sound of the suburbs

This should have been posted last Saturday but something went wrong, so rather wait 12 months for St Patrick's day to come around again I thought, why not, after all it's only four days late. The House of Pain were a white pop rap band that were more than keen to display their Irish heritage and took this to comic book levels of stupidity with their loutish behaviour, foul language and excessive consummation of beer, this of course worked fine at first in grabbing the medias attention, but was to latter backfire. Band leader, Everlast had been a member of Ice-Ts Rhyme Syndicate before forming the band with High School friends, Their first single provided them with a huge chart hit, that they were to find impossible to fellow up, the song was of course 'Jump Around' presented here in it's Pete Rock Mix. The song is a fine party number that comes over as a cross between early Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. Their second single, 'Shamrocks and Shenanigans' also got the remix treatment I've chosen the Butch Vig Mix, rounding up the music with their theme tune 'House Of Pain Anthem Master Mix' They released three albums in total each of which sold less than the previous did and by 1998 Everlast was recording under his own name releasing a pleasing album in 'Whitey Ford sings The Blues', that was well received by the critics.