Pogues

Once again it's punk that calls the shots, certainly not in terms of melodies or instrumentation, but in attitude and spirit, bringing back into our homes and our ears a genre that seemed by then lost in the slightly boring, professorial haze of clubs for the select few, more concerned with form than with the spirit of the songs: folk music. The Pogues came together at the start of the '80s (as Pogue Ma Hone, which in Gaelic means roughly "kiss my arse" and would be shortened once the band signed to Stiff) on the initiative of Shane MacGowan, a cantankerous, rebellious character, ugly as sin (there's no photo of him showing off a full smile with all his teeth), who after various failed stints in punk bands during the Seventies (the kind that release one single, play a few gigs, and vanish), and driven by the sheer need to make a living, pay for his whiskey, some food and, if there was anything left over, the odd illegal substance, decided to put together a band capable of at least playing pubs, in front of an audience just as indifferent to form and as focused on substance as punk crowds were, but bigger and more welcoming than what he'd had before.

After a training period in London pubs and busking on the streets across the whole of the UK (with the odd trip to France thrown in), MacGowan and his cohorts (Jem Finer on banjo and Spider Stacey on tin whistle, later joined by drummer Andrew Ranken and multi-instrumentalist James Fearnley), encouraged by the audience's response to their recipe blending country, rockabilly, ska and reggae filtered through a folk revival lens, decided to give musical professionalism another shot, recruiting bassist Cait O'Riordan for the purpose.

"Rum Sodomy & The Lash" is their second record, the one marking their artistic maturity. Having already shown with their debut "Red Roses For Me" (1984) that they could handle folk material well beyond simply reviving the classics, injecting them with punk attitude and fresh vitality, with this second effort The Pogues found, through their sound - a skilful mix of acoustic instrumentation and frenzied, booze-soaked rhythms (steered by an inspired Elvis Costello in the producer's chair, and helped along by the addition of veteran Philip Chevron to the line-up) - and through MacGowan's songwriting, the formula for their definitive consecration among the greats of folk music (I dare anyone to tell which of "The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn" and "I'm A Man You Don't Meet Everyday" is the traditional and which was written for the occasion), giving voice to that mass of "beautiful losers" whom, before him, only Tom Waits searching for the heart of Saturday night and Springsteen thrashing about in the darkness on the edge of town had managed to make protagonists within a more properly pop-rock context.

"Sally MacLennane" and "A Pair Of Brown Eyes" update that everyday epic that we all need in order to live, if only to exorcise our demons, or better still, to celebrate our daily struggle with life (just like Mr. Waits' Christmas cards from the whores of Minneapolis), a dimension that the electric and electronic soundwave dominant at the time had effectively eclipsed.

If to the originals written by MacGowan you add a series of perfectly fitting traditionals and covers such as Ewan McColl's "Dirty Old Town" (regarded by some as one of the finest folk songs of the second half of the last century) or Eric Bogle's "Waltzing Matilda", revisited here in a wonderful version with a superb performance by MacGowan that brings back to life all the desolation and anguish of those Australian boys sent to the slaughter during the First World War, add the danceable joy of the instrumentals dotted throughout the record ("Wild Cats Of Kilkenny" above all) or "A Pistol For Paddy Garcia", which shows how well the band could absorb even "foreign" elements like country or American folk into their recipe, and you get an almost perfect record, one that balances past and present, keeps its roots firmly planted in its own history, and knows how to spread its wings above stylistic contingencies to become a classic.

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06/11/2006