The Pogues: Classic or Dud

Sinead O'Connor version is not as good, IMHO. And his solo version of "Rake at the Gates of Hell" is fucking terrible compared to the original. But, shockingly, he made another amazing Christmas song after he went solo. It's called "Christmas Lullaby" and unbelievably, it's nearly as good as "Fairytale of New York." That song was on a limited edition single only, alas.

i sort of prefer the sinead version, it's more wistful and draws out the melody more. both are great though. "you looked so cool you could have put out vietnam" is one of my favorite shane lines.

here's the video to the album version of shane/sinead. (produced by trevor horn!)

Thanks ILM!!!!!!!!!

obligatory st paddy's day pogues video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TejJDFt6Tkk&feature=related

and now I am lying here and I've had too much booze

xmas eve in the drunk tank

TOO EARLY

(<3)

i'm sad to say, i must be on me way
So buy me beer and whiskey cos I'm goin far away

Still one of the best live shows I've attended was the Pogues along with Joe Strummer back in 1988 or so. Listen to 'em less than I used to, but still got a place in my heart for RUM, and even for HELL'S DITCH.

James Fearnley has written an AMAZING memoir about his time with the Pogues. I pretty much read it start to finish nonstop today. He's a phenomenally good writer, and boy does it tell a good story.

http://www.amazon.com/Here-Comes-Everybody-Pogues-ebook/dp/B007Q25LBI/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345612229&sr=8-1-fkmr1&keywords=here+comes+everyone+fearnley

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_01/poguesMS0206_468x370.jpg

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2007/06_01/poguesMS0206_468x370.jpg

That picture is, sadly, both classic and dud.

Nice homburg, tho

That, my friends, is the face of a man who has lived life on his own terms.

http://i.imgur.com/8FLJn.jpg

it's amazing what a set of dentures can do.

With the teeth in he looks like Steve Coogan on a bender.

Anyone read this?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BByiRCCvL._SS500_.jpg

My book here says it's Shane McGowan's birthday today. He's 50 years old.

― Bimble, Wednesday, December 26, 2007 12:11 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I like to think Bimble had a book with every musician's birthday in it and he'd finish off each day by looking through it and choosing to whom he'd wish a happy birthday.

I was going to get that book, but haven't yet. You can read sections of it on Amazon. What I read of it, it seemed somewhat academic to me. The author also wrote a positive review on Amazon for James Fearnley's (Pogues accordion player) book.

Sad news:

http://www.rte.ie/ten/news/2013/1008/479139-pogues-member-phil-chevron-has-died/

At least it was peaceful...

:(

RIP. As Joe Strummer noted, he was great at that insanely fast Irish triple-time strumming thing.

He wrote "Lorelei" and "Thousands are Sailing," two of the best Pogues tracks (power ballads?). Sad,

Yeah, I love both of those. R.I.P.

RIP

It's rare that "Thousands are Sailing" doesn't make me cry. I cannot sing along with it without my voice shaking.

oh wow, RIP.

aren't they doing some gigs coming up?

yeap: http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2013/09/24/pogues-tour-dates-rum-sodomy-lash/

Dec. 15: O2 Apollo, Manchester, UK
Dec. 17: O2 Academy, Glasgow, UK
Dec. 19: O2 Academy Brixton, London, UK
Dec. 20: O2 Academy Brixton, London, UK

Anyone pick up the new 30 Years box set? I really want to hear the remixes of Red Roses For Me and especially Lilywhite's new Peace and Love. The inclusion of a Strummer set from December '91 is a nice bonus.

Huh. Didn't know about that. So it's just the albums, no bonus tracks, plus that live set and two remixed albums?

yup. I don't want to buy all the records - I have last decade's expanded reissues - but I'd love to pick up the remixes. Heck, I'd be okay with streaming them legally but can't find a place to do so.

Ha:

Step 1: take 7 albums; sell
Step 2: make compilation; sell again
Step 3: add bonus tracks; sell again
Step 4: make another compilation; sell again
Step 5: remove bonus tracks; sell again
Step 6: make another compilation; sell again
Step 7: repackage in boxset; sell again
Step 8: make another compilation; sell again
Step 9: remix two, add live album, repackage in different boxset; sell again
Step 10: go to 1

sad but true. I can't see myself springing for a third time on pogues cds. Though I've never owned the two post-Hell's Ditch records.

I've only ever owned "The Best Of" and "The Rest Of", which I love. I'm going to pick up the Rhino editions of the first 3 and possibly the "Just Look Them Straight In The Eye And Say Pogue Mahone" odds and ends box set. There's not much discussion about that box - thoughts?

I love the "Pogue Mahone" box set, but it's obviously only for the most rabid fans. The highlight for me is the stark version of "The Auld Triangle" from the John Peel show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RousyTQB6iY

The new "30 Years" box set seems pretty pointless to me, since it doesn't include any bonus tracks and leaves out entirely the great "Poguetry in Motion" EP. The remastered CDs have all the extras, including that EP.

New mixes and a live disc. Not enough for me. Need to pick up the Pogue Mohone box though.

leaves out entirely the great "Poguetry in Motion" EP

!!! that is crazy

One last Pogues mention for today. For my bachelor party, a bunch of my friends rented an orange van (we looked like escapees from a mental hospital), put a keg in the back and started driving from Rhode Island to Boston. The whole way up they were threatening to take me to strip joints in the Combat Zone, which is the last thing I wanted to do. We parked, walked around a bit and then turned a corner to see a giant sign all lit up: "Tonight Only: The Pogues." What a relief! This was the 1991 tour, when Joe Strummer was fronting the band, so we heard "London Calling" and "I Fought the Law" among the usual fare. Then we headed over to Tower Records (long since gone), where I dropped over a hundred bucks. What a great night.

Roots geek here. Just wanted to rep for the boxset. It's tempting to dismiss it because they've been doing useless annual best-ofs for so long, but it's pretty great. Notes:

Red Roses For Me sounds much better. Vocals have a lot more clarity, and the low end has been cranked way up. You notice immediately.

Peace and Love is a new album. It's totally different now. Instrumental parts you didn't know existed, vocals mixed so differently they don't sound like the same take. Harmonies that weren't there. Really made me reevaluate it. Still hit or miss obviously, but I like it a lot more now.

The Strummer live album should have been sold by itself. It's one of the coolest things in their catalogue, and they've been talking about putting it out for a decade. I don't know why it's buried in something that looks like a greatest hits. Strummer brings huge energy to the proceedings, and outsings MacGowan on the Hell's Ditch stuff. It's great hearing him sing If I Should Fall From Grace, a song that he clearly loves. And his electric rhythm is all over the place, which I dig.

The Strummer live album should have been sold by itself.

Along with the remixed "Red Roses" and "Peace and Love." Rather than included in a boxed set as "exclusives."

Curious about "Peace and Love," which I've always listened to as much as any Pogues. I never thought it sounded bad and in fact really liked how it was recorded. Still, intriguing tidbits:

STEVE LILLYWHITE: “I made a mistake with Peace And Love in mixing his voice quietly, which made a weak vocal worse. If I’d turned it up, I could’ve made a weak vocal better. I should apologise to him for that. I feel it could’ve been a much better album if the vocals, even if they were weak, had been louder in the mix. Quite often he would slur his voice a lot, so I would actually move the voice forwards in the track. Now you can do it really easily. In those days, it was quite a big job. I did that on a couple of tracks to try and get his voice more in the right place.”

JEM FINER:“... too much cocaine ... definitely had an effect on [Peace & Love]. I’ve always hated cocaine, and I think it’s responsible for a lot of rubbish that happened round the band. People often turn into complete arseholes – not always, but creative ideas fuelled by cocaine are often just shit. That probably is a problem. There was a lot of over-indulgence, musically. Things became over-complicated …. Everyone wanting their stuff to be heard. The collective ego of the band got fragmented into individual egos. I found it really, really tedious and frustrating and disheartening... ‘USA’ is a case in point of sheer over-indulgence. I’ve got some tapes somewhere of mixes of that that are just incredible where it’s quite sparse. It had this amazing, brooding menace to it, and that sort of got lost. People kept overdubbing stuff more and more and it just lost a lot of its power.”

PHILIP CHEVRON: It has to be said that Shane - indeed, the whole band - was in better shape when we recorded the demos than when we cut the album. By then, disillusion, not to mention various drug cocktails, had set in. We gave Lillywhite an uphill battle from the very beginning. Steve probably made the best choices he could at the time in respect of how to disguise/flatter/enhance/obscure the lead vocals, but he is, I think, right to concede, 20 years later, that there was probably a better way around the problem. Oddly enough, with success there appears to come some unspoken additional pressure from the record company to make records a certain way, with a particular sound etc, and in the event, Steve was trying to make the record as much for the Brothers Warner in the UK and Island Records in the USA as for The Pogues. In an ideal world, these are not incompatible goals, as the previous album proves, but I think this one collapsed as under the weight of expectation as much as it suffered from our own flawed humanity, and it ended up representing the best interests of no one. Amazing it's still a great album, however flawed. What else was there that month, the new Rick Astley?

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-wire-creator-is-penning-a-musical-based-on-the-pogues-music-20131226

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

i can't find the whole thing online but it was cool to see Nick Cave do Rainy Night and Hansard do Fairytale. Lots of love in there. Was the terribly old man in the front pew McGowan's father? Also, was the casket in a wicker basket?

yes and yes. his father seemed to be emotionally in turmoil throughout while everyone else was having the time of their lives, his wife especially. not being judgemental here; it was very fitting, but very, very odd seeing his wife leaping over pews to dance. i'm not sure how typical this was but if it was, i have to say nobody seemingly does a funeral like the irish. well, maybe the good folk of new orleans can compete.

he was ill for so long I can't blame her for trying to finally have a good time.

i felt a bit of a kinship with his Dad being the only one not clapping, something about applause at a funeral in a church that feels slightly craven/sacriligious

always feel a bit overcome for parents who outlive their children
he’s quite up there iirc, isnt he in his mid 90’s?

but the funeral also felt v mcgowan & the highspiritedness was of course appropriate for him & his vibe