History Music / Rubberbandits

A comedy hip-hop duo, from Limerick, Ireland. They've been around since roughly 2000, and has a slight cult following in their native Limerick due to their self-published [=CDs=] and prank calls. They only really got big in 2010, when they were featured on Creator/{{RTE}}'s ''Republic of Telly''. Their hit "Horse Outside" was favourite to be the Irish Christmas Number 1, and was part of an Internet campaign to beat ''Series/XFactor'' winner Matt Cardle to the spot, but eventually lost. They released an album, ''Serious About Men'', the following year, featuring both their older songs and prank calls and some new tunes. They were regulars on the RTÉ sketch comedy show ''Republic of Telly'', although after dressing up as Black and Tans during a live broadcast without telling anyone, their relationship with the broadcasting company became fraught. Their "Guide to Limerick" was a hit, as were some of other other songs and sketches, and they pursued a position at the UK Channel 4, with a pilot for a potential TV show being broadcast after they produced a series for the ''Comedy Blaps'' program of the channel. They had a sell-out standup show on the Edinburgh Fringe, ''Continental Fistfight'', which has gone on tour. They've also worked with Russell Brand, MTV Iggy (prior to its demise) and one of them (Blind Boy) was featured on a ''Series/{{Newsnight}}'' section about the Irish Marriage Referendum. Most recently, they provided commentary for ITV's ''Almost Impossible'' GameShow, and are soon to broadcast a one hour documentary about the 1916 Easter Rising.

The members are Blindboy Boat Club and Mr Chrome, with Spin Southwest DJ Paul Webb as unofficial third member Willie O'DJ.

* IAmTheBand: Bling Boy Boat Club writes the majority of the songs and makes the most public appearances, to the point where Mr. Chrome got ADayInTheLimelight song when they were still with Channel 4. He also seems to run their Twitter.

* StageNames: Blindboy Boat Club and Mr. Chrome, although they claim that those are their real names.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Some of their earlier songs are a lot more rap/hip-hop focused, and generally a lot less "arty": some of their songs can only be found through YouTube uploads by people who bought their songs on CD back in the mid-2000s. Some of their prank calls are also kind of dubiously homophobic, whereas they were vocal about the Yes Referendum in 2015.

* [[spoiler:GrievousHarmWithABody]]: [[spoiler:Inflicted by the father on the singer]] at the end of the clip for ‘[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzo4rZxF3x4 I Wanna Fight Your Father]]’.

* BilingualBonus: Their song "I want to Fight your Father" was translated by them into Irish, and the translated version has some due to its translation conventions: rather than BlindBoy floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee, he's stronger than Cú Chulainn and as fierce as Fionn Mac Chumaill, as well as other lines being significantly rewritten. Their normal speech, while more like an sub-dialect of Hiberno-English than a real language, is also pure Limerick, which means that some words unfamiliar to foreigners have more meaning.

* EarlyInstalmentWeirdness: Some of their earlier songs are a lot more rap/hip-hop focused, and generally a lot less "arty": some of their songs can only be found through YouTube uploads by people who bought their songs on CD back in the mid-2000s. Some of their prank calls are also kind of dubiously homophobic, whereas they were vocal about the Yes Referendum in 2015.

A comedy hip-hop duo, from Limerick, Ireland. They've been around since roughly 2000, and has a slight cult following in their native Limerick due to their self-published [=CDs=] and prank calls. They only really got big in 2010, when they were featured on Creator/{{RTE}}'s ''Republic of Telly''. Their hit 'Horse Outside' was favourite to be the Irish Christmas Number 1, and was part of an Internet campaign to beat ''X-Factor'' winner Matt Cardle to the spot, but eventually lost. They released an album, Serious About Men, the following year, featuring both their older songs and prank calls and some new tunes. They were regulars on the RTÉ sketch comedy show The Republic of Telly, although after dressing up as Black and Tans during a live broadcast without telling anyone, their relationship with the broadcasting company became fraught. Their "Guide to Limerick" was a hit, as were some of other other songs and sketches, and they pursued a position at the UK Channel 4, with a pilot for a potential TV show being broadcast after they produced a series for the "Comedy Blaps" program of the channel. They had a sell-out standup show on the Edinburgh Fringe, Continental Fistfight, which has gone on tour. They've also worked with Russell Brand, MTV Iggy (prior to its demise) and one of them (Blind Boy) was featured on a Newsnight section about the Irish Marriage Referendum. Most recently, they provided commentary for ITV's Almost Impossible Gameshow, and are soon to broadcast a 1-hour documentary about the 1916 Easter Rising.
They were described by The Guardian as "The Daily Mail's nightmare of a feral underclass come to life" and "two terrifying Irish goblin-type creatures" by Broadway Baby.com.

The Rubberbandits are also known for their hilarious prank calls, and for wearing plastic bags over their faces. And for using Limerick slanf and speaking with stereotypical Limerick accents, which news outlets have felt the need to translate in the past, and for being stereotypical Limerick skangers. They also supposedly met at Gaelscoil, and are certainly very fluent. Their sketches and songs often juxtapose very unlikely concepts together: for example, "Spoiling Ivan" was a bubbly children's song by a pair of self-proclaimed "gangster rappers" about a completely innocuous friendship between Mr.Chrome and young boy called Ivan, and included a reference to Ivan's parents being heroin addicts.
Their Website/YouTube page can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/user/Rubberbandits here]], and the video for 'Horse Outside' can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8 here]]. Just be careful, it's not exactly safe for work due to multiple instances of bad language, flipping the bird, sexual innuendo, etc. They are also active on their Facebook and Twitter pages, both of which are a mix of promotional material and tickets information and bizarre posts, although the Facebook page has a higher concentration of animal photos.

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* CoolHorse

* LyricalDissonance: The Irish version of "I Wanna Fight your Father".

A comedy hip-hop duo, from Limerick, Ireland. They've been around since roughly 2000, and has a slight cult following in their native Limerick due to their self-published CDs and prank calls. They only really got big in 2010, when they were featured on Creator/{{RTE}}'s ''Republic of Telly''. Their hit 'Horse Outside' was favourite to be the Irish Christmas Number 1, and was part of an Internet campaign to beat ''X-Factor'' winner Matt Cardle to the spot, but eventually lost. They released an album, Serious About Men, the following year, featuring both their older songs and prank calls and some new tunes. They were regulars on the RTÉ sketch comedy show The Republic of Telly, although after dressing up as Black and Tans during a live broadcast without telling anyone, their relationship with the broadcasting company became fraught. Their "Guide to Limerick" was a hit, as were some of other other songs and sketches, and they pursued a position at the UK Channel 4, with a pilot for a potential TV show being broadcast after they produced a series for the "Comedy Blaps" program of the channel. They had a sell-out standup show on the Edinburgh Fringe, Continental Fistfight, which has gone on tour. They've also worked with Russell Brand, MTV Iggy (prior to its demise) and one of them (Blind Boy) was featured on a Newsnight section about the Irish Marriage Referendum. Most recently, they provided commentary for ITV's Almost Impossible Gameshow, and are soon to broadcast a 1-hour documentary about the 1916 Easter Rising.

A comedy hip-hop duo, from Limerick, Ireland. They've been around since 2000, but they really got big in 2010, when they were featured on Creator/{{RTE}}'s ''Republic of Telly''. Their hit 'Horse Outside' was favourite to be the Irish Christmas Number 1, and was part of an Internet campaign to beat ''X-Factor'' winner Matt Cardle to the spot, but eventually lost. They were regulars on the RTÉ sketch comedy show The Republic of Telly, although after dressing up as Black and Tans during alive broadcast without telling anyone, their relationship with the broadcasting company became fraught. Their "Guide to Limerick" was a hit, as were some of other other songs, and they pursued a position at the UK Channel 4, with a pilot for a potential TV show being broadcast after they produced a series for the "Comedy Blaps" program of the show. They had a sell-out standup show on the Edinburgh Fringe, Continental Fistfight, which has gone on tour. They've also worked with Russell Brand, MTV Iggy and were featured on a Newsnight section about the Irish Marriage Referendum. They were described by The Guardian as "The Daily Mail's nightmare of a feral underclass come to life" and "two terrifying Irish goblin-type creatures" by Broadway Baby.com.

The Rubberbandits are also known for their hilarious prank calls, and for wearing plastic bags over their faces. And for having Limerick accents and speaking with stereotypical Limerick slang, which news outlets have felt the need to translate in the past, and for being stereotypical Limerick skangers. They also supposedly met at Gaelscoil, and are certainly very fluent. Their sketches and songs often juxtapose very unlikely concepts together: for example, "Spoiling Ivan" was a bubbly children's song by a pair of self-proclaimed "gangster rappers" about a completely innocuous friendship between Mr.Chrome and young boy called Ivan, and included a reference to Ivan's parents being heroin addicts.
Their Website/YouTube page can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/user/Rubberbandits here]], and the video for 'Horse Outside' can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8 here]]. Just be careful, it's not exactly safe for work.

* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: The entire song of "Too Many Gee".
* GeniusDitz: Rubberbandits act like stereotypical Limerick skangers, which includes acting just a bit stupid. When 'Horse Outside' was released, and people began ringing up Live Line to complain about the song, Blindboy decided to join in the conversation. He rang in, and instead of acting stupid or joking like people expected him to, he managed to completely tear apart their arguments, in an extremely intelligent way.

* StageNames: Blindboy Boat Club and Mr. Chrome
* UsefulNotes/TheTroubles: The subject of the song 'Up the Ra', which is a parody of armchair republicanism.
* TokenMinority: The whole point of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaaZsBxWeiQ "Black Man".]]

** Their songs and videos also express this to some extent: don't be surprised if they make a joke about hash and existentialism in the same breath. Most recently, they did a video in which they explain how ISIS' ultra-violent decapitation videos does not register as real to Westerners as they exploit similar imagery and techniques as Western cinema as an attempt to attract European and American Muslim men, but instead the videos seem unreal as they appear in a similar context to film and television violence. The same video is couched in the idea that [[ ItMakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext Blind Boy had a dream and it's Dane Bowers telling him this as he tiles his bathroom]].

A comedy hip-hop duo, from Limerick, Ireland. They've been around since 2000, but they really got big in 2010, when they were featured on Creator/{{RTE}}'s ''Republic of Telly''. Their hit 'Horse Outside' was favourite to be the Irish Christmas Number 1, and was part of an Internet campaign to beat ''X-Factor'' winner Matt Cardle to the spot, but eventually lost.

Rubberbandits are also known for their hilarious prank calls, and for wearing plastic bags over their faces. And for having Limerick accents, and being stereotypical Limerick skangers, of course.

* CoolMask: They wear plastic bags over their faces.

* LyricalDissonance: The Gaelic version of "I Wanna Fight your Father".

Members are: Blindboy Boat Club and Mr. Chrome

* [[spoiler:GrievousHarmWithABody]]: [[spoiler:Inflicted by the father on the singer]] at the end of the clip for ‘[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzo4rZxF3x4 I Wanna Fight Your Father’.

A comedy hip-hop duo, from Limerick, Ireland. They've been around since 2000, but they really got big in 2010, when they were featured on {{RTE}}'s ''Republic of Telly''. Their hit 'Horse Outside' was favourite to be the Irish Christmas Number 1, and was part of an Internet campaign to beat ''X-Factor'' winner Matt Cardle to the spot, but eventually lost.

* TheTroubles: The subject of the song 'Up the Ra', which is a parody of armchair republicanism.

* EarWorm: 'Fuck your Honda Civic, I've a horse outside'. Listen to the song once and tell me honestly that the chorus isn't stuck in your head.

* MemeticMutation: 'Horse Outside' and its chorus became this. In December, groups based on the song's lyrics were hugely popular on {{Facebook}}.
** Some of the Rubberbandits' catchphrases, including 'Copper piiipe!' and 'That's Limerick citaaay!', have also achieved memetic status.

* TokenMinority: The whole point of "Black Man".

Their {{YouTube}} page can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/user/Rubberbandits here]], and the video for 'Horse Outside' can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8 here]]. Just be careful, it's not exactly safe for work.

<<|{{Musicians}}|>>

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An comedy hip-hop duo, from Limerick, Ireland. They've been around since 2000, but they really got big in 2010, when they were featured on {{RTÉ}}'s Republic of Telly. Their hit 'Horse Outside' was favourite to be the Irish Christmas Number 1, and was part of an internet campaign to beat X-Factor winner, Matt Cardle to the spot, but eventually lost.

Rubberbandits are also known for their hilarious prank calls, and for wearing plastic bags over their faces. And for having Limerick accents, and being stereotypical Limerick skangers of course.

Their YouTube page can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/user/Rubberbandits here]], and the video for 'Horse Outside' can be found [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljPFZrRD3J8 here]]. Just be careful, it's not exactly suitable for work.


'''Members are:'''
* Blindboy Boat Club
* Mr. Chrome

* EarWorm: 'Fuck your Honda Civic, I've a horse outside'. Listen to the song once and tell me honestly the chorus isn't stuck in your head.

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<<|{{Musicians}}|>>