"They play like soldiers on leave"

Tom Waits has confessed to being a hopeless Pogues fan.

Waits' Pogues-o-philia came to light during a conversation with hotpress.com about the gravel-voiced one's favourite albums of all time.

Raving about Rum Sodomy & The Lash, the coolest man on the planet told us, "Shane has the gift, I believe him. He knows how to tell a story. They're a roaring, stumbling band. These are the dead end kids for real.

"Shane's voice conveys so much," he went on. "They play like soldiers on leave. The songs are epic. It's whimsical and blasphemous, seasick and sacrilegious. Wear it out and then get another one."

The other albums in his all-time top, er, 17 (uncap those biros, people) are: Aria, Passion For Opera; Harry Partch Collection Vol. 1; Gavin Bryars, The Sinking Of The Titanic; Lounge Lizards, Lounge Lizards; Leadbelly, Last Sessions; Alan Lomax, Collection Prison Songs: Murderous Home; Leonard Cohen, I'm Your Man; Rolling Stones, Exile On Main Street; Bob Dylan, The Basement Tapes; Bill Hicks, Rant In E Minor; Sam Phillips, Martinis & Bikinis; James Brown, Startime; Frank Zappa, Yellow Shark; Captain Beefheart, Trout Mask Replica; Ray Charles, Modern Country Sounds; Hounddog, Hounddog.

Sadly, with plans for him to appear at this year's Cathedral Arts Festival in Belfast having fallen through, hotpress.com understands that Waits won't be playing here in the immediate future.