Ockhams Razor of Seattle is one of 17 contemporary Irish bands with a free tune for St. Paddy's Day.

17 Free St. Patrick's Day MP3s for 2010 come from Marc Gunn of Celtic MP3s Music Magazine.

I've listened to all 17, and it's good stuff: Smart pipes and edgy voices edge out the diddle-dee-dum and repetitious reels (and even those few are very well done.)

Deanna Smith Scotland of Texas "Neo-Celt band" Jiggernaut has a powerful voice and a band that does it justice on Down Where The Drunkards Roll.

Ockhams Razor's Ten Thousand Miles To Bedlam sounds entirely modern, it's art rock.

Marc Gunn hmself reminds me of Jerry Jeff Walker as he drops into Black Velvet Band, a traditional rollicking country song with a moral. You might remember it from U2, or the Dropkick Murphys, who set it in Brockton rather than Belfast:

So come all you jolly young fellows
I'll have you take warning by me.
If you're ever out on the liquor, me' boys
beware of the pretty colleen
for she'll fill you with whiskey and porter
until you're not able to stand
and the very next thing that you'll know, me' lad
you've landed in Van Dieman's land.

You might, like me, hear that as Bandyman's land. I had to Google it: Exile to the penal colony of Tasmania was a common punishment of criminals -- a British version of Devil's Island.

The good girls step-dance, the bad girls frame you, but John McGaha's haunting Gladsheim is beyond all that. Its elegance comes from a wild, windswept hill and needs no words. From a CD called Exodus: An ElectroCelt Journey, it's stunningly good music. This is solo, but McGaha is also cofounder of Boru's Ghost.

From Marc Gunn's blog, along with the tracklist and links for each band:

I write this article every year and compile these free MP3s is to help promote independent Celtic music. If you find an artist that you really love on this compilation, go to the artist website, drop them an email to let them know you found them through the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine. Then buy their CD.

Download "17 Celtic Music Downloadsfor St. Patrick's Day" (98.5 MB)

To download, right-click the link and "save as" to the folder you choose. Then unzip the file.  (p.s. these MP3s will only be up for a month, so download them soon)

Now if only I could figure out which of the many Patrick J. Lennons, son of John and Mary, was my grandfather, my St. Patrick's Day would be complete.

The core family story is that he took the Queen's shilling in a bar one night -- it was dropped into his mug by a recruiter -- which meant he was in the British Army, soon heading for the Boer War. At the dock, as his troop ship loaded, he saw the ship in the next berth pulling out, bound for America, and took a long flying leap.