Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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The Pogues
Here is one very good reason for the re-issue program that is inundating music fans. Every now and then, an album reappears that you missed the first time around, and might otherwise have been unlikely to purchase.
I’m a Pogues fan, but I incorrectly assumed that I already owned their best stuff. Call it ignorance, but I didn’t even know that “Red Roses for Me” existed. This re-issue from Rhino Records has solved that problem and I’m thankful for it, but I sure do wish I heard this album when it was released. What a breath of fresh air this must have been! Imagine Irish punks readdressing the traditional folk music of their country by writing a new batch of their own, at a time when processed keyboards and canned rhythms ruled the airwaves. Musically, the year 1984 lived up to its apocalyptic implications, but the Pogues provided an escape from the “Safety Dance” of that awful time.
Dig through your ‘active’ collection and find something that you bought in 1984…..I’ll wait right here………still waiting……….I bet you can’t find anything, can you? So much music from the mid-‘80s has grown old and outdated. Echo-laced production and noise-gated drums poison so much music from that era, but “Red Roses for Me” could have been released yesterday. It captures the Pogues as a fresh-faced bunch of drunkards, with a swagger to match their energetic performances. You can take a punk out of Ireland but you can’t Ireland out of the punk, so these songs figuratively reek like an Irish pub on Saturday night. Shane MacGowan spits out his words with the flourish of a drunken uncle at a wedding, even when his compositions stand on wobbly legs. “Streams of Whiskey,” “Poor Paddy” and “Transmetropolitan” are meant for a sing-along bash, with pints spilling because you can’t stand still. It may be a waste of ale, but “Red Roses for Me” is definitely not a waste of cash. The six bonus tracks are like getting a free round, too.
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