When it comes to tribute acts like Dark Streets, you can usually judge a band by its covers, but this Pogues-inspired combo is a different story.
For one thing, the co-founders of the band — Caitlin Oliver-Gans and Nate Palan — don’t bother singing in fake Irish accents. And while The Pogues were the first act to merge traditional Celtic music with a punk sensibility, Dark Streets has a sound that leans towards an Americana roots style, which allows them to seamlessly integrate their sometimes off-the-wall choices of non-Pogues tunes into a set.
The lion’s share of their playlist comes from the pen of the late, lamented Shane MacGowan, and you can pretty much count on hearing “Dirty Old Town,” “If I Should Fall From Grace With God” and “Body of an American” in every show.
“It’s a song that I never get sick of,” says Palan. “It’s been stuck in my head for twenty-some years.”
But their set of 40 or so tunes is also smattered with left-field choices like Camper Van Beethoven’s “Let’s Take the Skinheads Bowling,” “Expectations” by Belle and Sebastian, and The Doors “Alabama Song” (which was a wild cover choice for that band to begin with, as it was from a Brecht-Weill opera, but we digress).
Friday’s gig at Paddy Reilly’s Music Bar in Kips Bay began appropriately with “Streams of Whisky” — the first tune that MacGowan wrote for the Pogues — and included covers of Simon and Garfunkel, Talking Heads, Johnny Cash, The Clash, Tom Waits and, believe it or not, Iron Maiden.
“We’ve got a huge repertoire,” Palan notes. “About 66.6% is Pogues songs.”
That show was the third anniversary of their first appearance as a band, which got off to a rocky start. Their debut was in March of 2020, but due to COVID descending upon the band, only Palan and the drummer were able to make the gig.
The lineup has been through some changes, but the current combo is set, featuring the excellent players Jason Isaac (drums), Matt Iselin (accordion), Bill Bell (mandolin, banjo, guitar), Tom Burmester (banjo, guitar) and Oliver-Gans and Palan on bass and guitar, respectively. There was once a fiddle player, but she participated in one rehearsal and just never came back.
Oliver-Gans doesn’t welcome variety only in the setlist, as she “loves getting other people up on stage with us”. Various characters have found their way onto the stage, and she mentions that her friend and neighbor Felice Rosser (from the local band Faith NYC ) occasionally joins the band for a show-stopping version of “The Parting Glass.”
“If I could get everyone I know to sing a Pogues song, I’d be happy!” she says. “And we keep trying to think of other fun things to do.”
It should be noted that there is no lack of audience members willing to raise a glass and sing along from their barstools.
Although Dark Streets has only been playing together for a few years, the band’s “origins go deep,” as Palan puts it. To sum it up quickly, Oliver-Gans was in an Irish rock band in Madison, WI, called “The Kissers,” and Palan was a fan.
“One night Nate sang a song onstage with The Kissers, and he was great,” she recounts. “So we said, why don’t you stay?”
He stayed, they made albums and toured (memorably opening for Shane MacGowan and the Popes) and eventually Palan and Oliver-Gans left the band to go their separate ways — but ended up finding each other again in NYC and doing the obvious thing: starting a new band.
In what appears to be a bit of history repeating itself, they acquired Bell when he “jumped onstage at the Brooklyn Bowl to play mandolin with us, and he never left.”
Although they play other venues, Dark Streets has no plans to leave their monthly gig at Paddy Reilly’s.
“The new owners, Desi and Josh, have been so welcoming to us,” Oliver-Gans says. “When we walk in, they say welcome home!”
In the first gig after the death of MacGowan, the band played nothing but Pogues songs at Reilly’s for four and a half hours. “We played everything we knew and then we just started over,” Palan recalls.
The two play in other bands as well while juggling family duties. Oliver-Gans plays with rockers the Silos, bluesman Paul Filipowicz and author/songwriter/guitarist David Gans (also her uncle) while working for a video streaming company and raising a six-year-old in Lower Manhattan.
Palan spends quality time with the nine-piece events band The Last Nites and an indie rock band called Wormburner. He is a dad to an apparently budding star – his eight-year-old son.
“He is a fearless stage performer!” brags Palan. “His big number is ‘I’m Just Ken’ from the Barbie movie.”
The band has a slew of shows lined around St. Patrick’s Day, including a booze cruise named — what else — “A Ferry Tale of New York” (if you know, you know. And you’re groaning).
“We’re hardcore Pogues fans,” says Nate, “but we’re trying to honor the songs and not the debauchery. MacGowan’s songs are timeless, brilliant, and transcendental. He was so literate — he meant to be a writer and a poet, but he understood that if people were going to read his work, it would have to be done through song. We’re playing his songs, but I wanted our group to have its own identity”.
To which Oliver-Gans adds, “Everyone is genuinely having a good time; there are no pretensions. We’re us — playing Pogues songs.”
Gigs are posted on darkstreetsnyc.com and on Instagram @dark_streets_official.
