Hoist a pint! The Pogues return

St. Patrick's Day approaches in Boston - so you know if the Pogues are healthy they'll be among us. (As will the Chieftains, Saw Doctors and Dropkick Murphys.) The Pogues, fronted by singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan, is the band that started the whole Celtic/punk fusion in 1982, making music that was poetic, soothing, and angry. They were hellbent for destruction and romantically bittersweet. They covered one of the best anti-war songs ever written, "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda," by Aussie folksinger Eric Bogle early in their career; they sang gleefully of death by misadventure, they celebrated the dirt and grime of London's subculture. And - despite much acrimony among members and long absences from the stage or studio - they will be with us for the third year running, with shows at the Orpheum Theatre Wed. March 19 and Thurs. March 20 at 7:30. The Pogues currently live in a zone somewhere between “active” and on “hiatus.” When they returned for their swing through the Irish-American strongholds last year, we talked with the Pogues mandolin player, Terry Woods, to get his take and what they mean – yesterday and today. (We assume his views remain the same; the band's status is: There's no new material, but a boxed set is the way.)

The show we saw last year, at the now-closed Avalon, was A-level all the way. Surprising, some might say because the infamously drink-and-drug damaged MacGowan sang quite well - and the band was aces as always. Backstage, Shane was quite lucid, though he surrounded himself with an array of liquor bottles - to be scooped up and taken by to the hotel after they departed. He talked about his recovery from heroin - but also hinted it might not be a full recovery. Like if anyone had any that night .... Best we could tell, no one did. A good thing. Oh, and his personal manager, Joey Cashman, revealed that Shane's slurring when he speaks was not speficially the result of drugs-and-alcohol (although a contributing factor). Shane had a disease as a child that left his speech semi-garbled. Recently, I talked with Paddy Moloney - leader of the Chieftains - and he recalled a gig they played together in London some time ago. There was a culture clash, to be sure, and Moloney laughed that he must have been "a devil for punishment" to do it. Still, he said, "Shane came out of London/Irish scene and I get that feeling from the Pogues. And he is such a talented guy and writes such beautiful songs. I think 'Fariytale of New York' is one tof the best songs ever written."

Anyway, lets turn to Terry Woods on the Pogues curious ressurection “What happened, “ says Woods, who turns 61 at the end of 2008, “was the end of the Pogues came in early ‘90s and that band fizzled out, didn’t have a decent full stop. Me, I got into the business end of music, management and production, and didn’t play for eight or nine years, and it was Shane that got me back into it.” Shane is noted for his wrenching songs of heartbreak, remorse, anger and joy – sometimes all of those tangled up in one package. At one point, he was kicked out of the Pogues for a variety of reasons, including failure to appear at shows. (The late Clash singer Joe Strummer filled in on one tour, and at the Orpheum told the crowd he was "channeling the spirit of Shane MacGowan." MacGowan has been seen by many as someone in the Irish tradition of great artistry-done-in-by-drink, a la Brendan Behan. Then again, his body of work is astounding - last week, on the series final show, the guys on HBO's "The Wire" sang "A Freeborn Man of the U.S.A" at a mock-wake for the demoted lead cop, and then another Pogues song came on later. And MaGowan, at 50, is alive and kicking, and many predicted that wouldn’t be the case at this point in time. (He says he had his first drink at age 4; when I first met him in London in 1985, he was carrying a drink in each hand and had a big rotten-teeth smile on his face.

“For such a big important band,” continues Woods, “it galled me the Pogues quietly stopped. We never really fell out, we just fell apart. I thought it was very unfortunate. In 2001, one of business associates of the Pogues said he was getting interest from promoters about the possibility of a reunion, a Christmas show.” (It should be noted that MacGowan went on with a post-Pogues career, singing and writing with the Popes.) “He put out the feelers. He got interest back, put it together and got even better interest. So we played Christmas 2001, and did a small UK/ Irish tour. For me, it was the full stop that never happened. It was good for every one of us. When we went to rehearsals, it was as if we left the instruments down just a few months earlier. Playing the instruments was a bit like therapy, being able to get lost in music. I resolved at that point not to put the instruments away again … The tour went well, we all got on. It showed us things we were missing. There was a good reason to miss it, and there was an audience that wanted to hear what we had to offer.”

Anyway, lets turn to Terry Woods on the Pogues curious ressurection “What happened, “ says Woods, who turns 61 at the end of 2008, “was the end of the Pogues came in early ‘90s and that band fizzled out, didn’t have a decent full stop. Me, I got into the business end of music, management and production, and didn’t play for eight or nine years, and it was Shane that got me back into it.” Shane is noted for his wrenching songs of heartbreak, remorse, anger and joy – sometimes all of those tangled up in one package. At one point, he was kicked out of the Pogues for a variety of reasons, including failure to appear at shows. (The late Clash singer Joe Strummer filled in on one tour, and at the Orpheum told the crowd he was "channeling the spirit of Shane MacGowan." MacGowan has been seen by many as someone in the Irish tradition of great artistry-done-in-by-drink, a la Brendan Behan. Then again, his body of work is astounding - last week, on the series final show, the guys on HBO's "The Wire" sang "A Freeborn Man of the U.S.A" at a mock-wake for the demoted lead cop, and then another Pogues song came on later. And MaGowan, at 50, is alive and kicking, and many predicted that wouldn’t be the case at this point in time. (He says he had his first drink at age 4; when I first met him in London in 1985, he was carrying a drink in each hand and had a big rotten-teeth smile on his face. “For such a big important band,” continues Woods, “it galled me the Pogues quietly stopped. We never really fell out, we just fell apart. I thought it was very unfortunate. In 2001, one of business associates of the Pogues said he was getting interest from promoters about the possibility of a reunion, a Christmas show.” (It should be noted that MacGowan went on with a post-Pogues career, singing and writing with the Popes.) “He put out the feelers. He got interest back, put it together and got even better interest. So we played Christmas 2001, and did a small UK/ Irish tour. For me, it was the full stop that never happened. It was good for every one of us. When we went to rehearsals, it was as if we left the instruments down just a few months earlier. Playing the instruments was a bit like therapy, being able to get lost in music. I resolved at that point not to put the instruments away again … The tour went well, we all got on. It showed us things we were missing. There was a good reason to miss it, and there was an audience that wanted to hear what we had to offer.” “We never wanted to get back to the way it was, the mad touring, that was self-destructive for us. But it became obvious there was enough work to do –certain things, at a reasonably high level, get paid for it, and enjoy without killing each other through drink, drugs or anything else. It kind of evolved from there."

Will there be any new material? No. “I’m writing, Shane is writing, I’m sure some of the others are writing,” says Woods. “We have had a tentative conversation about making a record; it hasn’t been totally shot out of the water. At the same time we haven’t agreed to do it next Wednesday. There won’ be new material (in concert). We will be dipping into the back catalog."

“One of the things I find strange is we’re developing a younger audience. I was expecting the Pogues audience to be older. While there are some older people, there’s quite a lot of young people. In some strange way, we’ve managed to keep street credibility without doing anything about it. For me, that’s wonderful. We never were in fashion in the first place. The rock music fashion – we never fitted into any of the categories, so we always were a bit left of center. We did what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it.”

And, the big question: How’s Shane? “He’s in really good form, for Shane he’s in great form. Shane is his own man; I retired from the wild life a long time ago. I retired defeated, but that’s fine. I can’t complain. But I grew up eventually, a little late. but I got that out. Shane is his own man. He’s not as bad as people think he is, but because he’s Shane they feel he’s worse than he is. That pisses me off, because they put him into corners. I’ve known Shane since he was young, and he was always awkward. He’d come into a bar and knock over your drink without having a drink in him. I joined the band because of Shane, the way he was writing. I’ve been since the ‘60s” – most notably with Steeleye Span – “and I never played from the emigrants view of Irish music and that’s what Shane had.” He was an Irish-born, London-raised kid, fueled by punk rock. He led a B-level punk band called the Nips.

Woods’ take on the Irish in America: “The Ireland Americans remember is long gone, it’s relevant to them. Playing with the Pogues, it amazes me the way it would bring the Irish out in people in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, anywhere there was an Irish connection. The rest of the year people didn’t feel Irish. To have this effect is a pretty lucky thing. It’s funny to affect people who don’t know me from Adam. It never ceases to amaze me.”