Customer Reviews

Waiting for Herb

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Waiting for Herb (1993) was The Pogues first album without their drunken leader Shane MacGowan. Troubles with his rampant alcohol problem caused a deep rift within the band and it spread thorugh the members like wild fire. Several of them developed problems of their own and quickly moved to oust Shane from the band. Well the remaining Pogues staggered into the studio to record Waiting for Herb.

Spider replaces Shane and auxilary Pogue Joe Strummer on lead vocals. His song Tuesday Morning became a minor hit for the band. Finer and Woods picked up the bulk of the song writing duties. The tracks that appeared on the album are pretty good, but they lack the fire that drove the
previous albums. The other tracks are good (Smell of Petroleum, Once Upon a Time, The Haunting, Big City, Modern World). I have no idea why people have slagged this disc. The follow up I can understand.

Shane rejoined the band in late 1995. This was too much for Phillip Chevron, James Fernaly and Terry Woods. They quit the band and never returned. After the tour was over Shane quit the band (this time for good). The band was down to four (Spider Stacy, Andrew Ranken, Jem Finer and Darryl Hunt) and they picked up four new members and continued the Pogues.

The CD comes with a nice booklet with photos of the band members and a lyrics for the album's tracks.

Recommended for Pogues fans.

I'm at work, so I'll make this short.

Everyone seems to be holding this to standards that it definately cannot stand up to. This is not the MacGowan Pogues that we all know and love. And yes, this release is a bit pop. With all that aside, there really are some damn good songs on this album. In fact, I would go as far to say that "Drunken Boat" is one of my all time favorite songs from any band. And I could only hope that there were some Pop artists out there today that could put something like this together. And I've actually shared this album with many friends who have never heard anything from the Pogues, and most of them are now diehard Pogues fans.

In my opinion (judging by many of the Shane MacGowan and the Popes and various other post-Pogues MacGowan releases that I have) the Pogues would not have sounded much like the Red Roses For Me-Pogues on this album had they kept Shane, anyway.

Whew...the bloke below from Austin, TX is stretching things a bit by saying ol' Spider has as much to do with the Pogues success as Shane...

Granted, Spidey is quite a character, but drunken whistle palying is hardly on par with some of the most well-written lyircs EVER, stunning arrangements and a vocal style that no one will ever match...

Spider was in Shanes very first band (before the Nips) and his talent(?) was banging himself in the noggin with a beer tray...this is very impressive, indeed. Spider once said the Pogues didn't need Shane to continue...well, after the misery that was "Pogue Mahone" I think he came to his senses. Spider and Shane were and are lifelong friends, but Shane was an irreplaceable part of the classic "Poguetry" sound and could NEVER be replaced.

As for the album, it's pretty good, but it aint the Pogues I know and love...it was like the Clash without Mick Jones. Speaking of the Clash, if Joe Strummer couldn't fill Shane's shoes (and he sang with the Pogues for a stint) how did Spider think he could pull it off?

Closer to "for non-fans only"...

The opinions of this album tend to fall into one of two camps:

1) Die-hard Pogues fans who are fairly offended by the band having booted out Shane MacGowan, keeping the band name in the absence of its most recognizable figure, and furthermore disgracing the band's name by by releasing an album that was more accessible and pop-oriented than prior Pogues albums.

2) People enjoy the music, which they find catchy and diverse.

I place myself firmly in the latter group. I gotta wonder if this album would have gone over so badly with many Pogues fans had it been released under a different band name, such as "Spider and the Somethingorothers".

"Real" Pogues or not, this album just has some wonderful songs, in a variety of different musical styles (almost every song stylistically different from each other), from infectious folk-pop ("Sitting On Top of the World") to a bouncy, Eastern-European sound that prefigured Gogol Bordello ("Drunken Boat"), some pleasant ballads, their almost obligatory middle-eastern influenced tune (the superb "Girl from the Wadi Hammamat"), even Americana ("My Baby's Gone," which has energy galore, and probably the worst American accent I've ever heard on a recording).

So, while I could understand why some fans might take offense to this being released as a Pogues album, the music stands up quite well on its own merits. Pop in this disc and enjoy Spider and the Somethingorothers!

One cannot appreciate this album if they approach it as a classic Pogues disc. It isn't. When Shane left, the group probably should have changed their name. There's a similar attention to interesting instrumentals and eclectic styles, however, and as an album, Herb holds together pretty darn well. There's a definite eastern flavor to some of it, and the idea of using sounds from a pachinko parlor is brilliant. Drunken Boat is one of my all-time favorites, and My Baby's Gone has more spirit than anything from Pogue Mahone. The songs span a variety of styles broader than any album but the brilliant If I Should Fall...diehard Shane fans should follow the Popes as well, but while this album doesn't spit fire and whiskey, it has some good music.

Imagine the Rolling Stones without both Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. They wouldn't be the Stones anymore, now would they? Well, that's how I feel about the Pogues without Shane MacGowan. When the Pogues fired MacGowan shortly before their 1991 U.S. tour, they not only lost one of their founding members, their best singer, and their only true "frontman" but also their best songwriter. Yes, MacGowan's infamous drug/alcohol problems had become too big of a problem to ignore, but the Pogues were not Van Halen. MacGowan was simply irreplaceable and anyone who says otherwise is absolutely clueless!

I bought "Waiting for Herb" back in '93 and looking back I think the only reason I purchased it was because of a kneejerk reaction that I had developed that required me to buy anything that said "Pogues." However, upon listening to its collection of mediocre pop-lite tunes my suspicions that the Pogues were truly dead as a band, which I had harbored since Shane's departure, were fully confirmed. This album was a failure on all accounts- the longtime fans didn't buy it and neither did any new audience emerge, which my guess is what the band was hoping for. After "Waiting for Herb" failed to find an audience, the Pogues released "Pogue Mahone"- a sort of "kiss and makeup" attempt to return to its old sound, but by then the diehard fans had moved on. After that the Pogues quietly called it quits and disbanded, but as any real Pogues fans can tell you that was a just a mere formality because the band had long before ceased to exist!

I shudder to think that this wretched album could be someone's introduction to the Pogues. Please if you're looking for a Pogues' CD then start with either 1987's "If I Should Fall from Grace with God" or 1985's "Rum, Sodomy, & the Lash," but give both "Waiting for Herb" and "Pogue Mahone" a wide berth.

This album represents a major change from the earlier Pogues albumns. Without Shane McGowan, the band is not lost musically or creatively. "Tuesday Morning" is romantic without being mawkish. "Sitting On Top Of The World", "Modern World" and "My Baby's Gone" also work well, reminding one of a lot of the material on "Peace and Love". But it is also clear that the unique combination of Shane McGowan and the Pogues' musicians was what drove the band to be something truly unique, and that is lost here. The albumn's good, but it doesn't have the freshness or uniqueness of other Pogues albumns.

From a "group" that reached stratospheric heights of songwriting in the past, this album is absolute garbage-- revealing the said group to be no more than "Shane and the Gang." Having lost (fired) Shane MacGowan, the Pogues lost their edge, both musically and lyrically. Abandoning Shane's preference for weaving traditional and contemporary music into a seamless garment, the unShaned Pogues dive headlong into pop music played with traditional instruments. The results are bland and unmemorable at best-- and nauseating at worst.

A casual friend I know recently tried to lend this cd to me (I've owned it since it came out). I was truly shocked that he liked it so much.

I went back and listened to it yet again, and my opinion hasn't changed. Spider is not a great songwriter... he's not bad, but there are words and phrases here and there that make me cringe. He's no Shane MacGowan, that's for sure. He also doesn't know how to sing. Technically, he may have a better voice than Shane -- I think we can all freely admit that Shane does not have a good voice -- but the difference is, Shane KNOWS how to sing, and Spider doesn't. That's like Bob Dylan, he has no voice, but he sure knows how to use the voice he doesn't have. Ditto for Shane.

The first song is not bad. Really, this band still had an amazing amount of talent, but they lacked a singer/songwriter to match.

I saw somebody's review of Flogging Molly's Swagger say that Dave King's voice was painfully thin and his songwriting was embarassing (wrong of course). I think he was really listening to post-Shane Pogues.

When Shane McGowan left the Pogues, he took the bite out of them. What's left is, oddly, the same band singing similar songs with better diction. But the saliva-spitting fury that was at its core is gone.