Missed Masterpieces: The Pogues

If you want to have some FUN, find yourself an Irish bar—Boston and New York City are best, but they’re everywhere. Get a tall glass of Guinness (with that creamy head) and a few shots of Bushmills, Jameson or Tullamore Dew. Take a few shots and chases, sit back as long as your ass will allow you, and take in the music. A fun night is all but guaranteed.

It was 10 degrees when the New Year’s Eve Jewel concert ended. My little sister and cousin were just looking for a place not to freeze to death. They hit the first pub they could find, a place called Flanagan’s. The doorman with an Irish accent happily welcomed them, and told them an Irish-punk band was playing in the basement, and the girls (women now—so hard to get used to that fact) were game (and frozen). They instantly made friends in the elbows-to-assholes venue.

The band used unusual instruments including the electric violin and the ever popular punk instrument the accordion, and they not only blew my girls off their stools, but also came to meet them after the show.

Friendly acceptance, great, passionate music and a great club are why most all of us are into music in the first place. Now, my sister didn’t tell me this, but I’ll bet by the end of the night, Jewel was a distant memory. She’d slunk back to the cover of her latest DVD, where she belongs.

If you want instant fun, go Irish-punk. If you want to remember the experience, you have to do it with The Pogues.

Elvis Costello, this album’s producer, said “This album captures all the sweat, fire, and angry joy that was lost on so many other albums in that thin, disembodied crap of most other similar bands, when recorded in studio.”

Slainte!