The Medusa Fora

...

The Pogues did not break up immediately after Mr. MacGowan's departure.

Joe Strummer filled the "front man" role for the next year for the <i>Hell's Ditch</i> tour. The band then went on to produce <i>Waiting for Herb</i> (after which Mr. Chevron, Mr. Fearnley, and Mr. Woods took their leave). After that they went on to produce <i>Pogue Mahone</i>. Following the promotional tour Mr. Finer decided to take his leave. Mr. Stacey, Mr. Ranken and Mr. Hunt decided that it no longer made sense for The Pogues to exist as a band, and they formally broke up.

Your cousin's version of events sound more-or-less consistent with various things I've read over the years about Mr. MacGowan's departure.

I think i like Spider more than Shane.
I diddnt know Joey Strummer filled in for shane though

DzM wrote:The band then went on to produce <i>Waiting for Herb</i> (after which Mr. Chevron, Mr. Fearnley, and Mr. Woods took their leave). After that they went on to produce <i>Pogue Mahone</i>.

Aaah, that explains why I never really liked Pogue Mahone. Bought it, listened to it twice and that's it. It's a great dust-collector, though.

And here is
Shane's version

interesting, its bad how they almost blamed it all on Shane in the inner leaf of the best of the Pogues album though!

(saying that he just wasn't turning up for shows, and it was all his decision to leave the band.)

Yes, he began to think about leaving the band in 1988, after IISFFGWG. Or at least was longing for a break, kinda to take a timeout for a year or so. But they didn't want to let him free then. The band was on top, did 300 shows per year and things... Finally said him "bye, Shane, it was nice to work with you" when he was not any use for a band...

Get his book and read, he recollected interesting things...

There are countless versions of the split-up – comparing them is more of a "try to spot the similarities" than "try to spot the differences" game. Just like with the two following statements (taken from the documentary If I Should Fall From Grace – The Shane MacGowan Story):

Philip Chevron:
"Did we sack Shane MacGowan? That is the question. No, it’s just never as simple as that. What actually happened was that it was becoming very obvious that the band wanted to carry on playing at something like the level we were playing and Shane was getting more and more disenchanted with that and wanted to spend more time at home. And mainly the way he was telling us that was by the inconsistency of his behaviour. You know, Shane is not the sort of person who can tell you in any straight way: "Look, I’m just not taking this." So he would have to go round the house and tell you in some complicated way but you’ll eventually get the message. And then he would make it look like you were telling him this, you know. So that would be all your fault and your telling him he can’t do this anymore. (...) Shane is magnificent at twisting everything round to that purpose. He probably thinks we sacked him, yes, but he knows in his heart that it’s not true."

Joey Cashman:
"They fired him, I was at the meeting. They fired him. I was venomously against it. It was in Japan after a particularly bad couple of years as far as some people were concerned. But the reason that Shane wasn’t performing as well and the reason he withdrew and got as out of it as he did was because of the situation that he found himself in."

Everybody has his truth...

Then another bit of truth:
(from the chat with mr. Philip Chevron, 20th Apr 2003)
<Aleksandar>Hi Phil, from your current point of view do you think that removing of Shane MacGowan from The Pogues was heavy mistake?
<Philip>Alek, the only homest answer to that is this: We made a mistake not taking a year off from touring. We all might have seen things differently after that
<Philip>Including Shane
<Philip>But too mant people had too mjkuch to lose by allowing that to happen
<Philip>(People oitside the band)
<Philip>and unfortunately, we listened to their BAD adevice
<Philip>advice*
<stevie>were you obligated to
<stevie>or jusdt listening to advice?
<Philip>NO, not, as it turns out. It's more complicated than that though
Joins / Leaves off
<Philip>We were "persuaded" we would stop selling records if we stopped touring
<Philip>But we STILL haven't stopped selling records lol
<Philip>So it was bad advice

im inclined to believe the phil chevron quote ffrom the documentry Zuzana posted up, if you read beteen the lines in "a drink with shane macgowan" you can see its true, and Phil just always seems like an upfront honest guy in any interview ive ever heard from him

Looks like they all have their own share of responsibilities in this. I mean, that's true that The Pogues rejected many of MacGowan's compositions on the last two albums, and that upset him a lot I think.

Maybe that the story would have been totally different if they wouldn't have toured that much and if they wouldn't have tried to change their style so much that they rejected Jem and Shane compositions.

Or if they agreed to a short break. Six monthes or so...

Maybe that the story would have been totally different if they wouldn't have toured that much and if they wouldn't have tried to change their style so much that they rejected Jem and Shane compositions.

How it really was with the rejection of Shane’s songs? The usual story is that Shane wanted to stick to the Irish tradition while the others preferred to pursue more progressive trends. But it was Shane who came up with twenty minute acid house track for Peace & Love, and most of his songs that made it onto the album are a far cry from traditional Irish music too. Could anybody shed more light on this?

I didn't listen to Peace & Love actually, I am from Canada and I'm waiting for my record store to receive import versions of Hell's Ditch and P & L remastered. But I watched a video of the band playing White City on Saturday Night Live and it seemed like it was good old Pogues to me.

DzM wrote:The Pogues did not break up immediately after Mr. MacGowan's departure.

Joe Strummer filled the "front man" role for the next year for the <i>Hell's Ditch</i> tour..

well not entirely ... Shane was in the band for the Hells Ditch Tour which kicked off in the UK late in 1990 and continued for several months. The following year the Best Of The Pogues LP was released with attendent singles (Rainy NIght, Fairytale and Honky Tonk with some new b-sides.) Strummer came when the band were promoting this.