Shane MacGowan is the face and name most often associated with The Pogues. Unraveling Shane's psyche would require a book-length study but the crux of his identity lies somewhere in that conflict between English experience and Irish heritage. The abbreviated story of his life starts with his birth in England, but he was raised in Ireland, and moved back to England some years later. He won a scholarship to the renowned Westminster School, where he was possibly enrolled alongside Thomas Dolby and other notable people. MacGowan was involved with drugs and publicized hooliganery before being in a band, the first of which was The Nipple Erectors in 1977. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief on Sep 13, 2009 - 87 comments

Her majesty's a pretty nice girl but she never did a thing for me [more inside]
posted by finite on Feb 4, 2009 - 53 comments

What's Folk-Punk? Although celtic-punk groups like the Pogues, Flogging Molly, and the Dropkick Murphys may have been the first bands to combine punk rock with folk music, other groups have been crossing over folk music and punk rock for some time now. [more inside]
posted by dunkadunc on Jul 29, 2008 - 55 comments

Have you reached the 13th level of rock and roll that is anti-folk? Do you think using an 8-track recorder is selling out? If the phone rang while recording a song for your album, would you try another take? Not if you were the Moldy Peaches you wouldn't. . . pansy. The Moldy Peaches are Adam Green and Kimya Dawson. Their first album, "the Moldy Peaches Greatest Hits" was most people's first taste of anti-folk and it featured clever (and occasionally insane) songs recorded in their apartment and subsequently rocketed them to stardom. In fact, they've just formed as a 6 piece and they have a video out. (The video is in realplay*buffering*er format)

But what exactly is anti-folk? The Moldy Peaches are pretty much all over the place musically and other anti-folk artists are no different. Take Jeffrey Lewis, who's songs range from intricate tales (his first love is cartooning) of chance encounters with love to rockin' songs about killing ghouls chimes in: [More Inside]
posted by untuckedshirts on Aug 31, 2003 - 20 comments