Music: Eight Lads Putting on Airs

• Share

(2 of 2)

The Pogues are not a postmodern incarnation of the Clancy Brothers, however. Only half of them are Irish (MacGowan, 31, was born in Ireland but moved to ! London when he was six), and it quickly became apparent back in the formative days that working up a repertoire of Irish music exclusively, even punked and pulverized, was a dead end. "It was patronizing," says Stacy simply. So instead of the raw Irish musical tradition itself, the band took the spirit of the tradition, which Stacy compares convincingly with rhythm and blues and reggae.

Rooted in Ireland (where only Woods and guitarist Philip Chevron live) but centered in London, where they are an enduring force in a music scene that changes with tidal regularity, the band members still live close by one another, most of them in the same working-class neighborhoods where they grew up. "We are not the sort of people," says MacGowan, "who like to be snotty bastards, out in space." They just finished playing a few dates in the States, to get Peace and Love off to a strong start, and will return next month for a lengthier series of concerts, both opening for Bob Dylan and performing on their own.

The Pogues are doing well enough, and remain enterprising enough, to explore some unlikely avenues of musical inspiration. "There are eight really strong personalities in the band," MacGowan comments. "Everybody writes." Jem Finer, who plays banjo, sax and hurdy-gurdy and who pulled the Pogues together in the early days, has written, with the aid of a "very old Italian phrase book," an aria. "We've rehearsed it," he reveals, "but it wasn't recorded for the album. Various factions thought it was pushing things a bit far. But opera is one of our secret desires." Unlike British soldiers on a pub crawl, opera fans have been known to throw objects somewhat heftier than chits. But after nearly a decade, the Pogues still dote on stirring things up. The best rock comes right from the firing line, and the very best from bands, like the Pogues, that keep on shooting back.