| Shane's press relations We can't wait for Shane MacGowan to get to town for the Irish Expo 2001 on St. Patrick's Day weekend. The singer, known for his hard-partying ways and no-B.S. approach to life, has apparently lost none of his edge. That famous temper is alive and well, at least according to a story in this week's Sunday World. It seems that MacGowan was not enjoying himself during an interview in a Dublin pub recently. When British journalist Eddie Hardin asked him about working with the Dubliners back in the '90s, MacGowan let loose a stream of unquotable invective. Hardin asked what the problem was. Shane replied, "You're an English bastard." Hardin soldiered on with another question, which inspired MacGowan to grab the reporter's tape recorder and fling it at him. "He threw it from point-blank range," fumed Hardin. "It hit me right between the eyes." A scuffle ensued. "I found myself rolling around the floor with my hero in a headlock," said Hardin. "I gave him a good clunk in the face, and he went straight down." Brawl or no brawl, the indestructible MacGowan performed as scheduled in Dublin's Temple Bar. He and his band, the Popes, will headline the Viper Ball on Saturday, March 17, and the Bartenders Ball on Monday, March 19, both at Webster Hall. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster at (212) 307-7171, at Webster Hall at (212) 604-4804 or through the Expo's website, www.irishexpo2001.com. Interviewer lays out 'wild man' MacGowan (Filed: 02/03/2001) SHANE MACGOWAN, the unpredictable Irish singer, is nursing a sore face after a reporter ended an interview by planting one on his nose. Eddie Hardin of Front magazine met MacGowan in a Dublin pub. "I tried bringing up the Dubliners, with whom Shane sang the stirring album Wild Rover," Hardin writes in next Thursday's issue. " 'They'd probably tie you up, put you in the boot of a car and hang you up somewhere,' Shane informed me. "Rather bemused, I asked why they would do such a thing. 'Cos you're an English bastard,' came the answer. By now I was starting to get the vibe that Shane and I weren't getting on too well." Not long afterwards, a question seemed to cause MacGowan offence. "He picked up my Dictaphone and, from point-blank range, he threw it directly at me. I kid you not, it hit me right between the eyes. A split-second later, I found myself rolling around the floor with my hero in a headlock, punches flying." "You know how sometimes you just see red," Hardin said yesterday. "I gave him a good clunk in the face, and he went straight down. He didn't land a punch." It's been a long road to Tipperary Quick! Lock up the . . . well, we're not exactly sure what to lock up. The news is that notorious bad boy rocker Shane MacGowan has settled down in the village of Silvermones, Co. Tipperary. Citizens, use your own judgment. The former Pogues front man, whose hard-living lifestyle and brash exterior hide the soul of a poet, has made what he says is his final move. "I will stay here for the rest of my life," the 43-year-old MacGowan told the Sunday World. "This has always been my home. However far I wander, this is where I belong." MacGowan, who spent much of his childhood in Ireland before his family moved to London, says that he inherited his musical talent from his mother's side of the family. "My grandmother -- all the Lynches -- were musical and my mum is a Lynch," he said. "That is where I get it from. "I am a modern Irish dance band leader and bar singer and a writer." MacGowan's legendary hard-man reputation was enhanced a few months back when he and a music journalist wound up in a punching match during an interview. His recent battles with the press stem, he says, from the "rough ride" he's been given by music scribes. "They give me loads of bad publicity. Bad publicity is great," he said. "I love any publicity. So if they think that I am an awful person and want to keep writing about it all the time, that means I am in the papers all the time, on the telly all the time, on the radio all the time. "I don't get upset -- my parents get upset. [And] being Irish, you have friends and relations all over the world, and . . . they read in the paper that you are at death's door because you are drinking 18 gallons of rat poison a day. How many years have [the press] been saying, 'that guy is going to be dead in a year'?" |