The Pogues gave rise to an entirely new genre of music: Paddy Punk. For better or worse (during an interview with Spider Stacey, I was told it was the latter), thousands of bands have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to ape the Pogues’ sound. In my opinion, these pretenders to the throne may sound great but they can never hope to measure up, due to two factors: They lack Shane MacGowan’s dark, poetic view of the world and James Fearnley‘s percussive accordion playing.
Here’s the thing, though: unless he’s singing or I’ve heard it before, I might not know that MacGowan wrote a particular pile of lyrics. But the moment I hear a tune being played I’ve no doubt that it’s Fearnley minding the box. His sound rang in my ears throughout my teen years and continues to do so, today. Recently, Fearnley and a number of other notable musicians came together to form a new outfit, The Walker Roaders. From what I’ve heard so far, a whole LP from them should be a very fine thing.
From the band’s Facebook page:
In the course of a widely celebrated thirty-year career, the sound of seminal London-Irish band The Pogues launched a generation of rowdy and explosive Celtic-Punk bands. James Fearnley, co-founder and long-time accordion player in that legendary group, has now teamed with two of its most notable devotees, Flogging Molly co-founder and Grammy Award-winning producer Ted Hutt and Dropkick Murphys’ multi-instrumentalist Marc Orrell, forming The Walker Roaders whose music splices anthems of Celtic-punk with the poetry of The Pogues. Named for a street gang known to Fearnley as a youth in Manchester, their self-titled debut full length will be released August 23 via Ginger Man/Beverly Martel label group.
Count me in.