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We've raised a glass with an author at a pub (we'll be posting soon on our visit with Colum McCann), and we've interviewed George Pelecanos, with a short video (in the glamorous surroundings of an unmarked booth on a trade show floor). But we've not approached the double bill that recently happened at London's Boogaloo. As any reader of Pelecanos's books knows, he's a big music fan, andThe Wire, the show he helped write and produce, featured a number of Pogues songs. A mutual-admiration friendship between Pelecanos and Spider Stacey of the Pogues led to a shared books-and-music event, which turned out to include not only Pelecanos reading from his latest novel,The Way Home, but the Pogues' first pub show in sixteen years.
Much of the set has been posted online by Paul Murff. Here's Pelecanos's reading (followed by a few questions, the first of which, appropriately, is about the Replacements):
And here are the Pogues, performing "The Body of an American" (a Wire favorite) and "Transmetropolitan" (a tour of London that rivals Pelecanos's DC stories for spirited geographical exactitude):
You can also watch them play "Kitty" and "Sally MacLennane." And thanks to another videographer at the show (with not so good a view), you can see them perform, for the first time live according to Pelecanos, "Way Down in the Hole," the theme song to The Wire.
Next time we meet an author in a pub, we're booking a band. --Tom [Via GalleyCat]
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