I first encountered The Pogues, you guessed it, in a bar. Here’s the scene and time: My early twenties, The Three Needs Taproom, Burlington, VT. It was winter, and their most famous song came on called, “Fairytale of New York.” My buddy, Donny, sang along to it…”It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank, the old man said to me, won’t see another one…” I asked him what the hell it was.

“Dude! This is The Pogues!”

“Ok?”

“Shane MacGowan! Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash! Dirty Old Town! A Pair of Brown Eyes!”

“None of it rings a bell.”

“You gotta check ’em out.”

So I did. I was severely into Tom Waits at the time and having discovered yet another gravely voiced, brilliant songwriting bard hell bent on his own destruction, this one from Ireland, was perfect. I had been interested in the history of the country enough to take a bunch of courses at the University of Vermont and being a budding writer, was obsessed with James Joyce. I ended up in Ireland the day after George Bush bombed Iraq, on St. Patty’s Day. 6 a.m. walking the foggy, cobblestoned streets of Dublin with a backpack and without much of a clue…Or a hotel reservation…And ended up in a hostel costing eight Euro a night and sharing a room with seven Bosnian refuges who never left but just sat and smoked cigarettes.

The nine day trip culminated in a pilgrimage to the Aran Islands, which I had learned about in school, and spending a few days in Galway, on the west coast. A town that closely resembled my hometown of Burlington, VT. I ended up getting drunk with an Italian dude, the frontman of a Pearl Jam cover band and a doctor from the states and singing some Pogues songs, most notably “Dirty Old Town” on the street with a homeless guitarist.

Much later in life, after moving to Queens, NY, I noticed Shane MacGowan’s face in pictures alongside the owner, on the walls of almost every Irish bar in Queens. He was that legendary a drinker. It became a bit of a joke after awhile. I’d walk into some Irish dive and go look at the wall and there he’d be, arm around the proprietor or the bartender.

I saw the Pogues once, on St. Patty’s Day in New York at the Hammerstein Ballroom in 2006 (as far as I can remember). It may have been later. Anyway, before they came out, the room went totally black and “Straight to Hell” by The Clash came on about as deafening as I’ve ever heard anything and then…Yes, The Pogues with Shane. He had been excommunicated from the band several times and his health was bad even back then. It was rumored they hired a guy to parcel out Irish whiskey to him in order to keep Shane just drunk enough, but not too drunk, so he could perform. He was the type that needed alcohol in his system in order to live. The show was unreal. Shane really went for it. He sang a couple of songs and would disappear and then come back for a few more.

As the years went by, I still listened to The Pogues on occasion, especially around the holidays. I’d listen to “Fairytale of New York” and then get sucked in and listen to the rest. Funny, the day before Shane died, the tune, “Summer in Siam” came on in my car (shuffle). A real cheesy but great tune. A later album from 1990 (right before Shane got kicked out of the band the first time) entitled Hell’s Ditch. Not their best, but good enough.

On Disk 2 of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ B-Sides and Rarities, the first two songs are duets with Shane and the third is just all Shane, a great tune showcasing his voice called “Lucy (Version 2).” It’s worth a listen.

Yeah, another haunted man who became a great artist. Cliche. Yes. But that’s sometimes how it goes.

Here’s the obit from the New York Times: