by Zuzana Sun Mar 27, 2005 9:44 pm
From "On Gaien Higashi Dori / Life From the Raglan Road of Tokyo" weblog, posted by Setsunai:
January 07, 2005
New Year's Resolution 2: To Write More
The Pogues and Me
Full URL
On the evening of December 23 of last year a few of us had been playing pool and drinking a few relaxed, lazy Christmas pints in Dublin's swish new pool bar on Georges Street. It was coming up time to part for various evening arrangements. Some were going to work parties, others to meet up with friends or family. I was feeling the pull to the Point. The Pogues were back together for one gig.
But I was in two minds.
The Point Depot is Dublin's big music venue, where famous bands play. It's a massive converted warehouse down on the north docks, a good 15-minute walk from the city center. It's a cold walk through icy, cutting wind at the best of times, but not one you want to make in the depths of winter. Getting a taxi there is easy, getting one back almost impossible. And the venue itself is as unwelcoming as its transportation access. Queues and searches are followed by stampeding crowds if you want to be close to the band, and a need for binoculars if you don't fancy being stamped on. It's one of those big venues that make you yearn for the days when a band wasn't so famous and played in local pubs. The staff are pig ignorant, the toilet queues perennial. The drink is overpriced and slopped. And it's cold in there. If you've spent much time sober in the Point Depot, you know what I'm talking about.
But the venue itself wasn't even the main reason for hesitation. Like any Pogues fan, I'd been let down before. Once in Thurles, at Feile '91 I think it was, where Shane McGowan was so off his face that Kirsty McColl had to hold him up as they "danced" to Fairytale. If he remembered any of the words that evening, he wasn't letting on. Some of the band were embarrassed, others visibly angry. Most of the crowd laughed it off as typical McGowan. Expecting much more—too much maybe—I remember being very pissed off.
There were no signs this gig was going to be any different. A local music journalist with a head as big as his hair had interviewed McGowan in Dublin a week prior to the gig. Beyond the false superlatives—let's be clear from the outset that McGowan is not "Ireland's greatest living poet"—the message was clear: McGowan was still a prisoner to the drink and the drugs. You'd be forgiven for thinking he was just another polluted old has-been doing a reunion gig for the cash.
One of my clearest memories of childhood is self-affirming. Back in the days of Texaco radio watches and the first Walkmen, I was sitting on the swings in my back garden with another kid from the road. I was no more than eight. We were both ear-plugged in to the latest gadgetry, but we were dancing even then to very different tunes. He was listening to Michael Jackson or whoever was top of the charts that day, I to Paddy Reilly singing Spancil Hill on a tape I'd borrowed from my father's car. This kid—whose belief in himself far outweighed his originality—was being mean-spirited, as was his nature. In hindsight, he was one of those never destined to graduate beyond the small, small world of local gossip and ever-changing fashion. He was laughing at me for listening to old "Paddy Diddley" music. In his eyes, I was a disgrace to his coolness, an embarrassment. I didn't care: I knew even then I was listening to real music, something part of a tradition, something relevant to my life. And you don't need me to tell you the Pogues are firmly part of this tradition.
I suppose it was memories like this coming back as I walked down Georges Street—and a couple more pints to grease the nostalgia and take the edge off the very real possibility the gig would be a disaster—that finally settled the issue. After some persuading and the promise I'd buy his ticket, Speedy finally agreed to come along, and suddenly we were in a taxi on our way down the docks, and in a sense back into our past.
I hadn't been at the Point for at least 10 years. The last gigs I remember seeing there were the Waterboys—where I "shifted" a girl who later turned out to be in my class in college—and the Pixies—where I very nearly went down under the crowd. Both gigs were good memories. For all my moaning about it, the Point never treated me too badly.
We took our seats at in the small seating area at the back and waited silently. We both knew we'd know everything we needed to with the first song. I wasn't expecting McGowan to be demonstrating what he'd learned in recent elocution lessons. I just hoped for a modicum of coherency, enough compos mentis to stay in step with all the wonderful musicians that make up the rest of the band.
Because it's never been just about McGowan.
There's the energetic James Fearnley on accordion, who's been described as the heart-throb of the band. I remember listening to him describe how he was recruited. Something about it impressed me greatly. He said he'd locked himself into a room a London for six years, trying to write his novel, when suddenly there was a knock on his door. Spider Stacy had remembered James played accordion and wanted him to join his new band. The rest, as they say, is history.
There's the enigmatic Philip Chevron. When I was a 14-year-old lounge boy in Dublin, Chevron used to come into the pub where I worked and sit on his own in a table away from the crowds. Often I would take his order—always a double Bacardi and coke without a slice of lemon. If you got it right, he'd give a decent tip. If you didn't, he'd give you nothing. That's all I knew about Philip Chevron. Some of the older barmen told me he was in the Pogues, but it still didn't mean much to me then. It was only later, when I started getting into the Pogues and punk, that it started to become significant. If Barry Egan wants to claim McGowan is Ireland's greatest living poet, surely he'd claim Chevron is its second greatest. Chevron holds the distinction of being the first gay star of the punk rock movement. His band, the Radiators from Space, fused punk with the traditional from the outset, well before the Pogues ever did. It was the Radiators that first performed the haunting ballad, Faithful Departed, that Christy Moore would later make his own. It was Chevron who wrote the piercingly beautiful lyrics. He did it again and again when he joined the Pogues. Thousands are Sailing must be one of the most perfect emigration songs in Irish tradition or any other tradition for that matter. Lorelei still raises my spirit whenever I hear it. These are Chevron's songs. I see him now with his red acoustic guitar, rocking affably off to the side, unassuming as ever, one of the unsung heroes of modern Irish music.
There's little Jem Finer, whose quiet nature makes Chevron seem abrasive. Jem Finer wrote or contributed to so many of the Pogues' greatest songs. A multitalented musician, again Finer likes to blend into the background, but his love of and dedication to the music comes through in the songs that he wrote and the way that he played. It is his pain I feel when McGowan is so far fucked up he can't even stand.
There's the whisky-drinking, tweed-jacketed Terry Woods, who compared to Finer is a veritable extrovert. For me, and I've no concrete proof to back this up, Woods has something of the sinister about him. He's of a slightly older generation than the rest of the Pogues. He is their distinguished elder statesman. You wouldn't have found him hung out and strung out in London's punk dens in the late seventies. I think he was playing with Planxty then. Woods always struck me as something of a more militant nationalist than the rest. Or at least, if not militant, more firm in his convictions. You might have seen him before if you've seen Ken Loach's brilliant film on Northern Ireland, Hidden Agendas. He's one of the duo that play the rebel song in the IRA pub. "And you dare call me a terrorist down the barrel of your gun," he sings, fittingly to how I perceive him. Woods spent years struggling with McGowan. He wanted more input, more song-writing freedom. He, essentially, wanted to front some of the songs. In my book, there was good reason. If someone forced me to name just one favourite Pogues song, I would go for one that Woods wrote, Young Ned of the Hill. I wouldn't choose it for the strong nationalist sentiment, the venomous but predictable attack on Cromwell, but rather the power with which the song builds, the knowledge of the history and the old traditions, the urgency and passion of the music, and the complete mastery of old Irish poetic conventions on display in the earthy, rousing lyrics.
Have you ever walked the lonesome hills
And heard the curlews cry
Or seen the raven black as night
Upon a windswept sky
To walk the purple heather
And hear the westwind cry
To know that's where the rapparee must die
I'd give Woods the freedom of any city for that song.
(to be continued)
Posted by Setsunai at January 7, 2005 12:19 PMFrom "On Gaien Higashi Dori / Life From the Raglan Road of Tokyo" weblog, posted by Setsunai:
[i]January 07, 2005[/i]
[i]New Year's Resolution 2: To Write More[/i]
[b]The Pogues and Me[/b]
[url=http://www.raglanroad.org/weblog/archives/001052.html]Full URL[/url]
On the evening of December 23 of last year a few of us had been playing pool and drinking a few relaxed, lazy Christmas pints in Dublin's swish new pool bar on Georges Street. It was coming up time to part for various evening arrangements. Some were going to work parties, others to meet up with friends or family. I was feeling the pull to the Point. The Pogues were back together for one gig.
But I was in two minds.
The Point Depot is Dublin's big music venue, where famous bands play. It's a massive converted warehouse down on the north docks, a good 15-minute walk from the city center. It's a cold walk through icy, cutting wind at the best of times, but not one you want to make in the depths of winter. Getting a taxi there is easy, getting one back almost impossible. And the venue itself is as unwelcoming as its transportation access. Queues and searches are followed by stampeding crowds if you want to be close to the band, and a need for binoculars if you don't fancy being stamped on. It's one of those big venues that make you yearn for the days when a band wasn't so famous and played in local pubs. The staff are pig ignorant, the toilet queues perennial. The drink is overpriced and slopped. And it's cold in there. If you've spent much time sober in the Point Depot, you know what I'm talking about.
But the venue itself wasn't even the main reason for hesitation. Like any Pogues fan, I'd been let down before. Once in Thurles, at Feile '91 I think it was, where Shane McGowan was so off his face that Kirsty McColl had to hold him up as they "danced" to Fairytale. If he remembered any of the words that evening, he wasn't letting on. Some of the band were embarrassed, others visibly angry. Most of the crowd laughed it off as typical McGowan. Expecting much more—too much maybe—I remember being very pissed off.
There were no signs this gig was going to be any different. A local music journalist with a head as big as his hair had interviewed McGowan in Dublin a week prior to the gig. Beyond the false superlatives—let's be clear from the outset that McGowan is not "Ireland's greatest living poet"—the message was clear: McGowan was still a prisoner to the drink and the drugs. You'd be forgiven for thinking he was just another polluted old has-been doing a reunion gig for the cash.
One of my clearest memories of childhood is self-affirming. Back in the days of Texaco radio watches and the first Walkmen, I was sitting on the swings in my back garden with another kid from the road. I was no more than eight. We were both ear-plugged in to the latest gadgetry, but we were dancing even then to very different tunes. He was listening to Michael Jackson or whoever was top of the charts that day, I to Paddy Reilly singing Spancil Hill on a tape I'd borrowed from my father's car. This kid—whose belief in himself far outweighed his originality—was being mean-spirited, as was his nature. In hindsight, he was one of those never destined to graduate beyond the small, small world of local gossip and ever-changing fashion. He was laughing at me for listening to old "Paddy Diddley" music. In his eyes, I was a disgrace to his coolness, an embarrassment. I didn't care: I knew even then I was listening to real music, something part of a tradition, something relevant to my life. And you don't need me to tell you the Pogues are firmly part of this tradition.
I suppose it was memories like this coming back as I walked down Georges Street—and a couple more pints to grease the nostalgia and take the edge off the very real possibility the gig would be a disaster—that finally settled the issue. After some persuading and the promise I'd buy his ticket, Speedy finally agreed to come along, and suddenly we were in a taxi on our way down the docks, and in a sense back into our past.
I hadn't been at the Point for at least 10 years. The last gigs I remember seeing there were the Waterboys—where I "shifted" a girl who later turned out to be in my class in college—and the Pixies—where I very nearly went down under the crowd. Both gigs were good memories. For all my moaning about it, the Point never treated me too badly.
We took our seats at in the small seating area at the back and waited silently. We both knew we'd know everything we needed to with the first song. I wasn't expecting McGowan to be demonstrating what he'd learned in recent elocution lessons. I just hoped for a modicum of coherency, enough compos mentis to stay in step with all the wonderful musicians that make up the rest of the band.
Because it's never been just about McGowan.
There's the energetic James Fearnley on accordion, who's been described as the heart-throb of the band. I remember listening to him describe how he was recruited. Something about it impressed me greatly. He said he'd locked himself into a room a London for six years, trying to write his novel, when suddenly there was a knock on his door. Spider Stacy had remembered James played accordion and wanted him to join his new band. The rest, as they say, is history.
There's the enigmatic Philip Chevron. When I was a 14-year-old lounge boy in Dublin, Chevron used to come into the pub where I worked and sit on his own in a table away from the crowds. Often I would take his order—always a double Bacardi and coke without a slice of lemon. If you got it right, he'd give a decent tip. If you didn't, he'd give you nothing. That's all I knew about Philip Chevron. Some of the older barmen told me he was in the Pogues, but it still didn't mean much to me then. It was only later, when I started getting into the Pogues and punk, that it started to become significant. If Barry Egan wants to claim McGowan is Ireland's greatest living poet, surely he'd claim Chevron is its second greatest. Chevron holds the distinction of being the first gay star of the punk rock movement. His band, the Radiators from Space, fused punk with the traditional from the outset, well before the Pogues ever did. It was the Radiators that first performed the haunting ballad, Faithful Departed, that Christy Moore would later make his own. It was Chevron who wrote the piercingly beautiful lyrics. He did it again and again when he joined the Pogues. Thousands are Sailing must be one of the most perfect emigration songs in Irish tradition or any other tradition for that matter. Lorelei still raises my spirit whenever I hear it. These are Chevron's songs. I see him now with his red acoustic guitar, rocking affably off to the side, unassuming as ever, one of the unsung heroes of modern Irish music.
There's little Jem Finer, whose quiet nature makes Chevron seem abrasive. Jem Finer wrote or contributed to so many of the Pogues' greatest songs. A multitalented musician, again Finer likes to blend into the background, but his love of and dedication to the music comes through in the songs that he wrote and the way that he played. It is his pain I feel when McGowan is so far fucked up he can't even stand.
There's the whisky-drinking, tweed-jacketed Terry Woods, who compared to Finer is a veritable extrovert. For me, and I've no concrete proof to back this up, Woods has something of the sinister about him. He's of a slightly older generation than the rest of the Pogues. He is their distinguished elder statesman. You wouldn't have found him hung out and strung out in London's punk dens in the late seventies. I think he was playing with Planxty then. Woods always struck me as something of a more militant nationalist than the rest. Or at least, if not militant, more firm in his convictions. You might have seen him before if you've seen Ken Loach's brilliant film on Northern Ireland, Hidden Agendas. He's one of the duo that play the rebel song in the IRA pub. "And you dare call me a terrorist down the barrel of your gun," he sings, fittingly to how I perceive him. Woods spent years struggling with McGowan. He wanted more input, more song-writing freedom. He, essentially, wanted to front some of the songs. In my book, there was good reason. If someone forced me to name just one favourite Pogues song, I would go for one that Woods wrote, Young Ned of the Hill. I wouldn't choose it for the strong nationalist sentiment, the venomous but predictable attack on Cromwell, but rather the power with which the song builds, the knowledge of the history and the old traditions, the urgency and passion of the music, and the complete mastery of old Irish poetic conventions on display in the earthy, rousing lyrics.
Have you ever walked the lonesome hills
And heard the curlews cry
Or seen the raven black as night
Upon a windswept sky
To walk the purple heather
And hear the westwind cry
To know that's where the rapparee must die
I'd give Woods the freedom of any city for that song.
(to be continued)
[i]Posted by Setsunai at January 7, 2005 12:19 PM[/i]
