This morning, with my mind on things like the next Ultimate Fighting Championship, I began to wonder – what song would I walk out to the Octagon to? Now, this takes careful consideration because you need a song that incites little to no anxiety, one that is simple enough not distract you, one that does not have any sentimental value. It needs to be the right amount of tough with the right amount of street credibility, one that stirs up a bit of raucous. One band can answer that call - maybe they could have saved Paul Taylor from that arm bar.

How often can you find bagpipes as the lead into a punk riff? And a fiddle? How many can say there is anything tougher than a mohawked, tattooed punk rocking out on a banjo? These Irish socialists got their start in the basement of a Boston barbershop and hit it big almost as soon as they emerged from underground. Not to say that they had it easy – they put their dues in by touring 11 months out of the year and pumping out record after record. The seven band members took nothing for granted and even wrote all of their own songs.

The lyrics cover most of whats good and holy in blue collar America – pubs, unions, and manual labor. Clad in ripped flannel, catholic tattoos and a gripping a pint, the band is chalk full of testosterone. The phrase to know and love is “Oi!”. “Oi!” labels the band as working class street-level subgenre of punk and promotes the unity of punks, S.H.A.R.P.S. and other non-aligned working class Herberts.

Guys like this never change, they remain the same old jerks that cussed you out the day you ran into them at the Quincy market. They are not private party, drug addicted elitists who party with strippers. They sing, they stomp, they tour and then they go home, have a beer and kick back with their wives.

Forget the overplayed hip-hop bass, the calm and collected nature of electronic. Walk to the ring in white and green and sock it to ‘em! Or at least graze the ears of your guests with this album at the during the next UFC.