The Pogues: Videos and stories

THE POGUES & SHANE MACGOWAN Videos & Stories
Click on a song title (or just scroll down) to read the background stories for the video.
Waxies Dargle Streams Of Whiskey A Pair Of Brown Eyes If I Should Fall From Grace With God	Fairytale Of New York Fiesta White City Misty Morning, Albert Bridge	Tuesday Morning Miss Otis Regrets / One Of Those Things That Woman’s Got Me Drinking

Waxies Dargle It was in a similar haphazard fashion that they recorded a video for 'Waxies Dargle'. Shot in Camden's Irish Centre, it featured Darryl Hunt on drums and - since Jem was also on holiday - a behatted impostor on banjo. All the same, the result was gloriously hellbent. The focus fell on the crazed Caitlin and Spider's terminal masochism: he bashed his forehead with a beer tray four times in each verse, 32 times per song and, after nine takes, had inflicted a total of 288 blows on the Stacy bonce. (from The Lost Decade by Ann Scanlon) Streams Of Whiskey The band decided to forget about recording contracts and make a cut-price video instead. It was to be a promotional reel for their demo of 'Streams Of Whiskey' (which they had recorded at Justin and Vicki Wards, the previous summer), and even though it wasn't of a good enough quality to be released as a single, everyone agreed that a video would be a good crack. The technology was supplied by Richard Elgard - also known as Video Rick - who was keen to capture The Pogues on film, and could shoot it for around 60 GBP, considerably less than one per cent of the average video budget. The initial location was Hillview tenements, around their King's Cross home, and the opening sequence saw the band emerging from corporation dustbins. It continued with some appalling break-dancing from James; Spider battering his head against a brick wall and a spritely step-dance from Cait. It also featured Shane and Jem, stripped to their underpants, sitting in deckchairs on the drained Led of the Camden Canal. "It was basically pisstakes of lots of other videos," says Jem. "The canal scene is a pisstake of Wham! in Club Tropicana, where they sit by the pool drinking champagne. It was the coldest day of the year, and Shane and I sat on the canal bed - with no clothes on - surrounded by broken bottles, rusty prams and sludge and drank cider from champagne glasses." The video came to a grand finale when The Pogues hired the back-room of The Pindar Of Wakefield and - after packing the place with friends - tipped over a huge table of drinks, to send streams of beer and whiskey flying. Simultaneously, Stan Brennan offered to put up the money for a Pogue Mahone single. It was subsequently agreed that Brennan - the man behind The Nips' recordings - would issue the single as a one-off on Rocks Off, until he could find a licensing deal. (from The Lost Decade by Ann Scanlon) Siobhan MacGowan (Shane's sister): Yes, the Streams of Whiskey video was done in London on quite a cold day by the canal! And if you look carefully, you will see the two spikey black-haired punky-type girls dancing around are myself and Cait! Much, much younger... (from Shanemacgowan.com forum) James Fearnley [about his break dance movements]: It's me and a guy from Nottingham (I think - a mate of Darryl's) called Dave Sketchley. Just thought I'd mention that. And mention the fact that it was seriously damn cold and the rest of bottled out of sitting in deckchairs in the serendipitously empty bed of the Regent's Canal and the job fell to the hardiest members of the band. I thought, well, I'd already ruined my suit with the naff breakdancing as my contribution. (from Pogues.com forum) A Pair Of Brown Eyes Back in London - where 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' was enjoying critical fervour and mass cries of 'hit' - The Pogues worked out an accompanying video with Alex Cox and his co-director Martin Turner. The result was not exactly standard Stiff stuff: the elusive brown eyes were seen in a paper bag and on a pool cue before being gobbled by a bull dog. Other shots clipped a dull-brained Costello, complete with chest-expander, and The Pogues causing certain controversy by spitting at a poster of Thatcher. "I'd just seen the film 1984 and been really disappointed by it," says Cox. "There had been so many interesting parallels between Orwell's portrayal and the real 1984 and Thatcher's Britain, but the guys who made that film missed all their opportunities to comment. So 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' gave us the chance to rant and rave about the fact that we are just Airstrip One for the Americans and their B52 bombers and their Cruise missiles, but everyone is so plugged into their television set or their Sony Walkman that they completely miss out on a global perspective." Super Stiff, Dave Robinson persuaded Cox and Turner to shoot an alternative to the spitting sequence and, naturally enough, it was the second version which was deemed suitable. (from The Lost Decade by Ann Scanlon) Philip Chevron: The "live" section was filmed at the Pindar Of Wakefield, Kings Cross, London, now called The Water Rats. It was a venue especially associated with early Pogues. If you look carefully, you can see a couple of Shillelagh Sisters in the live section. (from Pogues.com forum) If I Should Fall From Grace With God Philip Chevron: It was filmed by Peter Dougherty at the Town and Country, London in March 1988, but is not connected in any other way to the Billy Magra film ("Town and Country") made the same week. I seem to remember Peter did some additional filming at a soundcheck. (from Pogues.com forum) Fairytale Of New York Shane, meanwhile, is discussing the band's Christmas single Fairytale Of New York' (a duet with Kirsty MacColl), which is, the singer claims, "A bit like 'Bohemian Rhapsody'... My part is the man who's got kicked out of the drunk tank on Christmas Eve night. His wife's in hospital. she's ill, and he 's just out of his skull. Then they're having a row and he keeps on bringing it on back to the good times and she keeps handing out all the shit. "I haven't got anything in common with the actual part that I'm singing - Yul Brynner isn't really the King Of Siam - except in the sense that I've had arguments with women and it's usually ended up with some kind of reconciliation. That's what the song’s about, but it's in New York and they're old and they're going back to a long time ago when they got there, full of dreams. "The guy is whining, saying. 'Forgive me' and she's saying, 'Puck it, you're a waste of space'. They're both right and they're both wrong. But in the end they start getting sentimental and thinking about this and that, like old people do." (from 'It's a long way from Tipperary', VOX Magazine, 1997, published at Shanemacgowan.com) Shane MacGowan: He [Matt Dillon] was a cop, and I was meant to be a drunk. And he was meant to push me really hard… (…) He was meant to violently sling me in through the door. And we were using a real police station. Down on the Lower East Side, y’know. (…) A proper nick. A real one. And Charlie was Father Christmas. And he was being nicked, as I got slung into the doors. I don’t even know if he could be seen in the video or not. (…) We were all really out of it, and there was a point when they were going to arrest us all for being drunk, and being under the influence of drugs, know what I mean, so we had to calm it down a bit. But Matt liked me too much to push me through the door, and to give me a kicking on the stairs. I was out of my head, I wasn’t going to feel anything, he could’ve given me a really good kicking and I would’ve just laughed. He could’ve kicked me down the stairs and I wouldn’t have given a shit. It was freezing outside. And we had to keep waiting outside till they shouted action and we sould do the scene. And I said to Matt, ‘Look, Matt, for God’s sake, really lay into me! Don’t worry about it. You’re not gonna hurt me. Don’t worry about it.’ But he was going, ‘But I like you, Shane. And I dig your shit so much. I love you, I love your shit. I can’t do it to you.’ And I was trying to persuade this actor to act. You know what I mean… to do it! To fucking push me into the doors violently, and drag me up the stairs, and kick me, y’know, in the middle of the stairs, and then throw me into a cell. Because he could’t bring himself to do it, it took us eight takes to get a perfectly simple scene. And Peter Doherty was going mad, he was going, ‘For God’s sake, Matt, will you hit the guy! (from A Drink With Shane MacGowan by Victoria Mary Clarke) James Fearnley: I knew that putting on Shane's rings and wearing his jacket for the video of FairyTale, so it would look like Shane played the piano on the song, might come and bite me on the arse, if this is being bitten on the arse, not really. Shane can play the piano, sort of, but in a style that might best be described as - well - childlike, you know, as in 'childlike wonder' - not intended to be pejorative in any way. But those are my fingers at the piano on the video. Payrolled facilitators at the time had the idea that it would look better if it appeared that Shane was playing the piano. Didn't want to do it at the time, myself, but there you go. I've done a few things in my lfe I didn't really want to do. It's good for the soul. But I'm from Manchester. (from Pogues.com forum) Philip Chevron: "There IS no NYPD Choir, as we discovered when we made the promo video. Just a band of NYPD pipers who can sing the MICKEY MOUSE CLUB song. But it was reasonable of Shane to suppose there WAS a NYPD Choir full of glorious John MacCormack/Ronan Tynan/Frank Patterson manqués. He's sentimental that way. That [Mickey Mouse Club song] IS what they're singing when you see them on screen. Not enough of them knew enough of "Galway Bay" to take a chance. Actually, I only found this out myself when I watched the The Story Of "Fairytale Of New York" film the BBC made last year. They went back to all the original sources. Including the NYPD Choir. Who are really the NYPD Pipe band. Who play (Scottish) bagpipes and dress in traditional (Scottish) kilts. And don't know the words of "Galway Bay". (from Pogues.com forum) Philip Chevron: I'm not in the FoNY promo film because I was, at the time, in University College Hospital London as an in-patient. The film was made in New York in November 1987 during a Pogues US tour: that was the tour for which Joe Strummer stood in as guitarist with about five minutes notice and three minutes tuition from me. (from Pogues.com forum) About performing Fairytale at The Top of the Pops: Philip Chevron: On "Fairytale", Shane is obviously miming/chewing gum, whereas Kirsty is miming quite plausibly to her re-recorded vocal (with the arse/ass change). (from Pogues.com forum) Fiesta Philip Chevron [about his outfit]: I play Max Miller (in full motley) in the first half and "the King Of America" in the slightly more prosaic second half. (from Pogues.com forum) Philip Chevron: The final shot of the "Fiesta" video, in which a glass of red wine falls on the ground, breaking the glass and spilling wine everywhere, was banned in most TV territories (and MTV) for being too "violent". (from Pogues.com forum) White City James Fearnley: The White City video was filmed, if I remember rightly, at an outdoor festival on Pier Number Something in New York City, or around the time we played the outdoor festival, something like that. The trouble with accordions was that, is that the on-stage sound goes into the mikes and we though it'd be a good idea to try and insulate it - hence all the gaffa tape. (from Pogues.com forum) Philip Chevron: It's art, man, art I tell you. So I'm not the one to ask. Peter Dougherty, who also made "Fairytale Of New York", "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" and "Misty Morning Albert Bridge" filmed this one on one of the outdoor Piers on Manhattan. I don't really remember much about it, but I think I may be right in saying that Peter used the Cinematographer from the Woodstock movie, which is maybe where the art comes in. It is an elegant video. No nonsense. (from Pogues.com forum) Philip Chevron: White City was shot at a Pier on the New York docks. We did do a gig there but the footage was shot especially for the video, in natural (day)light. (from Pogues.com forum) User with the nickname "Behan": Pier 84 I'm fairly sure, right next to the Intrepid. That was the concert which featured, along with the Pogues, Violent Femmes and Mojo Nixon on a hot summer evening around 1989 or 1990. (from Pogues.com forum) Misty Morning, Albert Bridge Philip Chevron: Misty Morning was filmed at the Electric Ballroom in London. (from Pogues.com forum) Tuesday Morning Philip Chevron: We were seriously losing interest in making promos by that stage. In fact, we were seriously losing interest in anything that was not an actual gig, as witness the David Letterman show in early 1994 in which "The Pogues" consisted of Spider Stacy and my then guitar tech Paul "not the U2 manager" McGuinness. It was pretty rough by then, though in fairness, Spider did not quite lose his keenness for another couple of years, old soldier that he is. (from Pogues.com forum) Spider Stacy: Fact is that Tuesday Morning was a suprise chart entry and, as the band had all gone on their holidays Warners cobbled together that video with me and Terry for Top of the Pops. Letterman fell in the same month so me and Paul did it. No big deal. (from Pogues.com forum) Miss Otis Regrets / One Of Those Things Philip Chevron: As I recall, Neil Jordan asked for 3 days to shoot this film, which we could not spare as we were on a UK tour. As Shane indicates, we had to drive down to Hackney after a Liverpool show. Anyway, the discrepancy between what Neil wanted and what we were able to give him caused tension right from the start. That said, and given that ALL the Pogues (and La Kirsty) hated making videos, this was one of the least unpleasant experiences. At least Jordan did not have the threat of being pushed off a Gaudi apartment block in Barcelona hanging over him, unlike poor Ade Edmondson [director of Fiesta video]. (from Pogues.com forum) Shane MacGowan: The first time I ever met him [Neil Jordan] was when he was doing a video for us and Kirsty McColl. He had ordered these costumes and I didn't like them, particularly didn't like my own one and somebody said to me, 'This is Neil Jordan and you must respect him' and I went up to him and said, 'Oh, Neil Jordan, so you're the wanker who fucking decided to dress me up in this costume' and he got taken aback by that and said yes he was and I said I thought it was full of shit and what's more I told him I'd stayed up all night especially to look like I was dead, because according to the storyline I'm dead and that there should've been a bullethole in the middle of my head and I wanted to put a bullethole in the middle of my head and he said that we couldn't afford to put a bullethole in the middle of my head, the BBC wouldn't like it and I said, 'Fuck the BBC! What kind of director are you?' and I'd had a particularly hard night deliberately to look as much like a corpse as possible. I walked into make-up and said, 'Bullethole in the middle of the head please!' and that's when Neil came in and vetoed it... (from A Drink With Shane MacGowan by Victoria Mary Clarke) 'Heroes and Vaudevillians', a longer article about shooting the video, with quotes by the band members and with photos, can be found at Kirsty MacColl website. That Woman’s Got Me Drinking Shane MacGowan [28th September 1994]: At midnight, we had to go to Elephant & Castle to reshoot the video for 'That Woman's Got Me Drinking' because there was smoking and drinking in the first one, the one that Johnny directed and starred in. In it, I was a barman and he was a drunk, so it would have been fairly unrealistic to make the video without any smoking or drinking in it. Some people won't broadcast a video with drinking and smoking in it before 10pm. The new video is just the band miming to the record in a warehouse. All we did was mime to the record two or three times and we've got a perfectly good video. It took about an hour, which seems short. but then it's not a very long record. It's good in a way, we've got two proper pop videos for the record, even though one of them took a day to do and cost thousands and the other one took an hour and cost a lot less. Two videos, the one they'll show before 10 and the one they'll show after 10. ('I've always been a Johnnie Walker Fan' article, Q magazine, published at Shanemacgowan.com)
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