Big Guns & Hairy Drums Scithereedee Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely sing the most hilarious of Ireland\'s comic songs today Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely got together originally at the suggestion of Derry singer Joe Mulhearn for a Scottish club tour organised by Rita Hunter in 1986. Their material was built around Tim\'s traditional ballads and Fintan\'s flute music. But gradually Tim brought his accordion to the fore, and Fintan began singing out several songs he had made earlier in the decade. So began Scithereedee, and eventually the demands of festivals pushed them both more toward song, with music as a kind of leavening. Several of the songs on this album appeared first on a tour cassette called Scithereedee in 1988, later re-issued with some changes as Knock, Knock, Knock in 1989. Here the original music tracks have been sacrificed to fit in several other songs that the duo have been exercising on tours in England and Ireland throughout the 1990s. Tim has been an important figure on the folk club circuit in Britain since the nineteen sixties, and is known well for his light, melodeon-style playing in Galway sessions, as well as the cheery crack of his own compositions. He has two LPs with Green Linnet. Fintan\'s 1979 Shanachie LP is re-issued on CD as The Dark Loanen (WHN 003), and that with guitarist Mark Simos, The Starry Lane to Monaghan now also on CD (WHN 004). He also writes on Traditional music, with a weekly column in The Sunday Tribune. His books include Timber - The Flute Tutor, The Irish Flute Tutor, The Blooming Meadows (with Charlie Piggott and photographer Nutan), the edited, A-Z Companion to Irish Traditional Music, and The Guide to Irish Traditional Music. All of Scithereedee\'s songs on this album appear in print in the comic songbook Balcony of the Nation. The songs 1/ The Bodhrán Song flags the caricature of \'The German\' tourist who is too miserable to pay for a proper bodhrán. 2/ Song of The Teeth celebrates the robbery of Martin O\'Malley\'s false teeth by a jackdaw - and their eventual return by a neighbour of the name of Crowe. 3/ The Fast-food Song arose out of Tim being poisoned by a half-thawed, maggot-infested alleged burger he foolishly once bought on the street at the Willie Clancy Week. 4/ Dunne\'s Story Beats Them All is a pun on the Irish supermarket chain\'s slogan \'Dunnes\' Stores\' better value beats them all\' which sprang to mind after owner Ben\'s alleged golfing trip to Miami where he got arrested for testing new products with an unknown female assistant. 5/ Jake the Sniffer is the tale of the doggy in the middle - addicted by the Gardaí, and kidnapped by the drug barons. 6/ Charles the Navigator tells of the crash landing of onetime Irish leading statesman Charles J. Haughey\'s boat on the Mizzen Head, Co. Cork. 7/ The Weather was scribed by Tim in desperation at the bad summer of 1985 which led to Spanish holidays and moving statues. 8/ The sun worshipper observes the curiosity that is those who wish to roast themselves in this life, but not in the next. 9/ Resurrection Romp is the true story of how the Irish music- and drink-loving apostles let Jesus down on his biggest ever PR gamble. 10/ The E?EC Song is Tim\'s dismissal of the hogwash of the institution which he sees as having ruined wholesome pub life. 11/ The Well Woman Song details the raiding of a family planning clinic in Dublin for daring to supply condoms. 12/ Price of the Pig tells of hard times when the innocent lad is beguiled by the charms of a smart woman. 13/ Saffron and Wine. The tale of the victory of Miltown Malbay's GAA football club in the 1987 Clare county final . 14/ Confessions of a Bodd-ran Player speaks the mind of a New-Agey addict to the modern Irish skin drum. 15/ The Grisly Murder of Joe Frawley is a parody on the Classic \'murder\' ballad which tells how a greedy publican met his end. 16/ The Moving Statues Movement is the behind the scenes story of why the Irish statues took to aerobics and crowd control in 1985. Gratitude Grateful thanks to Joe and Aileen, Malcolm and Edna, Julian and Brian, the Dungloe Bar and all who entered therein to be deprived of a scorcher by the sea, to Ger and Anne at Trend for wizardry and patience, to Warren, George and Grattan for dubs. And special thanks to Evelyn and to Anna who had to endure all the aerodynamic testing. Particular thanks to Nick and Derek, to Kevin Rohan, to Eric Bogle for permission to use air adaptation for Willie Mm-mride, also to Glen Cumiskey and the facilities of the Irish Traditional Music Archive. Catalogue number WHN 002. Recorded by Malcolm Wray in Co. Derry, and by Glen Cumiskey at the ITMA, Dublin. Sleeve photograph by Derek Spiers. Design Nick Lethert of Red Stone Arts, Minneapolis. Notes by Fintan Vallely. Pressed by Trend, Dublin. Earlier songs originally produced as a cassette - UMFA 001 - by Ulster Folk Music Association in 1989. Big Guns & Hairy Drums Scithereedee - Tim Lyons and Fintan Vallely WHN 002 Big Guns & Hairy Drums Comic and satirical lyrics of the modern time about hamburgers, politicians, murder, drink, sex, religion, statues, Jesus, Ben Dunne, Willie McBride, false teeth, the weather, potholed roads, and everybody\'s scapegoat, that shockingly authentic icon of \'roots\' music - the bodhrán. All penned, performed and presented by Scithereedee