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The now sort of infamous NME interview with Shane MacGowan, Mark E. Smith and Nick Cave.
Source: New Musical Express
Date: 25th February 1989
Author: Sean O'Hagen and James Brown
Copyright: (c) NME
Part 1/5
NME talks to...
For its second pop summit of the year, NME lent SEAN O'HAGAN and JAMES BROWN 10 pound each to buy SHANE MACGOWAN, MARK E SMITH and NICK CAVE a drink, and discover what motivates and aggravates rock's three wise men. "So the NME thinks we're the last three heroes of rock'n'roll, do they?" laughs Nick Cave.
"Smarmy fuckers," adds Shane McGowan, "what they actually mean is that we're the three biggest braindamaged cases in rock'n'roll."
"Apart from Nick", jabs Mark Smith, "Nick's cleaned up."
"yeah", drawls Cave, "my brains restored itself."
A bottle's throw from Millwall FC, The Montague Arms, a mock Gothic fun pub for morbid tourists, plays host to a bizarre summit meeting. Amidst stuffed horses' heads, skeletons on bicycles and mocked up corpses, three of contemporary music's most infamous individuals are gathered at the NME's request.
Shane MacGowan of the Pogues, Mark Smith of the Fall and Nick Cave all share an outsider's attitude that informs their respective musical output. Both championed and castigated for their obsessiveness and extremism, this unholy trio are dogged by reputations that precede them.
That they agreed to such a meeting is surprising. What ensues is inspired and insane by turns. The fractured and, often fractious, conversation sprawls between the amiable and the aggressive- Presley to Nietzsche, songwriting to psychology, football to fanatics.
In an afternoon of sheer psychotic hellishness, Cave plays the diplomat to Smith's bursts of contentious rhetoric whilst MacGowan transmits his thoughts from his own singular, rarified wavelength.
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