Gaelic Storm

The times they are a-changin' for Irish music enthusiasts — and their feet too. When the Pogues emerged from the early-Eighties postpunk landscape, most of their fans wore Doc Martens. Some two decades later, though, California's Gaelic Storm dropped its latest album, 2006's Bring Yer Wellies, offering a spirited mix of Celtic folk and world music, as well as a new mandate on footwear (wellies being the rubber boots farmers wear to keep their tootsies dry). The album is full of fiddle-laced jigs, string-heavy ballads, and various tales of life on the Emerald Isle, such as "Never Drink 'Em Dry (Johnny Tarr's Funeral)," a feisty narrative about a dead boozer. And though it's been ten years, the band is still proud of its biggest commercial accomplishment — a cameo performance in the film Titanic. Now there's a boatload of people who could have used some wellies. — Jason Budjinski