lavabe wrote:i think there is truth in all of it. of course the band had influences such as country, ska, rock´n´roll ect....but what they are famous for is the mixture between irish folk and punk...because it was new at that time....i think that´s a fact we don´t have to discuss about. when you hear "red roses..." then it´s absolutlely clear. the change in the late 80s early 90s is another part of the story in my opinion.
It's not really an issue, and I don't especially want to make it one, but the Pogues were a fully-fledged and realised band about two whole
years before they made their debut album. When I say that there were more eclectic influences in the earliest days, and that the Velvet Underground, Country and Rockabilly were strong aspects of what the band did, I say so because I was
there. Me and 30 to 50 other people, in the Bull & Gate, the 100 Club, the Sir George Robey, the Diorama, the Pindar of Wakefield and Dingwalls.
Naturally, the "Irish" aspect quickly became the Unique Selling Point as the band began to attract attention, not least from the smug, smacked-out coterie that was the Music Press in the early '80s, because that fitted most neatly with the "drunken paddy" stereotype they were quick to foist upon the band and it's easier to be a lazy journalist than a thoughtful one when you have numerous deadlines approaching and your drug-dealer's left town. After some consideration, I have elected to defend my position on this, not just because of dsweeney's insufferable "earlier than thou" posturing [and I realise the "early days" of the Pogues are a moveable feast, but
not if your first Pogues gig was in 1982] but because I realised that this misunderstanding, widespread though it undoubtedly is, remains the source of a number of misapprehensions about The Pogues, but let's just zone in on one.
When people like Jem Finer protest, as they have done for 30 years, that the Pogues are not "an Irish band", they are not just semantically noting geographical and demographical facts, but stating a position that has held since Day One: that the Pogues are a bunch of people whose musical influences and interests are multiple and various, and it is
this, rather than an intimate knowledge of
O'Neill's Music Of Ireland , that gives the music of the Pogues its power, its passion and its distinction: it is obviously a music made by people of musical erudition who have found, or rediscovered if you prefer, that "Irish" music is uniquely equipped to provide the most direct route to the feet and the heart; but after all this time, when our music has become part of rock's musical vocabulary in its own right and has spawned hordes of imitators, it's easy to forget how comparatively
little Irish music there has always been in the Pogues stew. And songs like "Haunted", "Ghost of a Smile" and "Lorelei", to name but three, are much closer cousins of Lou Reed than they are of Turlough O'Carolan [peace be upon him].
And finally, if you actually take the trouble to heed Shane on this subject over the years, you'll find he's saying exactly the same thing. Unlike Jem, Shane and some of the others, including myself, have tended to take the path of least resistance when discussing this in interviews and so on, partly because it's not what a journalist wants to hear when he's already framed his story in his head, but also because we more readily accept that what people really mean when they call us an "Irish band" is that the Pogues music has a Carnival aspect (in that it has a transgressive, libertine streak that people tend to associate with Irishness in, I suppose, a
positive sense) that is best enjoyed at face value than analysed too deeply. Nevertheless, academics have filled many chapters of weighty cultural tomes analysing the Carnivalesque Pogues, and most of these books are readily available to anyone who is genuinely interested.
Fri Oct 15, 2010 2:23 pm
