| Nenagh Guardian Saturday July 31st 2004 Reporter Simon O’Duffy met up with the legendary Shane MacGowan, who has released a charity single in aid of the Jimmy Johnstone Motor Neurone Tribute Fund With a 25 year long roller-coaster ride of a career in music under his belt the legendary Shane MacGowan revisited his ancestral homeland of Nenagh last week as part of a promotional tour for his latest single, Road to Paradise. The single is in aid of the Jimmy Johnstone Motor Neurone Disease Tribute Fund. The equally legendary Johnstone, hero of the 1967 European Cup winning Lisbon Lions team and regarded by many as the finest player ever to don the hoops of Glasgow Celtic FC, has been tragically diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. A long-time close friend of the Lord of the Wing, MacGowan has released the new single as a charity campaign to help alleviate the affliction suffered by Johnstone and others. “Jimmy is after coming down with Motor Neurone Disease (MND), and that’s been quite a shock to everyone,” the revered Pogues and Popes frontman said. “This record is being released to raise money and awareness for Jimmy and everyone who has got MND. By buying the single you are helping them.” Motor Neurone Disease is the name given to a group of related diseases affecting the motor neurones in the brain and spinal cord. Motor neurones are nerve cells that control the muscles in our bodies; degeneration of these cells causes a weakness and wasting of the muscles. This wasting generally occurs in the arms and legs initially, and can develop to affect muscles supplying the face and throat, leading to problems of thick speech and dif ficulty in chewing and swallowing. One person dies every five days from this debilitating disease. In Ireland there are 250 MND patients in exis tence at any one time. Although their intellect is completely unaffected, the disease gradually worsens over time, and often round-the-clock nursing and med ical care for the patients is required; hence the raison d’?tre of the Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association, and affiliated organisations such as the Jimmy Johnstone MND Tribute Fund. “This is an awful disease,” MacGowan proclaims. “It’s like Alzheimer’s mixed with MS or something. It’s one of those things that just gets worse and worse as it goes on. As far as I know Jimmy is still at the reversible stage. He’s doing well, but he’s still a bit shaky and in need of treatment.” But it seems Motor Neurone Disease has done nothing to corrupt Jimmy’s vocal chords, as the exonerated Celt joins MacGowan and Jim Kerr of Simple Minds to blast out a blissful rendition of Dirty Ol’ Town on the B side to Road to Paradise. “Jimmy Johnstone is actually a better singer than Jim Kerr!” laughs MacGowan. “Much better! You can hear that on the single.” The public reception to Road to Paradise has been nothing short of amazing, as it rocketed straight to No1 in the Scottish Singles Chart on the day of its release and debuted at No 14 in the Official Top 40 Indie Charts in the UK a week later. Unleashed in Ireland on July 16 it’s been receiving no shortage of airplay here either, with a strong appeal made to all Glasgow Celtic fans to splash out for the new release. And Shane MacGowan has had his work cut out for him touring the length and breadth of Ireland and the UK in support of this latest opus, achieving such feats as knocking Bill Clinton’s slot off the BBC4 radio show, heard by some seven million UK listeners, with Joe Strummer (The Clash) and Thom Yorke (Radiohead) the only other musicians previously featured. If all that wasn’t enough, Shane even found time to make a cameo appearance in the forthcoming film Libertine, starring Johnny Depp and John Malkovich and due for release some time this autumn. And, to crown it all off, the Irish Rover has accumulated enough material for another full-length album of his own, which he expects to start recording in about six weeks’ time. Busy times for the man from Carney so, but nothing he can’t handle. “I’m on the go the whole time, but I can deal with that,” he shrugs. “At the end of the day what it’s all about is getting up on stage and playing a gig. That’s what I love to do.” On that note, with a gig coming up at Dolan’s Warehouse in Limerick on July 31, does MacGowan, who has a house in Carney and whose mother’s family hail from the Silvermines, plan on coming back this way any time soon? “There are plans for a show here in Nenagh some time in the very near future, probably August,” he allows. “It is being organised by a local man of great repute” – laughter as he glances in the direction of friend and local barman Philly Ryan – “and I think he’s going to try and put it on in the hotel. “I like Nenagh as a town. In many ways it is like a home to me and I always like to come back here. I’ve never played here before but have definite plans to do so, and I look forward to that.” There you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth! Watch this space... © Nenagh Guardian & http://www.unison.ie/ |