Justice Tonight/ Kick It Over was The Clash's first full on experiment into dub, done in Wessex studios in London while mixing London Calling (they recorded their cover of Willie Williams' Armagideon Time on 5th November, bonfire night). The two halves are two separate dubs of Armagideon Time, spliced together into one eight minute long slab of righteous Clash dub.
Justice Tonight starts with Mickey Gallagher's ghostly organ and then the skanking rhythm with Strummer in the distance, 'A lot of people won't get no supper tonight/ Justice tonight'. The band sound superb, Topper's drums and Paul's bass to the fore and Mick learning the ropes at the production desk with Bill Plant and Jerry Green engineering and mixing. There's some liberal application of space echo and FX, Joe and the instruments dropping in and out and then the pause at four minutes ten seconds as we segue from the first half to the second, from Justice Tonight to Kick It Over.
The Kick It Over dub goes further, the bassline pumping and a melodica carrying the tune all the way through to Joe's on mic shout of, 'OK, OK, don't push us when we're hot', a response to Kosmo Vinyl intervening as the band strayed over the two minute and fifty eight seconds mark. Joe and Kosmo had agreed that the band shouldn't go beyond the three minute mark on any songs, hence Kosmo's interruption, and Strummer barked at him as the band were smoking and in the groove- the shouting voices and fireworks going off all adding to the fun. Kick It Over drops out to leave just two piano chords, fading. Magnificent.
3 comments:
One of the best tracks from the best UK punk rock band.
Man, Joe's little "OK, OK" bit just slays me every time still. An imperishable song. Lovely post, Adam
Good to hear from you both- those little touches, the 'OK OK, don't push us when we're hot', are so good
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