RIP Shane
by Tim Cooper
December 2023
Tim Cooper pays tribute to fellow punk, Shane MacGowan.
I wouldn’t say that we were friends, as such, and we came from very different backgrounds. But as fellow punks of almost exactly the same age, Shane MacGowan and I had an acquaintance. A drinking acquaintance, in particular.
He was already a notorious character on the punk scene, thanks to the ear-biting incident that had earned him an NME cover. I used to knock about with him now and then in the pubs around our local areas of Hackney, Highbury, and Holloway. Back then he had a London accent; but because of his name I remember asking him about his Irish background, which he said was limited to his family's annual summer holiday to see an aunt in Tipperary.
I used to regularly go to see his first band The Nipple Erectors, later abbreviated to The Nips in the vain hope that radio stations might then play their raucous punkabilly tunes (I'm not sure any ever did).
But the last time I saw Shane was about 15 years ago, in Filthy McNasty's. I think he was actually living there at the time, and I was sitting with a book and a pint at the back as he walked in, suited and booted, and through the bar to his quarters upstairs.
As he vaguely surveyed the clientele, his eyes alighted on me for a second, and I raised an eyebrow in acknowledgement. There was a flicker of recognition—but then he looked away at once, as if he realised he knew me from somewhere but his brain could not compute the circumstances of how, when and where.
It was sad. But not as sad as the previous time, at one of the last Fleadh festivals in Finsbury Park—probably the 2004 one, with Bob Dylan—where MacGowan was at the backstage bar, ordering a vodka. He repeatedly insisted that the barman fill his (large) glass right up to the brim, and then leant forward over the counter to ensure he didn't lose a drop. I remember thinking, wrongly, that he couldn't last long.
“I remember thinking, wrongly, that he couldn't last long.”
The encounter I remember best, though, and most fondly, was in the summer of 1981. I hadn't seen Shane for a while, and ran into him in the gents’ loos of a Covent Garden pub. It was the night before the wedding of then-Prince Charles and Diana, and the city was packed with people going to see the fireworks in Hyde Park.
Spotting each other at the urinals, I made a joke about how I hadn't expected to find him celebrating a royal wedding, and asked him how The Nips were getting on.
"I've got a new band now," he said. "We're called Pogue Mahone. It means 'Kiss My Arse' in Irish."
"Still punk and rockabilly?" I asked.
"Not any more,” he grinned chaotically. “Punk and traditional Irish music.”
"I don't suppose we'll be seeing you on Top of the Pops, then…!" I chuckled back.
"Course not," he said. "It's just for a laugh."
