Recors/CDs revisited - Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Global A Go-Go

This is the first album reviewed (so far) that I didn't own on vinyl first. I came to Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros late - only really discovering them after Joe Strummer died - I had had a bit of a hiatus from discovering much new music for a few years for some reason. I was gutted to have discovered them posthumously as it meant that I would never have the opportunity of seeing them live, and I had already missed out on seeing The Clash.

Global A Go-Go is by far and away my favourite Mescaleros album. It kicks off with the brilliant and very catchy Johnny Appleseed, and then morphs into the funky Cool 'n' Out where jaunty dance rhythms jostle along with rock guitar - and somehow the whole thing works. Cool 'n' Out is followed by the title track which has a world feel to the music as well as the lyrics and has a deceptively simple melody running through it which I love and always find myself humming hours later. The next track Bhindi Bhagee is probably my favourite on the album - it is has the kind of African influenced guitar riff that reminds me of bands like King Sunny Ade and his African Beats and Taxi Pata Pata that I listened to a lot in the 1980s. As well as being incredibly catchy and making you want to get up and dance, this song has great lyrics - someone in the street asks Joe where buy that great British delicacy mushy peas, but Joe is stumped - he can tell him where to get all kinds of food from all over the world - but not mushy peas. Then he tells the stranger that he is in a band - and the stranger asks him what kind of band it is:

"It's um, um, well, it's kinda like

You know, it's got a bit of, um, you know."
Ragga, Bhangra, two-step Tanga
Mini-cab radio, music on the go
Um, surfbeat, backbeat, frontbeat, backseat
There's a bunch of players and they're really letting go
We got, Brit pop, hip hop, rockabilly, Lindy hop
Gaelic heavy metal fans fighting in the road
Ah, Sunday boozers for chewing gum users
They got a crazy D.J. and she's really letting go..."

There are some more mellow tracks on the album as well - like Gamma Ray, Mondo Bongo, and Bummed Out City. The album ends on a long and rather haunting version of the Irish patriotic folk song Minstrel Boy. This is an album that really shows Strummer's eclectic and wide ranging world music influences and (especially lyrically) his love affair with America and American culture. Joe Strummer is a talent sorely missed - and if you don't know the Mescaleros please look them up - it's well worth the effort. You can read a 2001 review of the album from Rolling Stone here.

Lorca and The Clash

Is it a coincidence I wonder that one of my favourite poets of all time Federico Garcia Lorca is mentioned in a song by the Clash? Or was I subliminally programmed to like him after spending years as a teenager listening to the album London Calling. Lorca is mentioned in the song Spanish Bombs.

Spanish Bombs

Spanish songs in Andalucia

The shooting sites in the days of '39

Oh, please, leave the vendanna open

Frederico Lorca is dead and gone

Bullet holes in the cemetery walls

The black cars of the Guardia Civil

Spanish bombs on the Costa Rica

I'm flying in a DC 10 tonight

[Chorus]

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

yo te quiero oh mi corazón

Spanish bombs, yo te quiero infinito

yo te quiero oh mi corazón

Spanish weeks in my disco casino

The freedom fighters died upon the hill

They sang the red flag

They wore the black one

But after they died it was Mockingbird Hill

Back home the buses went up in flashes

The Irish tomb was drenched in blood

Spanish bombs shatter the hotels

My senorita's rose was nipped in the bud

[Chorus]

The hillsides ring with "Free the people"

Or can I hear the echo from the days of '39?

With trenches full of poets

The ragged army, fixin' bayonets to fight the other line

Spanish bombs rock the province

I'm hearing music from another timeS

panish bombs on the Costa Brava

I'm flying in on a DC 10 tonight

[Chorus]

Spanish songs in Andalucia,

Mandolina, oh mi corazon

Spanish songs in Granada, oh mi corazon

The Clash on Trial

I was watching "Pop on Trial" tonight on BBC4 tonight and was amazed to hear Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks rate The Sex Pistols over the Clash, who he described as a "pub band" and likened to The Rolling Stones. The Clash have little in common with the Rolling Stones aside from the fact that they both acheived massive success. But whereas The Stones have embraced success and the massive wealth and hedonistic lifestyle that went with it - The Clash were never entirely comfortable with it - and ultimately this was what destroyed them. Comparing the Sex Pistols to the Clash is like comparing Robbie Williams to Bob Dylan or The Spice Girls to The Slits or Patti Smith. Although there is no doubting the vision and energy behind the Pistiols, ultimately they had very little to actually say. They have preached anarchy but they never offered us any kind of concrete vision to replace the establishment that they wanted us to destroy. The Clash, however, were an altogether different kind of band. A band with real and wide ranging musical roots/influences and ideas and Joe Strummer's deeply political views of the world. They sang about things that mattered to them, they connected on a real level with fans and they tried to keep prices down on tickets and records.

On a lighter note one of the other presenters of "Pop on Trial" was Gaz Coobes of Supergrass who I was amazed to see is morphing into Neil young - and her is the evidence:

Gaz Coombes

Neil Young

The Future is the Past...

It is very seldom that I watch a film that I know that I will want to see again, and even rarer to see one that will watch again within a week (pretty much unheard of actually!)

The Future is Unwritten is one of those films. I had been really looking forward to watching it as I have been an unashamedly huge fan of The Clash for years, but thsi film far exceeded all my expectations.

Once you get used to the quirkiness of the filming it is riveting viewing. Temple has filmed a bunch of Strummer's friends and peershanging out around a campfire on what looks like the banks of the River Thames. They are listening to a recording of Strummer's radio show that he made for the BBC World Service. One of the most striking and original things about the film is that the narration is largely the voice of Strummer himself talking about his musical life. This is interspersed with anecdotes supplied by his friends and is run over video and photo footage of Strummer's life plus anamated drawings.

One of the great things about this film is that it covers the whole of Joe Strummer's life not just the period of time when he was in The Clash. I found it fascinating to learn about his childhood, his time as a hippy living in a London squat as well as what happened to him after The Clash disbanded. I am ashamed to say that I was such a huge Clash fan in my teens and twenties that I never really came to terms with their split and so didn't follow their subsequent musical careers. This was definitely my loss - The Mescaleros produced some brilliant music and I am just left wishing that I had given them a chance when Strummer was still alive.

I would highly recommend this brilliant/funny/sad film and would suggest that while you watch it you might want to keep a pen and notepad handy as Joe plays some excellent tracks on his radio show that you will undoubtedly want to hear again.

Recommended tracks:

Johnny Appleseed - Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

Coma Girl - Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

Blitzreig Bop - The Ramones

1977 - The Clash

Corrina, Corrina - Bob Dylan

To Love Somebody - Nina Simone

This is Not a Lovesong - Public Image Limited