Fifty Minutes Of Joe Strummer And The Mescaleros

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros came together in the late 90s. Joe started working with Richard Norris and Pablo Cook and the Mescaleros formed around that trio. In his memoir Strange Things Are Happening Richard Norris recounts how Joe and a cavalcade of cars turned up at Real World Studio in Wiltshire. Richard was sitting on a grass bank as the convoy arrived and Joe leapt from a vehicle brandishing a drum machine and shouting, 'does anyone know how to make this thing work?'. Richard raised a hand and said he did. Joe, Richard and Pablo wrote Yalla Yalla, with Anthony Genn coming on board to mix. They went on to write Techno D- Day, Tony Adams and the beautiful From Willesden To Cricklewood. Richard Norris Joe wrote Sandpaper Blues, Diggin' The New and the late career rock/ reggae/ acid house classic Yalla Yalla. All those songs became part of the first Mescaleros album, Rock Art And The X Ray Style.

The Mescaleros grew from there with Scott Shields joining (bass and guitar), Martin Slattery (keys and guitar), Richard Flack (various instruments) and Steve 'Smiley' Bernard (drums). Genn hung around for a while but eventually left. In 1999 Joe and the Mescaleros recorded Rock Art And The X Ray Style having played a load of gigs including Glastonbury (where Joe smashed a BBC camera during the broadcast with a mic stand). In Strange Things Are Happening Richard tells the story of his departure from being Joe's creative partner whilst out in LA- the circles around Joe and the former members of The Clash come across like the worst aspects of Succession, in crowds and out crowds and hangers on all jostling for elbow room and access to the top table. At an audience with event I went to Richard was asked how it ended with Joe and he replied, 'badly'. A rueful silence and some regret. 

In 2000 Joe hooked up again with Tymon Dogg, a former 101er and Clash guest. Tymon joined the Mescaleros for Global A Go- Go and the band toured the UK, US and Europe, playing festivals and small gigs, combining Clash songs and Mescaleros songs in fine style, gigs awash with beer flying, and reggae, rock, dub and global sounds, joyous celebrations of Joe's music and life. I saw them twice at Manchester Academy in the 1999- 2002 period and on another occasion at Nynex Arena where they supported The Who in a largely empty arena. They were superb, a life affirming blast of energy and punk rock righteousness. Joe never gave less than everything, the band gave their all too to match him and there was no reason to think it shouldn't carry on for some time. Joe died suddenly at home on 22nd December 2002. 

There are three Mescaleros albums- 1999's Rock Art And The X Ray Style, 2001's Global A Go- Go and the posthumously completed Streetcore from 2003. Between them they show a reborn and revitalised Joe Strummer, writing and recording and having the time of his life, making music that stands as not just the best of his solo career but alongside his songs in The Clash too. In the last year of Joe's life he'd been writing with Mick Jones again, songs that Mick assumed were for an upcoming Mescaleros album. Joe apparently thought they were for a new Clash album. 

Fifty Minutes Of Joe Strummer And The Mescaleros

• Punk Rock Warlord
• Yalla Yalla (Norro's King Dub)
• Fantastic
• At The Border, Guy
• Burnin' Streets
• X- Ray Style
• Ocean Of Dreams
• Johnny Appleseed
• Sandpaper Blues
• Arms Aloft
• Coma Girl
• Without People You're Nothing

Yalla Yalla was released as a single in 1999 ahead of the Rock Art And The X- Ray Style album, Joe and Richard Norris summoning the spirits and the radio. Joe described the song as 'an ancient British folk song written in the year 1999'. Live at Manchester Academy they segued Yalla Yalla into Bankrobber, Joe disappearing offstage and returning with a child on his shoulders, arms in the air and red lights strafing the stage. Yalla Yalla is total Strummer- world with dubbed out references to Kool Moe Dee, The Treacherous Three,  Brownie McGee, Ladbroke Grove, Ragga FM, Tae Kwon Do and the kebab shop. The Norro King Dub was on the 12", a Richard Norris dub of the original. According to Richard no one had ever called him Norro before and from that point only Joe did. 

Fantastic came out in 2022, a posthumous release tied into a box set re- release of the three Mescaleros albums and fourth disc of outtakes and demos. It was recorded at Rockfield in Monmouth in December 2002, the month Joe died. Fantastic is an early version of Ramshackle Day Parade from Streetcore. Streetcore was completed after Joe died by various Mescaleros. Joe's vocals are guide vocals, not finished ones- this alone shows how much Joe put in to recording. The guide vocals for Fantastic, Arms Aloft and Coma Girl (among other Streetcore songs) are more impassioned than many singers manage ever. While we'll never know what Streetcore could have been and what other songs Joe might have written for it, the seven songs that the band finished for the album all stand up next to the rest of the Mescaleros back catalogue. 

There are three other songs on Streetcore- Redemption Song, Silver And Gold and  Long Shadow- that date from different sessions. Redemption Song and Long Shadow were done with Rick Rubin, intended for Johnny Cash to record, and were included on Streetcore at Lucinda's request (Joe's widow). The video for Fantastic is a lovely thing, footage of Joe from The Clash, solo and his family life spliced together.   

At The Border, Guy is from Global A Go- Go, a seven minute freewheeling dub tune with scratchy guitar, organ and Joe singing about town planners, the Dow Jones and Leek town hall. Wonderful stuff, the genre hopping spirit of Sandinista! continuing long into Joe's solo career. 

Burnin' Streets is from Streetcore and has a nice lyrically throwback to 1977 and London's Burning. Arms Aloft is a rocker from the same album. In the song Joe sees his (younger) bandmates on tour complaining about being tired and out of gas partway through a tour. Joe, ever the livewire and motivator, shouts at them, reminding them of their duty to rock 'n' roll, the audience and playing the gig, and how only a few nights before they were 'arms aloft in Aberdeen'. It's one of several songs on Streetcore that have a hint, a foreshadowing, of Joe's mortality. 'They say the stars can't see their rays/ Nor can they count the number of days', he sings near the end. At the start there's some cosmic Joe too with the line, 'Sometimes there's no stars shining/ Scouting the edge of the universe/ Sometimes you can't see a horizon/ Between the ocean and the earth'. 

X Ray Style is a beauty, the title track from 1999's Rock Art And The X Ray Style (the cover was painted by Damian Hirst, a version of Neolithic cave art. Joe spent every summer from the mid 80s onward in Granada, Spain and in the nearby Nerja area there is a cave complex discovered by five school boys in 1959 containing the world's oldest known cave art- maybe this was the inspiraiton for the sleeve). The song X Ray Style is an acoustic guitar tune with a bongo groove, Joe singing about the stars and the hopes of a soul, Be Bop guns, rockabilly trains and how 'there's some people living who ain't got no heart and they never had none'. He finishes with the line, 'I want to live and I want to dance a while'. His voice ever sounded better. 

Ocean Of Dreams came out on the 2022 box set, an unreleased Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros song dating from the Rock Art And the X Ray Style sessions with ex- Ex Pistol Steve Jones on guitar. It's got a lazy, laid back feel, Joe improvising and following his nose. In 1999 Anthony Genn had told him, 'You're Joe Strummer, you should be making an album!'. Other people had told him this at points in the decade between 1989 and 1999 but in 1999 the time was right. 

Johnny Appleseed is the lead song from 2001's Global A Go- Go, a solo peak and a song that demonstrates everything that was great about the man. Acoustic guitars, massed backing vocals, old friend Tymon on violin and Joe singing about Martin Luther King and Buick 49s, and how if you want to get the honey you don't go killing all the bees, a line that could be about the environment or it could be about capitalism. Whenever I need to hear some solo Joe, I often start with Johnny Appleseed. The video is very Joe too, Joe and the Mescaleros wandering the streets of London as the public come and go...

Sandpaper Blues is a Richard Norris co- write. Joe's love of what used to be called World Music is all over the Mescaleros songs. On Sandpaper Blues there's Caribbean vibes married to Country and Western and Mariachi. 

Coma Girl is the lead song from Streetcore, rousing Strummer three chord, Clash style, electrifying guitar rock. In the song Joe describes his walk through the outer areas at the Glastonbury festival, wandering round the stages as the rain comes in and the oil drums clang, while singing to his daughter Lola, the coma girl, who didn't want to get out of bed. Coma Girl is as good a final song as Joe could have wished for in many ways, a song that summons the vision of him on stage, his left leg twitching away as he bashed out the chords and sang at the microphone stand. 

Placeta Joe Strummer

While we were in Spain two weeks ago we drove to Granada and spent several hours at the Alhambra Palace, the 13th and 14th century fortress and palace that overlooks the city. Towards the late afternoon we sat in the shadow of the palace enjoying a very strong and very good Cafe con leche and I said to Lou, 'Placeta Joe Strummer is just down the hill...'

So we wandered down the hill in the heat and found the triangular piece of public land, bordered by roads on two sides and some steps and a derelict and grafittied building on the other.

Once there was a large painting of Joe but at some point it got painted over. 

Why has Joe Strummer got a public square named after him in Granada you might ask?

In the mid- 80s when The Clash split up Joe beat a retreat to lick his wounds and cry into his beer and he went to Granada. In the early days of The Clash Joe was going out with Slits drummer Palmolive and she and her brother Fernando Romero were from the city. Joe and Romero had previously shared a squat, and used to talk politics, Spain, the civil war and everything else and these struck a deep chord with Joe. With Joe in a mess after the break up of The Clash, Fernando took Joe to Granada. He put roots down in Granada and the villages around it, produced an album by local punk band 091, went searching for the (still un- found) grave of poet Federico Garcia Lorca (murdered by a Francoist death squad in 1936 and buried in a mass grave somewhere in the hills above the city) and drank in local bars. Joe included both Lorca and Granada in the 1979 Clash song Spanish Bombs. 

It became Joe's routine in the 80s and 90s to spend a long summer in Granada and then return to London for the Notting Hill Carnival. Esperanza Romero, sister of Fernando and Paloma, married Richard Dudanski (101ers drummer, one time Clash drummer and drummer for PiL, The Raincoats and Basement 5). They still live in Granada. Joe bought a house in Almeria and also lost a Dodge car somewhere in the city- he parked it in an underground car park but couldn't remember where. There's a film about it. 

After Joe's death Fernando and others petitioned the council to name a square after Joe, who they saw as an adopted son of the city. Dudanski, Joe's friends and the local socialists pestered the council repeatedly and eventually in 2013 Placeta Joe Strummer was named. There was a party to mark it with an open air acoustic gig with members of The Pogues, The 101ers, Mescaleros and 091 all playing and Joe's daughters Jazz and Lola attended. 

It's as good a spot as any for a photo opportunity for any Joe Strummer and Clash fans who happen to be in Granada on their summer holidays.

Today is Joe's birthday. He would have been 74. It's fairly easy to imagine a 74 year old Joe, still making music, still open to the endless possibilities of the world and its cultures, still enthusing about Cuban be- bop, African highlife, reggae and three chord rock 'n' roll, raging against the world's injustices and iniquities.

In 1979 The Clash played at one of the series of Concerts For Kampuchea, four concerts organised by Paul McCartney and, um, Kurt Waldheim*. There had been promises that The Beatles were going to reform for the concert- this obviously did not happen. The four concerts were held in late December '79 and The Clash headlined the second, with Ian Dury and The Blockheads and Matumbi also appearing. This clip of the group playing Armagideon Times is as good a live performance as you're going to see today by anyone, The Clash absolutely at the top of their game and Joe magnetic at the centre of the stage...

Ten years later Joe was solo and in the midst of what some people have called his Wilderness Years. Richard Norris, who worked with Joe in '98/ '99 and co- wrote several Mescaleros songs counters this description of the post- Clash, pre- Mescaleros years, arguing that Joe made a solo album, wrote and recorded a handful of film soundtracks, acted in several films and co- wrote and produced Big Audio Dynamite's second album- not really a wilderness period at all. 

In 1989 Joe released Earthquake Weather, a fourteen song album with the musicians who became Joe's Latino Rockabilly War. It's a messy album, probably a handful of songs too long, with muddy production and a confused mix and I often feel guitarist Zander Schloss needed reining in at times. The final song, Sleepwalk, is a beauty though, a great Joe Strummer solo song.  Rueful and ruminative with a Caribbean feel and Joe coming back to the line, 'What good would it be if you could change every heartache that ran through your life and mine?'

Sleepwalk

In 1999 Joe returned with The Mescaleros and made two fine albums- Art Rock And The X- Ray Style and Global A Go- Go- and then a posthumously completed one from 2003, Streetcore. More from these Mescaleros years coming up on Sunday. 

Happy birthday Joe. Feliz cumpleaños. 

* Kurt Waldheim was an Austrian politician who became secretary general of the United Nations between 1972 and 1981. In 1986 it was revealed he had knowledge of Nazi atrocities as a member of the Wehrmacht during World War II, and that this had been covered up. This caused an international controversy but didn't prevent him from becoming president of Austria between 1986 and 1992. During this period he was officially declared persona non grata by the American government (and most western ones) and banned from entering the USA. Today of course, they'd send a limousine anyway...

The Morning Of The Trip

In 2023 Andy Bell and Masal released an album, called Tidal Love Numbers- four long ambient pieces that wandered into psyche, folk, jazz and blissed out noisy drones and back again, Andy's guitar and Masal's harp and synths all blurring into a greater whole. Andy and Masal have a new album out in October called Common Primitives and ahead of it this single, The Morning Of The Trip...

The Morning Of The Trip is the soundtrack to something- a slow film about the passage of time perhaps, time lapse photography of the start of a new day, a long descent from the heavens by balloon. A theme tune. Visual music. Shoegaze/ ambient and harp. 

You can buy it and pre- order the album at Bandcamp

In a handy moment of coincidence this is the morning of my trip too- I'm off to Glasgow for a couple of days where I shall meet up with JC (The Vinyl Villain) and a few other like minded folk. When I booked my train a few weeks ago I wasn't really thinking about the World Cup and which teams might have made it to the semi- final stage. It has transpired that tonight I shall be in Glasgow when England play their semi- final against Argentina, a place where an Englishman supporting England is unlikely to be particularly popular. 

I have been drawn in by the World Cup despite my misgivings about it- about Trump's USA being the hosts, about the advert/ hydration breaks, about Infantino and FIFA (and some of those misgivings have been very much realised such as Trump pressuring FIFA to rescind a US player's red card not to mention their treatment of the Iranian team and Omar Artan, the Somali referee who was barred from entering the country). 

The sheer variety the World Cup brings- teams and fans from countries as far afield as Japan, Morocco, Belgium and Mexico, the collision of styles and cultures, the colour and the spectacle- is very much to be applauded and soaked up. The world in all its varieties. 

I often have an unease about supporting England- the flag, the national anthem, the fans dressed as crusaders, the endless recycling of that song and of 'football coming home'. It's all so, as the kids say, cringe. But in the current climate, a multi- cultural team of young men from a variety of backgrounds doing well is a good thing (three examples- Bukayo Saka, Nigerian parents, born in Ealing; Jude Bellingham, Irish and Jamaican parents, born in Birmingham; Djed Spence Jamaican and Kenyan parents, born in London; this is England and the racists, the Reform voters and the lamppost flaggers are having to deal with it. It's the England most of us are actually happy to be part of and to live in). When Jude Bellingham scored against Norway in extra time late on on Saturday night I was leaping round the living room like a lunatic. Fingers crossed we find a pub in Glasgow where we can watch England go one step further. 

England's Irie

Forty Five Minutes Of Big Audio Dynamite

When Mick Jones was kicked out of The Clash in 1984 he moved on immediately, a man with something to prove. His first post- Clash band was Top Risk Action Company (T.R.A.C.) with Topper and basisst Leo 'E- Zee Kill' Williams on board but Topper's health prevented that from going anywhere. Mick and Leo hooked up Don Letts and segued T.R.A.C. into B.A.D., recruiting drummer Greg Roberts and Dan Donovan (keys). That line up made four albums, between 1985 and 1989- This Is Big Audio Dynamite, No. 10 Upping Street (with Joe Strummer co- writing and producing), Tighten Up Vol. 88 (cover art  painting by Paul Simonon) and Megatop Phoenix. All four are chock full of tunes, songs, wit, samples and the spirit of adventure, embracing new technology with an openness and joie de vivre. 

In 1990 the line up broke up and Mick formed B.A.D. II with three new players (Nick Hawkins, Gary Stonadge and Chris Kavanagh), releasing singles and albums that showed Mick's songwriting chops were still more than evident (and once again tapping into the pop culture with Shawn Stussy on sleeve art and design duties). There's a long and messy Big Audio Dynamite tail (including 1995's F- Punk which has the wonderful two chord autobiography I Turned Out A Punk on it) before Mick wound B.A.D. down and moved on (again) forming Carbon/ Silicon with Tony James.

Such are the riches of the Big Audio Dynamite back catalogue that this forty five minute mix only really dips a trainer in. A couple more could follow. In the meantime, sit tight and listen keenly while I play for you a brand new musical biscuit...

Forty Five Minutes Of Big Audio Dynamite

• B.A.D. Overture
• The Battle Of All Saints Road
• The Bottom Line
• Sony
• V Thirteen
• Contact (12" Version)
• The Globe
• C'Mon Every Beatbox (Extended Vocal Mix)

B.A.D. Overture is the music B.A.D. would play three minutes before arriving on stage in a blur of baseball caps, overcoats, lights, Dalek guitars and grins. The Overture samples B.A.D.'s own songs and others, mashing them up with a chunky drum machine, sirens, screeching tyres, guitars and Sergio Leone samples, the full hyperactive, everything and the kitchen sink experience. 

The Battle Of All Saints Road is from 1988's Tighten Up Vol. 88, a collision of rock, reggae, and dueling banjos and a story of battling street gangs united by a joint and their opposition to the police and the yuppies, all done with Mick's toothy grin and his love of West London. 

The Bottom Line is from the 1985 debut album, an album that has three bona fide B.A.D. classics- The Bottom Line, Medicine Show and E = MC2. The Bottom Line with its stuttering bassline, chiming guitars and constant energy is a truly great song. Even the Soviets are swinging away. 

Sony is from the same album, a day glo, drum machine and synths tribute to mid- 80s Japan, its clubs and technology, with Mick's trademark quivery vocals. 

V Thirteen is from 1986's No. 10 Upping Street (the home according to Joe Strummer of an alternative 'funky Prime Minister'). Joe co- wrote V Thirteen, a glorious tune referencing DJs, Knock On Wood and street gangs.

Contact is from Megatop Phoenix, a 1989 single too, that showed Mick and the B.A.D. gang once again moving on, now soaking up house music. The album was completed and released following Mick's brush with death- he was hospitalised with pneumonia and seriously ill in 1989, hence the phoenix of the title. Contact was a Jones/ Donovan co- write.

The Globe was a B.A.D. II single, Mick sampling Should I Stay Or Should I Go, stitching samples and instruments together with a killer chorus and none- more 1991 rap.

C'Mon Every Beatbox is B.A.D. to the max, Mick and Don taking samples from TV and film and trading lines, words rattling by a hundred a minute, nicking a guitar solo from Jimi Hendrix and sounding like they're having the time of their lives. 

Forty Five Minutes Of The Clash In Dub

A simple concept for today's Sunday mix- The Clash in dub. The band were steeped in their influences- dub, reggae, rockabilly, blues, rock 'n' roll, glam, garage rock, soul, disco- and once they got past Give 'Em Enough Rope and punk's orthodoxy they gave their influences free rein, their record collections filtered through the unique combination of Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon, each man bringing his own thing. Paul Simonon especially brought the dub and the bass. 

The dub began to surface with Armagideon Times, London Calling's B- side and then with Bank Robber and an association with Mikey Dread that brought some genuine Jamaican vibes, vocals and production to the sound. By the time they got to Sandinista! and they'd decided it would be six sides of vinyl, each side six songs long, the dub experimentation became as much part of The Clash as anything else. 

Forty Five Minutes Of The Clash In Dub

• Mensforth Dub
• Radio One (Reprise)
• Outside Broadcast/ Radio 5
• Silicone On Sapphire
• One More Dub
• The Crooked Beat
• Robber Dub
• Living In Fame
• Justice Tonight/ Kick It Over

Mensforth Dub is a dub version of Something About England, a song that more and more seems like one of Sandinista!'s peaks, Joe and Mick duetting on a song about immigration, the 20th century, the impact of two world wars and post- imperial Britain. It fades in with FX and echo, Mick's voice in the distance and a swirl of radio static and noise. Possibly named after Menwith Hill, an RAF listening post in North Yorkshire that is operated by the US air force still. 

Radio One was the B-side to Hitsville UK, a re- working of a Mikey Dread tune from his album Rocker Station, cavernous space and crashing echo. The Roland Space Echo is doing a lot of work. Gloriously dubbed out stuff. 

Outside Broadcast and Radio 5 were two of four versions on the 12" of the 1981 single This Is Radio Clash, Joe on the mic like a radio announcer and then FX, New York radio station samples, backing vox, a laid back early 80s rap courtesy of a very English sounding voice, 'I am the Lord of the dance, the lord of the dance said he'. It goes on for seven minutes, as dub often does, before seguing into Radio 5. 

Silicone On Sapphire is a dub of Washington Bullets, another key Sandinista! deep cut. Joe's lyrics are an account of superpower intervention and destabilisation in the developing world and the Cold War that gave the album its name. Silicone On Sapphire came out of the endless nights of dub experimentation during the Sandinista! sessions. Joe added a new spoken word vocal, a stream of consciousness piece that starts out wondering who holds the key that winds the clock on Big Ben and goes off into early 80s computer lingo, hardwired logic, RAM, data, input, system debugs and many other things that he possibly read out from a magazine or manual. One of those Sandinista! dubs that was overlooked for years and now sounds like a quintessential part of that album. 

One More Dub is a Mikey Dread at the controls dub of One More Time. On Sandinista! they run together, Mikey Dread linking the two with a shout of 'stop wastin' time!'. Bass and phasing to the fore, Topper's drums as ever on point. 

The Crooked Beat was a Paul Simonon follow up to Guns Of Brixton, his way of ensuring he got a cut of the songwriting income. Lovely roaming bassline and a tale of South London blues parties. 

Robber Dub is a dub of Bank Robber that didn't make the single release, eventually coming out on the 1980 compilation  Black Market Clash, a six minute version with drums and bass pushed up front and snippets of Joe's vocal. Classic Clash dub. One of the bar staff at The Golden Lion rushed up to us last weekend asking about it when I spun it as part of our seven hour long ALFOS warm up. 

Living In Fame is another Sandinista! track, a Mikey Dread vocal commenting on the various ska bands the UK had thrown up at the time, challenging them to live up to their names. If you call yourself The Specials he reasons, you better be pretty special, and so on with The Selector, The Beat, Madness and then turns his attention to The Nipple Erectors and Blockheads. Gary Barnacle plays bursts of wailing sax, Strummer joins in with shouts and cries and there's acres of Mick Jones echo- treated guitar.

Justice Tonight/ Kick It Over were the first real Clash dub experiment, a dubbed out version of their cover of Willie Williams' Armagideon Time. Spooked late 70s dread and fireworks, and Joe shouting 'OK OK, don't push us when we're hot!'. 

It often feels like we need The Clash more than ever. 

Stretford Hopping

This is a bust of John Rylands, a Victorian entrepreneur and philanthropist who lived between 1801 and 1899. The bust is in Stretford Town Hall- a friend had an exhibition of her print making art there recently. I saw Rylands in the foyer, peaking out modestly from a sideboard. He moved to Manchester from Wigan in 1823 and opened a warehouse for his textiles business. Textiles made Manchester. John settled in Manchester and set up his home in Stretford (a mile up the road from us in Sale). In the middle of the 19th century Stretford was a village near Manchester. Now it's very much South Manchester suburb. Maybe Stretford's most famous son is Morrissey who grew up on King's Road and kissed under the iron bridge that now crosses the Metrolink line. 

John Rylands did a lot for Stretford- he paid for the Town Hall, a swimming baths, a library and a coffee house. The Town Hall and library still exist though the baths have gone. There are several coffee houses but possibly not the one Rylands paid for. When he died his widow Augustina paid for a permanent memorial to her late- husband, the famous neo- gothic John Rylands library on Deansgate.

Down Chester Road towards Sale is Stretford Mall, formerly Arndale, currently in the process of being demolished and the town centre rebuilt and regenerated. Stretford Arndale had some rather nice late 60s features, a top deck with a sweeping staircase but 60s modernism is not fashionable and many people did not love the Arndale. In 1971 Muhammed Ali visited Stretford Arndale, promoting Ovaltine at the Tesco supermarket . 

Ali caused such a crowd to turn up and the crush of locals to get so excited about seeing the three time heavyweight champion of the world, in Stretford Arndale!, that he had to be rescued by police. This picture shows Ali retreating from the baying hoard who wanted a glimpse of the great man and some free Ovaltine. Ali is on the right, his head visible as he backs into a corner between stacks of tinned goods. 

The southern end of Stretford was once surrounded by fields and known as the Garden Of Lancashire due to the amount of farmland producing food for the county, vegetables and a large pig market (and copious quantities of Stretford beef- rhubarb). Now the southern end of Stretford is a busy road system overlooked by Stretford Tower, Isaac's favourite building, which I pass every day going to work and which often makes me think of him. 

This potted history of Stretford is a long winded way of getting round to this- tonight at Head, a former branch of Barclays but now a really nice bar, Martin and myself are representing The Flightpath Estate live on the decks, an all vinyl set, from 8.30pm until 11. There is a regular Thursday night slot, Club Solo, which goes out as a livestream on Solo Stream and in person live from Head once a month. Club Solo was born out of lockdown by Stephen Mollynoodles and the archive of previous nights is here. I think you can watch it live and join in on the chat, watching us mess up the transitions and heckle us from the comfort of your front room. Or come down and do it in person. What else would you be doing tonight? Watching Switzerland play Bosnia-Herzegovina while waiting for news from the Makerfield by- election? 

Andy Burnham for the win eh?

Martin and myself will be playing our usual eclectic smorgasbord of dub, Balearic, leftfield indie, Weatherall remixes, Joe Strummer B- sides and maybe some oompty- boompty music for the last hour. 

Mango Street

Mango Street is a largely instrumental version of Island Hopping from Joe Strummer's 1989 solo album Earthquake Weather. It came out on a one sided 12" in October '89, tropical flavours and catgut guitars with spoon percussion. I love it. When I played it at The Golden Lion last September Martin asked, 'what the fuck am I supposed to follow that with?!'. 

Let's Go Burning Down the Road

I've posted this song before, Generations by Electric Dog House, a song I find inexplicably great, one of those songs that just hits the spot. 

Generations

Electric Dog House were a Joe Strummer one- off from his time in Los Angeles in the late 90s, a three piece band of Joe, ex- Damned drummer Rat Scabies and Seggs from The Ruts. Joe and Rat had met at a Ministry gig and then on Grosse Point Blanke and formed Electric Dog House recording a grand total of one song- Generations. It came out on an album also called Generations: A Punk Rock Look At Human Rights (Green Day, Bad Brains, some members of X and various other bands appear). The CD is front loaded- Joe, Rat and Seggs are track one and Generations also appeared as a CD single in promo form in 1997, presumably for radio stations. Electric Dog House don't even get a mention in Chris Salewicz's biography of Joe, Redemption Song, but the song did turn up on 001, a solo career retrospective from 2018. 

The song is fantastic- rattling and alive sounding, the drums and bass bouncing round the overloaded mix, Joe's guitar all blurry and fuzzy, two or three chords and a wonderful vocal, Joe singing a typically Strummer- esque opening line, 'Back in the day/ even circles were squares', and including some more very Strummer sounding imagery- radio waves, telegraph keys, demonstrations, cities, wars and buying pyjamas for your four year old girl- with a refrain that summons up visions of LA smog, sunsets and highways, 'Let's go burning down the road'. The mix is muddy in places, the insturments pile up twoadrs the end with no separation between them, and some people would have applied more production to it, smoothed it out and given it a radio friendly punch. It would be worse for it. 

The video  is perfectly apt too- Joe, Rat and Seggs in the studio, grainy home video footage, marchers, Joe's 50s car cruising the streets, his England flag with the word Irie stenciled across the St. George's cross and messages about human rights. 

Fifty Minutes Of Soundtrack Saturday

2025's year long Saturday series Soundtrack Saturday has reached the final reel but before the credits roll it seemed that a Sunday mix of various songs and scores from the various film soundtracks I've written about would make a good Sunday mix. This is the result, seventeen tracks from sixteen films, sequenced with something approaching a narrative arc- it starts out in the desert with Harry Dean Stanton tramping round the dust, stays out west for while and then shifts to Tokyo, sleeplessness and jet lag. We jump around some other locations- Long Island, France, Memphis- and have visions of a post- apocalyptic USA before the climax, a death, some levity and then Rutger Hauer in the rain. 

The photo at the top is of Stretford Essoldo, a former cinema just up the road from me, a beautiful 1930s building that has been sadly empty and unused for decades. 

Fifty Minutes Of Soundtrack Saturday

• Ry Cooder: Cancion Mixteca
• Ennio Morricone: Watch Chimes
• Bob Dylan: Billy 7
• Joe Strummer: Tennessee Rain
• Tom Waits: Jockey Full Of Bourbon
• Kevin Shields: Intro- Tokyo
• Kevin Shields: City Girl
• Mick Jones: Long Island
• David Holmes: I Think You Flooded It
• John Lurie: Tuesday Night In Memphis
• Gabriel Yared: 37 Degrees 2 Le Matin
• Nick Cave and Warren Ellis: The Road
• John Barry: Theme From Midnight Cowboy
• Brian Eno: Deep Blue Day
• Son House: Death Letter Blues
• B.J. Thomas: Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head
• Vangelis: Tears In Rain

Cancion Mixteca is from Paris, Texas, Wim Wenders' 1984 film, a Ry Cooder soundtrack with some dialogue from the film that stands up as an album in its own right.  

Watch Chimes is from Sergio Leone's For A Few Dollars More, the second installment of the Dollars trilogy, released in 1967. 

Billy is from Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, Sam Peckinpah's 1973 Western, Bob Dylan contributing the soundtrack and appearing in the film. 

Joe Strummer did the soundtrack for Walker, Alex Cox's 1987 Western- one of Joe's best 'wilderness years' songs. 

A Jockey Full Of Bourbon appears in Down By Law, Jim Jarmusch's 1986 film- Tom Waits is one of the three stars of the film as well as being a key part of the soundtrack. 

Intro- Tokyo and City Girl are from Lost In Translation, Sofia Coppola's 2003 film, Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson lost in Tokyo. 

Mick Jones provided three tracks for the 1993 film Amongst Friends- Long Island is the most complete, a Jones solo song. 

I Think You Flooded It is from Out Of Sight, the first of many David Holmes- Steven Soderbergh soundtrack collaborations, released in 1998. 

John Lurie's score for Mystery Train had to compete with some big hitters- Elvis' Mystery Train for one, Roy Orbison's Domino for another. A second Jim Jarmusch film in this mix- the use of music is central to Jarmusch's films. 

Gabriel Yared's guitar playing is from the soundtrack to Betty Blue, another late 80s film that made a deep impression on me- Beatrice Dalle made quite an impression too. 

Nick Cave and Warren Ellis' soundtrack work spans all sorts of movies and documentaries. They began with the soundtrack to 2009 film The Road, a harrowing version of Cormac McCarthy's equally harrowing novel. 

Theme From Midnight Cowboy is gorgeous, a John Barry highpoint from a composer who recorded dozens of soundtracks. That harmonica. Stunning. 

Brian Eno's soundtrack work is wide and varied and an Eno only soundtrack mix would definitely work- Deep Blue Day is from the 1996 film Trainspotting but originally on Another Green World, Eno's 1975 album. 

Son House's Death Letter Blues is from 1965, just Son and a metal bodied resonator guitar. It's a stunning song and performance, Son's lyrics and performance can chill to the bone. It appeared on the soundtrack to On The Road, the  2012 version of Jack Kerouac's novel. 

B.J. Thomas' Raindrops Keep falling On My Head was a worldwide smash following its appearance in the 1969 film Butch Cassady And The Sundance Kid. The song is probably what the film is best known for, along with the two stars- Robert Redford and Paul Newman- and the famous shoot out ending. 

At the end of Blade Runner, Ridley Scott's 1982 sci fi/ film noir version of Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?, Rutger Hauer sits on top of a crumbling building in the rain, holding a dove and improvises a farewell speech as Harrison Ford slumps in front of him, his life saved. 'All these moments will be lost in time', Hauer says as Vangelis' synth score plays. But they're not are they- they replay endlessly, equally moving each time. 

Forty Five Years Ago

Forty five years ago yesterday, 12th December 1980, The Clash released Sandinista! London Calling is the best Clash album, the received wisdom goes (and I can't really disagree), the punk purists might go for the self- titled debut and in terms of sales and going global Combat Rock brought the band to a mass audience and hit singles (eventually even a number 1, thanks to 1991's Levi's advert) but Sandinista! is for me the band's greatest achievement, a huge piece of work that shows how far and how fast they were moving, demonstrates their ambition and refusal to be boxed in by punk orthodoxy, their willfulness and sense of adventure and experimentation. Thirty six songs spread over six sides of vinyl recorded in London, Manchester, Jamaica and New York, it is, as Joe Strummer said in Westway To The World, 'a magnificent achievement, warts and all... I wouldn't change a thing about it'. The greatest triple album of them all. 

Releasing a triple album in mid- December might not have been the wisest move- print journalists with weekly deadlines struggled to get their heads around it or even listen to all of it. It got some poor reviews and adverse reactions but the band reveled in it. Joe liked to believe they were getting one over on CBS, a triple album for the price of a single one (although the band had to forego royalties on it until it hit 200, 000 sales in the UK and took a 50% cut everywhere else). Mick said it was an album for people who couldn't get to the record shops very often, people working on 'oil rigs or Arctic stations'. It is an album which gave up its rewards gradually, revealing something different on each and every listen. Some songs could be completely overlooked, unheard almost, until one day, they suddenly connected. 

It is Clash democracy at its height. Every member of the band has a lead vocal. All four members have song writing credits. It is self- produced, with London Calling's Bill Price mixing and Jerry Green engineering. Mikey Dread, who worked with them at Pluto in Manchester recording Bankrobber (arguably the genesis of Sandinista!) is on hand for the dub tracks (and they make up a good chunk of the album with much of side six and various other dub and reggae influenced songs). Mick's girlfriend Ellen Foley sings, Joe's old mate Tymon Dogg plays and sings, two Blockheads play (Norman Watt- Roy deputising for an absent Paul Simonon on some songs and Mickey Gallagher from the live gigs and London Calling plays keys), Voidoid Ivan Julien plays guitar and cartoonist Steve Bell contributed to the enclosed newspaper/ lyrics sheet The Armagideon Times. Even Mickey Gallagher's kids sing on two songs. It's a monster, bigger even than it sounds when described in writing. It's a mixtape, a compilation album by one band, an audio diary, a radio show, two and a half hours of music that skips from one genre to another with ease... 'it's triply outrageous', said Joe. 

It covers every style of music the band could throw at it and some more besides. Side one bounces into earshot as soon as the needle hits the groove, the rap- rock of The Magnificent Seven showing where they were at. Mick was inspired by the hip hop sounds he heard while in New York, by pirate radio and block parties. He began wearing baseball caps and Cazal 607 glasses. Joe's words are surreal and superb, a riot of phrases torn from newspapers with a cast including Martin Luther King, Karl Marx, Freidrich Engels, Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Nixon, Rin Tin Tin and Plato. The grind of work, Italian mobsters, TVs in cars, cheeseburgers, vacuum cleaners sucking up budgies, police brutality... it all flies by in a blur, a Joe Strummer live commentary while channel surfing. It's followed by Mick's tribute to UK indie labels Hitsville UK, a Motown backbeat and Ellen Foley on lead vox and then Joe's cover of Junco Partner, revived from 101'ers days with Style Scott on drums (future Dub Syndicate/ On U Sound). Topper sings the lead on Ivan Meets GI Joe, the Clash imaging a Cold War face off at Studio 54 (and if I'm honest the one song I could probably lose from Sandinista! without really missing it). The Leader, a two minute rockabilly rumble about the tabloid press and the Profumo affair comes next, the band crooning the chorus, 'Cos you gotta give the people something good to read/ On a Sunday. 

Something About England closes side one, a truly great achievement of a song, the history of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of a homeless man (Joe), trading lines and verses with Mick (as a man leaving the pub and tripping over 'a dirty overcoat'. The opening lines run as true in 2025 as they did in 1980, more so in fact- 'They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps of respected gentlemen/ They say it would be wine and roses/ If England were for Englishmen again'. I'm willing to bet that there's a significant number of middle aged men in this country who support Farage, Robinson, the flag and roundabout bullshit and rising tide of racism in this country while also claiming to be Clash fans. I wonder if they've heard Something About England. 

Something About England

Rap, disco, rockabilly, Gumbo blues, music hall, Motown... side 1 throws itself around like a radio station on shuffle mode. Side two picks up the baton and sprints. Rebel Waltz, a beautiful Joe Strummer lament for young men enlisted to wars and destined to never come home, drifts by, between sleep and wakefulness, waltz crossed with folk dub. Rebel Waltz is the spirit of Sandinista! bottled. Look Here, a cover of Mose Alison jazz passes by and then Paul's bass rumbles in with The Crooked Beat, a dub tribute to South London blues parties, Paul doing his best gap- toothed vocal. As The Crooked Beat dissolves in Mikey Dread dub FX, Mick's guitars squeal in, tyres screeching and engines racing, the sleek modern rock of Somebody Got Murdered, inspired by a sight Joe saw in New York, the straightest rock song on the whole album and a band at the height of their powers. Side 2 ends with the double punch of One More Time/ One More Dub, Clash dub reggae at its finest, Mikey Dread at the controls and Joe invoking the civil rights movement, 'One more time in the ghetto/ One more time to be free'.

Rebel Waltz

Put disc one back in its sleeve, make a brew and come back for disc two. The needle settles onto side three and we're back into New York rap/ funk Clash, Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice). Then there's another minor Clash gem, Mick's Up In Heaven (Not Only Here), a spiky punk rock song with a lovely lead guitar line and lyrics about 'the towers of London', crumbling tower blocks, social housing, unloved walkways, piss filled lifts, cages for families to live in. Three verses, no chorus, Mick sounding as good as he ever did. Corner Soul is more heartfelt Clash, off kilter reggae rock, Ellen Foley's voice underlining Strummer's. Let's Go Crazy is the result of the band thinking they could record in any style they wanted- in this case, gospel, bringing Caribbean church music and Notting Hill carnival into The Clash's world. If Music Could Talk is more dub but with Gary Barnacle's saxophone, two vocals, one in each channel, and the drums from Bankrobber. Side three ends with The Sound Of The Sinners, more gospel, Joe as the preacher singing call and response with the choir. Side 3 is Sandinista! to the max, The Clash throwing everything at the wall and seeing what would stick. It turns out, forty five years later, almost all of it sticks. 

Lightning Strikes (Not Once But Twice)

Side four is heavy duty Clash, all six songs complementing each other, a run of great and largely under acknowledged tunes. It kicks off with a cover of The Equals' Police On My Back, Mick singing breathlessly, and then we get the Midnight Log shuffle, rocking drums from the 1950s, harmonica, two minutes of pre- 60s murkiness. The Equaliser has Tymon Dogg's fiddle on top of serious dub grooves, Jamaican influences to the fore- one of those tunes that Sandinista! suddenly throws up as a lost gem. Three beauties follow- The Call Up, Washington Bullets and Broadway- sequenced together at the end of disc two, lost in the middle of Sandinista! Songs about conscription, the Cold War, Victor Jara's murder in Chile at the hands of US sponsored death squads, the FSLN (the socialists who overthrew the dictator Somoza in Nicaragua and then faced an uprising by armed guerrillas, the Contras, backed by Reagan's CIA, with Joe finding the album's title at the end of the song as he sings out, 'woah oh Sandinista!'. On Broadway Joe is lost and alone in a bar in New York at six in the morning. He sounds exhausted, as the band play a late night tune, somewhere between blues and jazz, a bit Tom Waitsian. You can hear Manhattan- the lights, the taxis, misted up windows and rain bouncing off pavements, pianos and jerky rhythms- and then it all clicks and snaps into focus, Joe eventually hitting the groove, 'I can't see the light... I can't see the light... give me a push give me a pull...' The song gives way to a burst of Mickey Gallagher's kids singing Guns Of Brixton before one of them says, snippily, 'that's enough singing now'. 

Broadway

Loads of bands would have left it there. Four sides of vinyl and Broadway works as a final song as well as any, a full stop, an ending. The Clash though had decided they were making a triple album. They obsessed over the number three- three discs, six sides, thirty six songs. Disc three steps up to the turntable and side five offers plenty more to discover, more lost gems, deep cuts and secret best songs. Lose This Skin is possibly the least Clash sounding song they ever recorded, Tymon Dogg's violinin the lead and Tymon on vocals. Someone once said it's the most skipped Clash song. Hmmm. Maybe. Charlie Don't Surf is next, inspired by Apocalypse Now! with a dubbed out, backwards intro, helicopter blades and gliding funk rock. Then there's Mensforth Hill, Sandinista's most out there song, Something About England played backwards with FX dropped in. No stone unturned in their quest for breaking new ground. No idea to daft to try. Junkie Slip is urgent and tense. Kingston Advice is more Clash dub reggae, a lost gem and one of their best dub tracks. The bass bumps, Topper's drumming swings, Joe sounds at his best. There's even better to come, tucked away at the end of side five is The Street Parade, a hymn to anonymity, a song about the joy of being lost in the crowd. On The Street Parade they invent some new kind of new musical genre, a Latin American/ Caribbean/ punk/ dub hybrid, joyous but with a edge of melancholy, horns, marimba, guitars and Topper's kick drum, with a rousing vocal from Joe and the sense that the band are saying, 'here we are, thirty songs in and we're still giving you something you've not heard before, are you still listening?'

The Street Parade

Side six is dub, Mick and Mikey going for it in the studio, Joe in the Spliff Bunker (a hideaway constructed from flight cases where he could write lyrics) and the clock ticking into the small hours. It starts with Version City, a strange song that opens with tapes slowing down and speeding up and a radio announcer and then what becomes a slightly haunting song, a bit of jazz and some blues. Living In Fame is a dub of If Music Could Talk with Mikey Dread toasting. Silicone On Sapphire is a dub of Washington Bullets, the rhythm track stretched and bent, the tune mangled and a voice dimly audible. It comes to a halt and Version Pardner rides in, a dub of Junco Partner (from side one), Style Scott back on drums. The kids, Luke and Ben Gallagher, appear for a brief run through  Career Opportunities. Two and a half hours have slipped by, thirty five songs, taking in rock, jazz, blues, gumbo, disco, rap, reggae, dub, gospel, punk and more besides, and the end has come- Sandinista! concludes with Shepherd's Delight, more dubbed out weirdness, noises and FX, tissue paper on a comb, the hint of a tune, the suggestion of the chords from 1977's Police And Thieves, a low key, mellow way to finish this mammoth undertaking and in some way, utterly fitting, totally 1980 Clash. Sandinista! runs out with a small burst of noise, fading away. Viva The Clash! Viva Sandinista! 

Silicone On Sapphire

The Universe Smiles Upon You

Nothing says Friday like a porcelain Victorian statue in a spa town pump house of a mermaid riding a dopey looking sea creature. Am I right?

Given the ongoing binfire of politics at home here it the UK and abroad it was cheering this week to see the result of the mayoral election in New York. The victory of Zohran Mamdani, a Ugandan born Muslim elected on a platform of rent freezes, universal childcare and free bus travel, is a lovely thing to see- and the fact he did it by sticking a pair of (metaphorical) middle fingers up to Trump even more so. It all put me in mind of this Dean Wareham song from 2021...

The Past Is Our Plaything

Meanwhile Khruangbin, ten years on from their debut album The Universe Smiles Upon You, have suddenly (yesterday) released a new version of that album, the ten tracks re- recorded and re- sequenced, new versions of old songs, the funky, mainly instrumental, gentle psychedelia of the three- piece out as The Universe Smiles Upon You ii. It's at Bandcamp. By coincidence I've recently gone back to last year's Khruangbin album A La Sala with this song especially standing out, May Ninth on November Seventh- and if that doesn't bring a little ray of summer sunshine into dark and gloomy November nothing will. 

May Ninth

That Khruangbin track may well be in my record bag tomorrow as I make my way up to Todmorden for another Flightpath Estate DJ outing at The Golden Lion. The line up is us, Steve Cobby and then A Love From Outer Space (Sean Johnston's autumnal ALFOS at The Golden Lion is legendary). Since we accepted the gig real life has intervened for some members of the Flightpath Estate DJ team so we are down to a bare bones, reduced squad tomorrow- mainly me flying solo with hopefully Dan turning up to bring some dub. If you fancy some afternoon/ early evening sounds with a pint, I'm on from 4- ish, playing the kind of stuff you hear here day in, day out. 

Last time we DJed there I threw Martin completely by leaving him to follow this Joe Strummer B-side, from the 1989 Island Hopping 12". Mango Street is a largely instrumental extended version of the song with spoons percussion, catgut guitar, whistling and Strummer at his most chilled out and playful. 

Mango Street

Monday's Long Song

Today's long song comes in conjunction with Saturday's Apocalypse Now! post. A photo kept popping up in some of my social media feeds last week, a photo of Sean Flynn (below on the right).

Sean Flynn was the son of Errol Flynn and Lili Damita. Being the son of Errol Flynn, one of Hollywood's most famous stars (not to mention a notorious party animal and womaniser) must have had quite an impact on young Sean. His mother was a dancer, model, singer and actor. Before she met and married Errol she'd been in a relationship with Prince Louis Ferdinand, grandson of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Trying to find your way through all of that as a teenager must have been interesting. Sean grew up and tried acting but got bored of it and in the mid- 60s he decided to become a freelance photojournalist. In 1966 he went to Vietnam. His photos of the war in Vietnam were soon being published in Time Life and Paris Match. Sean became part of a risk taking group of American photojournalists who wanted to take what they saw as the best pictures. This meant going into combat alongside US troops sometimes. 

Sean and friend/ colleague Dana Stone whizzed around South Vietnam on rented Honda motorbikes, wore military fatigues and took high risk jobs, going out on patrol with US soldiers. In March '66 he was wounded in the knee and a month later while out with the Green Berets they were ambushed by the Viet Cong. Sean and the platoon fought their way out of trouble, Flynn using an M16 assault rifle a Green Beret had given him. He later made a parachute jump with the 101st Airborne and helped an Australian platoon who he'd been photographing by identifying a mine and warning them. After spending part of 1967 covering the Arab- Israeli War he was back in Vietnam in 1968, photographing the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. He was struck by grenade fragments in a battle near Da Nang. It's probably fair to say that he blurred the lines around photojournalism and impartiality. I'm not sure Sean saw himself as impartial. He went to Vietnam to photograph American soldiers and he lived with them and among them while there. 

In 1970 Nixon invaded Cambodia as part of his attempts to end the war in Vietnam- some nicely contradictory policies there from President Nixon. Sean and Dana crossed the border into Cambodia on their motorbikes. They encountered a VC roadblock and decided they wanted to interview some VC. According to witnesses (other American journalists at the scene, ones who chose to travel by car rather than motorbike) Sean and Dana went up to the Viet Cong soldiers, were relieved of their motorbikes and then marched into a treeline. They were never seen again and their bodies were never found. The VC and Cambodian communist fighters the Khmer Rouge were responsible for kidnapping and killing several journalists around the time- it seems that Sean Flynn and Dana Stone were two of these. Sean's mother Lili spent a fortune trying to find her son. He was legally declared dead in 1984. She died a decade later. Errol was already gone- he died in 1959. 

Sean Flynn's story was part of Michael Herr's book Dispatches, a six part account of Herr's time in Vietnam in 1967/68. Dispatches is part journalism/ part fiction and was first published in 1977, a key text in the New Journalism. He also contributed to the script for Apocalypse Now! Dispatches and Apocalypse Now! were on The Clash's reading lists and film nights. Joe was fascinated by the Vietnam War, America's failure and the nation's guilt over it. 

The Clash spent months in New York in 1980 and 1981, recording some of the tracks that became Sandinista! in '80 and playing seventeen concerts at Bonds Casino in 1981. They met a Vietnam veteran, Larry McIntyre, who'd had both his legs blown off in Vietnam (as referenced in Combat Rock's Car Jamming). They wrote Charlie Don't Surf about Vietnam and inspired by Apocalypse Now! They wrote Washington Bullets about US foreign policy, the Cold War, Afghanistan and US actions in Cuba, Chile and Nicaragua. Straight To Hell included a verse about a child in Vietnam, fathered by an American soldier and refused permission to join him in the USA, left behind in post- war Vietnam. Joe found plenty of subject matter in Vietnam and in 1981 back in London, wrote a song inspired by Sean Flynn. 

Sean Flynn (Extended 'Marcus Music' Version)

The original version is over seven minutes long (cut down by producer Glyn Johns to four minutes for Combat Rock). In fact Sean Flynn may have been the song that tipped Bernie Rhodes over the edge when he complained 'does everything have to be a raga?!'. Strummer then used this too for the opening line to Rock The Casbah ('Now the king he told the boogie men/ You have to let that raga drop').

Musically and tonally, Sean Flynn (like Death Is A Star, also on Combat Rock) is a million miles from Career Opportunities and 1976, a song that shows how far the band traveled in just five years. Mick's guitar is covered in echo and FX, multiple guitars overdubbed over Topper's South Asian inspired drums and percussion. Gary Barnacle's saxophone wails away in the background, soundtracking Joe's existential ruminations. He sings some way off in the distance, low in the mix.... 

'You know he heard the drums of war

When the past was a closing door

The drums beat into the jungle floor

The past was always a closing door

Rain on the leaves and the soldiers sing

You never never hear anything

They filled the sky with a tropical storm

You know he heard the drums of war

Each man knows what he's searching for'

The full length version, the Marcus Music version (so- called as it was recorded at Marcus Music studios in April 1981), is an extraordinary Clash song, a real lost gem. It's atmospheric and experimental, Strummer writing an imagined poetic version of Flynn and his life and disappearance in South East Asia and Mick, Topper and Gary creating an inspired abstract, cinematic track. 

In Mick's version of Combat Rock, a double album with several songs running at over seven or eight minutes plus five songs that either became B- sides or were not released, and titled Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg, Sean Flynn is a centrepiece of the album, closing side two after Should I Stay Or Should I Go and the extended mix of Ghetto Defendant, The Clash pushing outwards and onwards. In the real world, the struggles over Combat Rock coupled with Topper's increasing drug issues and tensions between Joe, Bernie and Paul on one side and Mick on the other led to the band's demise. Maybe, as Joe once remarked, they should all have taken a holiday. 

Soundtrack Saturday

It would have been Joe Strummer's 73rd birthday two days ago, 20th August, had he lived. As a Strummer birthday soundtrack here's some songs from Mystery Train, the 1989 film that Joe starred in. Mystery Train was directed by the great Jim Jarmusch and is a triptych of stories that come together at the end, all centred around a hotel in Memphis where Screamin' Jay Hawkins is the night clerk. The first story features a Japanese couple on a pilgrimage to the birthplace of rock 'n' roll, played by Youki Kudoh and Masatoshi Nagase. The second is about an Italian widow stuck in Memphis overnight (played by Nicoletta Brashci) and the third is about a recently unemployed and single Englishman (Joe obvs) and his two friends played by Steve Buscemi and Rick Aviles. It's a charming and beautifully shot film, downtown America, funny and with well drawn characters. I have a friend who holds the opinion that Strummer's acting ruins Mystery Train but I'm giving Joe the benefit of the doubt.

The songs on the soundtrack are mostly 50s rock 'n' roll- Elvis' song, the film's title track, is central, one of the foundation stones of rock 'n' roll. Blue Moon is played many times too, in the hotel's foyer through the night. The chug of the guitars and the drums evoke that long black train rattling through the night. 

Mystery Train

Mystery Train was written and recorded by Junior Parker in 1953, a slower, more bluesy take. 

Mystery Train

Roy Orbison turns up to with Domino (later covered by The Cramps).

Domino

On the soundtrack album the second half is from the score, written and played by John Lurie, who worked with Jarmusch on Down By Law and Stranger Than Paradise and also Paris, Texas. The eight instrumentals on the soundtrack are all 50s/ 60s inspired rockabilly guitar- led instrumentals and all are good to work away from the film as well as on its soundtrack.

Mystery Train (Suite)

Tuesday Night In Memphis

Happy birthday Joe. 

Soundtrack Saturday

Alex Cox's 1986 film Sid And Nancy tells the story of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen, the doomed punk rock couple who destroyed themselves and each other. The two leads, Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb, do their best as the couple and manage to portray a relatively touching love story in the middle of all the noise and chaos of the Sex Pistols. John Lydon was hugely critical of the film and of Cox, its portrayal of the junkie lifestyle and of Johnny Rotten. Others agreed, saying it was wildly inaccurate and filled with artistic licence regarding the death of Nancy. 

It's a film which split opinion on release and ever since- some see it as a welcome corrective to punk nostalgia, 'abrasive, bratty and antisocial'. It's definitely compelling, not to mention wretched, squalid and off- putting. In 2016 Alex Cox said he was proud of aspects of it but the ending was too 'touchy- feely' and that he was more sympathetic to Lydon's point of view than he ever had been before. 

Alex Cox became aware of the contradictions of the film. He said the happy ending was 'sentimental and dishonest', and that they were trying to make a film that condemned Sid and Nancy for their decadence, that punk was a positive movement, it was forward looking and 'you can't be those things if you're 'a junkie rock star in a hotel room'. Asked if he was going to remake it how he would change it, Cox said he'd end with Sid 'dying in a pool of his own vomit'. So there you go. 

Let's leave the film and its problems aside and go to the soundtrack. Cox got Joe Strummer on board (something else Lydon was critical of, his dislike of Strummer and The Clash something Lydon can never leave alone). Joe wrote two songs for the film (and more unofficially and uncredited due to his then contract with Epic). Dan Wool of Pray For Rain was heavily involved as were The Pogues. There are no Pistols or Vicious songs on the soundtrack. Joe's film soundtrack work- Walker, Straight To Hell, When Pigs Fly, Permanent Record- began with Sid And Nancy and Love Kills was his first post- Clash release, a single in July 1986 to promote the film with uncredited guitar courtesy of Mick Jones (Joe and Mick had buried the hatchet by this point and made up). Love Kills is a song about junkie lovers, prison and murder.

Love Kills

Also on the soundtrack and the B-side of the 12" single was this Strummer song...

Dum Dum Club

The Pogues contributed Haunted, sung by Cait O'Riordan, a very lovely mid- 80s indie/ punk love song. 

Haunted

Saturday Soundtrack

Back in 1987 Joe Strummer was somewhat adrift. The Clash had broken up, his former songwriting partner Mick Jones had moved on and was enjoying his time with his new band Big Audio Dynamite who had captured the new thing- sampling, dance music, a rock/ rap/ reggae/ pop fusion that The Clash had pioneered at the start of the 80s before Joe and Paul attempted to reverse back to three chord punk rock. Joe was given the opportunity to find some direction when he met Alex Cox, a filmmaker whose guerrilla approach to making movies matched Strummer's approach to life. Cox signed Strummer up for his Spaghetti Western film Straight To Hell, a film with a soundtrack that featured The Pogues, Zander Schloss (who would become guitarist in Joe's Latino Rockabilly War and who worked with Joe on his next soundtrack), San Francisco band Pray For Rain and a couple of Strummer originals. These songs broke Joe's writer's block. He acted in the film too, immersing himself into the character (a bank robber called Simms). 

Cox asked Joe to stay on board for his next film, a clumsy satire about US imperialism in South America and American exceptionalism with Ed Harris in the title role as Walker. The film is bizarre, a bit of a mess. Even Strummer wasn't sure about the finished version. But the soundtrack is a minor Strummer gem, a fourteen track album with eleven Latin instrumentals, from salsa to Afro- Cuban bebop, all recorded acoustically on Strummer's insistence- 'I thought let's be 1850, nothing plugged in', he said. On three of the songs, Joe sings, a trio of lost Strummer solo songs (recently re- found via the 2018 solo compilation 001), songs that bridge his work in The Clash and his late 90s re- emergence and renaissance with his Mescaleros. 

Tennessee Rain is a ballad, Joe with acoustic guitar and banjo, a sad- eyed song with an upbeat tempo, Joe singing, 'well I wish I was drunk in Havana, I wish I was at the Mardi Gras'. Tropic Of No Return is a lilting choral song, backed by tropical birdsong and some lightly picked and strummed acoustic guitars, gradually gathering a little steam. The third song is The Unknown Immortal, a song sung from the point of view of a soldier in Walker's gringo army, a man away from home and his love for seven years, a man who 'was once an immortal'. It's difficult though not to hear it as at least partly autobiographical, Joe's post- Clash malaise compounded by the death of his mother a few weeks before Walker started filming, him ruefully accepting that his previous life as frontman for the greatest band in the world, the punk rock war lord, now trying to carve out a new role as singer/ songwriter/ soundtrack musician with some of the musical styles that informed Sandinista! and Combat Rock. 

The Unknown Immortal

Two Hours Of Eclecticism

Today's Sunday mix comes from the south of England and from Grant Williams who runs the independent label Eclectics which has recently re- entered the fray after a hiatus of a couple of years. The recent edit of The Residents (featured in my edits mix last Sunday, part two to come soon) can be found at Eclectics Bandcamp along with a, yep, eclectic range of releases including a James Bright EP, The Outside, that comes with Hardway Bros remixes, Warmth by Cole Odin and a Coyote release from 2017. 

Grant hosts his Love Under Will radio show at 1BTN and last Sunday broadcast a two hour mix that is up at Mixcloud for those of us playing catch up. The two hours begins with Chris Rotter and his Bad Meat Club and the epic twenty three minute version of 86'ed that Chris recorded for Isaac when he died in November 2021 and then drifts off with some gorgeous electronic music- cosmic, ambient, space disco, dub and downtempo with tunes from Rhythm Doctor, Assab, Chris & Cosey and more. 

The Totem Edits service run by Leo Zero and Justin Deighton threw another top class edit out into the ether on Friday, this one called Medicine, an eight minute edit of Big Audio Dynamite back in 1985 that shifts Mick, Don and the B.A.D. boys towards a dusty western stomp, appropriately enough given the sampling and lyrical content of the original and its all star video. Your Medicine is here. 

Fifteen

Happy New Year! 

This blog is fifteen years old today. Bagging Area was born with a whimper on 1st January 2010, with the intention of seeing if I could do it for a year and no real plan for what I was going to write about. Here we are a decade and a half later with 5, 939 posts under my belt, over 18, 700 comments from people from near and far many of whom are now actual friends in virtual and/ or real life, and over 4, 666, 787 page views (at the time of writing). I didn't expect it to be as central to my life as it has become and can't really conceive how I could do without it. Micro- blogging and social media have their place, sharing music and with the capacity to make similar connections, but there's something about long form blogging, the process of writing, that sets it apart. I'm sure it's an outdated form of internet expression in an age of Tik Tok and Instagram Reels but it works for me and many others. The comments, the connections and the conversation, are really what make it so thank you to everyone who reads and leaves comments here (or when I share posts on Facebook). There's more of the same to come in 2025- apart from a list of artists/ songs on a notepad next to the computer and a few ideas for Saturday and Sunday posts I've no real plans beyond the next few posts, but something always comes up. 

To celebrate Bagging Area's fifteenth birthday here are a trio of fifteens in song and a poster. Andy Warhol famously said that, 'in the future, everyone will be world- famous for fifteen minutes'. And he didn't even know about YouTube at that point. Two of the songs here (I think) are inspired by or refer to that quote. The first is by Johnny Boy, a Liverpool boy- girl duo from the mid- 00s who released a legendary 7" single, You Are The Generation Who Bought More Shoes (And You Get What You Deserve), a 60s girl group inspired song that was a proper music blog song, shared countless times all over the place. Their sole album included this...

15 Minutes

Thundering drums, squealing guitars, hand shaking percussion, more multi- tracked girl group vocals, an 00s feel (think The Go- Team et al).

Ride's second re- union album was 2019's This Is Not A Safe Place, an album that drew from Jean- Michel Basquiat, Sonic Youth, and post- punk, all undercut by some squally electronics. Fifteen Minutes is three minutes fourteen seconds of indie rock with some kiss off lyrics about someone who's had their fifteen minutes and who has been bitten by karmic retribution, the song interrupted by bursts of  Goo- esque dirty guitar 

Fifteen Minutes

Thirdly, a fairly obscure Joe Strummer song, the B-side to the Island Hopping single from 1989. 15th Brigade (Viva La Quince Brigada) is a song from the Spanish Civil War, Joe singing in Spanish. There's a song of the same name written by Christy Moore, a tribute to the Irishmen who fought in the war against fascism in Spain in the International Brigades, Irish socialists who were also know as the Connolly Column. As far as I can tell the two songs aren't the same song. 

15th Brigade

And finally, a Factory records fifteen. In true Factory style the catalogue number Fac 15 wasn't given to a record but to a poster and an event (just as Fac 1 had been a poster). Fac 15 advertised the outdoor gig held jointly between Factory and Liverpool's Zoo Records, the two independent labels meeting half way in Leigh. I cycle through Leigh quite often- the idea that the cream of 1979's post punk bands played in a field there is always faintly ludicrous and totally brilliant, as is the poster's advice about how the post- punk youth of Manchester and Liverpool should get there. In terms of value for me it's second to none. It was however very poorly attended- the other bands on the line up watching whoever was on stage often comprised half of the total watching crowd. Accounts from the few who attended report that Joy Division were breathtaking. 

 

Thirty Five Minutes Of England Mix

I’m really not a very patriotic person at all, it being as Oscar Wilde said, 'the last refuge of the scoundrel'. The markers of patriotism have always felt like nonsense to me- the flag (either of them, the cross of St. George and the Union flag), the national anthem, the monarchy, the Little England attitudes, the English exceptionalism, all of it does nothing for me. It makes no sense at all that someone who was born in Carlisle, Dover or Chester is in some way better than someone born a few miles away in Wrexham, Calais or Dumfries. Pride in one's country and it's achievements is I suppose OK to an extent but that pride often tips over into nationalism and exceptionalism and has a habit of hiding or ignoring some parts of a nation's history too. 

Supporting the England football team has always been tainted with all of the nonsense too. It's not necessarily the team's fault, they're partly just the vehicle for it. Tabloid controversies about whether the players are singing the national anthem with enough ‘passion’. Songs about winning two world wars, ten German bombers and no surrender to the I.R.A. Grown men dressed as crusader knights. The England band (thankfully now missing). Car flags and cheap red cross on white background bunting sagging in the summer rain. The booing by their own fans of players taking the knee to protest against racism. The deluge of racist messages that Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho received after missing their penalties in the 2021 Euro final. This was almost the last straw as far as I was concerned, ‘fans’ who would have been dancing in the streets if the penalty kicks had been a few inches one way or the other, taking to social media to racially abuse the young men who were taking part in a game was sickening and reflective of the wider culture- of Reform and UKIP, of Tory Little England politics, of the immigration narrative that Farage and Johnson and others fuelled by the tabloid press have spewed into British politics and English culture, of the nationalist nonsense that is only ever a sentence away from racism and the 'I'm not racist but...' brigade. 

The football team have dragged me back in over the last four weeks. I've tried to remain a bit arm's length from it, not get too invested. I boycotted the Qatar World Cup, hardly saw any of it, so it passed me by completely. But there was a sweet pleasure in watching the England penalties against Switzerland last Saturday, as five black and mixed race young men calmly slotted home their penalty kicks, the first and second generation descendants of immigrants putting England into a Euro semi- final. Where, as someone asked on social media after the match, are the racists now? Another of those children of immigrants, Ollie Watkins, scored the winner on Wednesday night, in the last second of the last minute of normal time.  

Tonight, England play Spain in the final of Euro ’24 in Berlin. This is a major achievement, the second consecutive Euros final. Those of us who grew up watching England in the 80s and 90s have seen little but failure from England teams. Sometimes they have been truly awful- the Euros in ’88, ’92 and 2016, the World Cup in 2014. Sometimes they’ve been massively overinflated and departed meekly beaten by clearly better sides- tournaments in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2012. Sometimes they’ve been engulfed by (in)glorious failure with a sense of injustice- Mexico ’86, France ’98. Sometimes they’ve not even qualified for tournaments- 1994, 2008. Very occasionally they’ve pulled it together and almost but not quite got to the final- 1990 and 1996. But on the whole, even if you can ignore the nationalist bluster that surrounds them, they've been not very good. 

Recently they’ve been better and if nothing else Gareth Southgate has changed the story around the England team, blocked out ‘the noise’ as he puts it. I’ve learned to limit my expectations of England. Reaching Euro finals twice in three years is something no other England manager or team has done. Hopefully, maybe, they can go one step further tonight and put to bed the endless burden of 1966 and all that. 

This is a thirty five minute mix of songs about England with a couple of England football songs. I'm sure some of you won't go anywhere near it but I like to think of it as the antithesis of Three Lions.

Thirty Five Minutes Of England For Euro 24

• Billy Bragg: A New England
• The Clash: Something About England
• The Clash: This Is England
• Care: Sad Day For England
• Black Grape: England's Irie
• Shuttleworth ft. Mark E. Smith: England's Heartbeat (Brazilian Ambush)
• The Vermin Poets: England's Poets
• Big Audio Dynamite: Union, Jack
• New Order: World In Motion (Call The Carabinieri Mix)

Billy Bragg's A New England is his 1983 calling card, a song about being twenty two and looking for a new girl, wishing on space hardware, and life in the early 80s. I probably should have included Kirsty McColl's cover which in some ways is the definitive version. In 2002 Billy addressed a load of the flag, nationalism, immigration, tabloid press, racism and England football shirts in his song Half- English- this only occurred to me while writing this part of the post. 

Something About England is from The Clash's 1980 album Sandinista!, a song that opens with the more resonant than ever lines, 'They say the immigrants steal the hub caps of respected gentlemen/ They say it would be wine and roses/ if England were for Englishmen again...' It's a truly great song, one where ick and Joe sing in character, Mick a young man leaving a bar and Joe an old man huddled in rags in a shop doorway. They then give us a history of the 20th century, war, depression, class struggle, disaster, all set to Clash punk/ music hall. 'Old England was all alone', they conclude.

A few years later, Mick and Topper both sacked, Joe recorded the final Clash album, Cut The Crap. The only song you really need from it is This Is England, the last great Clash song, Joe giving a state of the nation address, five years into Thatcher's government, economic depression and unemployment, with drum machines, guitars and chanting football crowds.  

Care was Paul Simpson (who will be back at this blog soon) and Ian Broudie. In 1983 Paul formed Care after The Wild Swans split for the first time. Sad Day For England was the B-side to the 12" My Boyish Days, one of only a handful of releases by the pair before they split in 1985. 

Black Grape's England's Irie was an unofficial Euro '96 song, a song that brought together Shaun Ryder, bez and Kermit with Keith Allen and Joe Strummer (and Strummer's only Top Of The Pops appearance). Shaun delivers several memorable lines, not least 'I'm spectating my wife's lactating/ It's a football thing'. I'm not sure it's aged particularly well but I thought I should include it. 

Shuttleworth were a one off band of Mark E. Smith, Ed Blaney and Jenny Shuttleworth who recorded this song for England's adventures at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Apparently the FA approached him to do it (!) but then decided against having an official song so Mark put it out anyway. Mark wrote a few football related songs- Theme For Sparta FC is a classic- and on one occasion read the full time results on the BBC. 

In the 2010 World Cup England were dreadful in the group stage, finishing second behind the USA. They lost the next game in the knock out round to Germany, 4- 1. 

The Vermin Poets were one of Billy Childish's many, many groups. Their album, Poets Of England, came out in 2010, garage rock/ psyche pop. I don't think it's among Billy's best work but anything by Billy is worth paying at least some attention to. 

Union, Jack was on Big Audio Dynamite's 1989 album Megatop Phoenix, their fourth album and the last made by the original line up. 'Make a stand/ Before you fall/ You country needs you/ To play football', Mick sings, slipping in lines the empire, pints of beer, a green and pleasant land, and all for one. A Mick Jones late 80s football song that tries to re- imagine the football song after some terrible 80s ones sung by England squads with perms, mullets and in leisure wear. Mick would find himself trumped a year later though...

World In Motion needs no introduction really- New Order, Keith Allen, John Barnes, the summer of 1990, Italia 90, a dire group stage, wins against Belgium and Cameroon and then ultimately disappointment, penalties and Germany. This version is an Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley remix from the remix 12" that came out a week after the main one. New Order had wanted to reflect the zeitgeist of 1990 by calling the song E For England, a step too far for the FA. They had to settle for the chorus, 'love's got the world in motion'. The FA wanted it changed to 'we've got the world in motion' but New Order stood their ground and love it was.