Espana

Y viva Espana! We're off to Spain today for a few days, going to Granada, Nerja and Malaga. There are lots of songs with Spain or Spanish in their names in my collection. Let's go with cuatro songs for today's post. 

Hinds are a Spanish, all girl group with four albums to their name- the most recent, Viva Hinds, was one of my favourites of 2024. They covered The Clash's Spanish Bombs in 2020 in fine style. Joe Strummer's lyric dealt with the Spanish Civil War, 70s separatist Basque terrorism and mass tourism. 'The hillsides ring with 'free the people'/ Can I hear the echo of the days of '39?', Joe asks, harking back to the civil war and the days of one of his heroes, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca (murdered by Franco's forces in 1936). In the chorus Joe declares his love for Spain, 'Yo te quiero, oh mi corazón' ('I love you/ Oh my heart'). 

Spanish Bombs

In 1967 Jimi Hendrix's second album with The Experience had a song called Spanish Castle Magic on it, a glorious slice of '67 blues/ psychedelia, Jimi's guitar raw and raucous, the bass locked into the crunching guitar chords and doubling the riff, Mitch battering the drums. I don't think Jimi ever sang better than on this song.

Spanish Castle Magic

The Spanish Castle wasn't actually in Spain, it was a roadhouse on the outskirts of Seattle where a young Hendrix was sometimes found jamming with local groups. 

In 1999 Gorky's Zygotic Munki released their sixth album, Spanish Dance Troupe. The title track is gorgeous, absurdist, lilting Welsh psychedelic folk. This is Gorky's first appearance at Bagging Area which seems a bit of an oversight. 

Spanish Dance Troupe

Last for today, Galaxie 500 and the B-side to their debut single Tugboat from 1988. In King Of Spain a man inures himself from pain and hurt by becoming the King of Spain, safely isolated as a powerful man but he ends up alone and lonely. Galaxie 500 may have refined their songs and sound over the three years they were active after they released Tugboat/ King Of Spain but almost everything that made them so special is present on this single. 

King Of Spain

I've set posts up for the time I'm away so there'll be no break in service. Bagging Area's commitment to blogging knows few bounds.  

Stranger

As ever at the start of a new year I get into an album (or two) that came out the previous year. This is one reason why end of year lists are a good thing, tip offs and nudges about things that one has missed, overlooked or just didn't get round to. In December JC at The Vinyl Villain ran a series of posts featuring ten albums he'd enjoyed in 2024, one of which was Viva Hinds by Hinds. I listened to a couple of songs and on my trip into town to do some record shopping with some Christmas money bought it on vinyl (clear vinyl with a splattered pink centre plus free signed postcard) from the lovely people at Piccadilly Records. 

Hinds are from Spain, four young women making sparky garage/ indie rock. They made three albums between 2011 and 2020, including a wonderful cover of The Clash's Spanish Bombs and then two of the fonder members quit, the management departed, leaving the vocals and guitar duo of Carlotta Cosials and Ana Garcia Perotte wondering what to do. They regrouped, wrote some songs, hired a house in France to record in and came back with Viva Hinds, a short but very sweet album, ten songs in thirty four minutes (with help from Beck and Grian Chatten on two of the songs). Faced with a load of upheaval and departures Hinds seemed to decide that the best thing to do was dance and sing. The songs are light on their feet, with singalong verses and choruses, melodic guitars and synths, veering from moody to poppy, a celebration of friendship and the band and life. This one saw them draft Grian Chatten in to share vocals, the spindly guitars and rattly drums a brilliantly ramshackle backdrop to the two voices.

Stranger

As a bonus this is The Prettiest Curse, lo fi garage pop from the previous Hinds album, 2020's The Prettiest Curse. 

Good Bad Times

Forty Minutes Of Covers Of The Clash

To follow last week's post of The Clash sampled, edited and remixed, this week has a a forty minute set of covers of Clash songs by other artists. When I started to put a shortlist together I realised there's enough material for two or three editions. I thought of theming it- a dub mix, rock mix and so on but then in the spirit of Sandinista! decided to sling different styles together, so we go from dub to rockabilly and back again with several other points visited in between. The Clash's songs stand up well to being covered- the sheer variety is testament to their songs and the distance they travelled between White Riot in 1977 and Death Is A Star in 1983. 

Forty Minutes Of Covers Of The Clash

• Terry Edwards And The Scapegoats: Version City
• Megative: Ghetto Defendant
• Infantry Rockers: Rebel Waltz
• The Afghan Whigs: Lost In The Supermarket
• Citizen Sound ft. Prince Blanco and Ammoye: One More Time
• Hinds: Spanish Bombs
• Jimmy Cliff: Guns Of Brixton
• Lily Allen and Mick Jones: Straight To Hell
• The Pistoleers: Bank Robber
• Dub Spencer and Trance Hill: Train In Vain

Punk trumpeter Terry Edwards recorded covers of the Mary Chain, Bowie and The Fall with his Scapegoats as well as being a member of Gallon Drunk. It is typically punk of him to decide to cover Version City, a Sandinista! side 6 song and hence unlikely to have been heard by many but the most committed. 

Megative are from New York City. Their cover of Ghetto Defendant (a Combat Rock highlight, rocking dub with Allen Ginsburg on board) came as a bonus song on their 2018 album No Fear. 

The Afghan Whigs use Topper's Train In Vain drumbeat for their cover of one of Mick's greatest London Calling era songs, a single that never was. Greg Dulli et al recorded it for a tribute album that came out in 1999. 

Shatter The Hotel came out in 2009, a reggae/ dub album of Clash covers with Don Letts doing London Calling and Creation Rockers, Dub Antenna and Chomsky Allstars all feature. It's a really good album, good versions from start to finish. For this mix I included Infantry Rockers doing Rebel Waltz (a real lesser known Clash gem) and Citizen Sound's One More Time. Infantry Rockers are from Wisconsin with members from Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Costa Rica and Jamaica, which couldn't be more Clash if it tried. I can't find much info about Citizen Sound. Prince Blanco featured in last week's mix with 22 Davis Road

Hinds are four young women from Spain. In 2020 they kicked the living daylights out of one of London Calling's best songs, Joe conflating 70s mass tourism, the Spanish Civil War of 1936- 1939 and the terror campaign by ETA. If you're going to cover The Clash, do it properly. As Hinds do. 

Jimmy Cliff's cover of Guns Of Brixton came out on his Sacred Fire EP in 2011. Paul Simonon's lyrics refer to Ivan, the lead character in the Harder They Come. Ivan was of course played by Jimmy Cliff. 

Lily Allen and Mick recorded Straight To Hell for a War Child album in 2009. Lily's Dad Keith was a friend of Joe's and he was a regular visitor to their home. 

The Pistoleers covered Bank Robber in rockabilly style for a 2003 tribute album, This Is Rockabilly Clash- I'm fairly sure the first time I heard this was when it was played by Andrew Weatherall. 

Dub Spencer and Trance Hill are a Swiss dub outfit who released an entire album of dub versions of Clash songs back in 2011. It's quality stuff from top to tail not least when they tackle the less- dub oriented songs, like Train In Vain. 

Spanish Songs In Andalucia

Hinds, a four piece, all female guitar band from Madrid released a cover of Spanish Bombs last year- a frenetic, breakneck, shouty, exhilarating race through one of The Clash's finest moments. This is a lo- fi, energetic and wonderfully chaotic recording of the song that definitely captures the spirit of the band. I'm sure Joe would have loved it. 

Spanish Bombs