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Source: Friends of Shane Newsletter
Date: May 1994
Issue: 2
Author: JIM MacCOOL
Copyright: (c) author
"The Brit Awards?... A pile of fat greasy wankers in tuxedos,
with a load of scum up the front - who I could identify with -
who were there to dance for the cameras, because the guys in the
tuxedos were too busy stuffing their faces and drinking... Elton
John was really nice to my and my girlfriend, Victoria, though,
and the whole thing was a really good laugh."
Grinning, Shane MacGowan, the former leader of the Pogues, sits
in a north London pub, sipping on a glass of Irish liqueur and
discusses his recent televised appearance with mentor Van Morrison,
at the prestigious 'Brit' awards. Despite his affection for Morrison,
Shane has little respect for the music business moguls who gatheres
at the award ceremony. Shane's appearance with Van Morrison was
his first major public appearance in quite some time. As a fan
of Morrison's he was delighted to be asked, but isn't quite sure
why Van wanted him. "I don't know why he asked me,"
says Shane, modestly. "Perhaps he likes me..."
Recently, Shane has changed his lifestyle, and his drinking habits.
He looks better than he has for a decade, at least, although he
protests, when I mention his healthy appearance.
"I'm in terrible shape," he laughs, "I've
got a beer gut..." And he pulls up his green silk shirt to
demonstrate, though the pale flesh of his belly actually reflects
the care he has been taking of himself recently. His impersonation
of Jim Morrison in Paris, circa 1971, with bloated carcass and
beard, has disappeared, and Shane is fit and sober and lucid.
He is ready to admit that he may have overdone his drinking in
the past, butnow says that he is "practising moderation in
all things," and moderation seems to suit him.
"I know that I'm going to live to be eighty-eight, at least,
and I'm still going to feel cheated... but you can't argue with
death." Shane also seems happier, as well as healthier, than
he has for many years. His happiness he attributes to his new
band, the Popes, with whom he has been writing and rehearsing,
for the past year. "I'm doing what I want, and I've got a
great band, that plays what I ask them to play... And I'm doing
what I want, within the confines of this shitty, stinking, music
business."
Earlier, in a little rehearsal studio, a stone's throw from Pentonville
Prison, I heard Shane and the Popes rampage through a set of new
material and esoteric covers, with Shane howling at the microphone
like a man posessed, a far cry from his lack-lustre vocals on
the later Pogues work. There is excitement in the studio, and
a feeling that, with this new band, Shane can finally give full
expression to his musical vision, and his vision is now much more
positive than the pessimism of the past.
Shane explains how he became disilusioned, as the energy and the
enthusiasm of the early Pogues became dissipated and diluted,
in a quest for commercial success. "I've always had my music,
but I couldn't play what I wanted. On the Pogues' best album,
If I Should Fall From Grace With God, me and Jem wrote
every note, apart from the traditional numbers which I arranged...
but after that, things changed. On Peace & Love I had
one last go, then I gave up. I thought the music business people
would leave me alone, so I could have my fun. On Hell's Ditch,
I didn't take hardly any interest at all, apart from being dragged
off the floor in front of a mike. I had a laugh... but they rejected
all the best songs."
Here Popes' guitarist, Paul McGuinness, interjects with a paraphrase
of the old John West slogan. "It's the songs that the Pogues
reject, that makes the Popes sound so good..."
Shane laughs, but there is no suggestion that the Popes survive
on outcast tracks and tidbits from Shane's glory days with the
Pogues. He has written a substantial body of new work, but is
still annoyed at the rejection of what he regards as some of his
finest songs. Shane may be bitter about the business, but stresses
that his split with the Pogues was purely due to musical differences,
and that there is no personal animosity. Indeed, the Pogues have
been sharing the same rehearsal studios as Shane's new band. They
are still the best of friends.
"I'd be quite prepared to write their next album for them,"
sniggers Shane, "if they feel like playing some good music
for a change (laughs)... Seriously, though, I still love them.
I love them all... what's left of them (laughs)."
The members of the new band are mainly old friends of Shane, people
he feels comfortable with, musicians who are able to understand
Shane, and come up with the RAW sound that Shane wants. According
to Shane, the band play his music just the way he wants is. "We've
grown up together," says Danny Heatley, the Popes' drummer.
"It's kicking. It's going really really well, because we
know what Shane wants, plus we're really good friends. We hang
out together." This inspires Shane to remark, obscenely,
on Danny's intimate anatomy, and break into his famous snurfle
of a laugh. "We have a high secual drive in this group,"
cackles Shane, "just like in the early Pogues."
Danny has been playing drums since he was 16, in all sorts of
bands, from The Exploited to The Boothill Foot-tappers. His father
is Spike Heatley, the famous jazz-man, who played double-bass
on some of the Faces' early singles, much admired by Shane.
Kieran O'Hagan, who has been involved in various musical projects
with Shane over the last ten years, belts out rhythm guitar for
the band. Jieran's input is not just guitar, but also his knowledge
of the traditional fold music of his home, Co. Armagh, in Northern
Ireland, where his father, Sean, is a keen collector of ballads
and yarns.
Paul McGuinness plays lead guitar. He is a veteran musician from
the punk days of the seventies, when he played with the Dublin
bands D.C.9 and Tokyo Olympics, who Shane laughingly dismisses
as "a bunch of poofters." Besides the Popes, Paul plays
with his own band, Once Upon A Time.
Bernie France, on bass, is an old schoolchum of Shane's. He recalls
how, twenty years ago, they spent their days at the College for
Further Education in Hammesmith "...smoking dope in the common
room before sneaking off to get pissed in the pubs and going to
see [legendary acid-punk band] the Pink Fairies." Like the
rest of the Popes, Bernie was a Pogues/Pogue Mahone fan right
at the start, and recalls the very early days with a great deal
of affection - it's that kind of wild excitement and energy that
the Popes are trying to re-create.
According to Shane, the new album [The Snake] (due for
release in the early summer [of 1994]) will sound: "...Two
thirds like the early Pogues, what we used to call 'Paddybeat',"
he sniggers, "and the rest is R'n'B and Rock'n'Roll and Hard
Rock... and there's even one track with a Reggae beat, a toasting
number... and there's Thai-beat and a coupla Jazz-Soul type numbers,
like Sly meets Coltrane downtown. But the greater part is paddybeat,
early Pogues style. Nothing to do with what the Pogues are doing
now." Judging from the Popes' performance in the rehearsal
studio, Shane's new material is equal to anything he has written
in his past career. From the brilliant Snake With Eyes of Garnet
to That Woman's Got Me Drinking to I'll be Your Handbag,
it's obvious that Shane's creativity has not be affected by his
disgust with the music business. In addition to a wad of new,
original material, the Popes blast their way though a wide range
of covers, from a rip-roering version of Cracklin' Rose,
like Neil Diamond on Amyl Nitrate, to Junior Wells' Lovey Dovey,
to traditional ballads like The Rising of the Moon and
country classic The Streets of Baltimore. But Shane is
clear as to what the major influence on the new material is: traditional
Irish music and balladry. "We follow a tradition, the Irish
tradition, and it's an aural/oral tradition, not written down,
which has lasted for thousands of years AND WE'RE PART OF IT.
The English fold tradition - and I've seen it in Kent, proper
Morris dancers having a ceili, with bodhrans, the lot - is rare,
but it exists... Industry has wiped out the fold tradition in
England. The fold tradition will die if it isn't followed."
Another indfluence of Shane and the band is religion. Scattered
around the studio are all sorts of religious artefacts: pinned
to an amplifier, next to a picture of Phil Lynott, is a picture
of a nun, with the caption, "Sister Margaret leads a life
of chastity, poverty and obedience...", there is a genuine
voodoo doll hanging on the wall; a huge crucifix sits on tops
of a speaker; while another smaller crucifix hangs directly in
front of Shane's mike. And this is no corny gothic pisstake. The
Popes are a band who take their religion seriously: original news
songs include Old Time Religion and Church of the Holy
Spook. "I believe in one great spiritual entity,"
says Shane, "which the Catholic Church calls God, and which
I call the Tao. It's the same thing. People say that the Christian
church in Ireland was overlaid on a pagan culture,, using the
word 'pagan' as a slur... but all the ancient religions of the
world have the same basic idea of an all-enveloping creative being
ro force, which the old Irish religion represented by a circle,
because they worshipped the sun... Patrick inscribed a cross over
the circle, although the cross is a mandala anyway. The mandala
of christ, the crucifix, is a STRONG PROTECTIVE THING AND GUIDE.
I feel a lot better with a Gaelic cross around my neck..."
So far, the Popes have played only a small number of low-key gigs,
in Ireland, and at the Mean Fiddler in London. Their next London
Gig is a Saint Patrick's day bash at The Grand in Clapham, although
the band are trying to organize a small tour of the Celtic world,
Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, at around the same time. With a set
of twenty-six songs rehearsed and ready, the Popes are bursting
to let rip, live, and with Shane's new enthusiam and vigour, sparks
should fly.
Shane is producing the new album himself, along with Dave Jordan,
who has worked with the Stones, The Specials, Bob Marley, and
on the Pogues' Rainy Night In Soho, also co-produced with
Shane. They hope to get Jerry Lee Lewis, the Killer himself, to
guest on a new version of the rockabilly anthem Kind of the
Bop, written by Shane in his days with the Nips [previously
known as The Nipple Erectors]. Dave is as enthusiastic as the
rest of the band. "Because Shane's not under any [commercial]
pressure," says Dave, "he's the happiest, healthiest
and most lucid I've ever seen him. He's completely in control."
Fair play to you, Shane.