Arizona Irish Music Society

Saw Doctors Play Tempe Monday May 16 Doors open at 6:30 pm Marquee Theatre 730 North Mill Avenue Tempe, AZ 85181. The box office for booking tickets 480 829 0607. www.luckymanproductions.net Tickets $15

The Saw Doctors are on tour in the USA for three weeks in May to promote their new live CD, New Year's Day which was recorded at the Black Box Theatre in Galway on January 1st 2005.

The Saw Doctors lineup for the tour is

DAvy Carton, Vocals, Guitar
Leo Moran, Guitar, Vocals
Anthony Thistlethwaite, Bass Guitar
Fran Breen, Drums
Derek Murray, Keyboards and Accordion

Davy Carton and Leo Moran are the two founder members and main songwriters in the Saw Doctors. Joining the Saw Doctors for the USA tour in the USA are two new band members, Anthony Thistlethwaite on Bass and Fran Breen on Drums. Anthony Thistlethwaite is a founder member of The Waterboys and previously guested on various Saw Doctors albums throughout the nineties. Fran Breen has previously worked with Lucinda Williams, Nanci Griffiths and The Waterboys. Completing the lineup is Derek Murray who plays all sorts of keyboards, accordion and guitar.

The Saw Doctors recent celebrated St. Patrick's Day by playing an outdoor concert in London's Trafalgar Square on March 13. Over 50,000 people attended the concert including the Lord Mayor of London Ken Livingston who hosted the free concert in this historic part of London.

During the upcoming tour in May the Saw Doctor will debut new songs from their sixth studio album, Your Guitar, which the band are currently recording in Cuan Studios in Galway.

www.sawdoctors.com

The hook-laden sounds of 1960s rock bands like the Beatles and the Byrds and the working class imagery of Bruce Springsteen are combined with the musical traditions of Ireland and the intensity of punk rock by the Saw Doctors. The Saw Doctors were a little-known local bar band in Tuam (pronounced "Chewam") in County Galway when they were invited by Mike Scott to be the opening act on the Waterboys' 1988 tour of Ireland and the United Kingdom. In the decade since, however, the Saw Doctors have emerged as the most successful Irish rock band since U2. The Washington Post referred to the Saw Doctors as "one of the world's most appealing roots-rock outfits."

The Saw Doctors had their initial success with their second single, "I Useta Love Her," a turbo-charged tune about lusting for an old girl during Mass. Despite the opposition by the Church, the song became the biggest-selling single in Irish history and spent nine weeks at the top of the Irish charts. Following its success, the Saw Doctors' first single, "N17," about an immigrant's homesickness, was reissued, and it too became a number one hit. The Saw Doctors' debut album, If This Is Rock and Roll, I Want My Old Job Back, released in 1991, also reached the top slot on the Irish charts.

Although their second album, All the Way from Tuam, released in 1992, was well received in Ireland, the Saw Doctors didn't have their first hit in Great Britain until releasing a four-track EP, Small Bit of Love, which reached the number 24 position on the British charts. A second EP, World of Good, released in January 1996, reached the number 15 position.

Same Oul' Town, the Saw Doctors' third album, was released in 1996 and fared even better, reaching number six on the British charts. In 1997, the Saw Doctors released an album, Sing a Powerful Song, featuring 17 tracks from its earlier three albums. The same year, the Saw Doctors recorded "She Says" as the theme song for the BBC comedy series Give My Head Peace. A four-track EP featuring "She Says" and three new tunes — "School of Beauty," "Days" and "Bushwackin'" — was released in Ireland in May 1997.

The Saw Doctors had their commercial breakthrough in the United States when "Never Mind the Strangers," co-written with original drummer Padraig Stevens, was used by Guinness in a million-dollar radio ad campaign for Harp Lager. The release of the Saw Doctors' fourth album, Heading For The Sunshine was postponed until September 1997 when their American record label, Paradigm, requested that they tour the United States prior to its release.

The prime songwriters of the Saw Doctors, Leo Moran (guitar) and Davy Carton (vocals), were veterans of Galway's punk rock scene when they launched the Saw Doctors. Carton had previously performed his song "I Useta Love Her" in a punk group, Blaze X. The current lineup of the Saw Doctors also features Pearse Doherty (bass), John Donnelly (drums) and Derek Murray (keyboards). luckymanproductions.net

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