Subject: The Pogues

• O Christmas Song, O Christmas Song

  December 21, 2006

• Football U., Week 2

  October 13, 2006

• Football U., Week 2

  October 13, 2006

• Sanity Claus: Separating Holiday-Music Gifts from Seasonal Disorders

  December 22, 2007

• To Do: Help Angela at the Stag’s Head

  May 2, 2008

• It's Official: San Francisco Giving Us 276 Recycling Bins, Superior Attitude

  August 18, 2008

• The 12 Greatest Christmas Songs of All Time, Part 1

  Mahalia Jackson The 12 days of Christmas begin Thursday and run until Epiphany, January 5. Here is a song for half those days. See what's in the other half tomorrow morning. 12. "Silent Night," Mahalia Jackson. The supreme Christmas melody requires the supreme voice, and if anybody's ever sung it prettier or more powerfully than Mahalia Jackson I haven't heard it. There are different renditions floating around. While some are better than others, all are devastating. 11. "Santa Looked a Lot L

  December 24, 2008

• Rotation

  June 20, 1996

• St. Patrick's Day Special: Ten Great Irish (Or Irish-American) Musicians and Bands

  St. Patrick's Day is, well, today, so, rather than hit the pub to celebrate - which we'll probably still do, to be honest - we thought we'd put together a mixtape for you of our favorite Irish and Irish-American bands along with a favorite tracks by them. Pint of Guinness and shot of Jameson sold separately, but still mandatory. Thin Lizzy, "The Boys Are Back in Town": Though founded in Dublin in 1969, Thin Lizzy was as diverse in its lineup as it was in its influences. Frontman Phil Lynott

  March 17, 2009

• St. Patrick's Day Special: The Pogues, "If I Should Fall From Grace With God"

  Fun Fact: Perpetually soused Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan's first band was the Sex Pistols-inspired, excellently named Nipple Erectors - later known as the Nips.

  March 17, 2009

• The Mighty Stef

  February 26, 2009

• The McKenzies

  February 12, 2009

• Santa Baby

  What a few musicians want under their trees this year

  December 25, 2008

• Music to Shuffle Off This Mortal Coil

  October 30, 2008

• Johnny Flynn: A Larum

  September 4, 2008

• The Hates: 30 Years of Hate 1978-2008

  June 26, 2008

• The Blaggards

  Step one: Drink. Step two: Jig.

  January 31, 2008

• The Lucky Charms

  Blaggards, Houston's only Celtic metal band

  September 21, 2006

• Swindled Art

  January 19, 2006

• Freestyle Fellowship

  Sometimes awesome live bands also make magic in the studio

  December 8, 2005

• Two Gallants

  Monday, October 3, at Walter's on Washington, 4215 Washington Avenue, 713-864-2727.

  September 29, 2005

• Letters

  January 13, 2005

• I'll Drink to That

  Fuel your New Year's Eve with these boozy sing-along tunes

  December 30, 2004

• Elvis Costello

  The Delivery Man (Lost Highway)
  il Sogno (Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft)

  November 4, 2004

• Clumsy Lovers, with Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash

  Friday, April 2

  April 1, 2004

• I'm Not Dreaming of a White Christmas

  No snow and no Bing for Racket

  December 18, 2003

• The Clumsy Lovers, with Jesse Dayton

  Friday, July 18

  July 17, 2003

• Flogging Molly

  Friday, March 29

  March 28, 2002

• Tippling from Tap to Tap

  Down and out (and drunk) in NoDo

  December 13, 2001

• Flogging Molly

  Friday, November 16

  November 15, 2001

• Rotation

  Young Dubliners: Red

  July 20, 2000

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: War, Still "Hard to Believe"

  Photos by John Moulder I'm always looking for good lyrics that make sense of the current military situation. I recently got Slaid Cleaves' fine new album, Everything You Love Will Be Taken Away, which contains this wonderful verse in the song "Hard to Believe": "Here comes another blown up kid from over there Makin' the whole world safe for the millionaires Same old swindle hides behind a fresh new coat of lies This is no time to be naïve, it's hard to believe.As we've mentioned a few times in

  April 27, 2009

• Dustin Welch: Whisky Priest

  May 7, 2009

• Single-Album Sets We'd Like to See, Part 1: Bob Dylan, George Strait, The Pogues and More

  Initiated by indie-rockers like Sonic Youth, Slint and Built to Spill at mid-2000s festivals - UK/U.S. hopover All Tomorrow's Parties and its various tie-ins being the most prominent - playing a beloved LP front to back in concert is now the hottest thing going on the classic-rock circuit. Within the next month, Houstonians can see Aerosmith revisit 1976's Toys In the Attic (The Woodlands, July 17), Judas Priest do 1980's British Steel (Verizon, July 24) and Motley Crue gas up 1989's Dr. Feelgoo

  July 7, 2009

• Pink Floyd, Dr. Dre, Velvet Underground and Other Artists We're Glad Discovered Drugs

  It was 45 years ago this past Friday... that Bob Dylan met the Beatles for the first time and, more importantly for Rocks Off's purposes, introduced them to marijuana. While this meeting of musical titans would never lead to any actual musical collaboration or "Monsters of Hippie Rock" series of concerts, the Fab Four's induction into the 420 Club undeniably steered them away from making songs about holding hands and on to writing tunes about living in a yellow submarine and "elementary penguin

  August 31, 2009

• No, It's Not Too Early to Start Posting About the Pogues, As a Matter of Fact...

  A small band of Irishmen frequent Lonesome Onry and Mean's local waterhole, and they are all abuzz about the arrival of the Pogues at House of Blues October 29. Led by the charismatic and erratic Shane MacGowan, the Pogues set the music world buzzing when they burst onto the London scene in 1982. Their brilliance lay in the combination of Irish traditional music and instruments with the politics and the aggression of the punk movement. While at the beginning they mostly covered old Irish songs,

  October 21, 2009

• Bayou Beat: More Live Nation Ticket Deals, I.J. Gosey at Discovery Green, Bob Fuldauer Leaves Meridian, Tony Campise In Serious Condition

  farm1.static.flickr.com/I.J. Gosey​ We have a winner in our Live Nation "Club Passport" photo contest - we think - but are still awaiting a judge's ruling. Stay tuned. Live Nation has expanded its "No Service Fee" promotion once again, to include pretty much every show coming to House of Blues or Verizon Wireless Theater: Mat Kearney, Hanson, Peaches, Three 6 Mafia/Rakim, Stryper(!), Bob Saget, Raphael Saadiq, Cafe Tacuba, Anvil, O.A.R., Regina Spektor, 311 and our pals the Pogues, to name

  October 21, 2009

• Season of the Witch

  October 22, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: A Brief History of "Danny Boy" - Evergreen But Not Exactly Irish

  ​The Pogues are only one week away, so no time like the present to reflect on Irish music. For many Americans, no song epitomizes Irish music like "Danny Boy." Lonesome Onry and Mean was gently prodding my Irish and European friends at the boozer recently regarding their opinions about the top recorded versions of "Danny Boy" and was met with studied indifference and we-don't-know-how-to-explain-it-to-him sheepishness. Long and short of it, it doesn't seem that "Danny Boy" is anything the aver

  October 22, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: Celtic Accordion Queen Sharon Shannon

  ​One of Lonesome Onry and Mean's favorite Pogues tracks is actually Steve Earle's great anti-war song "Johnny Come Lately" from Earle's Copperhead Road album. Earle has frequently spoken of his affinity for Ireland, particularly Galway, which we might call one of his retreats. It was through Earle, and his song "Galway Girl" on 1999's Transcendental Blues that LOM first learned of Irish accordion virtuoso Sharon Shannon. After the Earle introduction, LOM became somewhat obsessed with Shannon,

  October 23, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: The Clancy Brothers, or the Pogues of the '60s

  Wonder what the Pogues show Thursday is going to look like? Here's our guess... "I had the good fortune to meet Liam Clancy of the Clancy Brothers once and while talking with him over a cup of tea I mentioned my affection for the Pogues to which he replied, 'The Pogues are a cross between the Clancy Brothers and the Sex Pistols...with five teeth between them.'" - customer review of the Pogues' If I Should Fall From Grace With God on Amazon.com The Clancy Brothers - Paddy, Bob, Liam, and Tom - a

  October 26, 2009

• Come to Rocks Off's "Helter Skelter Halloween" Party Tonight at Coffee Groundz

  ​Come on Houston, start your Halloween week off right with us, the mighty he-men of Rocks Off and Beatles Rock Band. Yes, it's been just over a month and a half since we saw all of your faces at Coffee Groundz (2503 Bagby) playing our newish toy, and we miss you so very much. Seriously, no kidding, you all smell better than most of the folks we usually hang out with, and that's saying something. The fun starts at 7 p.m. and runs till 11 p.m. when the venue closes. It's also a costume-friendly

  October 27, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: All Hail the King of Irish Rock and Soul, Van the Man Morrison

  Obviously with U2 and the Pogues alone, the Irish scene has had a huge effect on the pop music of the past half century. But no list of Irish influences on 20th century rock and roll can be complete without Van Morrison. ​In 1968, LOM's senior year in high school, Them played the Ector County Coliseum in our West Texas hometown of Odessa. By 1968, Morrison had left the band, but the rest of Them moved to the States and toured until the money ran out. Them made some very interesting bluesy roc

  October 27, 2009

• Lonesome Onry and Mean: The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" and the Tragic Ballad of Kirsty MacColl

  Lonesome, Onry and Mean has never hidden our distaste for Christmas music. So if we were ever called on to choose our favorite Christmas song, the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" would win hands down. We can still remember the day - we were still Pogues virgins - when the lyrics, waffling between an aching level of poetic sentimentality and the utter down-and-out drunken surly hilarity of a marital spat ("It was Christmas eve, babe, in the drunk tank") finally penetrated the cranial area and we

  October 28, 2009

• The Pogues

  October 29, 2009

• The Pogues' Rum, Sodomy & the Lash Answers Famous Musical Questions

  ​Dear Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, Who wrote the book of love? - The Monotones, Newark, NJ Dear Monotones, I'm going to make me a big sharp axe, shining steel-tempered in the fire. I'll chop you down like an old dead tree. Dirty old town, dirty old town. Dear Rum, Sodomy & the Lash, Why do fools fall in love? - Frankie L., New York, NY Dear Frankie, Well it was Bob and Charlie Ford, those dirty little cowards, I wonder how they feel. For they ate of Jesse's bread, and they slept in Jesse's

  October 28, 2009

• No, We Haven't Forgotten About That Other Guy Playing House of Blues Thursday

  ​Amidst all the rum, sodomy, and lashing going on this week about the Pogues hitting House of Blues Thursday, it's easy to forget that they have a pretty stellar opener warming up the crowd. Hmm, kinda reminds us of another Irish band that brought a really kick-ass young band with them a few weeks back. Exceptt we don't think Glenn Beck quotes Justin Townes Earle lyrics on his radio show. Earle will open for the Pogues tomorrow night, despite being felled by a leg injury he suffered late last

  October 28, 2009

• A Rocks Off Playlist: Halloween Songs That Don't Suck

  Yeah... screw this thing.​Let's face it: the Monster Mash blows. So do many of the songs we're forced to suffer through every Halloweentide. A couple of years ago, Rocks Off heard "One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater" on XM Radio's Halloween-themed channel, and wanted to sneak into a haunted house and hang himself just like that urban legend. We won't put you through that. Instead, we've compiled a playlist of a bunch of songs with spooky themes that won't make you want to hunt down

  October 29, 2009

• Aftermath: The Pogues Destroy House of Blues, and Rocks Off Is Ready to Move On

  Photos by Daniel KramerThis is about how we feel this morning.​Attention budding music writers, assuming there are still a few of you left who think getting into shows for free is a fair trade for your health, well-being, a decent paycheck and reasonably normal social life: It's not. It's pretty much the opposite. If you choose to go down that road, like we have, the payoffs get smaller as the physical, mental and social price of this life (and lifestyle) gets steeper. Once you reach your mid-

  October 30, 2009

• Aftermath: Drive-By Truckers' Cathartic, Down-Home Halloween Redemption at House of Blues

  Photos by Jay Lee​ It took Aftermath most of Friday to figure out why we were in such an awful blue funk after Thursday's Pogues show, especially after the band delivered a more brilliant set than even this 20-year fan thought they were capable of. But after leaving work early and relaxing for a while at home in the fetal position, we knew. Some shows - particularly ones we've waited more than half a lifetime to see - we'd rather just be a face in the crowd, soaking up the music and the booze

  November 2, 2009