THE AFTER-PARTY
Dropkick
Murphys

Once the cheering stops and the crowd files out, it’s time to unwind. Boston’s veteran Celtic punks let us tag along for the night.

JANUAR Y 7
MANITOBA’S, NE W YORK CIT Y

> Green Party

Dropkick Murphys may be known

for kicking an 86-year-long baseball

curse’s ass, but backstage at the Late

Show With David Letterman, Boston’s

beloved Irish punks don’t seem so

tough. A gang of tattoos, scally caps,

and Chuck Taylors, all seven are

packed in a nondescript basement

greenroom, waiting to perform their

thunderous single “The State of

Massachusetts.” It’s their Letterman

debut, and the last time frontman Al

Barr remembers being this nervous

was “before I had my colonoscopy.”

Scruffy Wallace shows off his pole-dancing skills.

(Breathe easy, the results were

good.) After close to a decade in the

trenches of New England punk rock,

the Dropkicks have been on fire the

last few years—their song “Tessie”

became the soundtrack of the 2004

World Series champion Red Sox.

Then, Martin Scorsese prominently

featured the band’s fist-pumping

chantey “I’m Shipping Up to Boston”

in The Departed.

Where does Letterman rank among

these accomplishments? Bassist Ken

Casey jokes anxiously, “I’ll tell you

after it’s over.” An hour later, Casey

has an answer: “This might be even

with The Departed. But not even

with the ²⁰⁰⁴ World Series. Johnny

Carson would have had to come back

to top that.”

> Curses, Foiled!

The black-and-white (and tartan) clad

Dropkicks head for dinner at East

Village comfort-grub joint Mama’s

Food Shop, where they dig into

plates of chicken, mac and cheese,

and mashed potatoes. Still exuberant

from the taping, drummer Matt Kelly

The Dropkicks on Letterman

says that The Departed single-handedly

transformed the Dropkicks “from

a woodshed name to a household

name,” a statement bolstered by

the strong sales (more than 100,000

copies so far) of their latest album,

The Meanest of Times. “We weren’t

looking for it,” explains Barr. “We

weren’t slutting ourselves out waiting

for this to happen.” Scorsese, who

finally won Best Director after being

nominated for the award six times,

even thanked them backstage at the

Oscars. “Another curse we broke,”

crows guitarist James Lynch.

Postshow, prebooze, mid-meal

> Raising the Bar

After New Hampshire–bred Barr

heads north to vote in his home-state

primary, the remaining Dropkicks walk

to meet up with friends at Manitoba’s,

a bar owned by Dictators frontman

and Yankees loyalist Handsome Dick

Manitoba. Kelly says he once heckled

Handsome Dick in Boston, taunting,

“Fuck the Yankees!” “I’d had 30 beers

that day—like, the most I’d ever

drunk,” he recalls, sipping a club soda.

(Kelly is abstaining, after having too

many redheaded sluts last night—the

Marc Orrell disproving Irish stereotypes

cocktail, that is.) At the bar, bagpipe

player Scruffy Wallace sits bare-

legged in his kilt. What’s underneath?

“If an obnoxious drunk girl asks, I

usually say, ‘Your mother’s lipstick.’”

At 1 A.M., Lynch and guitarist/accordi-

onist Marc Orrell (who will leave the

band in a few weeks) are the only two

Murphys left. Considering the raging

pub-crawl mettle of Murphys’ sing-

alongs “Barroom Hero” and “Kiss Me,

I’m Shitfaced,” some might argue this

is false advertising. “We’re people,”

says Lynch, sucking on a smoke out-