Shane MacGowan: Threescore

For forty years journalists predicted Shane wouldnt live to see the end of the year. At the end of 2018 hes done it again. This is by way of a celebrating the story so far... Andrew Catlin has been photographing Shane and the Pogues since their first London gigs through till Shane left the band. He continued to work with Shane photographing him with the Popes and shooting pictures for many of the record sleeves as well as for Victorias book A Drink with Shane MacGowan. More recently he shot the first portrait since Shane got his new teeth and was featured in the documentary telling the story of their reconstruction. The pictures used for the projections during the 60th birthday concert in Dublin were all from Andrews archive. The cover picture for the book was Andrews first portrait of Shane shot in a Liverpool hotel room after an evening of drinking that ended with the whole band the crew publicist and journalists all passed out on the floor of the bar. Shane was in fine form the next day - this image is one of several great pictures from that shoot.The book provides an intimate view on 40 years of music mayhem and magic capturing MacGowan in many unique situations...Shane MacGowan You know some people are lucky and some people arent. Im a lucky guy as a general rule.I was brought up on a farm and then in London. In their own different ways both places offer plenty of opportunity to get in trouble. I took the opportunities.Youve got to have a strong urge to be heard. Youve got to have this welling up inside you like wanting to be sick you know? Then youve got to scream it out youve got to sing it out youve got to play it out youve got to make music you know what I mean? Thats what a musician is. A good musician has to put music before everything.Im proud of everything the Irish do well.... What a talented race. Im proud to be one of them. Great sportsmen great soldiers great musicians great lovers great artists. Nobody loves like an Irishman. And women always find Irishmen attractive. I think women are attracted by the fact that Irishmen are so much more intelligent than Englishmen. Thats a bit of a generalisation of course. There are some glaring exceptions to that rule... Theres no bigger bastard than an Irish bastard.I dont agree with dogmatic morality.... Im a Catholic Taoist. I believe in going with the flow. Im a hedonist. I like to live well. I like to eat and drink and dance and sing and screw and get the most out of life. When Im just enjoying myself completely thats when I feel the most religious as well. Because I thank God for it for pleasure. Because theres so much pain in this world. I think you should have as much pleasure as you possibly can.Nick Cave Shane is very innocent in a lot of ways. Theres a love and warmth within him which is often overlooked. And he is incredibly open to the things around him which is why hes such a great writer. He sees the beauty and horror in things and his gift is to be able to articulate that in a very simple way.Depp Shane and Marlon Brando. These are two guys who are completely true to their vision non-conforming uncompromising. I think Marlon is an incredibly gifted artist... in his thoughts ideas and anything he does. Shanes the same. Theyre a couple of guys whose first instinct is always to go against the grain its an admirable trait in anyone. Bono I dont think anyone writes better lyrics than Shane MacGowan. Hes what Keith Richards would describe as a specialist.