Remembering The Pogues In Irish Music History

[MacRua]

Soundbytes: Remembering The Pogues In Irish Music History
The Pogues Reframe Traditional Irish Music
Channel3000.com
David Hyland, Staff Writer
UPDATED: 7:16 pm CST March 16, 2006
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<blockquote>This past summer, I made my first trip to Ireland.

Coming from a family that is 100 percent Irish Catholic, my siblings and I were programmed from very early on that we'd all have to make our own personal haji to visit the home country. Sometime, somehow, we'd all have to visit a place for which the connection remains subtle and yet very real.

Being that one side of my family has been kicking around this side of the Atlantic for at least two generations (and the other side for far longer), I'd assumed growing up that many of the unique Irish attributes that we had were essentially beltsanded off through assimilation into American life.

Ireland's links, while given much lip service in the family, often seemed far removed and sometimes tenuous. It was an identity that I struggled to identify with.

So, my two weeks criss-crossing Ireland offered more than just adventure and quickie stops at literary and historical sites. It offered me a chance to engage a form of Irish culture that I'd always struggled with: Irish music.

My mission was important to me and yet more nebulous. Of course, I'd hear the music in all the pubs. But while I knew that I could say that I'd seen it and heard it, the greater question I put to myself was what else I would take back with me.

In Belfast, I traipsed around Van Morrison's legendary Cyprus Avenue, which proved ever bit as mystically and beautiful as his visions of it that exist in the lyrics (although I never did find the house where he grew up in, supposedly a couple of blocks away.) In Dublin, I kept careful watch for the Edge and Bono darting about in their limos.

I knew and loved this stuff already -- Ireland's gifts to rock and pop. Your Sinead O'Connors, Thin Lizzies, Cranberries or Corrs. But, traditional Irish music was my main sticking point. My understanding of Irish music was based around the New Age-y sounding, pseudo-Irish music that my mother used to put on when us kiddies went off to bed. With eerie tin whistles playing ghoulish in our dreams, the music was a psychological torture akin to the Marines playing heavy metal to drive Manuel Noreiga out of the embassy. This was the stuff that the Chieftains or Tommy Makem would find kind of weird.

So, it was during my trip that I found my long-sought after answer. I discovered the Pogues. Sometime and somewhere during the trip, I heard a hook of a song by these largely forgotten New Wave heroes of the '80s and I was hooked. Here was a group that could weave components of Irish music -- traditional instruments, ragtag melodies sung with slurred accents and mischievous spirit -- with an Anglo-American thrust and rhythm that I could understand. The Pogues offer a bridge between the traditional and the modern and between the Irish and the American (we known where punk was born). No greater an authority than Bob Geldof has said much the same thing, albeit much more stridently.



The man responsible for this compelling fusion is singer Shane MacGowan. He is a charismatic frontman with an unusual physical appearance (missing teeth, once super skinny, but now bloated) and drink and drug-addled reputation. MacGowan was at scenster at Year One of English punk, giving him credentials few others can claim. But all this serves to obscure the fact that MacGowan is first and foremost a songwriter of the first order. While the band has had a number of important contributors in its volatile lineup (Spider Stacy, Jem Finer and Philip Chevron, among others) MacGowan has always been perceived as the group's central focus

The Pogues were born in the early '80s when MacGowan's Sex Pistols knockoff group, the Nips, fell apart. MacGowan teamed with Stacy with the express wish to combine.

The group's best albums -- "If I Should Fall From Grace With Good" and "Rum Sodomy & The Lash" -- most feverishly articulated MacGowan's vision. Several of the band's singles made had a noticeable impact on the British charts (to a lesser extent in the U.S.). At the time, the band drew patronage from the likes Elvis Costello and the Clash's Joe Strummer (in fact, Strummer replaced MacGowan for a spell when proved erratic.)



MacGowan eventually was dismissed or left (take your pick) in the early '90s and the rest of the Pogues unwisely decided to continue recording and touring. The band did achieve limited success but eventually retired in the mid-'90s.

Today, the group's music seems thoroughly working class -- rough, grungy and curmudgeonly -- next to the Corrs, who've succeed in proving Celtic music can be delivered in sexy tank tops. The Pogues did earn a spot in the much-praised New Wave box set, "Left Of The Dial," but otherwise, they seem like ancient history.

Currently, the band -- who first reunited with MacGowan in 2001 -- is in the middle of a string of sold-out club dates along the East Coast (Could it be a coincidence between this week-long reunion and St. Patrick's Day?)

Despite the obvious opportunism, perhaps, there's no better time than on St. Patrick's Day for the band to reach out to its American fans. With their Irishness on their mind (even if that literally means a plastic green leprechaun derby on their mind), fans will surely get value of seeing the Pogues playing their old songs. They are still bridging a disconnect, giving a musical introduction that helped me connect things in a way I never thought possible.

Note: For an introduction into the Pogues' music, I would recommend early albums like "If I Should Fall From Grace With Good" or "Rum Sodomy & The Lash" -- both of which have recently been re-released in remastered form. For a good overview of the band's catalog, check out "The Essential Pogues" or the double-disc "The Ultimate Collection." </blockquote>

[CraigBatty]

And again, thank you noble MacRua!