Re-masters and tour
Warner Strategic Marketing in association with The Pogues will be releasing re-mastered and expanded versions of all seven of The Pogues’ studio albums on November 15th: ‘Red Roses For Me’ (1984), ‘Rum, Sodomy & The Lash’ (1985), ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ (1988), ‘Peace And Love’ (1989), ‘Hell's Ditch’ (1990), ‘Waiting For Herb’ (1993) and ‘Pogue Mahone’ (1995). The Pogues themselves have overseen this project, supervising the re-mastering process, the artwork and the booklets, commissioning special original sleeve notes from friends and fans Tom Waits, Steve Earle, Jim Jarmusch, Patrick McCabe, Matt Dillon, Bob Geldof and Stuart Pearce. The booklets will also contain some unseen photographs from the different phases of the band's career. All CDs have been re-mastered from primary tape sources by Nick Robbins. In a distinguished career as an engineer, producer and re-mastering virtuoso, Nick has worked with The Pogues right from the beginning, when he engineered the ‘Red Roses For Me’ and ‘Rum, Sodomy & The Lash’ recordings. Robbins is at present hard at work mixing The Pogues forthcoming live album, recorded at the band's last London concerts at Brixton Academy in December 2001. Each CD contains up to seven additional songs, comprising contemporaneous tracks which were not previously released on The Pogues albums. Many of these rare sides make their ever first appearance on CD, others for the first time in 20 years. ‘Red Roses For Me’ was The Pogues’ debut LP on signing to Stiff Records, the extra tracks rounding up six b-sides including ‘Repeal Of the Licensing Laws’ and ‘And The Band Played Waltzing Mathilda’ plus four typically fiery re-workings of traditional songs, such a revelation at the time to audiences reared on the London punk scene. The ‘Rum, Sodomy & The Lash’ CD contains the entire ‘Poguetry In Motion’ EP (1986) produced, as was the LP itself, by Elvis Costello. Both sides of the band’s first Top Ten hit ‘The Irish Rover’ (with The Dubliners, 1987) are added to ‘If I Should Fall From Grace With God’ (1988), the Platinum-selling album which contained the perennial Christmas classic ‘Fairytale Of New York’ (featuring the late Kirsty MacColl, 1987). Fans will appreciate the appearance of hard-to-get titles like ‘Star Of The County Down’ (1989) and ‘The Limerick Rake’ (1989) on ‘Peace And Love’ (1989) and some great work from the prolific Joe Strummer-produced ‘Hell’s Ditch’ sessions (1990). A further collaboration with The Dubliners adds the single ‘Whiskey In The Jar’/‘Jack’s Heroes’, The Pogues’ own unofficial Irish World Cup song. Joe Strummer briefly joined The Pogues the following year after Shane MacGowan’s departure in September 1991. By 1993’s ‘Waiting For Herb’, Spider Stacy had become the lead singer and ‘Tuesday Morning’ gave the band its first Top Twenty hit since ‘Fairytale Of New York’. In total, 36 bonus tracks are spread over the seven sets. Only one of these is completely new - the new CD of the ‘Pogue Mahone’ album (1995) contains the previously-unreleased Stephen Hague single remix of ‘Love You Till The End’. This is included as a tantalising foretaste of a projected box-set of further rarities, demos and unreleased material which will be released in 2005. The Pogues will be touring the UK and Ireland in December. This is the classic 1987-1993 line-up of Shane MacGowan, Spider Stacy, Jem Finer, Philip Chevron, Terry Woods, Andrew Ranken, James Fearnley and Darryl Hunt which last toured the UK in 2001. This time, fans will be delighted to know that the band will be joined on vocals by Cait O'Riordan! Cait was The Pogues’ original bass player from 1982-1986 and sang ‘I’m A Man You Don’t Meet Everyday’ on the ‘Rum, Sodomy & The Lash’ album. Recently, she has been playing and singing with Philip Chevron in a reformed line-up of The Radiators (Plan 9).
The dates are as follows:
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