THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Anywhere people lived memory collected like sediment on the bed of a river, dropping from the flow of time to become fixed in the places time ran over” ― Adam Haslett
Happy Holidays and a big happy birthday to Shane MacGowan.
When you work with musicians….especially ones you love…you never know if the experience will heighten your appreciation of them, or lessen their standing in your mind. Some artists who I hold up high I never wanted to meet or hang out with because after hearing of their personality quirks (Lou Reed) you knew that the best way to continue admiration is from afar.
When I signed Shane MacGowan to the US, calling him for the first time was…to be honest…frightening. I had loved the Pogues since their first LP in the 80’s and knew of Shane as both one of the greatest songwriters alive and a legendary personality. And when I first called him to explain my excitement of putting out THE SNAKE, his first solo album, he spewed anger at me, unhappy with how the record company in the UK had put together his album, with a cover he hated and and a track selection he did not approve of. Why the hell should he be happy to have the record come out in the US? Why the hell should he want to talk to another music industry slob.
I picked myself up off the ground post phone call and preceded to help him make the record he wanted to make, putting the traditional Irish songs back on the record, resequencing it to his approval and working with him on a cover that he could totally stand. I “forgot” to tell the parent company in England what I was doing, and took heat after the fact.
Shane MacGowan became a friend…still is…and out of all the artists I have ever worked with, I found him to be one of the top as far as his kindness and loyalty. Yes, he is (and always will be) Shane…and everything you think that would bring (there is a great story of how I thought he was going to get me kicked out of England on one particular late night). But working with Shane means having an incredible, maybe dangerous, adventure. What I learned during our time together, is that he is truly the artist you wanted him to be. He is larger than life. He is the greatest living Irish poet, writing lyrics all the time (if you ever saw a hotel room he was staying in, there was scrawling on every piece of paper in the place). He is fearless. He takes no prisoners.
And he let me work on records with him.
And what is more, when he met Barb while we were dating, he put is arm around me and told her she had found a good man.
Happy Birthday Shane MacGowan. Christmas is the only day you could have been born on. Long may you run.
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