The Pogues - Poguetry In Motion

I saw these guys just last week. Shane looks terrible, but he keeps plugging along. He actually looked and sounded better than he did on last years' annual mid-March trip through Boston. And he didn't wander around the stage with a whisky bottle even once this time.

It's a strange show to see in Boston. As my wife said, "There's not a lot of diversity in the room here. And your shiny bald head doesn't stand out like it normally does." It really is a room full of pasty white guys from their 20's to their 40's who identify themselves as Irish in some way.

I'm amazed at how The Pogues have been passed along to a younger generation. They're not exactly getting any airplay, and they don't have any real recent material to speak of except an anthology of stuff they did in the 80's and 90's, so someone is handing their copies of Rum, Sodomy & The Lash off to their younger brothers, cousins, and maybe even sons. There was a guy in his early 20's in a Celtics jacket shouting along to every word of every song. How did that happen?

They played the first three tracks off of this EP, which I thought was interesting, because I think it's a fairly obscure album by them.

A: London Girl, A Rainy Night In Soho
B: The Body Of An American, Planxty Noel Hill
Enjoy!

Single #1, Egg Hunt - Me And You

After some technical difficulties and some delays, I've started ripping vinyl to digital format. I figured the easiest and most interesting way to share this was via a blog with a download link. Hopefully, this will work...

Anyway, this single, Egg Hunt. It's an Ian MacKaye side project with another Minor Threat guy, Jeff Nelson. This was recorded in the mid-80's, after the end of Minor Threat and Embrace. A definite change from both of those bands, this hints at what's to come with Fugazi. Slower and more melodic than anything Minor Threat ever did. The B-side, "We All Fall Down" is apparently a reject Embrace tune. It's perfectly fine, fits in that sort of preachy Ian MacKaye thing, but it's not nearly as good as side A.

So, why did I buy this? I was at UMass in 1990-1991 or so, hanging out with a friend of a friend who was DJing at WMUA at ludicrous hours. 2 AM shift, that kind of thing. Being the insomniac that I am, I volunteered to hang out in the studio with him, just to keep the boredom to a minimum, and to keep him from falling asleep on the console. I'd rifle through the stacks, and we'd chat about music. An actual 2 AM conversation- "Hey, did you hear that Nirvana signed with Geffen for $750K? What's that all about?"

Me And You was the first thing he played on his first show, I guess at some attempt to commune with his nearly non-existent audience. I guess I figured I'd follow suit. I was (am) a huge fan of Fugazi and Minor Threat, but had never heard this, and immediately scraped together the $3 to buy it.

A: Me And You
B: We All Fall Down


Enjoy!