Thee Wilde Hares is the third band that roommates Jun and Lynskey have played in together since 2014. Lynskey is an Irish-American and the great-grandson of an Irish singer and fiddle player.
“My grandfather was extremely proud of our Irish heritage, and especially my great-grandfather Victor Lynskey. Victor was an Irish fiddler, and he also sang. We are fortunate that someone had the foresight to record him, and I have spent many nights listening to the songs he sang in his big booming baritone,” said Lynskey.
The Polish-American Jun grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, a city with a large Irish-American population. His first girlfriend was a first-generation Irish-American and through spending time with her family, Jun was exposed to a great deal of Irish folk songs, but had to familiarize himself with it musically last summer.
The group has a rapidly increasing repertoire of original songs. “We’ve tried to write songs that have some relevance personally, but draw on the idioms of traditional Irish music,” said Jun. “I’m a music fanatic and I just love the music of all different cultures, but Irish music captures the experience of people, and while I’m not Irish, I identify with their experience because it is similar to that of Eastern Europeans and Jews. It’s the music of the oppressed and the rebels.”
Jun and Lynskey often incorporate traditional Irish tunes into their new material, melding old and new as seamlessly as possible. Jun’s Faraway Gone is a caoineadh, or an Irish lament, as is Lynskey’s Amber for Emeralds. From Beverly to Bridgeport is a song about the Irish-American communities on the south side of Chicago, Jun’s adoptive hometown. It’s sung to the tune of The Wearing of the Green, an old Irish rebel song. For the Shenanigans and One Last Pint are both laddish drinking songs, and Tropic of Cancer is a hard-driving sea shanty that features a newly composed original jig.
“People who have an appreciation for traditional Texas music, or Western Swing and bluegrass, should instinctively appreciate Irish music, because that music by and large grew out of musical traditions that were brought to this country by Irish and Scottish immigrants who settled in Appalachia and the plains,” said Jun.
Thee Wilde Hares can be contacted via their Facebook page, which has details of future performances.
– Camille Shepherd
