|
|
| FPM C10 |
1 week till St. Patricks Day...9 days till we go see the Pogues.
THE POGUES
Reunited, and it feels like it's gonna be sick
PATRICK KENNEDY
There’s a lot more to the Pogues than Shane MacGowan’s remaining teeth. It may be hard to believe now, but when MacGowan and Spider Stacy formed the band in ?xml:namespace prefix = "st1" ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /> London in the early ’80s, there was nothing hip about traditional Irish music. There was certainly no call for a punk band to play folk songs and sea chanteys with acoustic guitar, accordion, tin whistle and banjo (plus electric bass and a stripped-down drum kit).
In the ’80s, inimitable singer and guitarist MacGowan was already a scenester in London, thanks to a photo of his grinning, bleeding mug in NME alongside an article about punk rock. But he’d spent much of his childhood in Tipperary, Ireland , where he gained a love for old songs about drinking, fighting and fucking—especially as perpetuated by the bearded, irreverent Dubliners. After his rockabilly-tinged punk band, the Nipple Erectors, ended its run, MacGowan wanted to do something different and even more raw to counter the dreary synth-heavy pop. When he turned his English friend Stacy onto the Dubliners, Stacy taught himself the tin whistle (and the beer tray, which he played by hitting himself over the head), and the two formed an Irish rebel band called the New Republicans. A ballsy move—though the ol’ tale that the crowd threw chips (what we’d call “freedom fries”) at them during their first gig is, apparently, a canard.
“I actually have no memory of the chips,” says Stacy. “The story goes, there were these British squaddies—you know, off-duty soldiers—in the audience, and they were throwing chips at us. [But] first off, the place we were playing was not the kind of club that you’d expect to find soldiers in, you know? In the middle of Soho, it was a real sort of New Romantic hangout.” Secondly, “if they had been there and we were doing Irish rebel songs, I think they might have been throwing a bit more than chips.”
>
> It was not an easy time or place to wear Irishness on one’s sleeve. “There were [IRA] bombings and stuff going on, and Irish people were just tarred with that brush, and there was a lot of discrimination and a lot of anti-Irish feeling in this country.”
>
> MacGowan and Stacy’s band—which, after lineup changes and the addition of more of MacGowan’s original songs, became Pogue Mahone (anglicized Gaelic for “kiss my ass”), and finally the Pogues on their first release, 1984’s Red Roses for Me—gave Irish immigrants and their descendants in London some courage and pride.
Stacy says, “A lot of Irish fans, particularly people living over here, said, ‘You know, you made it OK for us to be Irish … There was no reason for us to go around hiding.’ … If that’s the case, then I’m really proud of that.”
In London today, “you got all these, like, Irish-themed pubs, which are fucking dreadful,” Stacy laughs. “I really do believe we had a part to play in that—which is maybe something not to be so proud of! But at the same time, it shows a certain level of assimilation. [Irishness] was a stupid stigma and it just kind of dissolved. It’s not, obviously, entirely down to us, but I think we were a part of that.”
The band’s appeal soon proved wider than any one ethnic segment of any one city, especially as they started to tour and their sound broadened and deepened. No one-trick pony, the Pogues released the Elvis Costello-produced Rum, Sodomy & the Lash in 1985, which included several heartfelt ballads and a good dollop of American country and spaghetti-Western influence. With the sweeping, polished If I Should Fall from Grace with God in 1988, the Pogues marked themselves as a thing far greater than the sum of its parts. Sure, the live shows were wild, and MacGowan became infamous for his onstage drunkenness—and tardiness (in that way, Shane is the Axl Rose of Irish rock). Of course, as Stacy notes, “we were none of us exactly saints.”
But it was the songs, beautiful epics like Grace’s “Fairytale of New York,” that “set us apart,” Stacy acknowledges, “from being just another band or a really good night out, or a band to come and see if you just want to have a few beers and go a bit mental. The strength of the music transcended that sheer partying aspect.”
>
> “Fairytale” is, Stacy says, “no longer our song, you know? Over here, certainly, it’s like a standard now; it’s a classic, and it’s got nothing to do with Irish music … I think we’ve reached beyond the confines of any particular genre.” He adds, “That sounds really pretentious and I’m sorry for that.”
>
> MacGowan and the Pogues parted ways in 1991, but the pull was too great for them to stay apart forever. “There was never any sort of bad blood,” Stacy says. MacGowan (who formed the Popes in the ’90s) and the Pogues (who petered out after a couple Shane-less albums) reunited briefly for some dates in Ireland and the UK around Christmastime in 2001. They did it again in 2004 and 2005, traveling as far as Spain and Japan.
“And now,” says Stacy, “it’s your turn.”
|
|
|
| monkey_man |
Glad to hear that you are still going! I thought you had sold your ticket. |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
No...I wanted to, after I balanced dolllars spent versus actual value of the Stones at MSG 1/20/06 - not a good deal imo - but no one was interested in it, and there were dozens available on eBay, so I couldn't get rid of it there either. Now I'm happy I didn't. I still can't afford it but it will probably be my only opportunity to see them.
There are TWO opening acts. I hate that. Towers of London and a NYC celtic/reggae/hiphop band started by a guy from Black 47. I just want the Pogues, dammit. |
|
|
| Honky Tonk Man |
quote:
FPM C10 wrote:
There are TWO opening acts. I hate that. Towers of London and a NYC celtic/reggae/hiphop band started by a guy from Black 47. I just want the Pogues, dammit.
The Towerss Of London? I'd skip them. The only publicity they've ever got was when they were arresrted for trashing a venue they'd just performed at. I don't think I've read anything favourable about them.
|
|
|
| Sir Stonesalot |
>Glad to hear that you are still going! I thought you had sold your ticket.<
Pfffft!
Don't let him kid you. He HAS to go. He knows damn well that I'd never let him hear the end of it if he pussied out on me.
Flea...
We need to go see the opening bands. That is how we'll get close to the stage. NYC crowds arrive late. If we get there in time for the door, we will be REAL close to the stage. Maybe not Dolls @ the Troc close, but first 5 "rows" anyhow.
Just my 2 cents worth... |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Yes, Miss Youngblood and I have been discussing it too. Same deal as the first time we saw the Sex Pistols - 2 lame opening acts to sit thru. The main problem is that drinking leads to urination which leads to losing your spot. Hmmm....maybe we can stop at the catheter store on the way there...Also that drinking carbombs leads to passing out, so I'm just doing one, and it'll wear off...if they were doing this thing right there would be waitresses serving carbombs on the dancefloor...
Eight days from now, bro!
|
|
|
| Sir Stonesalot |
>if they were doing this thing right there would be waitresses serving carbombs on the dancefloor<
How do we know that they won't be?
Yeah, I'm thinking that I'm gonna take it easy on the beer pre-show. I'm gonna take some JD along...so I'll hit that to get a decent buzz.
All bets are off after the show though... |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
from the Washington Post:
The Pogues
Astooped, whiskey-bottle-toting Shane McGowan appeared to be 47 sheets to the wind when he took the stage with the reconstituted Pogues at the 9:30 club on Thursday. McGowan walked up to his mike, opened his toothless mouth and said, "Blargh garhde darlgzane argha." In fact, he pretty much said nothing comprehensible other than the slurred song titles he struggled to read from the set list posted at his feet.
McGowan's legendary bad habits are what made his band mates kick him out of the Pogues in 1991, but he's somehow still alive today -- if just barely. With his choppers gone, McGowan's jaw has the scrunched-up shape of a weathered accordion bellow, and his singing has morphed from rough-voiced crooning to mush-mouthed gargling. It was sad to watch this genius of song reduced to a shuffling fool (think Ozzy Osbourne), and it was awkward to witness how the audience roared at McGowan's every slug from the whiskey bottle and his every unintelligible utterance.
Even so, the more McGowan chugged, the better his singing became -- such dark irony. And as the nearly two-hour, 26-song concert progressed, the Pogues, too, played with more focus, energy and joy. Their punk-informed, trad-Irish ensemble sound still shoots sparks.
The capacity crowd likely couldn't have cared less that they were watching a ravaged human being perform; the chance to hear amazing McGowan songs such as "A Pair of Brown Eyes," "A Rainy Night in Soho" and "Old Main Drag" overrode any such concerns.
The highlight was, of course, "Fairytale of New York," one of the loveliest songs McGowan ever penned. Ella Finer, the daughter of Pogues banjoist and guitarist Jem Finer, crooned the female parts originally sung by Kirsty MacColl, and she more than held her own. With confetti "snow" falling down on them, Ella and McGowan joined together for an awkward dance during the song's concluding section. It was a sweet moment in an otherwise bittersweet concert.
|
|
|
| FPM C10 |
setlist from 3/9 at the 9:30 Club in DC (from The Wake of the Medusa)
Streams of Whiskey
If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Broad Majestic Shannon
Turkish Song of the Damned
Young Ned of the Hill
A Pair of Brown Eyes
Rain Street
White City
Tuesday Morning
Old Main Drag
Sayanara
Repeal Of The Licensing Laws
Sunnyside of the Street
Body of an American
Lullaby of London
1000's are Sailing
Dirty Old Town
Bottle of Smoke
Sickbed of Cuchulainn
Encore 1
Sally Maclennane
Rainy Night in Soho
Dog
Encore 2
Star of County Down
Fairytale of New York
Fiesta (with awesome beer tray by Spider!)
|
|
|
| prodigalson |
damm i wish i can go. i love the pogues forever! |
|
|
| FotiniD |
Love the Pogues too. Their "Drunken Boat" was also covered in Greek and I loved that version as well. |
|
|
| Candace Youngblood |
quote:
FPM C10 wrote:
The main problem is that drinking leads to urination which leads to losing your spot. Hmmm....maybe we can stop at the catheter store on the way there...Also that drinking carbombs leads to passing out, so I'm just doing one, and it'll wear off...if they were doing this thing right there would be waitresses serving carbombs on the dancefloor...
I was thinking....
A flask w/some Jameson would be good.
We could take wee nips every now and then and we won't have to pee as much as we would if we were drinking beers. Beers can be saved for the post-show party.
I want to do one car bomb right before we leave the hotel before the show, and get toasted...nicely toasted. |
|
|
| Surround Sister |
I´d kill a centurion to be there. |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Posted on Mon, Mar. 13, 2006
Pogues please crowd in A.C.
By Dan DeLuca
Inquirer Music Critic
Considering Shane MacGowan's hard-earned reputation as a two-fisted falling-down drunk of epic proportions, you'd think that the leader of the Pogues (and sometimes, the Popes) would have a long track record of disappointing his faithful fans with hopelessly inebriated performances.
But it isn't so. Sure, the bleary-eyed sentimentalist has been known to show up late, or not at all. When he steps up to sing his tales of hopeless romance and broken dreams, though, he snaps to with the discipline of a Catholic schoolboy reciting the catechism before a fearsome priest, never forgetting a word.
So it was at the Event Center at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa in Atlantic City on Saturday, where MacGowan and the Pogues played a sold-out date before a rabidly enthusiastic audience on their first American tour together in 15 years.
Among the Irish rockers that invade these shores every St. Patrick's season (such as the Saw Doctors, the amiable Springsteen-ophile blokes who opened the show), the Pogues stand apart on two fronts.
First, there's the way the London-based, seven-piece band employs its traditional Irish instruments, such as Spider Stacy's tin whistle or Terry Woods' cittern, with fierce punk rock energy. Second, there's MacGowan, a first-class yarn spinner of the Irish (and Irish-American) experience with a touch of the poet, and a once-great singer with a battle-scarred voice, who can still put a lyric across with dramatic emphasis.
Entering after guitarist Philip Chevron's casino showroom in-joke reference to Sinatra at the Sands - "How did all these people get in Shane's room?" - the 48-year-old MacGowan was more than a wee bit wobbly at first, gripping the mike stand for balance with his right hand while he chain-smoked with his left.
But though he left the stage every third song or so, and his slurred song introductions made Bob Dylan seem like the Great Enunciator, MacGowan gathered strength as the night wore on. (And he didn't pick up the bottle of wine he brought on stage until the final encore of "Fiesta," when he guzzled from it, then successfully balanced it on his head.)
The show came to a head with the breakneck "Sally Maclennane" and a touchingly tender "A Rainy Night in Soho." The band's crowd-pleasing Christmas song, "Fairtytale in New York," appeared as an encore, with vocalist Ella Finer ably standing in for the late Kirsty MacColl, and trying to avoid getting her toes stepped on as MacGowan took her for a turn around the stage as fake snow fell from the rafters.
|
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Drinking it all in - Pogues enjoying second round of life on the road
By Sarah Rodman/ Music
Monday, March 13, 2006 - Updated: 08:58 AM EST
Spider Stacy would like to apologize.
The Pogues’ tin whistler is convinced his band is partially responsible for the rise in Irish theme pubs during the past 20 years.
“I’m really deeply sorry for that,” he says from England, laughing, of course.
Stacy also thinks the seminal group - the first to wed traditional Irish folk music with punk rock energy - had something to do with the growth in St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in the UK.
“It really used to be hardly commented on at all over here until we started getting popular, and then people started noticing St. Patrick’s Day.”
Fortunately, the Pogues, whose reunion hits the Orpheum for sold-out shows tomorrow and Wednesday, are responsible for something more pleasurable than green beer-soaked revelry.
From 1984 to their dissolution in 1996, the hard-charging and hard-drinking octet released seven albums of rowdy yet poetic musings on whiskey, women and working-class values.
The group - Stacy, singer Shane MacGowan, guitarists Jim Fearnley and Phil Chevron, bassist Darryl Hunt, drummer Andrew Ranken, banjoist/accordionist Jim Finer and banjoist/vocalist Terry Woods - also helped pave the way for younger bands such as Flogging Molly and Boston’s own Dropkick Murphys.
“I think it might be a bit presumptuous of me to say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re responsible for them’,” says Stacy. “But I like to think we are. They’re really, really good.”
Dropkick bassist Ken Casey says his band was honored to open some recent holiday shows in the UK for the Pogues.
“Anyone who plays this music who says they weren’t influenced by the Pogues is in denial,” Casey says. Stacy sees that influence as the Pogues’ ultimate legacy and something that outweighs a recent Lifetime Achievement Award from the Meteors, Ireland’s equivalent of the Grammys.
“It’s nice to get that recognition,” he says, “but at the end of the day it’s the way that people react to you. We were maybe disregarded in a way by the mainstream, certainly by the music press. Yet at the same time you’ve got this whole scene in America born of us. We’ve done something that those people have deemed to be very important. That’s a lifetime achievement award. It’s like when you meet some guy at a gig in Wales and he says you should see his Granny getting drunk on Christmas Day singing ‘Fairytale of New York.’ That’s brilliant, y’know?”
But for at least three members of the group, including Stacy, the Pogues’ legendary consumption of alcohol is no longer brilliant. Stacy says there’s no tension between the teetotalers and the imbibers, such as MacGowan. The dentally challenged singer, infamous for incapacitating inebriation on tours past, continues to drink.
“He’s been great onstage,” Stacy says. “As for being more of a handful off it, I don’t know about that. I’m going to maintain a diplomatic silence on that front. Nah. He’s fine. I think everyone’s in really good form. Shane’s been great. It only really works if we’re all firing on all cylinders and I really feel we are.”
The Pogues reunion hits the Orpheum for sold-out shows tomorrow and Wednesday. |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Unrepentant MacGowan lights Pogues' punk aura
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
BY JAY LUSTIG
Star-Ledger Staff
Older but not necessarily wiser, Shane MacGowan is fronting the Pogues on a U.S. tour for the first time since 1989.
A notorious alcoholic, MacGowan was kicked out of the London- based band in 1991. Though the Pogues -- whose'80's fusion of traditional Irish music and punk helped clear the way for modern Irish-punk groups such as Flogging Molly and Dropkick Murphys -- continued without him, the music was never as magical. MacGowan, after all, was the band's lead vocalist, main songwriter, and most recognizable (and charismatic) member.
Starting in 2001, though, he has rejoined them for some sporadic reunion shows in Europe. The reconstituted band is now in the middle of a nine-show, sold-out tour of the East Coast. They played at the Event Center of the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City on Friday, and kick off four consecutive nights (including a sure-to-be- wild St. Patrick's Day gig) at New York's Nokia Theatre on Thursday.
MacGowan, 48, may be back, but he's not sober. By the end of Friday's show he was guzzling booze, and balancing a bottle on his head (impressively, he didn't spill a drop). Throughout the show, he often slurred his words.
But even though his singing lacked clarity, it was loaded with personality. MacGowan consistently projected pride and pugnacity -- like any good punk, he's got a huge chip on his shoulder -- and his lyrics often told richly poetic stories, or had a rascally charm.
"I am going, I am going any which way the wind may be blowing/I am going, I am going where streams of whiskey are flowing," he sang in "Streams of Whiskey."
"Some people they are scared to croak, but Jimmy drank until he choked/And he took the road for heaven in the morning," he sang in "Sally MacLennane."
The current Pogues lineup features eight musicians; they're not all original members, but they all were in the group during its '80s heyday. Throughout the show, their playing was as crisp as MacGowan's singing was loose, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.
Occasionally, MacGowan left the stage and one of them would take over on lead vocals. Drummer Andrew Ranken left his kit to sing the traditional "Star of the County Down." "Thousands Are Sailing," sung by guitarist Phil Chevron, was a rousing anthem, while "Tuesday Morning," sung by tin whistler Spider Stacy, was catchy, streamlined pop.
Ella Finer, daughter of Pogues banjoist Jem Finer, duetted with MacGowan on one of the show's encores, "Fairytale of New York." MacGowan had been unusually warm and tender on the song's first verse ("I can see a better time, when all our dreams come true"), and as fake snow fell, he and Ella Finer danced slowly, arm and arm. It seemed like he was able, for a moment, to escape the demons that are obviously still haunting him.
Like most of the songs performed Friday, "Fairytale of New York" dates back to MacGowan's first stint with the band. The Pogues don't seem interested in adding new material at this point.
If the band is to have a future, of course, it will have to add to its repertoire. The Pogues are still, in many ways, a punk band, and punk bands don't live in the past. But for now, the band's unlikely resurrection is enjoyable enough on its own terms to make that question irrelevant.
The Pogues perform at the Nokia Theatre, Broadway and 44th Street, New York, at 8 p.m. Thursday to Sunday. Opening acts are the Slackers (Thursday and Saturday), William Elliott Whitmore (Thursday to Saturday), the Walkmen (Friday), the Towers of London (Sunday) and Seanchai & the Unity Squad (Sunday). All shows are sold out. Call (212) 930-1950 or visit www.nokiatheatre nyc.com.
|
|
|
| nanatod |
I saw the Pogues in the very late 1980's (on Bloomsday, in fact), and I understand that the Pogues are endeared by many of the posters on this board.
IMO, however, their competition has passed them by(example, Black 47's "James Connolly").
[Edited by nanatod] |
|
|
| Saint Sway |
heres a set list from DC show.
Friend said Shane was inaudible and swigging thru out. Left the stage a few spots. But, hey, thats Shane.
The Pogues
Washington D.C/9:30 Club
09 March 2006
1) Streams of Whiskey
2) If I Should Fall From Grace From God
3) The Broad Majestic Shannon
4) Turkish Song of the Damned
5) Young Ned of the Hill
6) A Pair of Brown Eyes
7) Rain Street
8) White City
9) Tuesday Morning
10) The Old Main Drag
11) Sayanara
12) Repeal of the Licensing Laws
13) Sunnyside of the Street
14) Body of an American
15) Lullaby of London
16) Thousands are Sailing
17) Dirty Old Town
18) Bottle of Smoke
19) The Sickbed of Cuchulainn
Encore 1
20) Sally MacLennane
21) A Rainy Night in Soho
22) The Irish Rover
Encore 2
23) Star of County Down
24) Fairytale of New York
25) Fiesta |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Yes, Shane leaving the stage is part of the show - there are a fair number of great Pogues songs sung by other members - "Thousands Are Sailing" by Philip Chevron, for instance, and the drummer sings "Star of County Down", etc - and one can't expect Shane to just stand there. I said from the start that all Shane has to do is show up and I'll be happy as a horse in shite.
As for swigging, he's drinking wine instead of whiskey, so he's showing a rare amount of restraint.
Of course I'm seeing the LAST show - your friend saw the first (or second) - of the tour. Hard to say WHAT that might portend.
Hey, there might be an extra ticket available - my friend Brownie is making bailing noises. Wanna go? |
|
|
| Saint Sway |
quote:
FPM C10 wrote:
Hey, there might be an extra ticket available - my friend Brownie is making bailing noises. Wanna go?
which night? |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Sunday. |
|
|
| Saint Sway |
cant swing it. I live real close to the Nokia but will be out of town on sunday night. Thanks though. Have fun and post a review please. |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
quote:
Saint Sway wrote:
cant swing it. I live real close to the Nokia but will be out of town on sunday night. Thanks though.
Too bad! It woulda been fun to hoist a few with ya. Anyone else interested?
quote:
Saint Sway wrote:
Have fun and post a review please.
Just try and stop me! I'm burning a disk of the setlist and "Sally Maclennane" makes me wish I was drunk right now! |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
Faithful fans embrace spirit of the Pogues
By James Parker, Globe Correspondent |
March 15, 2006
Having been obliged, more or less single-handedly, to soak up the sentimental excess and dispossessed romanticism of worldwide Irishry for the best part of 20 years, it should not surprise us that Shane MacGowan now resembles some sort of peculiarly ill-used industrial sponge. Pale and puffy -- although suavely attired in black shirt and waistcoat, with an unknotted tie draped around his neck -- the singer/lyricist for the Pogues floated murkily onstage at the Orpheum last night as if borne on toxic currents.
He was given a hero's welcome; this crowd -- shamrocks and Celtics shirts, flat caps and Claddagh rings -- would have cheered him if he'd come on with a cardboard box over his head, or on a stretcher. For hours before the show the cry was going up in the back streets of Downtown Crossing: ''Shane! Where are ya? Shane, you [expletive]!" MacGowan is their Johnny Rotten and their Brendan Behan, and in his shattered snarl they hear the truth. ''Joe Strummer and Shane MacGowan are the two greatest songwriters of our generation!" yelled a thick-necked young man halfway through the show, as if he had just heard some impious claim to the contrary.
MacGowan was clinging to his songs for dear life; eyes shut tight, nostrils gaping, he howled and retched his way through ''Turkish Song of the Damned," with the tipsy carousel of Pogues-music whirling behind him. At the beginning of ''Pair of Brown Eyes" he lurched in too soon, and the seven-piece band -- elegant journeymen musicians all -- had to pause and delicately settle in around him. The tin whistle blew, the accordion wheezed, the mandolin clucked indulgently. The old faces were onstage: Jem Finer, Spider Stacy. ''The Old Main Drag" was stunning, a catalog of degradation that serves as MacGowan's ''Walk on the Wild Side." ''They ruined my good looks for the old main drag . . ." he sang sadly, passing a hand across his swollen face in a burlesque of vanity.
Openers Street Dogs -- flat-capped and tattooed pub-punkers from Dorchester -- distinguished themselves with a storming cover of Billy Bragg's ''There Is Power in A Union." ''Money speaks for money, the Devil for his own," goes the verse, ''Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone"? Well, who does? Shane MacGowan? Not last night. Last night he was speaking for the damaged organs, including the heart.
|
|
|
| FPM C10 |
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=11722
Beer and Loathing
All hail the return of the Irish Rovers.
by Neil Ferguson
"I tend not to look back, y'know? What's done is done."
You might be forgiven for thinking Terry Woods-the Pogues' multi-instrumentalist virtuoso-would have more than his fair share of regrets.
Principally, the fact that the Pogues-who burst onto the U.K.'s moribund mid-'80s music scene with such passion, promise and swagger-should have ended the way they did: with self-destructive frontman Shane MacGowan, lost in a sea of sake and self-loathing, fired after a particularly fraught Japanese tour back in '91, the band stumbling to increasing commercial and critical indifference, dwindling away, tired, listless and neutered in the mid-'90s.
They're certainly one of the last bands you'd bet on making any kind of comeback, particularly in light of the catalog of disasters that have publicly dogged MacGowan over the last decade. Constant rumors of his impending demise, alcoholism, deaths, relationship breakdowns and the inglorious spectacle of erstwhile friend Sinéad O'Connor shopping him to the tabloid press thanks to his heroin abuse.
And yet come back they did, with a week of U.K. X-mas shows five years ago leading them to continue as a sporadic but still undeniably brilliant live touring band. Bearing in mind MacGowan's public distaste for life on the road back in the bad old days, it can't have been easy to convince him to rejoin the fold.
"Oh no," says Woods without hesitation. "He was up for it. I'd actually stopped playing for a while, and it was Shane who talked me back into playing again."
Woods does, however, admit to initial reservations. "We weren't sure if it would be good, bad or indifferent, but it all just fell together. It hasn't lost any of its punch and power, which is a great thing. 'Cause if it did, I don't think we could do it. The band had ended rather strangely, y'know? And in all honesty, the band deserved to end better than it did, just petering out. And it seemed a logical thing for us to get back together for, if nothing else, to give the band a proper ending."
And why not indeed? Their U.K. gigs have been seen as successes, reminding those who'd forgotten just what a potent prospect the Pogues are and were live, and more important, what a king-hell songwriter Shane MacGowan is.
His body of work-at his best, from "A Pair of Brown Eyes," "If I Should Fall From Grace With God," to the greatest X-mas No. 1 that never was, "Fairytale of New York"-remains unparalleled for lyricism, gutter romance and splenetic fury. Or as the man himself has put it, "Songs about fighting, fucking and drinking. The important things."
This gloriously frenetic, hectic, garrulous gobshite of a man soaked up the influence of Behan, Donleavy and O'Brien, mixed it up with sulphate and spirits, added the whiplash fury of the Pistols and the Clash, to present poignant and hilarious portrayals of London Irish life and tales of the diaspora.
"Traditional" Irish folk didn't know what hit it, and the music and lyrics were a fantastic two-finger salute to an England that still harbored suspicion and resentment of the Irish, viewing them as drunken-Paddy white-trash terrorists.
The Pogues helped alter that view, all the while standing on the edges, completely at odds with the fashionistas, pop whores and dour Northern miserabilists that dominated the scene.
They were perpetual outsiders, and it's a reputation that Terry Woods is still proud of. "The great thing about the Pogues was we were never, ever in fashion, we never fitted in and we didn't give a damn. And we still don't."
|
|
|
| Sir Stonesalot |
Flea...
Let's leave tomorrow.
I just don't know if I can wait until Sunday. |
|
|
| winter |
just got back from the orpheum show.
It was great and sad at the same time. SM was completely fucked up. I couldn't believe that he actually made it through the entire show. They came on 40 minutes late, and one of the band members apologized for the delay. SM stumpled on to stage with his pants zipper undone the entire show, and at times (read - between every song) he looked like he was going to just fall over.
The worst part was that he through out the n_____ word introducing a song, and was serious about what he said. Of course the white trash racists scum in the audience ate it up. I almost left, and on principle I wish I did.
The band was tight and to my amazement, SM did not miss a lyric. I have never seen a show that was so good and so wrong at the same time. Don't know what to make of it.
wintah
[Edited by winter] |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
quote:
Sir Stonesalot wrote:
Flea...
Let's leave tomorrow.
I just don't know if I can wait until Sunday.
Let's just leave NOW, then. I'm leaping out of my skin. Listening to Fall From Grace on the way to work, I nearly burst into tears half a dozen times.
Hey - I'm short a few songs to complete a disk of the setlist for the trip to NYC - do you have:
White City
Boys From the County Hell (added to the setlist last night)
Repeal of the Licensing Act
Sickbed of Cuchulainn
Old Main Drag
Body of an American
and the traditional tunes
Irish Rover
Star of County Down
If you have any of these, come down a bit early on Sunday and I'll burn a new disk(s). I've got the rest of the setlist on a disk now, and I'll tell ya - opening with Streams of Whiskey and then going right into Fall From Grace - that place is going to EXPLODE.
Here's one of the t-shirt designs:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/97949394@N00/110996056/
I might have to purchase on of those.
They also have Pogues pint mugs (DEFINITELY) and Pogues toques!
Winter - sad and great - how surprising - don't you have even a drop of Irish blood in ye?
"It's a sad and beautiful world." - Down By Law |
|
|
| winter |
Winter - sad and great - how surprising - don't you have even a drop of Irish blood in ye?
I actually do. But I really don't know how to react to Shane. I have worshiped Keith since I was I child, and I love Ryan Adams and Scott Weiland. So rock stars with problems are not new to me. But Shane's state is really sad, and I had the good fortune of witnessing it from the front row center - what a mess. Watching someone drink themself to death in not particularly cool in my humble opinion, particularly such a talent like Shane.
I am feel fortunate to have caught these guys on this tour, but in some ways it is like watching a car crash in slow motion.
wintah |
|
|
| FPM C10 |
I know what you mean...Miss Youngblood was asking me about that just yesterday, in fact - in day to day life I am fairly down on alcohol abuse, having grown up with a drunk for an old man, yet I've been singing the praises of Shane MacGowan and his brilliant paeons to drink lately, and have been carefully planning the best way to get completely plastered myself on Sunday. A double standard? Probably. My old man wasn't a "king-hell genius songwriter" though.
As for Shane's slow-mo suicide - my buddy Danny Boy Brown, a proud Irish-American and world-class imbiber himself, saw Shane with the Popes at the Fleadh in Boston in the 90s, and said "I never knew someone could be THAT f-cked up and still be alive." He was amazed that Shane had a minder onstage to light his ciggies and then make sure he didn't set fire to himself with them.
Well, now, 8 or 9 years later, my bosom pal Danny (who I thought would live forever) is in the sod (we had his wake on St. Paddy's Day in '03), and Shane is still kicking. And I don't know what we can learn from that, but I do know that several of the drinks I down (and the tears I'll undoubtedly shed) on Sunday will be for Danny Boy. And that I'm incredibly thankful to be able to see the Pogues.
Besides, has there EVER been a time that you could see them with Shane sober? I think he was born drunk. |
|
