I'm listening right now to full songs online by Celtic folk-rock-rap-reggae band Black 47, thanks to an email telling me about the First Annual Providence Fleadh on Aug. 14 where Black 47 will be playing along with Seanchai & the Unity Squad.

(Yup, "Fleadh." I had to look it up. It means music festival in Irish, and is pronounced "flaa.")

On Black 47's site you can hear tunes such as I Got Laid On James Joyce's Grave, Downtown Baghdad Blues, I Ain't Marching Anymore and a most unusual version of Danny Boy.

Black 47 is a more than interesting band. A nice history in the New York Daily News begins,

One was Chris Byrne, a tough Irish cop from Windsor Terrace, Brooklyn, pounding a beat up on New York's "Forty Deuce"; the other was Larry Kirwan, a cheeky import from County Wexford, who had just given up on standard rock 'n' roll and was looking to raise some hell with a new Irish sound the two of them had been working on. Byrne could play the Bodhran drum and the Uilleann pipes and all those ancient Irish instruments, and Kirwan played electric guitar. They called themselves Black 47, after the famine.

and ends,

Chris Byrne would later go off on his own and become the first Irish cop in New York with his own Irish rap group, Seanchai and the Unity Squad.

And they're both playing the Fleadh.

And it's all happening in the street outside Patrick's Pub, 381 Smith St, not far from the State House, on Sunday, Aug. 14 from 2 to 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance, $23 at the last minute. More info: 401-751-1553.

Patrick's Pub is an unusual spot. It's your basic dark old bar with tables, but manages to host some of the quirkiest events, such as the grass-roots Dylan Night each year around Bob's birthday. It's an Irish stronghold, with a link to the Irish Independent and other Irish links on its site.

If you can take the long lines, and crowds of a raucus Saturday night at a beach bar, you can get a preview taste of Black 47 tomorrow night. The band is playing at The Ocean Mist in Matunuck; the Gobshites open.