|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I have never posted before. I logged on originally to get the dates of the HFC gigs then read all this and saw the petition with the statement from Maurice. For god’s sake he should know, he is Shane’s dad so he cannot have an axe to grind except his love for Shane. The situation has made me really pissed of and very sad . I want to say that Ingred needs the support of all true friends of Shane. She is doing a great job and obviously really cares about him like we all do.
I’ve been a fan of The Pogues and of Shane since the mid eighties and I actually liked the Popes for a while, around the time of their Holloway Boulevard CD launch gigs. That was when McGuiness seemed like a nice guy trying to go places. The trouble now is that it has all changed so badly. Shane is in his forties and he must take responsibility for who he hangs with and who works for him but he also needs really professional support and encouragement, not a spiders web of parasitic deceit.
I was in London in the Boogaloo a few weeks ago having a drink and we heard Shane telling some guy that he was looking forward to the HFC dates and working with mad Eamon Campbell. As far as he was concerned the shows were definitely on and in his diary. Me and my mates were checking Ryan Air or Easy Jet to go over . Glad we have not wasted our money but it was close. Thanks a lot Joey for another fuck up.
I think Ingrid has done right and Shane should cop on to himself and suss who are the people who really care about him. He should listen to his family and the people who actually tell him the truth, who know him and care about him rather than the creeps who live off him and seem to tell him what he wants to hear to keep him sweet for the next sting.
It really is not Rocket Science to suss what is going on. I’ve been watching and hearing things from guys who have played with Shane and people who know him well. Some cannot say things in public for various reasons. It is so obvious. Shane is an Irish National Treasure he needs protection. He should have proper management. Bono has the real first division, Paul McGuinness, clean, cool, well organised. Shane gets the seedy comedy crew.
There is Cashman the weasel .A latter day Fagin. He’d lie and cheat and sell his sister to his dealer to get what he wants. I’ve watched the obnoxious shit in pubs and at gigs from the time before they lived in Gospel Oak. He has no respect for us fans. He has trapped his golden goose that he can live off, by doing as little as he can and caring even less, to keep Shane in his web and himself sorted. It is such a cosy little coven . Cashman and McGuinness and Sarge all mates from when they were in some crap band in Dublin, now morphed into Joey’s little team. McGuinness , who now seems out of it almost as much as Cashman and is obviously doing a lot more substance than a bit of weed to make him so aggressive. He is the enforcer. The bully boy to the band, if they moan about not getting paid. He will deck them or roar at them if they complain and he controls all their money. Sarge shits himself when Paul goes off on one. Paul is the worst guitarist this side of Bert Weedon, yet thinks he is the leader of the band. He now has delusions that he is some kind of rock hero, seeing himself as a Geldof or an Irish Springsteen, with his dreadful dirge like songs that he does at Popes gigs. It is just pathetic. He even fired Mick the last box player, when it is supposed to be Shane’s band and drove out Kieron the one before. Cashman of course did not object as he and McGuinness need each other for their little Tottenham side business, which unknown to Shane is financed with his money.
Bugger the music and the sound of the band. Joey could not give a toss.McGuinness did care once and did seem to work hard to keep it together but not any more. Now he resents Shane and is jealous of him but stays for the money and like Joey could do nothing else without hanging on to Shane’s talent.
To help Cashman, McGuinesss roped in his friend Liz Lenten to take messages for Joey again paid for by Shane. That way he knows all Shane’s business before Shane ever does and he can intercept anything that might do good for Shane that does not include the Popes. Then he gets the Pope’s agent Nigel, who could not get arrested with Popes gigs on their own, to book all Shane’s gigs. He is on the gravy train too.
That man who posted earlier was right CASH MAN & MONEY PENNY, a pattern emerges. Wake up Shano !
I could not believe the two letters they posted asking Ingred for an apology. Liz sounded like she had a part time job working for Alaisdair Campbell, her letter was worthy of that spin woman, who wanted to release government bad news on Sept. 11, and Moreton’s was like something from Stephen Byers. Their combined stance in defending their position was a bigger whitewash than the Hutton crap.
Think about it . Here you have it, two people working for Cashman, who have hardly ever even met Shane in their sad lives (if at all), caring about him less and knowing him not at all, have the smug effrontery to ask us, the loyal fans that buy the CDS and support the gigs, to believe that everything in their cosy team is wonderful. Ingred is interfering, sure . They are doing a great job ?. Yeah right. Fuck off .. dream on.! We are not complete eejits.
Of course there have been no cancelled shows or late shows or crap shows, we know that. What planet are they on. Yes Shane goes Jogging before breakfast .Oh yes of course how silly of me not to know that too !
Ask any new band that reads Hot Press, NME or any daft pubescent girl trying to make it on Pop Idol, they’ll tell you and they are so right. All the big successful bands are managed properly, with respect and integrity out of London, Dublin or New York.
But wait what does our special Irish Treasure , Shane MacGowan get ?
Go on.... wait for it lads ! He gets a cheating junkie crack addict manager of no fixed abode, who lives entirely in hotel rooms paid for by Shane himself. He gets a half deaf sycophantic sound engineer. He gets a part time admin. office based in some cabbage patch in Lincolnshire, run by a failed rock singing housewife and to top it all an agent in frigging Yorkshire, called ‘NIGEL’ ( Nigel I ask you !!!) Say no more.
Is this some bad hallucinogenic dream ? Did Steve Coogan put this team of jokers together ? Now you wonder why there is confusion. Oh give us a break. Then the fools talk about Joey consulting his diary and approving things. Has Liz ever spent more than five minutes with Joey. His diary ! Do me a favour. I’ve seen him in pubs. He was staying in one in Archway not long back. When he is not locked in a DVD for 24 hours a day he may temporarily emerge for business. Shane will have had a shout, so to try to impress, Joey will come out in daylight with a note book, that looks like the dug up dead sea scrolls and which you know will be left with the previous 400 versions of the same thing, in the back of the next taxi he rides in, paid for by Shane. (Like Taxi from Finsbury Park to Glasgow ..it is true). Most of the time he does not know where he is, so how the fuck can he know where Shane is supposed to be or keep his little ‘team’ informed. He can’t actually work a PC, only a video player, so how can he do e-mail or go on line. There is only one meaning of ‘on line’ in Joey’s world. As for an artiste career strategy, he is as likely to achieve that as brain surgery.
‘Oh no’ you say. This cannot be true but it is. This accurate little scenario (trust me) is why Ingred gets duff information if she gets any at all. That is why she is so right to pull the gigs from the site. Just who are Nigel and Liz trying to kid. It is so unfunny. They will do anything to hang on to their nice little income source and keep Shane on the treadmill. Career plan I don’t think so.
Shane is a real and very special talent. He needs true professional help in all departments of his life, provided by people whom he can really trust and who care about him. He needs to be in an environment that is creatively conducive, secure in the knowledge that in future he will actually receive the full financial rewards from his endeavours.
Right now he is being poisoned with lies and deceptions and is being robbed blind by a third rate team of losers and wankers. Attempts by professionals in the back ground, like respected accountants, or situations like HFC, that might provide a new creative stimulus are dissed, scuppered and sabotaged by Joey and his crew. Anything new and tight would threaten their little game. Shane is constantly fed with lies so he believes Joey when he tells him that this person or that is stealing the money. Like a rabbit caught in the headlights, he stays where he is, afraid to know where to turn. Joey even sleeps in the same cess pit room as Shane so he can intercept all calls from anybody decent trying to help Shane.
If you really care about Shane or the legend of the Pogues, support Ingred, Shane’s family and his close friends now, in their efforts to stop this rot before it really does end in tragedy. Fans posting support for Joey, stop being so naive. Just check the facts and realise what is going on. Shane needs all our encouragement and support and a clean sweep of the Cashman regime, so once again he can create great music and perform at great shows for us all. Shane needs to wake up and fuck them all out of it. Then he can find a new support team of professionals to help him get back up there where he belongs as a creative Irish legend.
S Niall