Fairytale over as Shane nixes Pogues tour
Former Pogues singer Shane MacGowan is in the running to land a Classic Brit Award
Sunday October 30 2011
AFTER recently pulling out of doing a long UK tour with Jools Holland and his big band, wildman Shane MacGowan has now cancelled a scheduled Pogues tour of Australia and Japan for early next year.
The group, who did a 10-date tour of America earlier this year, fought endlessly during the dates in the US, and MacGowan has now declared that he doesn't want to work with any of them again. A music insider said: "Basically, Shane still resents the fact that they threw him out of the band all those years ago. He's never gotten over it. With the exception of Jem Finer, who co-wrote Fairytale of New York with him, he doesn't like any of them anymore."
Shane was ejected during a tour of Japan in the Nineties, and replaced by Joe Strummer of The Clash, and later by Spider Stacey. The source added: "The Pogues have been reforming annually for the past decade, usually for Christmas dates. But that's all over now. He says he's finished with them for good. He doesn't even care about the money." He now has his own band called The Shane Gang, which features Jack Dublin (ex-In Tua Nua and Rocky DeValera and The Gravediggers) and Paul Byrne (ex-In Tua Nua).
He is planning to record an album of new songs with them, and his superstar pal Johnny Depp also wants to contribute to it. Depp has long been a fan of Shane and his songs, and last year played guitar on a charity version of I Put A Spell On You that Shane recorded for Haiti.
Hard-drinking MacGowan recently recovered from a bad bout of the flu, but, according to the source, the singer wasn't really interested in touring with Holland and his band.
"He would have only been doing a few songs per show, but would have pocketed a couple of thousand a night for his work, but he still felt it wasn't worth it. Shane still earns an awful lot of money from his song publishing, especially from Fairytale of New York."
Meanwhile, a new film starring Kiefer Sutherland and Kate Bosworth is to be loosely based on the story of Fairytale of New York.
So similar is the pitch for the film to MacGowan's big Christmas hit that movie insiders are already referring to it as Fairytale of New York.
But one of the producers has insisted that it is not directly based on the hit single, as they are now concerned about potential disputes over money and licensing rights.
Lisa Katselas said: "The feel and emotion of the song, along with the fact that it's a love story that takes place over Christmas and the lead character is Irish, makes it a natural fit. But we don't want to upset the writers -- Shane MacGowan and Jem Finer. We hope it will be a film they would be proud of and want to be associated with. We are now in the process of licensing the song."
But Shane's manager, Joey Cashman, stated: "If they had just taken the title of the song, we would have had no objection with it. If they use the music in the movie, Shane will make more money out of it."
- RICHIE TAYLOR EXCLUSIVE
No comments:
Post a Comment