| Rock 'n' roil Sundance Channel documentary looks at liquor-soaked life of rocker Shane MacGowan Monday March 17, 2003 Dave Walker The Times-Picayune It's possible to picture, as you watch Sarah Share's documentary about Shane MacGowan, that this is exactly how the footage would've turned out had Jim Morrison allowed a film crew to accompany him around Paris during the last days of his life. "You do have this feeling that he could die at any minute," said Share of MacGowan, former front man for the Pogues. "He looks very unwell." But: "Jim Morrison was much better looking." At the height of their powers -- a period spanning just a few years in the 1980s -- the Pogues somehow wed the energy of British punk rock to the instrumentation of traditional Irish music. MacGowan, the band's lead singer and principal songwriter, was and is the very picture of dissolute rock star, and, as such, a fine subject of a fascinating if sometimes unfathomable and sad documentary. "If I Should Fall From Grace: The Shane MacGowan Story" airs at 8 tonight on the digital-cable Sundance Channel. "He has been steadily abusing drugs and drink for a long time," said Share, during a recent telephone interview from her home near Tipperary. "You do get the feeling, filming around him, that he's not well. "Apparently he's in a lot better shape than he was in when the Pogues broke up. I think he has, in the past few years, curtailed his intake a lot." Here's to Shane for that, but based on his current intake levels as documented in Share's film, two words: Good God. As a vocalist, MacGowan's got a fine growl. As a songwriter, he's a heartbreaker. In addition to a catalog of rowdy Celtic rock, the Pogues also recorded many lovely ballads. MacGowan left the band in 1991, by which time, to quote a much later Los Angeles Times career recap, his "well-known alcoholism made him a liability in live performances." (Irony: His first temporary replacement was the Clash's recently deceased Joe Strummer.) Share, an Ireland native who was living in London at the time of the Pogues' greatest popularity there, was never much of a fan. "I would've gone to their gigs," she said. "I wouldn't have called myself a huge fan. I would've been slightly uncomfortable with the sort of drunken Irish stereotypes I think the band played into. "I liked the songs. I wouldn't have rushed out and bought the albums. It was something on the jukebox. I would've enjoyed them with reservations. "My generation moved to London to reinvent itself, to get out of a country that was pretty depressing. We were a newly educated generation, and Shane seemed to play an awful lot to an older generation." Though she'd attended Pogues gigs and even a few parties where band members were present, Share had never met MacGowan until he and a mutual friend showed up at her house one night a couple of years ago. Share by this time had returned to Ireland, and was living not far from a country home MacGowan inherited from family members. Reluctantly, she let the men in. They stayed till dawn. "I said, 'My kids are about to wake up. I have a life. I have to go to work,' " Share said. "He just wanted to socialize." Share had done some film work for a local TV station. MacGowan admitted he owed the station a favor for -- here's a surprise -- once blowing off a scheduled live interview. When Share mentioned MacGowan's make-good promise to someone at the station, it was suggested Share parlay her MacGowan connection into a full-fledged documentary. So she started her research. "I listened to the music more thoroughly, and I realized then that I had judged them wrongly in the past," she said of the Pogues. "Some of the songs that Shane had written, the quality of lyrics and emotion in the lyrics, the imagery and power of the music, is wonderful." Making the film was, as you might expect, sometimes less so. "Shane is difficult to work with in many ways," Share said. "By the nature of who he is, he's terrible at deadlines, things like making planes. He's very slow to get anywhere, and if he doesn't want to do something, he doesn't do it. "He's not great during the day. He's a night person. As long as you meet him round midnight, you're OK. Don't expect to do anything in the afternoon. "I foolishly tried to organize things for normal hours." Given MacGowan's appalling appearance, it's only fair to ask: What's up with his teeth? "A lot of people ask that," said Share. "They want to know why he is the way he is, why he's so disheveled." Yes they do. Why? As vintage, pre-Pogues video clips in tonight's film prove, MacGowan was never a candidate for floss testimonials. Roots-rock satirist Mojo Nixon once made MacGowan's teeth the subject of a song. As I recall, the ditty's only lyrics, repeated over and over above a pennywhistle stomp, were, "Shane's dentist don't work no more/Always in the pub." MacGowan lately appears to be operating minus most of his original grillwork. "He actually lost his teeth when he was about 20," said Share. "He initially got crowns on them then, and apparently the crowns kept falling out. Or, he kept falling over. He replaced them once or twice, but couldn't be bothered to replace them any more. "He doesn't have the vanities that most people have. Really, he doesn't give a damn what people think of him." OK. So here's another fair question, or rather two: What should we think of him? And is the dissipation-prone MacGowan, who led a band that most people reading this column have maybe heard of but likely never heard, even worthy of the full documentary treatment? "He won't be forgotten," said Share. "I think people will be singing his songs for 100 years. I think he's achieved a lot." And the hard living is just part of the job description. "It's just rock 'n' roll," Share said. "It's going to pay a heavy toll on your life. They're all doomed." . . . . . . . On a much more sober note, PBS has reconfigured its Monday night lineup to carry two long-form examinations of America's Iraq problem. Both will air on WYES-Channel 12. . At 7 tonight, in a two-hour "Frontline" episode titled "The Long Road to War," the network's premiere documentary team takes a look back at the relevant history between the two countries. At 9 p.m., the network will look ahead to post-war Iraq and examine media coverage of the conflict so far in a special edition of its public-affairs magazine, "Now with Bill Moyers." |