Firebrand Jinx is back with uplifting show

There are not many performers like Dundalk’s punk-folk firebrand Jinx Lennon, who comes to Monroe’s Live this Sunday, April 12, armed with a bunch of new songs that address the society around him.

His 2006 album, Know Your Station Gouger Nation, had 20 songs on it; his subsequent album had 16. He has brought out more records since and always plays new songs at his gigs, so it comes as something of a surprise to hear he recently overcame a bout of writer’s block.

“I had writer’s block for last four years, and maybe in the last year I’ve started writing again,” he says. “I felt like I was getting a bit like the old guys in the gallery at The Muppet Show, just giving out. I was thinking I need to engage in trying to raise it a bit.”

“I like to uplift people, that’s what the show’s about. That’s why I started the whole show. If I was in the audience, what would I like to see onstage?”

His answer is part punk, part soul and part eloquent folk troubadour. Jinx has come out of the creative desert with a bunch of new songs, including the superb Xanax, which addresses prescription medication.

“I thought it was a good topic to try and get my head around, because it is a big problem,” he says. “I was walking around my hometown this morning and it was almost like Shaun of the Dead. There were a lot of people, who you just knew by looking at them, were medicated to the hilt. It’s very sad to look at. You’re in a shopping centre full of Easter eggs, and then you see people who are just not there in a compos mentis kind of way.”

For more, see this week’s Connacht and City Tribune