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Sure, Darby O’Gill and the Little People — the Las Vegas band — takes its name from the 1959 Walt Disney film about adorable leprechauns.
Beyond that, the similarities end. Really, they do.
That’s because Darby O’Gill, the band, is fond of bawdy humor, off-color toasts and odes to the joys and consequences of drinking, some of which lend themselves to some very loud audience participation.
But it’s a formula that has worked pretty well for the band since its creation more than nine years ago.
Founder/vocalist/guitarist Andy “Darby O’Gill” Morris — all of the band members have vaguely Gaelic stage names — is a veteran of Kickwurmz, a popular valley rock band during the ’90s. But, even as Kickwurmz was winding down, Morris was casting about for a new band in which to play.
“I was really into the Pogues and the Dropkick Murphys, and I thought there wasn’t a band in town that did, like, the Celtic rock kind of stuff,” Morris says.
“And, there were a lot of pubs. There were all these pubs coming up, but not enough bands.”
Morris figured a Celtic-flavored rock band could fill a “perfect niche” by offering audiences “something you can’t really hear everywhere.”
Thus came Darby O’Gill and the Little People, which features Morris on guitars and vocals, Tristan Moyer on fiddle and vocals, Joseph Brailsford on accordion and vocals, Alex LeCavalier on bass and Jon Whisenant on drums.
Morris says it’s really hard to describe the band’s style of music “because we’re all over the board. We do a lot of different things.”
Irish drinking songs. Ballads. Covers of songs by artists ranging from the Beatles to the Pogues to Jay-Z. In fact, offer up a song, Morris says, “and we’ll figure out a way to make it fit in well.”
Morris admits that he doesn’t really know what newcomers might expect from the earthy band with the cute name.
“I know it’s kind of a playful name, and we are kind of playful, actually,” he says. “There are a lot of comedy bits. We don’t take ourselves seriously at all.
“But it’s also raunchy. We do dirty toasts and things like that. It’s a bawdy Irish band.”
Darby O’Gill and the Little People play Quinn’s Irish Pub at Green Valley Ranch Resort, 2300 Paseo Verde Parkway in Henderson at 9 p.m. Thursdays and 10 p.m. Saturdays, and at Jack’s Irish Pub at Palace Station, 2411 W. Sahara Ave., at 9 p.m. Fridays.
— By JOHN PRZYBYS
GETTIN’ JIGGY (AND DRUNK) WITH DARBY O’GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE
Julie SeabaughWed, Aug 8, 2007 (10:35 p.m.)
10:00 p.m. Night 2 of Darby O’Gill and the Little People’s triumphant return to Quinn’s Irish Pub (formerly Fado) inside the Green Valley Ranch Casino. Booked every Friday and Saturday beginning this weekend, the quintet immediately launch into the poppy, pint-y malarkey that’s cemented them as Vegas’ go-to band for jigged-up renditions of “Don’t Cha,” “Hey Ya” and the Beasties’ “Girls” (here pronounced “Gells”).
10:20 p.m. “I need someone to bring me whiskey,” announces hirsute vocalist/guitarist Andy Morris (aka Darby O’Gill), whose ensemble includes a paperboy cap, Hennessey tie and green kerchief dangling from a back pocket. “Preferably someone with her tits out.”
10:35 p.m. “I shot a man in Summerlin just to watch him die,” Morris sings before “Folsom Prison Blues”’ accordion breakdown. Much glass-raising, air drumming and uninhibited whopping ensues.
10:45 p.m. Fifteen-minute break. So, how’s it feel to be back? “It’s really nice,” says Morris. “We’re still at McMullan’s Wednesdays and Hennessey’s Thursday, but after being here five years, it’s nice to come back and be able to drink ’em dry the first night.” What else is going on? “We’ve been talking about recording another album and recording new songs.” Adds vocalist/fiddler Tristan Moyer, “We’re also going to be at Fado when they reopen up the street.”
11 p.m. “Round 2, baby! We’re going to kick this set right in the balls!” Morris promises. “... Baby One More Time,” “Seven Nation Army” and “Proud Mary” follow in rapid succession. “Blister in the Sun” incites a dance circle of the sloshedest order.
11:42 p.m. Someone named Filet O’ Fish recites tasteless limericks. And then it’s someone’s birthday. And then “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and “Sweet Child O’ Mine” end the second set with a massive Riverdance-off.
Midnight. Fifteen-minute break. Impromptu games of Quarters bust out like popcorn. Shiny, bouncy, plinky popcorn. Distracting and appetite-arousing.
12:24 a.m. A long and impassioned speech is made about ... something! “Santeria.” Something about The Pogues. Cheers. “Play some Skynyrd!” Boos.
12:53 a.m. “Jump Around.” And the crowd does. “No cover, beers and $3.50, let’s hear it for that!” Morris instructs. And we do.
1:03 a.m. “SexyBack.” “Peace and love, we’ll see you next weekend!” Rooms spin, crowd defiantly chants, “One more song!,” all goes black.
Darby O’Gill has a flat on the freeway and is a wee bit late to his gig at McMullan’s Irish Pub on West Tropicana. No matter. His band is hanging out, eating bar food and getting drunker by the minute. So are the fans.
For Darby O’Gill and the Little People, drunkenness is part of the act.
The fivesome are a rollicking and bawdy Irish drinking band, named after a 1950s movie that starred Sean Connery. Throughout the night they play traditional Irish songs, even originals such as “I got so drunk (I crapped meself).” They turn tunes such as the Pussycat Dolls pop hit “Don’t Cha” and Radiohead’s “I’m a Creep” into an Irish jig.
“We’ll play any request,” says singer and fiddler Nancy Whiskey, who in real life is Tristan Moyer.
“If we know it or not,” says drummer Paul Sinnott, who plays the role of Paddy O’Furniture.
“Except Winger,” Moyer says.
“We won’t play Winger,” confirms Sinnott.
The banter is a constant during and after performances. They encourage the audience to get in on the act by singing along to a chorus of cussing, which has gotten them fired from a few bars in town. O’Gill, whose real name is Andy Morris, lets the audience know it’s okay to drink into the night. “Work is for sobering up,” he says with the tongue of an Irishman .
A socially responsible drinking band they’re not. But it’s all for fun.
“The band runs on the energy of barely not liking each other,” says Sinnott. He’s the only one with a real accent. He’s from Liverpool. The audience thinks it’s an act, he says. “They don’t know that we’re giving each other real shit.”
Whether it’s an act or not—and it’s hard to tell because each becomes their character—the audience digs it. Pints raised, the fans shout along.
The band has two CDs: Traditional Irish Dance Music: Volume 1 and Darby O’Gill Live. The band’s next CD, to be released on St. Patrick’s Day: Just Because You Live on the Top Floor Doesn’t Mean You’re Above Everybody Else.
Morris says he inadvertently brought along the wit from his former band, the Kickwurmz, a rock and rap act with funny rhymes. Kickwurmz broke up around 2001. “We kind of felt as though the genre had passed,” Morris says. About that time Morris was getting into Irish music.
Darby O’Gill and the Little People have been going strong for four years. They play four nights a week – steady gigs that pay. In fact, none of them need a day job. That’s why Morris started the band – to never, ever have a “real” job again.
The band says that’s the allure of being a musician.
“My liver is fucking dead but at least I don’t have to refill diet Cokes,” says Joe Brailsford.
Brailsford is Ringo Malarky, the accordion player with an air of Keith Richards. Morris and Brailsford met at Roxy’s Diner at the Stratosphere. Morris was a disc jockey and Brailsford was waiting tables. Morris said he played guitar. Brailsford said he played accordion. Tada! Irish band.
Why an Irish band? It’s all about filling a niche and making some green stuff. Morris saw a lot of Irish pubs around town but not a lot of Irish bands.
“It’s hard to get a group together,” says Morris. “But we got it going on.”
The band has all of its original members except for the revolving Phil McCrackin bass-player role. Third bassist Ted Sablay recently left to play keyboard and guitar with The Killers, which release their Hot Fuss follow-up, Sam's Town, in October.
Moyer sings, chews gum and fiddles at the same time. Moyer says she plays the fiddle because she’s a bad violinist. Her best instrument is her voice, which alone, makes the band worth seeing. Her tone is jazzy and husky, Ella Fitzgerald crossed with Bjork.
She keeps up with the boys in the band, easily holding up her end of the whiskey conversation.
“I never drank ‘til I was 21,” says Moyer, who began performing with the band when she was 17. “Now I’m an alcoholic.”
Moyer listens to everything from the Beatles to country. She sings praises of the outlandish Peaches, who performed recently at the House of Blues.
During a break – they do three sets of 45 minutes – Moyer and Morris complain about Las Vegas radio.
“The radio here is truly crapped out,” Morris says. But they are both big KNPR fans. “I’m a member,” Moyer says.
When Moyer’s off stage, she’s studying biology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. One of her friends says science is her passion.
On his days off, Brailsford kills people and beats fruit. Not real people. “I play World of Warcraft.” He says he’s a level 60, which apparently, is a high-level plateau. Brailsford also indulges in fruit ball – hitting fruits with a bat. These are the things that entertain him.
“In Las Vegas all we’ve got is bars and casinos, bars and casinos, fucking bars and casinos,” Brailsford says.
“Ringo’s the only one who lives his role,” Moyer says.
Sinnott does wardrobe work for TV and movies. “I get bored in the day,” he says. “But we make enough not to work,” he says.
“We just don’t get health benefits,” Moyer says. “But we get booze and free food.”
Check out the band at The Auld Dubliner in Lake Las Vegas, McMullan’s Irish Pub on West Tropicana or Fado Irish Pub at Green Valley Ranch Resort.
Note: Tristan Moyer plays strings on The Killers new album Sam's Town, which rocks!