Since 2014’s Cold Old Fire, Lankum’s debut album as a four-piece, the Dublin band have gone on to release three studio albums on Rough Trade Records – including The Livelong Day and False Lankum, which both won the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year. Lankum released a live album, Live in Dublin, in June 2024.
They were set for a North American autumn 2025 tour, but had to cancel due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’.
It’s an honour to be releasing a version of this iconic tune, and it feels eerily relevant to be referencing yet again themes of urban decay, economic hardship and working class frustration. – Lankum
Most recently, their track ‘The Granite Graze’ off of their 2017 record Between The Earth and Sky, was featured on Netflix’s House of Guinness soundtrack, which premiered last month.
On tonight’s KINGSTON COFFEE HOUSE, you’ll hear songs about heroic union organizers, deadly mine disasters, wailing orphans, and coal mining’s grim history of economic and ecological devastation in a set we call Dark As a Dungeon. We feature the wonderful collaboration between Freakwater and The Mekons! (“Freakons”, of course!)
In hour two, we will be taking a deep dive into the music of Will Oldham (aka “Bonnie Prince Billy”)
In the third hour, we play a set called Little Devils and Dark Angels – haunting music for the Halloween season provided by Faun Fables, Lankum, The Rheingans Sisters, Josienne Clarke and Róis
Along the way, you’ll hear some classic Greenwich Village folk music from Fred Neil, Tim Harden and Karen Dalton
PLAYLIST
Ann Sheridan – Coffee shop banter from “They Drive by Night” (1940) Freakwater – “Waitress Song” (Old Paint, 1995) Rod Stewart – Tomorrow Is a Long Time (Dylan) Every Picture Tells a Story, 1971
DARK AS A DUNGEON Merle Travis – Dark as a Dungeon (Folk Songs of the Hills, 1947) [From the LP Freakons, 2019:] Freakons – Blackleg Miner (traditional) Freakons – Abernant 84/85 (The Mekons) Freakons – Dreadful Memories (Sarah Ogan Gunning) Freakons – “Corrie Doon”/”A Coal Miner’s Lullaby” (Matt McGinn) Cowboy Junkies – “Mining for Gold” (traditional) The Journeymen – “Dark as a Dungeon” (Travis) Coming Attraction: Live! 1962
GREENWICH VILLAGE FAVORITES Fred Neil – Everybody’s Talkin'(Fred Neil, 1967) Fred Neil – Ba Di Da (Fred Neil, 1967) Tim Hardin- “Misty Roses” Tim Hardin #1 (1966) Karen Dalton – “Something On Your Mind” (Dino Valenti) Bobby Darin “If I Were a Carpenter” (Hardin) Rod Stewart “Reason to Believe” (Hardin) Every Picture Tells a Story, 1971
Featured Artist: Will Oldham Will Oldham/Palace – “New Partner” Viva Las Blues (1995) Will Oldham/Palace – “Oh Lord, Are you in Need?” (There Is No-One Who Will Take Care of You, 1993) Bonnie Prince Billy – The Dragon Song (from the film “Pete’s Dragon”, 2016) Bonnie Prince Billy – “Intentional Injury” (from the film “True Detective”) Bonnie Prince Billy & Dawn Landes – “Dark Eyes” (Bob Dylan) Bonnie Prince Billy & Dawn McCarthy -“What Am I Living For” (What the Brothers Sang, 2013) Joan Shelley “The Fading” (Like the River Loves the Sea, 2019) Trembling Bells & Bonnie Prince Billy – “I’ll Be Looking Out for Me” Bonnie Prince Billy “One of These Days” (The Purple Bird) Johnny Cash “I See a Darkness”(American II; Solitary Man, 2000)
The HOBBLEDEHOY SET: Little Devils and Black Angels ROIS – “Angelus II” (Mo Léan, 2024) Jean Ritchie – “The Little Devils” (traditional) ROIS – “Caoine” (Mo Léan, 2024) The Rheingans Sisters – “Devils” (Devils, 2025) ROIS – Oh, Lovely (Mo Léan, 2024) Lankum – Fugue Faun Fable “Black Angels” (Counterclockwise, 2024) Lankum “What Will We Do When We Have No Money?” (Cold Old Fire, 2017) The Rheingans “The Great Devil / Mr. Turner’s (Devils, 2025) Josienne Clarke “The Madler Horror Story” (Far From Nowhere)
