Pogues

Just what the world didn't need, another CD by the Pogues. Okay, okay, that's kind of harsh. You'll have to excuse me, though. I used to drink sometimes at that pub down the street. You know the one. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they only had three CDs behind the bar, which didn't really matter because they didn't even have a CD player. Rather, and in authentic British pub style (or so I'm told), the place was outfitted with only a cassette player and just one long tape of (you guessed it) the Pogues. Every day, from the late morning moment when the sandwich board kissed the sidewalk until the last spot of vomit was mopped up off the water closet floor, that Pogues tape played, side after side after side. It became as familiar and ambient as the smoke-stained wallpaper and the faux wainscoting. This new one is a live Pogues album recorded in Leysin, Switzerland, in the spring of 1991. Okay, maybe it wasn't the spring, but it was 1991. (The Pogues have a way of making any season sound like the spring.) This disc sounds just like that tape in the pub, except the sound quality is way better. Still, some tracks suffer from sonic imbalances, voices too far from the mic, some muddy bits and all the other usual live album trappings. Most of the Pogues' relative hits are here, like that one about drinking and that other one about drinking too. Oh well. At least this disc ought to help a few more people realise just how lame and boring Great Big Sea is.