The Flightpath Estate At The Social

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This was last Saturday night at The Social where Acid House Chancers hosted a tribute to Andrew Weatherall on what would have been his 63rd birthday with a line up spread across the venue's two floors. 

The Flightpath Estate had been asked to play a few months ago and the prospect of playing The Social was pretty exciting. The Social is on Little Portland Street, just north of Oxford Street and a stone's throw from Soho. Dan and Martin couldn't make it and Mark was also playing as Rude Audio, so me and Baz travelled south to represent on the decks. We were on downstairs, a club space with a dancefloor, DJ booth and bar area. When I arrived there were already a good number of people downstairs, Stuart D. Alexander at the decks and Jenny Leamon taking over from 5.15 pm. Jenny had a crowd up and dancing before 6 pm, something that caused me some pre- gig nerves with visions of clearing the floor, playing the wrong tunes and various technical mistakes all running through my mind. 

I shouldn't have worried. I got the obligatory minor technical fuck up out of the way early on and then we were off and in a groove. As the room filled up the energy levels kept rising, more people arrived to dance with some familiar faces from gigs at The Golden Lion, and it was a total blast- one of those times when you're completely caught in the moment and wish you could revisit, soak up and enjoy. It just flew by. 

                                             

This was the scene looking out from the booth- red lights, dry ice, a blur of dancers... the most mayhem we've ever caused on a dancefloor. Alex Knight, formerly of Sabresonic and Fat Cat records and the Sabres Of Paradise tour DJ, took over from us, playing a seamless set with some Weatherall and Sabres inspired mid- 90s techno. 

Our set wasn't recorded but I've recreated it since and it's available to download below or you can find it at The Flightpath Estate's Mixcloud is you prefer to stream. What a night we had. 

The Flightpath Estate At The Social

• The Light Brigade: Shuffle The Deck
• SOP: Ysaebud (From The Vaults)
• Bim Sherman: World Dub
• The Clash: Ghetto Defendant
• Coyote ft Daniel Gidlund: Butterflies
• Paul Weller: Kosmos (Lynch Mob Bonus Beats)
• New Order: Your Silent Face
• Doves: Kingdom Of Rust (Prins Thomas Diskomiks)
• Mark Lanegan: Ode To Sad Disco
• Le Carousel: We're All Gonna Hurt
• Unloved: Turn Of The Screw
• Fontaines DC: A Hero's Death (Soulwax Remix)
• Bedford Falls Players: Fool's Gold- en
• The Pogues: A Rainy Night In Soho

The Light Brigade is David Holmes and guests/ collaborators. On Shuffle The Deck it's former Swordsman Keith Tenniswood and a floor shaking, civil rights leader sampling tune, opening with a rousing speech- 'It's time for a new course, a new coalition, a new leadership... somebody gotta rise above race, rise about sex... Don't cry 'bout what you don't have, use what ya got... Our time has come!', and after several minutes of bass- led oompty boompty finishing with Andrew's musings on acid house as gnostic ceremony, music, coloured lights and smoke.

SOP was Sabres Of Paradise, a one off, one sided 7" single from 1996 with a righteous vocal sample from Count Ossie and Mystic Revelation Of Rastafari- 'Ever since I was a youth/ I've always been searching for the truth'. 

Bim Sherman and Adrian Sherwood's Ghetto Dub album came out in 1988 and due to all kinds of legal complications over the late Bim Sherman's back catalogue has remained out of print. A German label have unlocked some of the problems and re- pressing of Ghetto Dub is out shortly on Week- End Records. 

Ghetto Defendant is from Combat Rock, The Clash and Allen Ginsburg rocking out in dub reggae style, Strummer lamenting the drug addiction and heroin pity that prevents civil resistance'. Paul Simonon's bassline and Topper's drum keep the song grounded in reggae/ dub groove. A late Clash classic. 

Coyote's Butterflies is a moment of Balearic calm, from a forthcoming 12" with vocals by Daniel Gidlund. Last Saturday night it slowed things down a little and gave the dancers a breather.  

Playing at The Social was a big deal. In the 90s I'd read about the first Heavenly Social nights at The Albany pub, accounts in the music press of exhilarating music and wanton debauchery, Weatherall, The Chemical Brothers, Tim Burgess, the Heavenly and Creation crews, a cast of thousands. One of those accounts was of people flipping out to Andrew playing Brendan Lynch's version of Paul Weller's Kosmos, a dub/ trip hop/ jazz noise fest that scrambled minds as it squawked and ricocheted on a Sunday evening. I'd been to The Social on Little Portland Street before but only as a punter so to actually take to the decks was a big moment. Playing Kosmos was a nod to all of that. 

New Order's Your Silent Face is one of the great New Order songs and therefore one of the great songs. It provoked a few moments of emotion on Saturday night, Hooky's bass, those one finger keyboard notes and everyone waiting for Bernard's kiss off last line 'So why don't you piss off'. It was released in 1983 on Power, Corruption And Lies and is one of those New Order songs that really should have been a single, had New Order in the 80s operated along the lines other less obtuse bands at more conventional record companies did. 

Doves' Kingdom Of Rust remixed by Scandi- disco legend Prins Thomas is one of those tunes that always gets people asking what it is (or Shazaming it on their phones). A hypnotic, locked in groove, bass and drums circling, guitars picking out little melody lines and then sweeping strings joining in with Jimi's vocals- glorious Mancunian melancholy. 

Mark Lanegan's Ode To Sad Disco is a New Order- esque song from man usually more associated with grunge and gnarly blues rock. The synths and guitars are heavenly and Mark's imagery is memorable- subterranean eyes, the factory line, a mountain of nails, a white horse that drowned on parade, an Arcadian twist and a hollow headed morning all stand out. The 'mountain of nails' mentioned in the second verse links rather nicely to the 'kingdom of rust' and 'ocean of trust' in the Doves song too I've just noticed. 

Le Carousel's The Humans Will Destroy Us is already one of 2026's best and most prescient albums and We're All Gonna Hurt is its emotional centre and heartbeat, a Giorgio Morodor via Belfast acid house banger, dance music that is up and happy but sad and broken. 'Sooner or later/ We're all gonna hurt'.

Unloved's Turn Of The Screw came out on 2022's The Pink Album, David Holmes' beat group joined by Raven Violet for a 1960s in the 2020s song with a philosophy and attitude to admire. 

A Hero's Death was from Fontaines DC's second album and was remixed by Soulwax in 2021, the clanging guitars replaced by stripped back Balearic dance- cowbell and bass- with Grian Chatten's Dublin street poetry riding on top. 

Fools Gold- en is by Berkshire's Bedford Falls Players, a crowd pleasing mashing together of The Stone Roses and Rockers Revenge that hits all the spots and really gathers pace in its last few minutes, the bass and drums tumbling and thumping, a looped Reni and Mani doubling and powering on. 

Finishing our set with A Rainy Night In Soho, just a few hundred yards north of Soho, felt right. A Rainy Night In Soho is from the 1986 Poguetry In Motion EP, one of Shane MacGowan's most loved songs that ends with one of his best verses- 'Now the song is nearly over/ We may never find out what it means/ Still there's a light I hold before me/ You're the measure of my dreams/ The measure of my dreams'. 

The Last Time I Saw You Was Down At The Greeks

A few weeks ago I came across the lyrics to The Broad Majestic Shannon, a Pogues song that is absolutely one of their finest songs and one of Shane's greatest lyrics. Looking at the words on my screen it occurred to me that they work perfectly as just the words, a poem. 

The last time I saw you was down at the Greeks
There was whiskey on Sunday and tears on our cheeks
You sang me a song that was pure as the breeze
On a road leading up Glenaveigh

I sat for a while at the cross at Finnoe
Where young lovers would meet when the flowers were in bloom
Heard the men coming home from the fair at Shinrone
Their hearts in Tipperary wherever they go

Take my hand and dry your tears, babe
Take my hand, forget your fears, babe
There's no pain, there's no more sorrow
They're all gone, gone in the years, babe

I sat for a while by the gap in the wall
Found a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball
Heard the cards being dealt and the rosary called
And a fiddle playing "Sean Dun Na Ngall"

And the next time I see you we'll be down at the Greeks
There'll be whiskey on Sunday and tears on our cheeks
For it's stupid to laugh and it's useless to bawl
'Bout a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball

Take my hand and dry your tears, babe
Take my hand, forget your fears, babe
There's no pain, there's no more sorrow
They're all gone, gone in the years, babe

So I walked as the day was dawning
Where small birds sang and leaves were falling
Where we once watched the row boats landing
By the broad majestic Shannon

Every line Shane writes in The Broad Majestic Shannon, every image he paints, can be seen and felt. That's how it seems to me, written down. The Pogues matched Shane's words with a glorious, swooning, lilting tune and performance.

The Broad Majestic Shannon

It took a while to suss out the penultimate line. I couldn't understand why after all these scenes Shane depicts so vividly, flashes of life from his childhood and teens, the tears and optimism of the chorus, and the new day of the last chorus, why Shane was watching robots landing. It made no sense. Was this a War Of The Worlds thing? Why were robots crossing Ireland's longest river? Back in the early 90s, having mentioned this to a friend, I got a postcard from him while he was on holiday in Ireland. He wrote an update of his adventures and places he'd been. The P.S. at the very bottom of the postcard read just this- 'it's row boats, not robots'. 

Not long after I saw the lyrics in front of me on my screen and had these thoughts, news of the death of Pogues drummer Andrew Ranken aged 72 appeared on my screen too. RIP Andrew. 

Soundtrack Saturday

Alex Cox's 1986 film Sid And Nancy tells the story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, the doomed punk rock couple who destroyed themselves and each other. The two leads, Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, do their best as the couple and manage to portray a relatively touching love story in the middle of all the noise and chaos of the Sex Pistols. John Lydon was hugely critical of the film and of Cox, its portrayal of the junkie lifestyle and of Johnny Rotten. Others agreed, saying it was wildly inaccurate and filled with artistic licence regarding the death of Nancy. 

It's a film which split opinion on release and ever since- some see it as a welcome corrective to punk nostalgia, 'abrasive, bratty and antisocial'. It's definitely compelling, not to mention wretched, squalid and off- putting. In 2016 Alex Cox said he was proud of aspects of it but the ending was too 'touchy- feely' and that he was more sympathetic to Lydon's point of view than he ever had been before. 

Alex Cox became aware of the contradictions of the film. He said the happy ending was 'sentimental and dishonest', and that they were trying to make a film that condemned Sid and Nancy for their decadence, that punk was a positive movement, it was forward looking and 'you can't be those things if you're 'a junkie rock star in a hotel room'. Asked if he was going to remake it how he would change it, Cox said he'd end with Sid 'dying in a pool of his own vomit'. So there you go. 

Let's leave the film and its problems aside and go to the soundtrack. Cox got Joe Strummer on board (something else Lydon was critical of, his dislike of Strummer and The Clash something Lydon can never leave alone). Joe wrote two songs for the film (and more unofficially and uncredited due to his then contract with Epic). Dan Wool of Pray For Rain was heavily involved as were The Pogues. There are no Pistols or Vicious songs on the soundtrack. Joe's film soundtrack work- Walker, Straight To Hell, When Pigs Fly, Permanent Record- began with Sid And Nancy and Love Kills was his first post- Clash release, a single in July 1986 to promote the film with uncredited guitar courtesy of Mick Jones (Joe and Mick had buried the hatchet by this point and made up). Love Kills is a song about junkie lovers, prison and murder.

Love Kills

Also on the soundtrack and the B-side of the 12" single was this Strummer song...

Dum Dum Club

The Pogues contributed Haunted, sung by Cait O'Riordan, a very lovely mid- 80s indie/ punk love song. 

Haunted

Saturday Live/ Shane McGowan RIP

Shane McGowan's death on Thursday at the age of 65 didn't come as a huge surprise. He'd been ill and in intensive care for some time and in some ways its amazing he lived as long as he did, given his lifestyle since being a child, but it's still terribly sad- he was a true one off, a unique voice in modern life, a lyricist who mashed Irish folk songs together with punk and poetry to create some of the most memorable songs of the late 20th century. Through his words Shane covered all bases- he was a poet, a writer who was both a realist and a romantic, a story teller and a protest singer, a truth teller, a mythical singer/ writer who willed himself into action, wouldn't take no for an answer and lived his own way. The riotous Pogues of the mid- 80s, their albums and gigs are the stuff of legend, an antidote to Thatcherite Britain and the generic, safe and overblown music that clogged up radio and TV. 

By 1990 and the Hell's Ditch album, a record produced by Joe Strummer, Shane had largely lost interest in the group which he felt had become too professional and unwilling to take on his burgeoning interest in acid house. His growing love for acid house (and drug consumption to match) led to an album which many felt showed the group were past their best. It does contain several great songs though, including this one, which is one of my favourite Pogues songs (written by Shane on a Casio keyboard apparently). 

Summer In Siam

This hour long film captures The Pogues live at The Town And Country Club in  March 1988, the life affirming power of the band in full flow on St. Patrick's Day. Joe Strummer, Steve Earle, Lynval Golding and Kirsty McColl all show up and join in. The set starts with The Broad Majestic Shannon (a song I once spent ages trying to fathom why Shane's narrator was sitting watching the robots landing on the banks of the famous Irish river. After all the beauty in Shane's words, tales of Ireland and drinking, rusty tin cans and old hurling balls, tears on cheeks and forgetting your fears, the appearance of robots seemed very odd to me. 'Rowboats, Adam, rowboats', a friend pointed out to me- via postcard if I recall correctly). From there on in it's Pogues all the way, London Calling in the middle, a cover of Rudy A Message To You and finishing with The Wild Rover. What more could you want?

There are so many songs that I could be post to demonstrate Shane's gift. Any Best Of... would include A Pair Of Brown Eyes, Sally MacLennane, Dirty Old Town, Streams Of Whisky, Rainy Night In Soho, Fiesta, The Body Of An American, The Broad Majestic Shannon and umpteen others. These two are as good as any of those. Boys From County Hell is from their 1984 debut Red Roses For Me, a raucous tale of drinking boys and how they deal with life and landlords. Haunted, with Cat O'Riordan on co- vocals with Shane, is from the soundtrack to Sid And Nancy in 1986, a gloriously ramshackle mid- 80s love song, a counterpoint to what accounted for love songs in the mainstream in August 1986. 

Boys From County Hell

Haunted

Shane and his post- Pogues band The Popes also did a version of Haunted with Sinead O'Connor singing alongside Shane, released in 1995, their voices sounding rather wonderful together, a more subdued version than the one The Pogues had released.

A lot of people have noted that Shane, Sinead and Kirsty McColl are now united in death, that they'll be 'up there' somewhere, singing together and partying. It's a nice idea. I don't know how Shane McGowan might respond to that suggestion. I can quite believe he'd have had a strong belief in an afterlife and expect to see Sinead and Kirsty once again. I can quite believe too that he might clear his throat, cackle and reply 'pogue mahone'. 

RIP Shane McGowan.

Gone

More sad losses to the world of music this week with the deaths of Olivia Newton John, Lamont Dozier, Darryl Hunt and (slightly outside music) Raymond Briggs. All of them have work that will outlive them. 

Olivia Newton John, forever famous as Sandy in Grease and as such a formative influence on those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s, died age 73. Her earlier career as a singer of country, soft rock and Dylan songs and her 80s success with singles such as Physical made her a part of the pop firmament. 

Lamont Dozier, as part of Motown's in house signwriting team along with Eddie and Brian Holland, wrote more great songs than almost anyone else I can think of. That song you love, that makes you hit the floor when it's played at a wedding or a party, that makes you turn up the radio and sing along- Lamont wrote it. This one, as performed by Martha And The Vandellas, for example...

Heat Wave

Darryl Hunt, bassist in The Pogues, died aged 72. He joined the band in 1986 when Cait O'Riordan left and played on If I Should Fall From Grace With God, Peace And Love and Hell's Ditch while Shane was still in The Pogues and then the post- Shane albums Waiting For Herb and Pogue Mahone. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah was a single in 1988, The Pogues in full on rocking mode. 

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

Raymond Briggs was a writer and illustrator whose books had a massive impact on many of us. His Father Christmas books were brilliant for children in the 70s and 80, depicting Santa as a grumpy and contrary man who had the misfortune to work on Christmas Eve. We read it every year at Christmas. Even more than that though, Briggs wrote and illustrated When The Wind Blows, a horrific tale of nuclear destruction published in 1982, at the height of tension between Reagan's USA and the crumbling Soviet Union. For those of us growing up in the early 80s a nuclear war in Europe seemed like a possibility. Briggs' tale of a couple, Jim and Hilda, attempting to survive a nuclear attack, taking the doors of their hinges to construct an inner refuge shelter and eventually succumbing to radiation sickness, with bleeding gums, vomiting, diarrhoea, hair falling out and lesions, was terrifying to read and never forgotten. Threads, the Protect And Survive adverts and Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Two Tribes, When The Wind Blows- it's a wonder we ever got out of bed. 'Another sausage dear?'

RIP Olivia, Lamont, Darryl and Raymond. 

We Have Brandy And Half Corona

I wrote this, went back to it, re-wrote it, nearly deleted it and then went back to it again and decided to go with it.

Today is a bank holiday in the UK. The traditional May Day bank holiday that should have been on Monday moved to today- not that it matters very much at the moment, almost everyday's the same anyway. Today's bank holiday celebrates the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe, the defeat of the Nazis and the end of the Second World War in Europe. This day will be celebrated by some with bunting and socially distant street parties and cosy 1940s vibes, speeches by Churchill and a general sense of national satisfaction. It is a Daily Mail, Tory Party, Brexit, picture postcard version of 1945- cheerful British crowds, Spitfires, the King and Queen waving from the balcony, cucumber sandwiches. I'm uncomfortable with it because it is based on a number of lies and distortions.

The Blitz brought untold suffering to the people of Britain. Two million houses destroyed, 32, 000 people killed and 87, 000 seriously injured by bombs. Cities were flattened. When it began there was no real plan at central or local government level for how to deal with bombing or its aftermath. When the first air raids wiped out whole streets, the local authorities had to invent a response. Clearing bomb sites, digging out survivors and bodies, providing medical care and shelter. Blackout, evacuation, fire wardens and so on were all put in place. Whole families and entire streets were lost. There's a memorial in Stretford cemetery, just up the road from here, to the residents of Lime Road where multiple houses were flattened by a bomber returning from delivering it's load to Trafford Park. The wall records the names of fifty people and 'seventeen unidentified persons' who were killed in their beds at Christmas 1940, in some cases every member of a family. The trauma that these raids brought is generally overshadowed by the so- called Spirit of the Blitz. Counselling didn't exist. Dealing with PTSD wasn't a priority. People buried didn't talk about it. Even at the time the Spirit of the Blitz was a myth, a propaganda campaign conducted by Lord Beaverbrook, the Daily Express newspaper owner brought into the National Government, to keep spirits up and help win the war. Crime increased during the Blitz. The black market flourished. The King and Queen were booed and jeered  by ordinary Londoners when they visited the East End. Evacuees were often resented by communities and many were treated badly. Public air raid shelters were not widely used, they were often cheaply built, water logged and had a reputation for collapsing. Many people, the poor in the cities, had little or no access to shelters anyway. All in it together?

Newspapers that supported left wing parties were banned under wartime legislation. Churchill wanted to extended the ban to include the Daily Mirror when it published a cartoon critical of his policies in 1942 (above). Under Beaverbrook the newspapers staged photographs of milkmen delivering the daily pint over the wreckage of a bombing raid to keep spirits up. They'd already had to spin the defeat at Dunkirk into a victory. The war was almost lost before it began, 350, 000 troops retreating from the oncoming German army and trapped between them and the sea. This is not to deny the bravery of the men involved but the Dunkirk myth is one of the biggest propaganda spins the British media has ever created. This isn't to say that keeping spirits up and raising morale aren't an important job during wartime but the lie has become the truth, officially repeated and that's the version of the war that is being celebrated today.

During the war some members of the government began to plan for afterwards and there was a growing view that things had to change. The poverty of the 1930s, unemployment, children going hungry, slum housing, no security, were all seen as the old way. There was talk of a new world, of doing away with the old guard and getting it right. Win the war and then win the peace. People started to talk of a welfare state and Sir William Beveridge was asked to write a report. He said that Britain could afford a welfare state and had to afford it, for the national good. Churchill was against it and he began to be seen as the man for the war but not the man for the peace. The British people agreed, removing him from office at the first post- war general election. Ernest Bevin, the trade union leader who was brought into the Wartime Cabinet and in charge of the Ministry of Labour, argued strongly for a welfare state and for post- war security for all, the idea that poverty should be eradicated and that government and the people had a duty to build a fairer society. After all, what was the suffering for, if not this? This has been successively undermined from the 1970s onwards by the right wing press and right wing politicians, with repeated stories of benefit cheats, dependency culture and dole dossers, a concerted campaign to forget that the welfare state was a reaction to the absolute poverty of the 1920s and 1930s and a commonly held desire to provide security for people who had none, who could not afford to visit a doctor, who died because they could not afford medicines, who went hungry when they had no work. The Daily Mail and the Tories who want us to celebrate V.E. Day are the same who want to undermine and override the Second World War's most long lasting social impact in this country. The causes of the welfare state- war, poverty, inequality, injustice- are ignored in favour of sentimental flag waving and a notion of togetherness. The real togetherness, if it existed, was the sense among politicians and people in 1945 that when Hitler was defeated there had to be fundamental changes in the way the UK and society were organised and the way it treated people. In this new world there was no place for Winston Churchill who was against it anyway. Our current PM's hero is Winston Churchill. The talk is that he wants to loosen the lockdown, get the economy going again, and that he will announce this on Sunday- backed up by the flag waving Tory press. Many feel that this is too soon. If Johnson sees this as his Churchill moment he may find that a resulting second wave of Covid infections becomes the equivalent of the V2 flying rockets that destroyed neighbourhoods in London 1944 and 1945.

The V.E. Day celebrations also add to the idea of British exceptionalism, that 'we' won the war. Yes, the Battle of Britain was a significant moment, Hitler's plan to invade Britain postponed, but it was his decision to invade the Soviet Union that the war hinges on militarily. The Russian people fought street by street, house by house, cellar by cellar. Russian women served at the fontline. They lost 20 million people as a result. The Red Army, the defence of Stalingrad, the horrors of the Eastern Front and the advance towards Berlin turned the tide of the war. In the west the D- Day landings started to squeeze the Nazis out of France. U.S. soldiers make up two thirds of the 10, 000 casualties from the landings. None of this is adequately represented by the Spitfires, sandwiches and bunting portrayal of V.E. Day.

The newspapers and politicians who want us to celebrate this parochial, one eyed view of the past are the same ones who want to take us out of Europe, who want us to prioritise business over human lives by lifting the lockdown and who want to turn back the clock to a land that never existed. Jon Savage tweeted a comment earlier this week and it's something that I've felt for some time. Jon's Tweet reads-

'Have suddenly focussed on the fact that the usual May Day holiday on Monday has been moved by this shower of shit government to next Friday for VE Day: this country has been totally infantilised. GET OVER THE FUCKING SECOND WORLD WAR'

And who can disagree?
Actually loads of people would disagree I'm sure.

Anyway, that's my take. I'll inevitably end up feeling like the V.E. Day Grinch when the genuine sense of community down our road that has been fostered during lockdown becomes a socially distanced street party later on today, people drinking and waving flags in their front gardens and there's some communal Vera Lynn and Churchill broadcasts.

Here are some London Irish trad- folk punks singing a song in 1988 about the serious business of public holidays in Almeria.

Fiesta

Philip Chevron

Philip Chevron of The Pogues died yesterday aged 56. He'd been diagnosed with cancer of the head and neck back in 2007 and in 2012 was given the all clear. The tumour came back and took his life yesterday morning. Philip's best loved song is the truly great Thousands Are Sailing, which I've posted before. This song- Haunted- was from the soundtrack of Alex Cox's Sid And Nancy film, sung by Cait O'Riordan, and deserves to be more widely known. RIP Philip Chevron.

Haunted

Breaking Rocks In The TV Studio

I found this somewhat unrehearsed but very endearing version of The Pogues with Joe doing I Fought The Law live on Irish TV back in 1987. Pogues guitarist Phil Chevron has recently been diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the head and neck- best wishes to him and his family. While I'm here, this is for SH and JG as well.

Breton Folk

On the campsite in Bretagne (sorry if you're getting bored of 'what I did on my holidays') I saw two bands play. Just before they stuck the Olympics closing ceremony up on a big screen in the sportsbarn a Breton band played on the basketball court. Breton culture is very celtic so this threepiece had mandolins, tin whistles and a one horned bagpipe thing as well as guitars. Second song in I started singing along to something I recognised (they sang in French, or Breton more likely). After the first chorus I realised it was a cover of The Pogues' Streams Of Whiskey, which they followed with Sally MacLennan (sung in English, with a French accent). Later on they did A Pair Of Brown Eyes and a rather affecting version of Thousands Are Sailing. Then we all decamped to the sportsbarn for the closing ceremony. As the Kronenbourg kicked in and the scooters charged across the Olympic stadium to the sound of Pinball Wizzard, and people cheered images of Jessica Ennis and Mo Farrah, it all felt very peculiar and for the first time, almost ever, I felt a pang of being patriotic (and not in a following the England football team way but a newer, modern British, multicultural, left-of-centre kind of way. Let's see how long this lasts).

Thousands Are Sailing

!No Pasaran!

I started May by wittering on about a Spanish Civil War themed mix tape and which songs might go onto it. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions about other songs- Drew, Davy H, Helen and Suggestedformaturereaders. Thus, I can start June with a better, more expansive Spanish Civil War mixtape.

Durutti Column- Sketch For Summer
Manic Street Preachers- If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next
The Clash- Spanish Bombs
The Pogues- Lorca's Noveno
Billy Bragg- Jarama Valley (available here from The International Brigades website)
Leonard Cohen- Take This Waltz (based on Lorca's words)
O'Luge and Kornertrone Allstars- Spanish Bombs (cover of The Clash song)
Christy Moore- Viva La Quinta Brigada
The Stone Roses- Guernica
Maxine Peake and Urban Roots- speech by Dolores Ibarruri (aka La Pasionaria, from the Billy Bragg cd linked above)

Can we make a case for Jonathan Richman's Pablo Picasso on the grounds that Picasso painted Guernica? Reckon so.

Viva La Quinta Brigada

The photo of the militiawoman in heels with a pistol was taken by Gerda Taro, Robert Capo's partner. Between them they covered the war and helped invent photo journalism. Gerda was killed during the war, run over by a tank accidentally. Stunning picture isn't?

They Shall Not Pass

I was thinking, following Sunday's post, about whether I could put together a Spanish Civil War themed mixtape. Stick with me, these are the things that sometimes occupy my mind when driving. I've got this far-

1. Durutti Column- Sketch For Summer (it could be any Durutti track really, but this one's my favourite unless anyone can think of a more appropriate one. Durutti was an anarchist-syndicalist leader during the war, as I'm sure you knew)
2. Manic Street Preachers- If You Tolerate This Then Your Children Will Be Next (see Sunday's post)
3. The Clash- Spanish Bombs (obviously)
4. The Pogues- Lorca's Noveno (posted here a long while back, the song tells of the murder of poet Federico Garcia Lorca by the Francoist Falange)

And that's it. A fairly short mixtape unless anyone's got any other suggestions.
I wondered about ABBA's Fernando but I'm not convinced it's about Spain.

This could go on actually if we don't have a rule about the same song featuring in different versions- a dub cover of The Clash's Spanish Bombs by O' Luge and Kornerstrone Allstars from a dub tribute album to The Clash called Shatter The Hotel (a line from Spanish Bombs).

Spanish Bombs

Afro-Cuban Bebop

Some nice Afro-Cuban Bebop from Joe Strummer, a short track (only a minute and a half long) recorded with The Pogues (moonlighting as The Astro-Physicians), B-side to the wilderness years highlight Burning Lights. Just to check Box.net's working for me as much as anything.

Afro Cuban Bebop

In The Drunk Tank

It's become a cliche but the only Christmas song that's out in the popular consciousness, is actually good and can be listened to on repeat is The Pogues number 2 single Fairytale Of New York. It's beautiful, a mixture of rawness and romance. The version posted here is an earlier one than the released A-side, an accordian intro, different lyrics and arrangement and Cait O'Riordan in the Kirsty MacColl role. Whatever you're doing tonight and tomorrow, have a good one. Happy Christmas!

Fairytale Of New York (version)

Where We Once Watched The Robots Landing

Almost two decades ago a friend of mine came up from London to visit, when I rented a room in a house not far from where I live now. My friend A.N. was about to go to India, and we went out got drunk and ended up back at the house listening to music, eventually sticking The Pogues on, and talking drunken rubbish, praising the lyrics of Shane McGowan for being both a realist and a romantic, and being able to paint pictures with words and all that kind of drunk music bloke stuff. This song was the one for me at the time- brilliant musical backing and Shane's lines about 'whiskey on Sunday and tears on our cheeks' and how it's 'stupid to laugh and useless to bawl about a rusty tin can and an old hurley ball'. What we couldn't understand though was why in the final two lines Shane suddenly lurched into science fiction B Movie territory- 'where we once watched the robots landing, and the broad, majestic Shannon'. Made no sense at all. Quite liked the image of robots crawling out of the river Shannon, but didn't fit with the rest of song. We got drunker and moved onto other topics. Blah blah blah.

A few weeks later I got a postcard from A.N. at the Taj Mahal describing sights seen and places been, and right at the bottom of the postcard in tiny handwriting- 'P.S. It's row-boats, not robots.'

14 The Broad Majestic Shannon.wma

Lorca's Corpse Just Walked Away

I had a 'when did I put this on my mp3 player?' moment in the car this morning-The Pogues' mournful, stirring and elegant (not a word usually associated with the Pogues) tribute to Federico Garcia Lorca. Starting with a military drum beat and building slowly, while Shane sings about Lorca's murder at the hands of Genral Franco's falangists during the Spanish Civil War. Lorca was an internationally acclaimed poet and playwright, outspoken critic of Franco and fascism, and a leading light of the Spanish Generation of '27. Franco's men took him at some point in August 1936 from a friend's house and along with three others shot him at Fuente Grande on the road betweenViznar and Alfacar. His body was buried somewhere in the vacinity, and despite recent attempts has not been found.

In Shane's hands the lyric is full of drama and symbolism, and some insensitivity ('the faggot poet they left til last, blew his brains out with a pistol up his arse') but there's no doubt where Shane's sympathies lie, and at the end when the killers come to mutilate the dead and terrorise the town, Lorca's corpse gets up and walks away. History lesson over- Lorca's Novena is from The Pogues' Hell's Ditch album, produced by Joe Strummer.

The Pogues - Lorcas Novena.mp3