The Great Malarkey are a riot of gypsy punk, folk, ska and cabaret. This is raucous, high-energy Balkan mayhem born from the stories of friends, lovers, riots, night terrors and the Dalston job center. These are the kids you didn’t mess with on the playground, and you wouldn’t mess with them now: an instrumental call to arms with lyrics that simultaneously sling an arm around your shoulders and punch you in the stomach.
Influenced by the likes of Tom Waits, The Pixies, The Pogues, Beirut, Nick Cave, Fanfare Ciocarlia, Manu Chao, The Dead Brothers and Toots and the Maytals (the latter of whom they supported with only their third gig), The Great Malarkey are riotous mix of musical styles and genres delivered in a “multicultural train of fast beats and trembling slams of punk-folk spirit”. (rhythmpassport.com)
Drawing on their experience of over six years of extensive touring, with shows at Bestival (UK), the London Olympics, Boomtown (UK), Colours of Ostrava (CZ), Tønder Festival (DK), to name but a few, and mainstream airplay in both the UK and Denmark, The Great Malarkey continue to delight audiences across the UK and Europe with their explosive, “balls to the wall”, high energy live shows. In February 2019, “Gimme Sugar” from “Doghouse” was chosen by Tom Robinson as BBC 6 Music recommends track of the week, getting played by day time DJs Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamaq and Mary-Anne Hobbs.
Gillins’ voice is gravelly, the band is raucous and defiant, folksy strums are pulsed. Some rich bluesy guitar teams with rasping vocals and stark guitar strings make for some harrowing music.
