Welcome to Paddy Rolling Stone, the official web site for that man of many words and few teeth, Shane MacGowan. He's been writing music for nearly 30 years, from the early punk days of The Nipple Erectors to The Pogues. On this website you will find the latest news about tours and new releases, plus a complete discography, interviews, gig reviews, pictures, links to other sites, etc. This site is run by the Friends of Shane International Information Service (see below). Please feel free to e-mail us with any questions or news about the band.

August 2008 - Updated 'Artwork' 'Gallery' 'Tour Dates'
April 2008 - Updated 'Tour Dates'
February 2008 - Updated 'Tour Dates'
August 2007 - Updated 'Tour Dates'
June 2007 - Updated 'Tour Dates'
April 2007 - Updated 'Tour Dates'
March 2007 - Updated 'Merchandise'
February 2007 - Updated 'Artwork'
January 2007 - Added exclusive interview and merchandise, updated 'Tour Dates'
December 2006 - Updated 'Articles'
November 2006 - Updated 'Artwork', 'Articles', 'Tour Dates'
October 2006 - Updated 'Artwork'
September 2006 - Updated 'Artwork' 'Articles' 'Gallery'
August 2006 - Updated 'Tour Dates'
June 2006 - Updated 'Tour Dates'
May 2006 - Updated 'Artwork'
February 2006 - Updated 'Artwork'
January 2006 - Updated 'Artwork'

Credits
Website: Laurence Clark, Michael Madden,
Ingrid Knetsch , Juergen Schmitz
Mailing List: Michael Benchoff

The Friends of Shane International Fan Club was formed by Ingrid Knetsch on Shane's behalf at the end of 1993 after the Pogues official fan club finished. It was actually Shane who suggested that it run as a network of friends, and he has kept his promise of full support ever since. However after much thought and discussions with other friends, it became clear that the best way to carry on the club was as a purely internet service. There is also a 'Mailing List' you can join at: mailing list, where news/updates are posted and members can get to know each other. In order to subscribe, please go to http://www.jbx.com/mailman/listinfo/fos/ and fill out the simple subscription form.

ShaneMacGowan.Com would like to extend condolences to friends, family and fans of Tom McManamon. Tommy sadly passed away on December 15, 2006 after a long battle with illness. Tom was best known as the banjo player in Shane MacGowan's band The Popes. He was also part of Storm along with James McNally. Throughout his career Tom guested with The Pogues, Depeche Mode, Joe Strummer, U2, Sinead O'Connor, and many more. Affectionately known by fans as The Beast, Tommy's banjo playing was a vital and integral part of The Popes' sound. A gentleman off stage, Tom was always friendly and kind to fans and would always have time for a chat. It's always sad to see the passing of someone before their time, but as fans, we are glad you passed our way Tom. Tom McManamon 1961-2006."

Check out the Siobhan Macgowan section featuring order details for her album 'Chariot' as well as the chance to buy a Shane/Siobhan signed piece of Shane artwork. Check out the new 'Art Work' section of the site and send us your Shane/Popes art work. Shane is to 'duet' with Jools Holland for his new album due out later in the year. New tour dates added. Popes to release semi acoustic album for the summer! Just to let you all know that the Painting of Shane (Shadow of the Gig) by John Roch Simons is still for sale. Click on the link for more details. Also check out the new Tour Dates.

 

FROM THE POGUES: We'd like to add our voices of sorrow to the many others in Irish and international music and theatre on the death of our friend, inspiration and sometime colleague Ronnie Drew, who died in Dublin today, aged 73. As was well known, Ronnie had been living with cancer for some time. When, as a member of The Dubliners, Ronnie and ourselves joined forces for the single "The Irish Rover" in 1987, we could not know this happy combination would turn out to be a lifelong bond of friendship and support. We're glad of it. He was unique. We'll miss him terribly. Dublin town just got smaller. His family and close friends are in our thoughts. The Pogues

Just Look Them Straight In The Eye And Say Pogue Mahone
The new 5 CD box set with 109 rare tracks to be released on April 28th 2008. Philip Chevron did a great work putting all these demos and unrelesed tracks together. Watch out.

Here is a message to all the Friends of Shane:

The new book 'Myth of Return' including an article by Steve Martin called 'Shaman Shane - The Wounded Healer' out on march 15th. Click onto the picture above for details.

www.brianwhelan.co.uk

A Man You Don't Meet Every Day - Shane MacGowan, Christmas 2006

With another successful reunion tour wrapped up, lead singer Shane MacGowan, took his traditional pilgrimage to North-West Tipperary to spend Christmas with this family and close friends. It is remarkable to see this oftentimes-doomed singer back selling out the top venues with his original band The Pogues. The rocker has been reunited with The Pogues for the past few years, touring with a live show of their greatest hits, and by all accounts, this reunion is working well. Here, MacGowan speaks about being back with the band and his ambition for the coming year:

"I'm better than ever, and so is everyone actually…. and that's old age…-laugh-…experience and the fact that I've never stopped playing live and all the rest of it, where the rest of them were doing other things I carried it on, but then it fell to bits gradually, you know what I mean ?…..and without Tommy the whole thing was over. But I will be doing my own stuff with various remnants of The Popes and there will probably be some new Pogues stuff coming out, but at the moment the only definite thing is that The Pogues are playing live, and I am going to try and persuade them to hopefully do Europe and get back to Germany, yeah? I've also been trying to persuade them to do Belfast, but the thing is I try not to get involved in the politics of it; I'm going to try and do Belfast as soon as possible. I'm sure we could sell Belfast and sell out The Point. I've tried to suggest one than more gig, it's to do with having a paying gig, not that I am that worried but it's the business people, yeah?! We used to play the King's Hall, the Queen's Hall and we also used to do the West Belfast Festival, but that's gone a bit different now. What's the nearest thing to The Point in Belfast? The Waterfront? How many would that hold, the same as The Point? So there is no reason not to do Belfast yeah! We don't play as many gigs these days, and we have all grown up a bit and learned to co-operate a bit better. So I don't do anything I don't want to do, and I don't force anyone to do anything they don't want to do, and I think we form a united front as a general rule, but at the end of the day we have to make it pay, right?! I was certainly grinding down at end of The Pogues, you know the first time, yeah! And we now have had 10 years off from each other now, but it's certainly not a nostalgia trip at all because we have a huge repertoire and everyone has got better. It's an endless repertoire; there is hundreds of stuff there really. New material could easily be done, yeah. I haven't made a studio album for almost 10 years, and the other guys haven't made one for the same time, but there is a backlog of stuff there. It's fun to play again the classics again like Dirty Old Town, Sally McLennane and also the ballads too. Off course in The Pogues I was doing all the main singing, but also The Pogues have also had Phil, Terry, Spider Andrew, so it's a good mix for the show."

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