The Pogues: Classic or Dud

Wow, aspects of the new Peace & Love are revelatory.

Huh I always liked the album, barring a couple tracks. It is sprawling and dense and more wide ranging than their others but whats wrong w that

New version worth a listen. Same album, but enough is shifted around to make a difference. Wonder how Lillywhite felt about mixing down Kirsty MacColl in the new "Lorelei."

On way home passed by a bookstore and saw that James Fearnley was reading from his recent memoir, Here Comes Everybody: The Story of The Pogues. Couldn't stay for the whole thing but he was quite charming, starting of by singing a song in which he name checked a lot of famous Irishmen called something like "The Rock Upon Which We Will Perish" and then reading from the first chapter of the book. Definitely worth a looksee.

Guess this book came out two years ago, at least in the UK. Maybe just got US paperback release.

ah

Fearnley's reading at Skylight Books is on their podcast. Worth listening to for Shane-impersination. Talks Alex Cox.

impersonation. fuck, what is my problem

wheree'r we go we celebrate the land that made us refugees

On a different Pogues thread, I posted about 1 of my last live music nights out before this virus. I saw Spider Stacey and Cait O’riordan do a fun set of Pogues songs plus the Clash’s London Calling backed by youngish Louisiana band Lost Bayou Ramblers. Spider lives in New Orleans now

wow...that sounds amazing!

It was pretty great

looks fantastic

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/crock-of-gold-shane-mcgowan-pogues-trailer-1079178/

hyped for this and the Phil Lynott films. lovely stuff.

Looks good, but I hope it's not just all Shane, all the time. I love that band, but Shane is only part of it.

I responded to a recent mention of the Pogues on the Los Lobos thread, by yammering 'bout how Nancy McCallion and Catherine Zavala beheld an LL-P show in London, then went back to Tucson and started The(Irish-Chicana-folk-rock-country-folk-polka-etc) Mollys---but since then, I was trapped in car where Harry Connick Jr.'s Broadway salute to Cole Porter was blasting okay orchestrations and nerf vox, so I concentrated on mental replays of Kirsty MacColl & The Pogues' "Miss Otis Regrets-->Just One of Those Things," from Red Hot + Blue, the Cole Porter trib. Great album, worthy cause, check the reissue w bonus disc of videos for all tracks. Oh yeah and leave us not forget Kristy and the Ps' "Fairytale of New York."

Kirsty and The Ps, that is!

Pouges have more monthly listeners on Spotify than Led Zeppelin

I could see that in March, but all year round?

Maybe right now, for Christmas?

"Fairy Tale of New York" is just one of the best tunes ever. When they bring back the harmony part with Kristy MacColl...so very lovely. I just don't see how you could do it better.

the Shane/Pogues docu might be a perfect 'staying in on New Year's Eve' movie; i'm about to find out!

So, Crock of Gold, then. Some extremely naive and ill-informed thoughts to follow.
As someone who never really got The Pogues (just turned 42 now, so I was dimly aware of Shane and The Popes in the mid 90s), this doc really did it for me; it enabled to appreciate and understand the context that was sorely lacking in just sticking on the music; how it's London Irish music, informed by Shane's political/national concerns and sensibility, his childhood, etc which the doc thoroughly educated me on. Im sure that long-time Pogues fans will be able to inform me how it undervalues the other bandmembers contributions, or distorts the history, or whatever; for my purposes, it totally transformed my appreciation. The song-length performance clips are dazzling and where exactly what I needed to see. Going back to the records, songs like "A Pair of Brown Eyes", "The Sick Bed of Cúchulainn"* reveal themselves to me completely and feel like some of the best songs ever written. In fact, the whole of the first side Rum is incredible.
I'm taking my time with the rest of the albums, but it feels like a, well crock of goldmine.
Back to the doc, I particularly liked the found footage, and engagement, if sometimes literally cartoonishly, with 20c Irish history. And of course forum favourite Baoby pops up as well. Depp I could have done without, but if that's what it took to get this financed, whatever. And lastly, sorry but I squealed in delight at Shane twice saying he hates "Fairytale", despite his respectful comments about Kirsty. Ive hated that song for years now, or more accurately the media saturation of it, and it put me off the band for god knows how long.
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" though. Jesus, this has instantly become one of my favourite songs, a piece of music I can't imagine being without now.

*Is Shane deliberately doing a "London" pronunciation of this name, or, is it a valid alternative..?

technically it should be more like Coo-Hullin (with the consonant sound in the second syllable pronounced in the same way as the 'ch" in "loch") but a lot of Irish people would pronounce it the way Shane does anyway

The Pogues are massively underrated, imo.

are they? i mean within the universe of "musical acts featuring a founding tin whistle player" their only competition would be the chieftains.

I sort I feel like for a band that good, they haven't passed on to future generations. Kind of like what happened to REM.

I feel the Pogues were an huge and essential group when i was a teen but their legend has waned a lot - one of those bands where it is tricky explaining to younger friends how vital they used to seem - Its not necessarily their “fault” but a lot of the commentary/mythologising around macgowan’s “lifestyle choices” has probably aged pretty poorly? not sure endorsement from johnny depp helps here!

and however inaccurate, perhaps a sense of “roots music” being anathema for a certain type of music fan - maybe too it has not been the moment for the whiskey-soaked romanticism songwriting style (again i am aware this does all of them a disservice) - and their entire diverse catalogue being overshadowed by one song cant help

anyway keen to see this film! and interested to find out if there is room for the pogues in the contemporary moment.

I feel like they're seen as a novelty/kitsch thing now — when I first heard about them (mid to late '80s, when If I Should Fall... was brand new but Red Roses For Me was already something you had to order special from the record store) they were sold to me as "Irish music, but punk, and the shows are amazing," but "Fairytale" and the use of "The Body of an American" in The Wire and the existence of shit like the Dropkick Murphys have combined to reduce them to something you listen to on St. Patrick's Day and that's it.

I'm sure their reach is generationally limited, but among Gen X music nerds at least I don't feel like their place is particularly diminished. I think Shane's rep as a first-rate songwriter and singer is pretty solid.

Hmm. There might be something to a generational aversion to "roots" music, or at least stuff that veers from the standard country/folk derived "Americana" formula. Like, I've noted before how Los Lobos, once revered, at some point sort of just fell off the radar, for no particular good reason, or that all the British folk rock stuff remains pretty cult (at least here), maybe because of all the exotic/stodgy Celtic or whatever elements to it. Bands like the Pogues, or to use the latter example Fairport Convention, stuff like that, I think there's a slight disconnect between what one might read about the groups (it's punk! it's radical! it's a crazy fusion of the modern and ancient!) and what you actually hear, which in the end is pretty traditional stuff.

lol I put on Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, and right on schedule my daughter walked into the room, wrinkled her nose in semi-derision, and asked "what are you listening to, bagpipes?!"

That London Irish thing is not really 'authentic enough to interest hipster folk tastes, so it really comes down to McGowan as a songwriter.

I don't know what London Irish means. Is that just what it sounds like? Anyway in the US at least, Irish-Irish vs London Irish probably isn't the hurdle. Shane is a great songwriter, but sounding Irish at all (penny whistle, etc.) is probably what keeps people at bay, hipsters or no. Honestly, I'm not a fan of thinking of them as Shane N' Friends, anyway, because great songwriter or no I love the playing of the band as a whole, and some of their best stuff is not Shane stuff. That is, I listen to "Peace & Love" as much as any of their albums, and Shane has a writing credit on less than half of the tracks.

I think there's a bit of difficulty disentangling the Pogues from all the horseshit Irish pride mook shit like Dropkick Murphys

they are like Led Zeppelin, amazing band, terrible influence

The perspective in the US will be different I think the concept of the Plastic Paddy might just be too painful to confront/ admit to.

ha I had to Google that phrase, that's a good one

Other kid walked into the room and asked why I was listening to the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack.

I think there's a bit of difficulty disentangling the Pogues from all the horseshit Irish pride mook shit like Dropkick Murphys

― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, April 16, 2021

oh man... i guess i can kinda piece this out intellectually but it just makes no kind of sense.

great acts fade in stature over years all the time (we keep getting older, hot bands stay the same age etc etc) but being forgotten seems far less cruel a fate than being misremembered like this.

anyhoo, thanks for reminding me about the doc. I was cautiously optimistic and then wandered off waiting for it to drop

there's no pain, there's no more sorrow,
they're all gone, gone in the years babe

After a Grateful Dead concert at night I was in this dudes car with my gf. He was going way too fast around curves and had “fiesta” on the stereo

xpost I'm not saying that's what I think wrt the Pogues, I like them a lot, but I just know a lot of people that kind of are like peace out on any Irish type stuff because of...I dunno...Boston I guess

and truly it has very little to do w the Pogues or even actual Ireland

ugh boston

feel like somehow this is down to matt damon and tom brady. has anything worthwhile come out of boston since the cars?

Pixies? Mission of Burma? Marky Mark?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBvkmWDjsYc

lifetime pass for Mission of Burma

Here's hoping the doc does revive the band's rep and influence, then, beyond Fairtyale.

Hey, don't talk shit about Boston! "Worthwhile" is in the eye of the beholder but there's been lots of great stuff from here since The Cars, jeez.

As for The Pogues, love 'em all through Shane's tenure - and the odds and sods box set is the gift that keeps on giving. It's interesting to observe the ups and downs of different music's reputation - old things are constantly rediscovered and made the new hotness, then time moves on again and down it goes in terms of appeal. I'm specifically thinking of the post-punk era and how in the early 00s those bands were name-checked constantly, how it faded in the 10s but it seems to be coming back. At least from my purview.

blame insufferable patritos fans lol