The trailer for Crock Of Gold – a documentary which will attempt to make sense of the chaotic genius of Shane MacGowan when it’s released on November 20th – is online now.
Producers Julian Temple, Johnny Depp, Stephen Deuters and Stephen Malit are using new interviews and archive footage, complete with specially commissioned animations from Ralph Steadman, to tell the story of one of the true maverick greats of UK and Irish music.
The trailer gives the briefest glimpse of all this, from MacGowan’s brief, formative years in Ireland which helped to implant his love of the country’s traditional folk music to his regular presence on the burgeoning London punk scene and eventually the glorious melding of these two worlds during The Pogues’ eighties heydey.
Of course with Shane, there’s too many dark times to focus on too, but times which equally are as important in the identity of a songwriter summed up fittingly in the trailer by Joe Strummer as one of the 20th century’s finest.