Recession - the musical comedians strike back

SMALL PRINT:WE ARE where we are. We lost the run of ourselves, we are living way beyond our means, so let's put our shoulder to the wheel, going forward.

This is not an extract from Brian Lenihan’s Budget speech – it’s the list of song titles from a new EP by Paddy Cullivan, otherwise known as Clint Velour, the Late Late Show’s house band leader.

Cullivan is one of a small group of guitar-strumming bards who are refusing to stand idly by while the Government, the banks, the IMF and the ECB fleece the little folk. No-siree. They’re mad as hell and they’re gonna write a funny song about it.

Cullivan honed his musical comedy as leader of the Camembert Quartet, which poked fun at everything from boybands to students, but now he’s training his eye firmly on Kildare Street. He handed out copies of the EP outside Dáil Éireann, and is pretty sure the two Brians – Cowen and Lenihan – have heard it, “although it was mostly opposition TDs who took copies”. He’s performed at Leviathan, espousing his vision for a new Ireland, and he’ll be performing at the annual Gooseberry awards on January 20th. “I want to be Ireland’s Jon Stewart,” he says. Paddycullivan.com

Dermot Carmody and Morgan Jones are part of six-member satirical crew The Emergency, which had an award-winning topical sketch show on Newstalk in 2009. The duo has just released an EP, The Morale Will Continue until the Beatings Improve, which includes their ode to odious bankers, Not Doing Any Time, along with such ditties as Battle Hymn of the Tea Party and My Granny Goes on Facebook. Carmodyandjones.com

Rowdy republican balladeer Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly has also thrown his beer-stained cap into the ring, posting new come-all-ye’s on YouTube, including Germany Calling and The Ireland We Loved.

“It’s probably an appropriate time for Ding Dong to come back,” says Denny’s alter-ego Paul Woodfull. “He’d be thinking, what an insult to the great men of 1916.” The mouldy minstrel will be performing at the Grand Social in Dublin on December 21st. myspace.com/dingdongdenny