Joe Strummer 'Island Hopping'

A week ago Davy H from The Ghost Of Electricity posted Joe playing Glastonbury. I ventured the opinion that Earthquake Weather, Joe's first solo album from 1989, was a great album. I've listened to it again tonight. It isn't. Drew, my Scottish blogging amigo from Across The Kitchen Table thought his vinyl copy was buggered when he ripped Sleepwalking and then realised it wasn't his copy, but the whole album actually sounded like that. He's right.

Earthquake Weather is a deeply flawed album, but it's not without it's merits and has a real hazy charm in parts. Joe's got his Caribbean influences going on, and knocks out some good songs, but too often they're ruined by awful production. Some parts sound like they were recorded in a wheelie bin two streets away. Then guitarist Zander Schloss lets rip with an loud FM radio guitar solo, over the top of some potential great understated backing tracks. Lead track Gangsterville illustrates it perfectly- muddy production, some good Joe vox, nice piano chorus part, screaming twiddly guitar. It's never been re-issued on cd, and maybe someone should do something I don't normally approve of- go back, remix the whole thing and see if they can make a silk purse out of a pig's ear. To finish, the last song Sleepwalking is actually really good, and so is this one, Island Hopping. The rest is hit and miss. Still worth a listen though, and it did give us that great cover shot.

A3 Island Hoping.mp3