Fame might be fleeting, but obscurity lasts a lifetime - and The Pogues knew it. Frank Murray quickly resolved that they would play in any and every venue where people would hand over the money to listen. It was a policy that would pay off dividends in the long term.

"The most important thing was to get them out of London," says Frank. "Everybody knew them on that circuit; they were packing out the pubs, and starting to fill places like the Mean Fiddler. Now the next step was to get them an agent and play around the rest of the country."

Murray's live regime began with the already arranged Lock Up Your Drinks Cabinet Tour. Most of the dates were centred around London but the trail started, on December 5 1984, at Warwick University. Simultaneously, The Pogues hit the airwaves with their second John Peel session. This time they managed to get four tracks past the BBC censors: the traditional 'Whiskey You're The Devil and 'Danny Boy'; a new song from MacGowan titled 'Sally MacLennane'; and 'Navigator', the slow ballad penned by Phil Gaston.

The Pogues heralded the new year with a headline spot at Harp Lager's ICA Rock Week where, alongside The Sid Presley Experience and Terry And Gerry, they were considered to be among 1985's brightest prospects. End of year honours came from the NME poll, with the critics placing 'Red Roses For Me' at number 11, and the readers later voting them as one of the best new bands. But it was John Peel who said it all, when he proclaimed them the finest soul act of 1984. In January, their national assault began in earnest: they were featured on The Tube on Friday 11 and spent the next five weeks on the road.

Throughout the month, there were persistent rumours that Elvis Costello wanted to produce the band. Murray telephoned Costello's manager, Jake Riviera, who confirmed that Elvis would be interested in doing a couple of tracks and the party subsequently took to Elephant Studios to record 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' and 'Sally MacLennane'. While they were laying down the backing tracks, Costello took Murray to one side, telling him that he really liked what he had heard, and could he produce the next LP. The Pogues immediately consented.

Meanwhile, they had stumbled across the perfect visual complement in film director Alex Cox. Cox had been in London for the opening of his highly acclaimed first feature film, Repo Man, and was asked, by City Limits reporter Sean Cubbett, if he had seen The Pogues. Although the director replied that he had never even heard of them, in the published article Cubbett managed to transplant his own enthusiasm for the band into Cox's mouth.

Cox consequently received a call from Frank Murray, thanking him for the free plug. When he admitted that, actually, he had never heard The Pogues, Murray sent him a copy of 'Red Roses For Me' and invited him to direct a video for their next single 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes'.

"I thought the album was the most exciting thing I'd heard since punk days," says Alex, "although obviously it was very different. And I thought, you know, I don't wanna do a video but I liked the record so much and I thought there was something about them that would make it worthwhile."

He agreed to shoot the video, and was invited to meet the band when they played in his native Liverpool. "I'd never met any of The Pogues in my life, but, as I came out of Lime Street Station, I saw two guys and thought, these have to be Pogues. So I went up and said, 'Are you Pogues!' and, sure enough, it was Shane and Spider."

Spider quickly dispensed with introductions by Saying, "'Ere, is there anywhere we can drink all day long!"

Suitably impressed by that night's show at Liverpool Polytechnic, Cox caught them again, on January 30, at London's Mean Fiddler. "I thought they were excellent," says Alex, "and they'd got such an enthusiastic throng. There were people stage-diving and jumping around and although I'd seen that reaction to American hard-core bands, I'd never seen it happen in England before. And when a band's got a following of people who love them that much and get that turned on by them, then it's evidence that they've got some kind of magic that other bands don't have."

February brought their first date in Scotland. "We played at Queen Margaret's Hall in Glasgow and it was brilliant; the best gig we'd ever done," enthuses Spider. "I think the Glasgow audience is the greatest in the world."

The band were also given a fleeting four-date view of Ireland: kicking off in Belfast, they rolled through Letterkenny and Cavan before breathing new life into the spirit of Paddy O'Brien in Dublin. Since the Costello tour, The Pogues had attracted considerable attention from the Irish press and their Dublin show was coupled with an early morning TV appearance on Anything Goes.

Witnessing The Pogues for the first time in the sweat soaked box that became McGonagles was Murray's old friend, Paul Scully. "It was a very small club and they went down a storm; the atmosphere was really incredible," he says. "Musically, I didn't have a clue what was going on. If you live in Ireland you get used to traditional music, and they were well below that standard. But there was definitely something about them, although I wasn't sure what it was. I went back to Powers' Hotel, met up with Jem and James, and ended up getting thrown out because I wasn't a resident!"

Back home, The Pogues lined up a 20-date tour to coincide with the release of their third single. Written by MacGowan, 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' is a classic tale of love and drink and death; purple poetry set in the lilt of an accordion sea. 'In blood and death 'neath a screaming sky/I lay down on the ground and the arms and legs of other men were scattered all around .../I saw the streams, the rolling hills /where his brown eyes were waiting and I thought about a pair of brown eyes that waited once for me.'

It was backed with the traditional song 'Muirshin Durkin' and their latest eulogy to the water of life 'Whiskey You're The Devil'. Both tracks were produced, not in ideal circumstances by Philip Chevron. "We had to get everything done in one day," he says. "But there had been a big party the night before so everyone wandered into the studio like zombies, and there was a very low key atmosphere about the whole thing."

During their January dates it had become clear that, rather than just having Darryl at the mixing desk, The Pogues needed a professional sound engineer. And so, before embarking on their first headline tour, Murray sent for Paul Scully, his friend from the days of Skid Row.

After leaving Skid Row in 1972, Paul had moved to London and worked with The Sutherland Brothers and a series of Irish bands including Grannies Intentions and The Woods Band. He later teamed up with Donovan in County Kildare before quitting the music business for an "aesthetic" life.

In 1981 he started working for a Dublin PA company, but his basic wage was dependent upon painting and carpentry in February 1985, when he first ran into The Rogues at McGonagles. Three weeks later he received an unexpected call from Murray who told him: "There's a ticket for you at the airport."

Paul caught up with the band in Leeds and did his first gig, on March 6 1985, at Nottingham's Rock City. "The thing that clicked with me was definitely the people," he says. "I'd worked with loads of bands, and some bands are just bands first, people second, but it was definitely the crack with these guys. The main thing was you didn't get treated like a roadie. There was no separation between crew and band; no arrogance."

The tour continued for the next three weeks but, headliners though they were, the shows were characterized by hired PAs and 10 bulbs for a lightshow. The climax came with a Saint Patrick's Day celebration at Hammersmith's cramped Clarendon. Elvis Costello warmed the crowd with 'A Man Can Be A Drunk (But A Drunk Can't Be A Man)', and the band took the stage to an unparalleled pitch of green. As 'The Auld Triangle' echoed into ribald chants of 'Celtic', The Pogues era had, quite clearly, arrived.

In line with their increasing public profile came a series of interviews - most of them centering on the ubiquitous gargle. The Face's Robert Elms took Shane and Spider on an expenses paid trip from Cricklewood's Crown to Kilburn's National Ballroom and, before long, news of their Bacchanalian exploits even crossed the Atlantic. The Mexican bar band Los Lobos - who had been around for years but were suddenly enjoying similar exposure in the States, and weren't exactly pioneers themselves - asked the NME if The Pogues were really drunk all the time.

By the last week of their tour, the band would have had difficulty in disproving such a notion. They regenerated into an all-time stupor at Hull Tiffany's, on March 25, after being subject to the unlimited generosity of Nick Stewart - a Glaswegian whom they had first encountered at Manchester Hacienda just three weeks before.

Being a terminal fan of John Lee Hooker, Howlin' Wolf, The Velvet Underground and Tom Waits, Nick felt an immediate affinity for The Pogues. And, on arriving in Hull, himself and his two companions quickly included the band in their round.

Consequently, by the time The Pogues went on, they were all but legless. Nevertheless, Stewart and Co continued to punctuate their set with one tray after another and, come midnight, they had drunk the house out of both tequila and kitsch. "Hull's a hellish place," laughs Nick, "and it was a huge hall with only about 150 people there to see them. They were totally wrecked on stage, but they just about managed to perform."

After the show, while the Scots staggered through the streets of Humberside, The Pogues were poured into their transit and ferried southward.

Back in London - where 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' was enjoying critical fervour and mass cries of 'hit' - The Pogues worked out an accompanying video with Alex Cox and his co-director Martin Turner.

The result was not exactly standard Stiff stuff: the elusive brown eyes were seen in a paper bag and on a pool cue before being gobbled by a bull dog. Other shots clipped a dull-brained Costello, complete with chest-expander, and The Pogues causing certain controversy by spitting at a poster of Thatcher.

"I'd just seen the film 1984 and been really disappointed by it," says Cox. "There had been so many interesting parallels between Orwell's portrayal and the real 1984 and Thatcher's Britain, but the guys who made that film missed all their opportunities to comment. So 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' gave us the chance to rant and rave about the fact that we are just Airstrip One for the Americans and their B52 bombers and their Cruise missiles, but everyone is so plugged into their television set or their Sony Walkman that they completely miss out on a global perspective."

Super Stiff, Dave Robinson persuaded Cox and Turner to shoot an alternative to the spitting sequence and, naturally enough, it was the second version which was deemed suitable

The Pogues were given an all too rare chance of plugging the single on the radio by guesting on Saturday Live. Andy Batten-Foster freely subjected himself to their caustic humour when he pointed out that Irish rebel songs were more than a yell away from punk. As Spider curled a ready lip to reply "Yeah," pause, "you're right," the airwaves couldn't contain Shane's excessive laugh. Unperturbed as only a Radio One DJ could be, Batten- Foster inquired if they were secret Irish folkies before giving them the go ahead for 'Streams Of Whiskey' and 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes'.

Simultaneously, Cait's velvet voiced sighs were earning widespread acclaim following the release of 'Tommy's Blue Valentine', the first (and last) single from the, defunct Pride Of The Cross. By the middle of April The Pogues were set for their first European dates. But, because Marcia was expecting the Finer's second child at roughly the same time, they had to find a temporary replacement for Jem.

Frank happened to mention this to Philip Chevron over a drink in The Devonshire and, even though he had never played banjo in his life, Philip immediately said, "I'll do it." The band agreed that he was worth a chance and, a few days later, Chevron flew as a part-time Pogue to Germany.

Philip Chevron was born Philip Ryan in Dublin, on June 17 1957. His mother, whose maiden name was La Grue, had descended from a French Huguenot family but was a Southside Dubliner of several generations past. His father came from an archetypal Northside Dublin background, and had been an actor and producer before abandoning theatre for the financial security of catering management.

Not surprisingly, Philip was raised on show music. "I listened to 'My Fair Lady,' 'Camelot'; everything. I was a big Julie Andrews fan - that was the first autograph I ever got. When I was a kid I used to go to the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin to see Maureen Potter and Jimmy O'Dea in pantomimes. Jimmy O'Dea was to Ireland what Charlie Chaplin was to Britain: a genuine genius comedian. He made 78 records, and that was the sort of thing I was brought up on."

When Philip was 16, and still studying for his Leaving Cert, he heard Agnes Bernelle (a Berlin- born cabaret singer) on the radio. "I thought, 'This is wonderful'. There was nobody doing anything like that in the world much less in Ireland, and here she is practically living up the road. So I sought her out and introduced myself saying, 'Look I think we should make a record. How are we going to go about it?"' It transpired that Agnes had just made a film, independently of her one-woman Brecht-Weill show, for which a soundtrack had been recorded. So Philip ended up working with her to Produce a 12 track LP titled 'Bernelle On Brecht And..'

Philip's perspective of the Dublin music scene was garnered from a weekly column, in the Evening Press, by Fachtna O'Kelly (who subsequently managed The Boomtown Rats). It was through reading O'Kelly that Philip met like-minded souls Pete Holiday and Steve Rapid and, with the bassist and drummer that he'd recruited for his own band, they formed The Radiators From Space.

The Radiators reached number 17 in the Irish charts with their first single 'Television Screen'. Then, in June 1977, they organized a punk festival in Dublin with Revolver, The Vipers, The Under-tones and The Gamblers. Tragically, a fan was stabbed to death during the afternoon and consequently the Radiators found it very difficult to get gigs in Ireland.

They moved to London and in the middle of 1978, directed their energy into a second LP, 'Ghostown' which was produced by Tony Visconti and included the all-time classic 'Faithful Departed'. For various business reasons, 'Ghostown' did not appear until a year after it was recorded and effectively lost its impact.

"The whole thing was really soul destroying. We couldn't even play live 'cos we couldn't afford to. So we were forced to just retreat into the studio and make ever-more ludicrously overproduced records in an attempt to get played on radio. The last couple of singles were all production; studio rubbish. Our heart had gone out of it."

Shortly afterwards, Philip managed to find employment in Camden's Rock On record store. "It was a very good job, 'cos it was an oldies record shop and introduced me to music that up to that point I only knew something about: r 'n' b, soul, country, western swing, cajun. So it was educational, the people who worked there were very good and I was allowed the freedom to take as much time off as I wanted."

Having already produced a single for The Atrix and Agnes Bernelle, it was logical to release a five-track mini LP of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill songs, which appeared towards the end of the year, as 'Songs From Bill's Dancehall'. "Around the same time I produced The Atrix album, alongside Midge Ure and John Leckie. I also played a couple of times at the Stadium in Dublin with Moving Hearts, doing my Brecht-Weill show - which didn't go down terribly well with the audience. And all these things led into producing more records."

In the summer of 1983, Philip decided to record 'The Captains And The Kings' which Brendan Behan had written for his play The Hostage. "I knew that it wouldn't be easy to convince record companies about the idea but, having heard 'Ship-building' and 'Pills And Soap' by Elvis Costello, I thought that he would probably be sympathetic and definitely wanted him to produce it. I knew Elvis was a customer in Rock On and spoke to him there; he was interested and I sent him a demo. The next day he phoned me and said, 'let's make a record'.

'The Captains And The Kings' appeared on IMP - the label that Costello created to release his 'Pills And Soap' single with the June General Election - and was backed with 'Faithful Departed' (a song which has since been recorded by both Moving Hearts and Christy Moore). Philip's next move was asking Frank Murray to manage him. "God knows he had very little to do. I was hardly prolific, so he was managing a record producer more than a performer.

The following year, Chevron drew The Men They Couldn't Hang to Costello's attention and ended up producing their debut single 'Green Fields Of France', as IMP's third release. By the spring of1985, the label's first LP had materialized via Agnes Bernelle's 'Father's Lying Dead On The Ironing Board' - also produced by Philip Chevron.

Although Philip's services had been secured for the whole tour, Jem flew across for The Pogues' opening date at the Alabama Halle in Munich.

Most of the band spent their first afternoon in a comfortable restaurant, knocking back Liebfraumilch, and throwing out possible monikers for their next LP. All of a sudden, Andrew piped up with "Rum, sodomy and the lash!" - Churchill's famous synopsis of naval life. There could be no better title.

It was during the same conversation that Frank casually mentioned that The Pogues should be extended into a seven-piece to include his good friend, the reputed Irish folk musician - and former member of Steeleye Span - Terry Woods. "I thought that the band needed an anchor-man," says Murray, "and I tried to think of somebody who'd fit in with the rest of the personnel. I was always a great admirer of Terry's, besides the fact that he is a very close personal friend, so I mentioned him to the band. Shane knew of him and of what he'd done, but the name didn't ring a bell with the others."

Back at their hotel, they settled into Murray's room and saw off another crate-load before launching into an accompanied singing session. Later, they decided that now was as good a time as any to introduce themselves to their German tour manager. He turned out to be a sensitive soul named Dirk, and - if he was taken aback by the degeneracy of their appearance - then the best was yet to come.

Their German debut, which was to be broadcast live on TV, was an unmitigated success. "I was more nervous than the band," admits Murray. "In the dressing room I had butterflies in my stomach - I really had. But, by the second number, the heads started to bob and then shoulders went up and you could see that the audience was getting the feel of it. And it was, 'Bang! We have them', and I just relaxed immediately."

Philip Chevron first appeared as a Pogue on their second night, in Stuttgart. "It felt right from the very beginning for them and for me," he says. "It just seemed like I fitted in." Equally spontaneous was the crazed enthusiasm of the German crowd: yip ey aying with all their madcap might. Pogue speak was - as Munich had hinted - a language that knew no borders.

The band travelled through Germany in a time honoured Transit, which had been driven across by Darryl. Lit by the novelty of the occasion, they soon adopted a native accent: their broken English rarely transcending beyond 'alkohol'. Shane's ability to refuel Proved incredible even by MacGowan standards and he went without sleep for most of the l0-day trip. "Shane was on great form," says Darryl. "He was completely out to lunch but performing really well."

The Pogues hit Berlin on April 20, Adolf Hitler's birthday. Their appearance at The Loft was, all too predictably, marred by a bunch of boneheads shouting "Sieg heil!" The indomitable Cait launched into a verbal battle while Philip Chevron, adopting the role of MC, left the audience in no doubt about the band's views on Nazis. Minutes later the mindless rant was drowned in the anti-war sentiments of 'Waltzing Matilda', and the appreciative cheers of the majority.

The following morning half the party decided on a token trip to East Berlin. As they ate breakfast in the genteel company of German tourists, in wandered the sleepless Shane. A barefooted, Ray-Banned figure, clad in excessively stained black, pseudo deutsch spieling from his mucained mouth - he was an unforgettable sight.

Later that day, they headed for the lively port of Hamburg and were joined by Uncle Brian, better known as Elvis Costello, who had become increasingly inseparable from the band and, more specifically, Caitlin O'Riordan. Cait's impressions of Germany were, by this time, sour and not just because of the night before. "Germany's barmy full of really fucked up people," she said. "You could have excused it in Berlin because there was a reason, but it was all over the place. I hated it."

Headcases or not, The Pogues played to a packed Hamburg house, and received yet another rip-roaring response. They celebrated in a bar which bordered the Reeperbahn and was run by a man from the town of Dungannon.

Unbeknown to everybody else, Shane, who was last seen passing out in the hotel lobby, ended the night in a nearby hospital. He appeared the next morning with a painfully swollen jaw, saying that he'd "fallen over". When the MacGowan memory failed to account for his fractured cheekbone in any other way, several theories were put forward. They centred on a thorough beating from either the German police, a night porter or persons unknown.

"What we reckon happened," says Spider, "was that the night porter thought he was someone who'd just wandered in, and tried to turf him out. And when Shane attempted to explain that he was a guest the porter didn't want to know, and laid into him."

Their first post-German date was a Greater London Council 'Jobs For Youth' benefit at The Dominion Theatre, alongside The Boothill Foot-tappers and electric folk hero Richard Thompson. A discernible section of the crowd had paid purely for the pleasure of The Pogues and, as The Foot-tappers went off, it was obvious that stage precautions weren't what they should be.

"We said that we needed proper security but no one took us seriously," says Jem. "So about 50 people jumped oh stage and were dancing around and going mad."

The Pogues played on regardless but, as they finished their set, an over-zealous fan grabbed the mike and shouted: "Who the fuck is Richard Thompson anyway!" This sparked off a terrace chant of "Richard Thompson, Richard Thompson, who the fuckin' hell are you!"

"And the poor bastard was in the dressing room trying to psyche himself up to go on stage," continues Jem. "I don't think he went off us, but it was the last time he wanted us to support him."

Although Thompson's performance passed without incident, The Pogues were suddenly hot news on Fleet Street's brightest pop page. "It was a total riot," a Daily Mirror Club reader was reported as saying. "The Pogues seemed to be pretty far gone themselves and they started shouting things to the audience like: 'If anyone is sitting down pour whiskey over them and set them on fire.'" The band were horrified at such wanton disregard for whiskey but the Dominion brought further notoriety, and the realization that they didn't need to support anyone in London.

They retired into Elephant Studios to work on 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' with Costello at the controls and live engineer Paul Scully, and Nick Robbins, at his side. And, the following week, they set off for the sobriety of Scandinavia. Jem stayed with Marcia so once again Philip Chevron stood in on banjo.

Their route was economy planned, taking them cross channel via Germany to Finland. Boarding the ferry at Travemünde, a seaside resort not far from Lübeck, they spent the next 36 hours on a "very special sailing experience" (® DFDS Sea- ways) across the Baltic Sea.

Giving the sauna a miss, they settled into the nearest bar. Spider, already banjaxed from the long drive, sprawled himself comfortable and fell asleep. Two minutes later he was slapped upright by a Finnjet vigilante, and only the unassailable Stacy charm saved him from a night in the brig. But, for the rest of the journey, he was shadowed by the strangely affable Finn. Everywhere Spider went his 'minder' would follow, politely warning him: "Don't drink so much."

Their berths were, as feared, down in the ship's bowels, and by the second night the trip had turned into a nightmare. There was one escape: the devil's brew. "The trouble was," says Andrew, "the only thing we could afford to drink was schnapps."

Fearnley and Chevron entered into a heavy session, with Philip downing a full bottle of the potent liquor. The effect on his stomach ulcer was almost fatal.

"Andrew and Shane had to run up to the bridge to tell the Captain that Philip was dying," recounts Spider. "I was really worried because I didn't want to be left in a cabin with a corpse!"

"And I wouldn't let him smoke," interjects Philip. "Yeah, I kept having to go half out of the door and smoke in the corridor, but keep looking back to make sure he was still breathing. And if he stopped breathing I didn't know what I was supposed to do, because how do you give someone mouth to mouth resuscitation when they've died because of something that's wrong with their stomach!" asks Stacy. "Fortunately he's still here, but his first experience of Finland was a Finnish hospital."

Freed at last from the floating hell of the Finnjet Ferry, the rest of the band were set upon by Customs. "They had a sniffer dog, looking for drugs or explosives or whatever," says Spider. "But all it was interested in was the seat of Shane's pants."

"It kept having a go at my trousers, and it wouldn't leave my socks alone. I don't think they train sniffer dogs very well over there," comments Shane.

As if Finland's restricted licensing laws weren't trial enough, they found themselves ensconced in Helsinki's YMCA, a less than convivial establishment which bore the temperance legend: "Non-Christian behaviour will be tolerated here."

Sweden and Norway were, by comparison, sanctuary. Cait, the sole appreciator of Finland's fjords, was captivated by the Norwegian landscape. "I loved Norway better than anywhere I've ever been; apart from sentimental reasons for Ireland," she says. "The scenery was incredible."

During the Norwegian dates, The Pogues live act peaked new levels of energy. A big part of this was James, leaping around with admirable disregard for his 50 kilo accordion. "Me and Phil were going hell for leather," he explains. "Trying to compete with each other, seeing who could jump the highest, and just really physically enjoying it. That's why I get as active as I do on stage. And also I think it's really good being able to heave one of those fuckers around instead of just having it sit on your chest."

The Norwegians were entranced - not least by Spider, going hog wild on beer tray. An imposing skinhead was particularly fascinated: "Ah! Spider! I have seen you and you are hitting yourself over ze head vit a trombown! No!," he exclaimed, smacking himself in the head with his fist. "I am stupid! It voz a beer barrel!"

Back in London - where Jem was now the father of another daughter, Kitty - they returned to Elephant Studios, and finished recording 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash'.

Meanwhile Philip Chevron, survivor of two European tours and the Finnjet fiasco, had become inseparable from the band. And because it had been decided that Shane shouldn't play guitar, but focus solely on singing, Philip was deemed the ideal solution.

"It just became gradually obvious in Europe that I wanted to stay and they wanted me to stay if I wanted to," says Philip. "Shane had been not wanting to play guitar for some time, so it seemed logical that when Jem came back I would be the guitarist."

At the beginning of June, The Pogues went back to Ireland. They headlined Whit Weekend at the Cibeal Festival in Kenmare, a picturesque town set among the Kerry hills and back dropped by the lofty heights of the MacGillicuddy Reeks. But, despite the acquisition of Philip Chevron, Frank Murray was still convinced that there was a place in The Pogues for his multi-faceted friend Terry Woods.

"I invited him to meet the band in Kenmare," says Murray, "but because the place was new to them and the weather was beautiful, it was a quick handshake, a 'Hello, Terry' and they were off! So he ended up being left in a room with no one but myself."

Woods did not, however, let their lack of decorum colour his first impressions. "I'd heard tapes and read reviews so I knew what they were about and what they were into. I think MacGowan is a great writer, and when I saw them I could see that they were taking parts of Irish music into a direction which it needs to go in. It's become too insular."

The Pogues' raucous set was generally regarded as the highlight of the festival; although their artistic intent was questioned by Ireland's more delicate sensibilities. A stocious Shane managed to throw up over Cait's amp, while Spider did likewise in Rosslare. "He threw up all over his suit and had to leave it in a bin," laughs Shane. "That was his present to Mother Ireland."

The following Tuesday they made their live debut on the BBC's Whistle Test. Jem hadn't travelled to Kenmare, so it was their first time as a seven-piece. "It was a live appearance at 10 o'clock in the morning," remembers Philip, "and it was really strange because there was this extra person on stage who was quite foreign to me, and it must have been just as odd for Jem. Still we do tend to throw ourselves in at the deep end sometimes." Severe stomach pains had, by this stage, forced Shane to think about his long suffering liver. He eventually gave in to medical advice and took the hitherto inconceivable measure of giving up whiskey. "Shortening my life doesn't worry me," he says. "I just don't like the way it makes me feel. I kept drinking more whiskey to make me feel better, which it does for a while, and then you get to feel even worse." MacGowan replaced the sacred spirit with white wine.

On June 9, Barry McGuigan boxed his way into the World Featherweight title and, suddenly, everyone was sprouting shamrocks. The Pogues couldn't have timed their fourth single better.

The upfront ring of mandolin, tin whistle and accordion, and the infectious refrain of 'far away' made MacGowan's 'Sally MacLennane' a supreme stomper and new hymn for the exile. Its Celtic flavour hung over to the B-side with rough cuts of 'The Wild Rover' and 'The Leaving o of Liverpool'. But, like 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' (which had reached the Top 70),'Sally MacLennane' suffered through an absence of daytime radio play. The talk of 'whores' didn't increase its BBC potential, and it peaked at Number 50 before fading out.

Simultaneously, they made another round of England and Scotland, rapidly earning a reputation for the hottest live act in the country. Their following seemed to grow with every gig, and invariably included a hardcore of Celtic supporters who had tied the Pogue flag to their own.

Their treks continued into a spate of outdoor festivals, beginning on mid-summer day at Glastonbury, where they shone through a quagmire of mud. Backstage, Frank Murray met up with The Boomtown Rats' enduring lightsman, and pal of his Dublin days, Paul Verner. Verner - who had previously worked with Skid Row, Thin Lizzy and Horslips - knew that The Rats would be off the road for winter, so dispensed with formalities by saying, "Gis a job". Murray promised to give him a call.

A couple of weeks later The Pogues were billed, appropriately enough, for the Hood Festival in Devon. And, on July 7, they reached their widest audience ever before 80,000 at the GLC's 'Jobs For A Change' red letter day in Battersea Park. By the time they got to WOMAD, their audience had taken on a cross-cultural identity of its own: from punks, football supporters, psychobillies, students and folk fans to anyone with a tint of green blood, all mesmerized by The Pogues' energy and lack of pretension.

The focal point was undoubtedly Shane MacGowan, a man with no style but his own. MacGowan's unconventional looks and stumbling stage presence make him the antithesis of the plastic pop star, while his vivid narratives offer similar doses of rugged realism.

The most notable of these was 'The Old Main Drag', a song almost as old as the band itself, but which they had recently resurrected. Beginning with the line 'When I first came to London, I was only 16,' and sung with the gravel-throated growl that could belong to no one but Shane, it quickly became a favourite with the crowd.

In the meantime, Frank Murray had devised a nautical theme for 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash', and the band were duly decked in full Napoleonic regalia and photographed at London's Tower Bridge. The LP was wrapped in a Pogue parody of JLA Gericault's macabre painting 'Le Radeau de La Medusa'.

"The history of the painting is exactly the same as a lot of Pogue songs," says Jem. "Lots of our songs are about people being shat on. Not by any particular system but just because people are always shat on. They're not explicitly political but implicitly we're very political."

On July 30, 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' was launched on a sea of freebies at the press seam of the year. The grog poured thick and fast as 400 freeloaders piled onto HMS Belfast, moored on the Thames, for The Pogues' coming-out party. Booze bearing sailors wandered the gangplank, while seven scruffy Wellingtons posed as Napoleon and faced Waterloo with a steaming set.

"We were far from sober," admits Spider, "but the state the journalists were in! They were completely langoured by all the free booze."

Melody Maker went conspicuously over the top, over the eight and finally overboard as a sub editor splashed into the river. The Pogues ended their sublime night of liggin' in the riggin' with a mass knees-up on the quarter-deck and, as the guests made off with their free records, they were unlikely to be disappointed.

Loaded to the gunnels with energy and emotion, 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' was among the most essential vinyl of 1985. The cinematic imagery, additional instrumentation and polished production certainly came as a shock to the band's detractors.

Six of the 12 tracks were Pogue originals, all showing MacGowan to be a songwriter of the highest calibre. The scene was familiar - 'The Old Main Drag' delves into the darker, seamy streets of London; its brutal story of alienation rasped at an unusually slow pace: 'And now I am lying here, I've had too much booze/ I've been spat on and shat on and raped and abused/ I know that I'm dying and I wish I could beg for some money to take me from the old main drag.' Tommy Keane's uileann pipes highlight the sleaze and terminal despair.

'Old Main Drag' was untypical of the LP's overall mood. This was summed up by 'The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn', a glorious rampage through life which left nothing on hedonism unsaid. Similar spirit was reflected in the former single 'Sally MacLennane' which reappeared alongside 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes'. Side one also included the 'Wild Cats Of Kilkenny', a strident ceili punctuated by yelps and shrieks; and Cait's haunting interpretation of 'I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day'.

The second side opened with Ewan MacColl's 'Dirty Old Town', a well known ballad, rich in imagery and enhanced by Henry Benagh's fiddle, whose strings were even more to the fore on Spider's uptempo version of Jesse James'. The pace slowed into 'Navigator', their traditional tale of toil and hardship, written by Phil Gaston (the man behind 'Tommy's Blue Valentine') and followed by 'Billy's Bones' and a blitzing attack on 'The Gentleman Soldier'. The LP faded with an extended rendition of the Eric Bogle classic 'And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. This long-standing favourite from their live set re-echoed the anti-war views of 'Brown Eyes' and so succinctly heard on MacGowan's 'Billy's Bones' 'Now Billy's out there in the desert sun and his mother cries when the morning comes/ and there's mothers cryin' all over this world for their poor dead darlin' boys and girls.

Like 'Red Roses' before it, 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' managed to capture both the joy and despair of everyday life. Much ado was made of the latter. At least eight of the 12 tracks refer, at some point, to death, as the press were quick to point out.

"How can you possibly look at life without thinking about death? How can you possibly put life into any kind of reasonable perspective without death being on the border of it!" demands Shane, less saturnine than his lyrics. "The songs are not about death; they're about life."

'The Sick Bed Of Cuchulainn' illustrated his point. It could be analysed as yet another song about death and destruction but is in fact the ultimate celebration of life: 'They'll take you to Cloughprior and shove you in the ground, but you stick your head back out and shout, 'We'll have another round'.

MacGowan evaded thematic analysis by dismissing his work as songs in the pitch of life. "The songs are all based around fairly basic street level existence in London, which is the life that I've led most of my life," he explains. "I used to stay at my uncle's pub which is where 'Sally MacLennane' comes from. I also spent a lot of time down the 'dilly when I was teenager, which is where 'The Old Main Drag' comes from. It isn't necessarily about me . . . it's what I saw. All the rest of it is just stuff that, if you spend a lot of time living the - I don't know the word for it - real life in central London, you see it or it happens to you. I've worked in pubs and done other shit jobs, it's just that I've observed and remembered it, or it affected me enough to write about it. Not affected me so that I wanted to say any great message about it, just that I like thinking about things and then writing about them. I don't like writing about my own personal hang ups which is what a lot of other populists do, I just like giving an impression of real life."

Shane's impressions proved a little too real for Woolworths. The chain store insisted that all copies of 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' be stamped with the warning: "Contains language that might be considered offensive".

And while the record was generally soaked in lavish superlatives, The Pogues were criticized for macho overtones of the lyrics. Their version of 'The Gentleman Soldier' was, for example, imbued with as clear a Slide It In mentality as any Whitesnake song.

"People get very oversensitive," says Philip Chevron. "They read attitudes into things that aren't there. You look at Shane and there isn't any of that heavy metal macho bullshit in him at all. In fact he is - in the old fashioned sense of the word - a perfect gentleman; a scholar and a gentleman. "And if I, in all honesty, thought that 'Transmetropolitan' was offensive then I wouldn't be in this group. What's the line! 'We'll scare the Camden Palace poufs and worry all the whores' and the bit about 'the queers from the GLC'. I mean, I'm a faggot and I'm not offended. It would be ludicrous to be offended, and you could level the same accusations from a gay man's point of view as from a militant feminist's or whatever, but you'd be very stupid if you did because there aren't any macho overtones.

"You only have to look at the people that the members of this band share their lives with - the girlfriends and wives - to realize that if any of us were remotely male sexist pigs, then those people wouldn't be our partners. I've got a lot of sympathy with the feminist cause and, of course, the gay cause, without being an Islingtonian about it, but I think that very often there's a sort of inverted fascism at work, where people go out looking for examples of chauvinism or sexism or racism and see things that aren't there."

If anyone could single-handedly trounce the cries of 'sexism' then it was Cait. 'Whose is that voice! Who is that woman!" demanded an excited feminist on hearing 'Tommy's Blue Valentine' at a disco. "Is it some really famous jazz record that I'm just not aware of?"

Minutes later, she recoiled in horror on learning that the same singer was not only a Pogue but also responsible for a track citied 'I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day'. "Oh dear," sneered O'Riordan's former admirer. "She's obviously the subject of male domination."

"That's not something that I come up against," comments Cait. "People might say, 'Oh, she's the subject of male domination' bur they don't have to come up and say it to my face. They certainly don't say it if they meet me backstage or in an interview. But if anyone ever did try male domination on me, they'd have to be a lot taller than me, a lot bigger than me, and a lot more vicious."

The release of 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' was followed by a benefit concert for the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign at Brixton Fridge. Organised by Alex Cox and Simi Bedford, the line-up consisted of The Pogues, The Men They Couldn't Hang, The Boothill Foot-tappers and Elvis Costello. Not surprisingly, tickets were in heavy demand and, by the time the doors locked shut, the 2,000 capacity Fridge had overnowed with almost as many more spending the night on the street.

"When the place was full," says Alex Cox, "I walked around the outside and there were 2,000 people waiting to get in, who couldn't. There was this tremendous amount of support for The Pogues, and I was thinking, 'Wow! This is phenomenal'. I felt like Bill Graham!"

Two days later, on August 9, The Pogues took up an engagement- of a different kind. They travelled north to Shotts, near Glasgow at the behest of Nick Stewart, who had done his utmost to keep them entertained in Hull, and who ran a pub-cum-venue called The Mucky Duck.

Arriving in the early hours of the evening, they drank their way through Friday night and - thanks to the increasing generosity of the locals - repeated the process the following morning.

"No one believed that they were really going to come until they actually arrived," says Nick. "It's a wee venue for 300, and people came down from Stirling and up from Newcastle and, on the Saturday night, there were 300 people inside and 100 outside who couldn't get in. It was ridiculous."

Equally ridiculous was the state of Mr. Stacy. Spider - who couldn't say no to anything - had taken to the free drink like blotting paper: he was hog-wimpering by 6.00 p.m., unable to move at 7.00 p.m. and completely comatose ever after.

By 10.00 p.m. the other Pogues, and the accompanying Costello, had tried almost every known method of resuscitation and had no alternative but to leave Stacy's body in the van and, none too sober themselves, do the set without him. The tin-whistle eventually awoke at midnight and asked Shane, in all earnestness, "Were we any good, tonight?"

Good or downright diabolical it made little difference: the atmosphere was something else. After the show, there was a mass call for carryouts - which evolved into a late-night party in a nearby park.

Unfortunately, two policemen chanced by, and - oblivious to the difficulties of moving 100 delirious people - told the gathering to shift. Within minutes the scene was hit by a dozen screaming sirens, 30 policemen and their none too friendly dogs.

"All of a sudden it was like a police state," insists Nick. "There were ~34 arrests but every single one of those charges was later dropped - which proves how unnecessary it all was. There were no problems at all: just People having a bloody good time which, for some obscure reason, had to be curbed."

But, within 12 hours, the atmosphere had re-charged for The Pogues' Sunday night show and, this time, Spider managed to play on stage as well as in his dreams.

"Two nights, and it was just out of this world," says Nick. "They were far too big for our place but they did it 'cos they're such lovely people." Their departure time was scheduled for an ambitious 1.00 p.m. on Monday. But one lunchtime pint inevitably led to another and it was 6.00 p.m. before the van - driven on this occasion by Phil Gaston - eventually pulled away, with a heapful of flutered Pogues scrambling for the windows, screaming their good-byes and, God help every-one, threatening to return.

The following weekend was spent in Austria. Having enjoyed a thunderous reception at Cambridge, in July, The Pogues were lined up for the Vienna Folk Festival alongside Richard Thompson, Tom Verlaine, Fairport Convention, their forefathers The Dubliners and a host of European groups.

The Pogues whole set went down a bomb. "It was a great gig," enthuses Philip. "And it was also very encouraging that at a straight folk festival people abandoned their preconceptions and their bigotry and just enjoyed themselves, which was exactly what had happened at Cambridge before. Although a folk festival in Britain, where you're really well known is one thing, and a folk festival in Vienna quite another."

At home, the LP had climbed into the Top 20, confirming The Pogues growing popularity. It would take more than the BBC play-list to stop them. 'Rum' sales flowed throughout August while the band took a holiday.

Shane headed for the solitude of a Greek Island. "There are three places I've been to that I love, and that's London, Ireland and Greece," he said afterwards, Greek cross around his neck. "The Greek Islands are like Ireland was before they started building roads all over the place. The people just get on with their fishing and don't give a shit. No one speaks English, it's a brilliant place."

Meanwhile, 'Dirty Old Town' had been released as their fifth single. The flip side carried 'The Parting Glass', a traditional song which they made their own, and 'A Pistol For Paddy Garcia', an instrumental displaying Jem Finer's penchant for spaghetti-westerns, The record was accompanied by an incredibly bland video, shot through haze of dry ice in the soulful surrounds of Brixton Fridge.

"That video is nothing to do with us," says Jem. "Alex Cox was meant to do it but Frank went on holiday and Dave Robinson stepped in. He decided that Alex Cox wasn't going to do it, because he was too expensive and he made mad and crazy videos that weren't going to sell a record. Robinson just set the whole thing up and it was crap. I wanted them to get lots of people dancing and cut it in, which would have been much more exciting."

Finer was equally contemptuous of the single's sleeve. "The painting on 'Dirty Old Town' is really useless. It's just pathetic. There's so many better impressionistic low-life painters than this person you've never heard of called Ainsworth. Edward Burra for example is just brilliant but that was completely derivative, like some London arsehole trying to be an impressionist. And the lettering on the cover is awful, which is also what happened on 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash'. The 'Sodomy' was all very sensational, when it's not trying to be gauche or clever saying, 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' ha! ha! What a controversial tide! It has a bearing on the whole of the record and the feeling of the songs. But the lettering really cheapened it."

Despite its handicaps, everyone expected 'Dirty Old Town' to be the band's first hit. It wasn't. But at least it was inoffensive enough to lift the curse of Pogue Mahone. The Pogues were played on daytime radio, at last.

Murray sent a copy of 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' to 'Dirty Old Town' composer Ewan MacColl, who told him: "I didn't care for 'Dirty Old Town' much at first but I find it sounds better with each hearing. I like the other tracks a lot. Tremendous energy and real honest to God anger. Splendid. Hope the anger doesn't get blunted. Success can be like being trampled to death by tame geese."

With their star swaying in the ascendant, The Pogues hit the road yet again, this time for a 20- date stint, spanning September and ranging from Scunthorpe Park to Hammersmith Palais. The Free Festival in Scunthorpe, on September 1, was Paul Verner's last show with The Boomtown Rats before accepting Frank Murray's promised offer of a job, as The Pogues lighting engineer.

Around the same time Frank Murray sent a telegram to Terry Woods at his home near Virginia, County Cavan, asking Him to come to London to join The Pogues.

Born in Dublin, on December 4 1947. Terry Woods' interest in music was originally shaped by his sister May, who is six years his senior. "I was always a bit of a maverick, and couldn't identify with a lot of rock 'n' roll," he says. "I really liked Buddy Holly, Tommy Roe and The Everly Brothers, but I didn't understand why. Then May introduced me to classical music, and she also got involved with the folk scene - which was only just beginning - and she took me along to that. I then discovered that I really liked American country and mountain music, which in turn led me to understand why I like Buddy Holly."

It was then, at 14, that Terry got his first instrument: a five-string banjo. "Being part of the American old-time mountain culture, the five-string banjo really appealed to me."

Terry's girlfriend, Gay, had a brother - confusingly called Terry - who was also drawn to folk music and it wasn't long before he and the Woods had formed their own group. Gay quickly learnt to play guitar, and when May dropped out she joined up. The band was eventually whittled down to just Gay and 'Ferry Woods who, calling themselves The Apprentice Folk (later shortened to The Prentice Folk), played and sang as a duo for the next four years.

It was with Terry's next band, a trio called Sweeney's Men, that he made his first records - the singles 'Waxie's Dargle' and 'Sullivan's John' and the 1968 LP 'Sweeney's Men'. And, although 'Sweeney's Men' was only moderately successful, the band was highly influential: pioneering the use of double-stringed instruments like the bouzouki. When Andy Irvine left the band to travel through Eastern Europe, Woods and Johnny Moynihan experimented with electric music and commandeered a blues guitarist called Henry McCullough.

"He had toured a lot with Hendrix and, at the time, was a very famous guitar player," says Woods, "and when he joined we were really going somewhere electrically. But the record company (Transatlantic) were very reticent, as usual, to put money into the band in order to finance the equipment we needed. Joe Cocker offered Henry a gig with him, and although Henry loved what we were doing, because of the record company's attitude it seemed as if we were going up a blind alley, so he took the gig and subsequently played on all the great Joe Cocker tracks."

Meanwhile, Woods and Moynihan - the surviving but increasingly disillusioned Sweeney's Men - spent most of their time in London. They drank in The Prince Of Wales in Hampstead, a meeting place for many musicians including Fairport Convention. Woods consequently met up with Ashley Hutchings, and they had several discussions about developing the potential of electric folk. "We were very interested in getting a British/ Irish band together on the basis of The Byrds," explains Terry. "And that's basically what we set out to do - and it was nearly successful."

In November 1969, Hutchings left Fairport Convention and spent the following month rehearsing with Terry and Gay Woods, Johnny Moynihan and Andy Irvine. The latter pair backed out (going on to Planxty, and Moynihan also to De Dannan) but, in January 1970, Hutchings and the Woods recruited Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, and formed Steeleye Span.

They recorded 'Hark! The Village Wait' on RCA but split, after just four months, without playing any gigs. "Unfortunately we began to develop differences within the band," says Terry, "and decided to break up, except that the band didn't actually break up. There was a lot of politics going on, and everybody left supposedly - but in fact it was one of those tricks to get rid of us, although we were the founder members."

While Steeleye Span headed for considerable commercial success, the Woods were approached by Doctor Strangely Strange. They joined somewhat reluctantly - since they had also recorded some demos with Ian McDonald and Michael Giles of King Crimson, and were hoping to further that partnership - but toured with the Strangelys over the following year.

By January 1972, though, Terry had made a conscious decision to form his own band. The result was The Woods Band: a collaboration between Terry, Gay and various musicians. But after tours of England, the Continent and Ireland, the inevitable 'differences' reared and the band split in Holland before finally fizzling in Dublin. It was at this point that Terry and Gay re-settled in Ireland and reverted to being a due. With the aid of session musicians, they made extensive tours of Europe and recorded four LPs, the last of which was titled 'Tenderhooks'.

In 1980, Terry and Gay parted company, and Terry immersed himself in a new project: The Woods Band, Mark II. But, as soon as they started recording, Terry realized that the band had been a mistake. "I should have just taken a total and final break. I'd reached a kind of crescendo - between personal problems and the general hassle of being involved in the music business for so long - and just had to get away from it."

Terry eventually calmed down in the Cavan countryside, with his new wife Marian and their children Sarah and Hazel. He had managed to stay away from the music business for almost five years when Frank Murray suddenly suggested that he should join The Pogues. Woods checked them out at Kenmare and, having liked most of what he saw, was keener to make a comeback. "Frank wanted me to go back on the road and I kind of had itchy feet to go back anyway - so The Pogues seemed the perfect opportunity."

Fourteen weeks later, Woods received his summons.

Terry immediately flew to London, and joined The Pogues at their rehearsal room in Tufnell Park. "I told him to come on over and give it a shot," says Frank. "But everybody was very wary. The band rehearsed a set, then Terry got up and tried to play with them, and it was complete chaos - a catastrophe. And yet I knew that, as long as the band were prepared to give him time to break himself in, it was going to happen."

The following day, September 5, Terry was back in Ireland, ready to play cittern and concertina as a special guest Pogue. Their first stop was Dublin, where 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' had aroused curiosity to such an extent that their only rival for media attention was the moving statue of Ballinspittle.

Controversy was fuelled when the band were invited to answer questions on an RTE radio show. Hosted by DJ and good vibes specialist BP Fallen, it featured a studio panel of journalists, traditional musicians and cabs. with The Pogues on one side, the inquisition on the other and barely a drop of drink between them it was hardly a cordial atmosphere.

Relations deteriorated when a concertina player and former member of Planxty, Noel Hill, attacked the band's musicianship. Hill, whose perception of music began and ended with Seamus Ennis, stated that The Pogues - in common with the "rowdy ballad music" of The Dubliners and Clancy Brothers - were "a terrible abortion" of Irish music.

This led to a discussion, as heated as it was inevitable, about the band's 'Irishness'. Journalist Joe Ambrose made a laudable attempt to quell the point, by saying: "It's said that folk music is the background to us being a proud, independent nation and, if you come from a place like Tipperary - which is where the Clancys come from - you'd probably regard folk music as being more suitable for molesting sheep to. Whereas The Pogues reflect elements of sordidity and earthiness and poverty, which are much more interesting and which have nothing to do with being Irish or English or American."

Noel Hill, however, laboured his case and it was at this stage that Andrew went for an unexpected Grundy, and said: "I think it just comes down to I sex. I mean, are you a better fucker than me!" The session continued in similar style for another half hour, and eventually ended with the contemptuous Cait being branded "a pig". She replied with five seconds of suitable snorts.

By this time, the issue of 'tradition' had become a common carp against them. Shane put the record straight: "Tradition is something that has passed from generation to generation. Those of us in the group with Irish backgrounds or who were actually brought up in Ireland must have the Irish tradition in us. We can't be traditional because we don't stick to just what was handed down, but we can't be against tradition because we were built on a tradition. So, therefore, the argument is spurious; it's ridiculous."

Irish purists were not the only back biters. The Pogues were also accused of perpetuating the stereotype of the comical drunken Irish Joe Breen wrote, in The Irish Times, of a black man who had said that he disliked the blues because it reminded him of the days of virtual slavery; he preferred listening to modern black music. And it was the same for Irishman Breen who considered The Pogues to be a raffish reflection on Ireland's unsophisticated past.

Such notions were given credence by the band's constant allusions to drink, and the sight of Spider bashing his brains out with a beer tray. But it was a view that The Pogues disregarded. "People drink and people don't; it's irrelevant," sighs Shane. "Tom Waits isn't accused of perpetuating drunken stereotypes so why should we be! Okay, so maybe we're real alkies but that's got nothing to do with what we do as a group."

'It doesn't matter what we do in our private lives," says Jem. "The point is that people like us because we provide something that no one else does which is playing straight songs. Most other groups don't play actual songs: you get a Duran Duran record and it's got really good production but the words mean nothing apart from a celebration of the lifestyle that they've attained for themselves. We play songs which deal with subjects that are common to all people regardless of their class or their race. They're about feelings that everyone has whether they try and pretend they do or they don't. Songs that you can sing in a bath or sing with a hundred guitarists, and the music is very melodic, with a lot of emotion and soul."

Jem's words were borne out by the way the audience reacted to their Irish dates. Dublin's SFX Centre (aka Saint Francis Xavier's) managed to squeeze over 1500 into its less than spacious confines. The result was a flaming field of heads, scarves, raised arms and tattered Tricolours. The response was repeated the following right at Queen's University, Belfast. Drunken deadbeats or not, the Irish crowds couldn't care less.

Over on Scottish soil, Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom gave the band their greatest night yet. The unexpected death of Celtic's King had aroused their fans' fervour and the atmosphere resounded with the collective cry, "Jack Stein! Jack Stein!". The Pogues were suddenly playing Parkhead and the Old Finn weren't in sight. "The Barrowlands crowd are absolute magic," enthuses Spider. "It's the kind of place where the crowd really makes the show, because they're coming across with such fibre, such energy. And it's all really positive as well. I've never detected any malice in any of the gigs we've done in Scotland. It's just People going out and having a really good time, and we pick up and respond to that. The audience makes it and I think that's why people say that Glasgow is such a good gig."

If their stage act wasn't exactly polished, then Paul Verner's lightshow and an intro tape of 'Paddy Garcia' gave presentation a new meaning. Returning to England; the tour shifted into top gear. The Pogues seemed to transcend the barriers of style and subculture: attracting everyone from the curious and the disillusioned to those who were (at least in their own mind's eye) The Boys From The County Hell. "The nearest parallel I can find is a football match," says Cait. "They're the football hooligans and we're Arsenal or something."

It was sold-out signs every other night, with the lucky ones going where spirits took them and singing all the words from 'The Old Main Drag' to 'The Wild Rover'. But it wasn't just a question of the songs - The Pogues were now capable of crowd communication in a way that their contemporaries couldn't approximate. Not only had they added to their repertoire but Terry Woods had further increased their musical prowess. On stage, they possessed an energy and wild shamrock abandon that recalled the most speed scorched punk.

"It all boils down to energy," enthuses Scottish author Iain Banks, "and The Pogues have got it; it's foot stamping music, shouting and yelling and roaring music; drunken Irish bandit music, and the sheer gleeful raucousness of a song like 'Sally MacLennane' just takes my breath away, it also leaves me grinning like an idiot, happy just for hearing it."

Banks - creator of the gloriously psychotic and critically lauded The Wasp Factory - was, at the time, working on a third novel, The Bridge, and decided to incorporate The Pogues into one of the central events of the book: a cassette of 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' is playing in the principal character's car when he crashes into the rear of another.

"The song which I heard first," says Iain, "and which made me want to buy 'Rum' was 'I'm A Man You Don't Meet Every Day', which I heard on Peele's show. I loved the song, but I loved the way Cait O'Riordan sang it even more; as though through continual not quite-asleep sighs. It's an amazing (and ambiguously erotic) performance; a brilliant counterpoint to the fiendish power of so many of the other tracks. I suppose that's another reason I'm so enthusiastic. If The Pogues were only the most energetic exponents of Celtic folk- punk, they'd be just another good band, but they have a range of styles and a grasp of emotional resonance that lifts them above that.

"And then there's the politics; left up my street. The Pogues sing for the oppressed and the exploited without being patronising or sentimental, and somehow there's an anarchic, rebellious attitude that comes out even in the songs not obviously about authority and its various uniformed symptoms. Maybe it's just something to do with Shane's voice; it's like a rusty bayonet . . . but I don't think that's all there is to it." Whatever it was that The Pogues had, the demand for it was increasing, and the weekend of September 20-22 provided Shane with two of his finest moments.

The first came via a trip back to Dublin and an appearance on Gay Byrne's frequently controversial Late Late Show. A post-Band Aid Bob Geldof was also appearing that night and offered to introduce them.

It was decided that MacGowan would perform live, while the band mimed. This left Shane with the near impossible task of singing the furious-paced 'Sick Bed' to a backing tape. But technical hiccups didn't spare RTE viewers from the blasphemous blast: 'They took you up to Midnight Mass and left you in the lurch, so you dropped a button in the plate and spewed up in the church.'

The Pogues were scheduled to return to England the following day but, come lunchtime, there was still no sign of Shane. After much shuffling and waiting around, the band were driven to the airport, and a rescue party was sent through the pubs of Dublin for the rambling singer. Finding no joy in the six likeliest places, the search for MacGowan was all but given up. He was eventually found in the fourteenth bar they checked out and quickly packed off to Folkestone - arriving just in time for that night's gig at Leas Cliff Hall. The following day brought another high when, on the afternoon of their sold-out show at the Hammersmith Palais, Channel 4 used 'Sally MacLennane' as the trailer for the GAA Cup Final between Dublin and Kerry live from Croke Park. This more than compensated for the fact that the same Channel had simultaneously deemed the band 'too ugly' to appear on its Bliss pap programme.

The Pogues celebrated their third birthday, on October 4, at Ipswich's Gaumont Theatre. Coincidentally, Frank Murray's former charges Thin Lizzy had made their Robertson/Gorham debut on the same day, eight years before. It was also the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. Although Shane's carefree ways left him many miles from his 'vision he was, like Brendan Behan before, already a veritable Francis. The press had long since championed him at the head of the-down-and-outs, with the NME stamping The Pogues audience as "the unclean" and declaring MacGowan's 'Transmetropolitan' and 'The Old Main Drag' as "veritable anthems for a generation of squat culture kids". Canonization couldn't be far off as The Pogues evolved into that paper's pet band. "We're NME's pet band, we're Sounds' pet band, we're Melody Maker's pet band - we're not anybody's pet band," protested Shane. "`We're so popular they can't ignore us, it's as simple as that."

What's more The Pogues were becoming increasingly multi-lingual; the spirit could be translated into any language. And so, after a futile attempt to record their Christmas single in a few days, they set off on yet another trans-channel trip. Since it was to be a four-week round of Holland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia, they were afforded the luxury of their first tour bus. Its territorial areas were three-fold: upfront the cinema, at the back the rehearsal room and conveniently centred in the middle was a make- shift bar.

The video screen was invariably filled with Sergio Leone's 220-minute epic Once Upon A Time In Algeria obsessively watched, at least once a day, by Shane and Spider and this force fed to the choiceless crew. "I went to see that film four times in two weeks," says Shane. "I love things like that: James Cagney, Robert de Niro; good gangster movies. I'm just a frustrated psychopath really." He subsides into the unmistakable MacGowan laugh, a sound which has been described as everything from the crackle of a cheap walkie-talkie to an overheated Buick rattling its last gasp. Whatever, it's a hiss that's been closely copied by Spider and, in Europe, proved infectious. "I must admit that I lapsed into it for a while," says PV (Paul Verner). "But then I thought, Paul, pull yourself together."

The only sound to really overshadow Leone - and Shane 'n' Spider's spin-off grunts of "Hey, pal, how are ya! Good to see ya" - was rain dog Tom Waits, who provided a supreme backdrop to the whole trek. PV found himself eulogized on 'Cemetery Polka' and was promptly rechristened Uncle Verner, while 'Transmetropolitan' was shot with 'Singapore' to favour a live charge of "heave away" over the customary yells.

After three days in Holland, half the band took up full time residence at the back of the bus. While Terry, Jem, James and Philip alternated on guitars and banjos, Andrew would be hitting tables, windows and beer cans by way of accompaniment. "One of the things that I've always really liked about the band," says Andrew, "is that it's genuinely about making music in a very realistic and unpretentious way. You can be banging your spoon against a teacup and somebody else might be whistling it's that simple. And that relates to the majority of music that I like, which is usually played on pretty simple instruments. It can become sophisticated but the area where it begins is an area where anything goes."

At the end of the first week, The Pogues played a one-off French date at Forum des Halles in Paris. During the show, Andrew managed to split the forefinger of his left hand. Passing the cut off as a hazard of drumming, he did his best to ignore it. But, on reaching Germany, the wound was so badly infected that a doctor warned if he didn't rest his hand for a couple of days the rigid digit might have to be amputated.

Consequently Darryl - freed from driving chores by their increasingly wayward busman, Bill - played drums in Munich. "That was my favourite tour," he remembers. "It was the first time that I didn't have to drive so I was able to get drunk and enjoy myself, as well as doing my job. And basically my most enjoyable time with The Pogues is getting to play with them; nothing can touch that." However, Darryl just didn't have the body weight to match Ranken's whack and Elvis Costello, never far from Cait's side, manned the Pogue sticks on their next night in Freiburg.

The following day they made the short journey across the Swiss border to spend Halloween in Zurich. Beneath the seasonal red luminations of the Rate Fabrik, where Andrew was making a single-handed comeback, the Swiss punks were mental as anything: throwing cans, climbing on stage, and damning to hell the-chocolate-box-and-Heidi-ribbons myth. The band were rejoined by Frank Murray, fresh from England and eager to celebrate the birth of his son, Aran. By 2.30 am, the entourage had settled into their Seegarten Hotel for the long and top heavy task of wetting the Pogues's head.

Some hours later the bus that swallowed Sergio Leone was heading northward for Frankfurt. As the night's casualties slumped into sleep, the other rain dogs played on. "I think we discovered how musical we potentially were," opines Philip. "It was still at a time when people regarded us as this cute little Punk band who play Irish music. And that tour was the turning point where we realized that we weren't going to be continuing to do albums like 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' and 'Red Roses For Me', and that it was going to be quite a major leap from them."

Meanwhile, Shane had adopted a daily habit of reading Turkish newspapers. They were, he shrugged, the closest he would come to Greece. Tired of touring, MacGowan's mind was firmly fixed on the middle of the month and the first flight back to London. A few days later, fate served him a helping hand.

Arriving in the Swedish canal city of Malmo, it became clear that Shane's worsening cold was more than a heavy chill. And, three hours before The Pogues were due on stage, a doctor diagnosed pneumonia. As their singer was rushed off to hospital, the rest of the band decided it was too late to cancel the show. The vocals were subsequently shared between Elvis Costello, Spider, Terry and Philip but, before they went on, a steward explained the line-up change to the 600-strong crowd, and told them that ticket refunds were available. Five Swedes headed for the nearest door.

"That was probably the worst gig we've ever done," says Spider. "There's no point in trying to play it straight without Shane 'cos he's obviously such a crucial part of The Pogues. We all got arseholed drunk before we went on, because that's the kind of a night it had turned into, and it was a complete shambles. But at the time it was a real laugh and I think the crowd thought so too." Afterwards, the band hid from public view in their dressing room, where Frank Murray was feeling less than happy about their abysmal performance and the cancelled schedule. The jaded party was homeward bound.

Having whistled past the graveyard, Shane says, "It was touch and go. When the hospital started treating me they shoved paracetamol up my bum. That felt a bit strange, but some of the nurses were nice." Back home, he was restored to relative health and allowed a couple of precious -free weeks.

Towards the end of November, The Pogues had another attempt at the Christmas single for release in January! It was a MacGowan and Finer ballad cum waltz entitled 'A Fairytale Of New York', coupled with an unlikely cover of The Lovin' Spoonful's 'Do You Believe In Magic!' But the former proved exceedingly-difficult to record. "It was a great song," says Paul Scully, "but it never fell together. Shane was less than one hundred per cent happy with the lyrics and kept trying to rewrite them. He wanted strings on it too, which didn't really turn out the way it should have."

The band had, however, managed to get one of their Yuletide acts together. They decided to issue Pogue Christmas cards and, after acquiring the appropriate apparel, they enlisted the services of lensman Tom Collins to re-live the Nativity scene. Shot against a backdrop of the New York City skyline, Cait and Shane posed as Mary and Joseph; Philip, James and Jem as the Three Wise Men, Spider, Terry, Frank, Paul and Darryl as shepherd all sorts and, as was often the case on such occasions, Andrew Pogue was AWOL.

Brilliant as the photographs were, though, the session had certainly posed its problems. Bethlehem hay was all very authentic but, with more than half a dozen chain smoking Pogues around, Tom Collins had lived in fear that someone would unwittingly set his studio alight.

By the time the cards were ready to post, a 21- date tour of England, Scotland and Ireland was lined up for December. But before taking to the road, Frank Murray called up his former Specials sparring-partner and born Pogue, Dave Jordan, and invited him to take charge of sound monitors. Dave Jordan moved to London from his home town of Barrow-in-Furness, in 1972, and his varied background included a stint as Island Records' van driver and recording engineer for The Rolling Stones.

In 1979 he worked alongside Elvis Costello on The Specials first LP, and his instinctive under- The magnificently moody Dave Jordan standing led to a full-time job with the band and a lasting friendship with their tour manager, Frank Murray.

When The Specials split in the summer of 1981, Jordan took off with Terry Hall, Neville Staples and Lynval Golding, who emerged in October as The Fun Boy Three. He produced their hit single 'The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylurn)' and 'The Fun Boy Three' LP but, the following year, Jordan was sacked. "They got fed up of waiting three hours for me to start a session," he quips.

After going on to work with a number of foreign acts, including the Japanese band Sandii And The Sunsetz, he took a sabbatical year in Barrow. He re-emerged in 1984, producing for several artists including Frank Murray's charge Kirsty MacColl.

The Christmas tour opened on December 3 in Sheffield. with a set honed to Pogue perfection. Ambling on to the familiar strains of 'Paddy Garcia', they seared straight into the manic 'Sick Bed' not letting up to a soulful three-song spell of 'The Old Main Drag,' 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' and 'Dirty Old Town'. Then back to the breakneck with a furious 30-minute mix of instrumentals and old favourites; Cait briefly pausing for a seasonal salute to the Jesus And Mary Chain. By the time they got to the encore and 'Waltzing Matilda', the crowd were united in a singular, full-throated mass. There wasn't a sound in the country to touch them.

And visually, they were more electrifying than ever. The focus, which had once been on Shane and his left-hand cohorts Spider and Cait, was now panoramic. During the Shaneless instrumentals, Philip assumed the role of cheer-leader, while James played fag inhaling dynamo against the distinguished presence of Terry Woods. "I remember a review saying that The Pogues never look at one another," says James, "and for a long time that was the case, but now I love looking round. When Cait makes a mistake on her bass it's really funny to look across and see her looking sheepish about it."

Continuing through Hanley and Liverpool, their trail was marked with the glint of rising status: a luxury tour bus. However, the vehicle belonged not to The Pogues but to their superfluous support act. They found themselves packed, ever tighter, into a battered transit.

The tour, and indeed the whole year, reached a climax on December 8, when they sold out the Hammersmith Odeon. "That was the high point in lots of ways," comments Paul Scully. "We suddenly realized that we could play London and sell-out a 4,500-seated place with very little posters or hype."

The gig itself was unforgettable. Tommy Keane and Henry Benagh joined in on 'Dirty Old Town' (dedicated to Kirsty "whose dad wrote it") while Elvis Costello appeared for 'The Wild Rover'. Throughout, Shane howled his heart empty - and the house down.

"That was our most significant gig," says James, "and it was also very important for Frank. I had the feeling that people had written him off, saying that he would never be the manager of a decent group. So it was like him sticking two fingers up at those who said he couldn't do it. I don't go for people getting really cocky about doing anything, but that night was a bit of a triumph for Frank - and it was for us."

They wrapped up the two-week tour by donning kilts in Glasgow's Barrowland Ballroom. It was Spider's 27th birthday. "I can't really say anything about Barrowlands," he says, "'cos I've said it so many times before that I'm probably boring people shitless."

Barrowlands managed to reciprocate the Stacy enthusiasm and among the throng was Nick Stewart. "I don't think The Pogues realize how good or important they are," he says. "It's not just Irish music jazzed up - they're on a different plain. The only person that I can compare them with is Tom Waits."

Simultaneously, Christmas accolades came via Melody Maker, who named Shane MacGowan as their Chap Of The Year and 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' as second best LP. NME, for all their hyperbole, were more effacive: voting 'A Pair Of Brown Eyes' ninth in the singles, and 'Rum' at 18. Meanwhile, Pogues' publicist Philip Hall, was named Press Officer Of The Year for his part in the 'Rum, Sodomy And The Lash' party.

In nine months, Frank Murray had extended The Pogues from a family of eight to 13. Former Rats man, PV was happy to accept a retainer. "Once you start working with a band like The Pogues, it's really difficult to leave," he says. "They're just really genuine people with none of the big rock star bullshit. Everyone is equal, and that's a very rare attitude these days."

It was the same for DJ (Dave Jordan). "When people from earth go to the moon they've got to wear a spacesuit to survive," he smiles. "And for me just surviving on a normal day-to-day basis is difficult, but The Pogues is the ideal environment. It's comfortable, I can function on every level. The people involved are concerned about your welfare but if you want to get fucked up occasionally there's no moralizing, and they're great people; they're good friends."

By Boxing Day, The Pogues were heading out again - for a nationwide tour of Ireland. Cait thought that their flight was the following day and, consequently, it was Darryl who played bass at Waterford's Bridge Hotel. Cait- whose vocals had earned them one of four places in Peel's Festive 50 - arrived in time for Tralee, parading a brand new hairdo and, more subtly, a diamond and emerald ring.

The next two nights revolved around Dublin's SFX and the sanctimonious spa of Bloom's Hotel. And although their actual performances proved disappointing, it made little difference to the defrosting hordes who'd paid £6.50 to see them. These included archpogue Sean Conboy and his friend Mo Brennan, who had caught a ferry in time for their second show, and then hitched through freezing fog in a thwarted attempt to see in 1986 at Belfast's Ulster Hall.

This time round, the band were unperturbed by the critics. The Pogues were simply The Pogues and Ireland, like everywhere else, could love it or shove it.

"We play a certain amount of Irish music," says Terry Woods, "but it isn't designed to be an Irish band. What's important is that people are seeing and getting a sense of fun from the band, and that's one of the reasons why we're attracting such a good audience."

The crack continued through New Year's Day in Dundalk, then it was westward to Mayo and The Beaten Path Ballroom in Claremorris. The entourage included a support duo of Elvis Costello and Roll Kavana, whose singularly Irish blend of r 'n' b had already made him a semi-legend on London's pub circuit. And it was Kavana who labelled Claremorris as the night of the psycheceili. "Claremonis was wonderful," enthuses Philip. "One of the best gigs we've done."

But, by this stage, Frank Murray had returned to London to be at the bedside of his long-time friend, Philip Lynott, who collapsed from kidney and liver failure on Christmas Day. Lynott never regained full consciousness and died on January 4. The Pogues' show at Galway's Leisureland was consequently a night of mourning rather than the 21st birthday celebration for Cait it should have been.

Nevertheless, the tour ended up on a regal note for Shane when the band played in his heartland of Puckaun, Tipperary. Kennedy's Bar was the scene of wild celebration as he was joined on vocals by a host of glass-in-hand relatives and friends, precariously poised and eagerly awaiting a familiar song.

After a memorable fortnight, The Pogues turned their thoughts to America. "It's always been a dream world to me," says Shane. "Kennedy was a huge hero in my family, because he was Irish American and the first Catholic President of the United States. The late fifties early sixties was a great period of hope for everybody in the Western world and America represented that. And then, bang! The Vietnam war and John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, all assassinated. In one decade it went from a dream period of affluence and everybody looking to America to the shit heap that everything is now. But, I want to go there. I'm fascinated by all the different cultures: the Irish, the Italians, the Puerto Ricans, the Japs, they're all American but they still have their own cultures. I'm obsessed with it for loads of reasons." The band's long-anticipated trip was finally arranged for February.

Chapter 3
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