The Clash, remixed, edited and sampled for a thirty three minute blast of Strummer/ Jones energy and invention for your Sunday morning delectation. Best played loud.
Davis Road Blues (Don Letts Culture Clash Radio Version)
In 1990 The Clash had a number one single eight years after they split up (for the purposes of this we'll take Mick being sacked from the band as the actual moment they split up even though the five man Clash rumbled on for two years with a largely unloved album and a busking tour that those involved seemed to enjoy). Should I Stay Or Should I Go went to number one and saw a surge in Clash related activity, one of which was the record company CBS reissuing Paul's 1979 song Guns Of Brixton in remixed form as Return To Brixton. The remixes of Return To Brixton, three of them on the 12", were done by DJ Jeremy Healy.
Edit: it occurs to me now that the re- issue/ remixes of Guns Of Brixton were in response to the bassline being sampled for Norman Cook's chart topping single Dub Be Good To Me as Beats International, number one in January 1990.
Dancing Not Fighting came out last year, a thumping, beat driven, high octane Jezebell release that samples Mick Jones screaming at bouncers in the film Rude Boy, trying to get them to stop beating up Clash fans. The band disowned the film by the time it came out but the live footage of the band is among the finest committed to tape by anyone, anywhere. Here they are in July 1978 doing (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais at the Glasgow Apollo.
Rock The Spectre is a Peza edit, what happens when the Strummer and Jones vocals from Rock The Casbah are played over Mystic Thug's Brocken Spectre (Mystic Thug is Tici Taci's Duncan Gray). What happens is you get the song completely recast in a new light, reborn, Mick and Joe's voices over a throbbing piece of slinky 2023 chug. Joe's vocal particularly shows he gave absolutely everything in the studio.
Magnificent Dub is a Leo Zero edit, the Magnificent Dance (a B-side to the Magnificent 7 single, released in 1981, inspired by the band's time in New York and Mick especially being taken with the brand new hip hop culture). Some of the vocals Leo throws into this edit are from the band playing live at Bonds, Times Square and various people having a go at the bassline ((played originally by Norman Watt- Roy when Simonon was out of town filming The Fabulous Stains). Leo also inserts some sections from the unreleased, unofficial Larry Levan version of Mag 7.
In 2005 when mash up culture was the big new thing a whole host of artists/ bedroom bootleggers threw everything they had at a completely remixed, re- edited and mashed up version of the album London Calling. The Clash found themselves (unofficially) rubbing shoulders with The Streets, Peaches, Vanilla Ice, Chuck D, Outkast and host of others sampled artists. It was massive fun. E-jitz took Mick's 1979 album track I'm Not Down and spliced it with the vocal from Boris Dlugosch's speed house track from 1997, Hold Your Head Up (vocal courtesy of Inaya Davis).
Davis Road Blues is a dub track by Prince Blanco with Mick's guitar from B.A.D.'s The Bottom Line and Joe's voice from a radio interview describing his first meeting with Mick and Paul that led to the formation of The Clash, a meeting that took place at 22 Davis Road, Shepherd's Bush (in a squat Paul shared with Sid Vicious and Viv Albertine).
Edit: the squat at 22 Davis Road has appreciated in value since the 1970s, as you'd expect. According to Rightmove 23 Davis Road was sold in 2018 for £480, 000 (that was just half the property, a ground floor two bedroom flat). Full houses on Davis Road, number 43 for example, go for around £840, 000 (2022 price). The 2020s version of Paul, Viv and Sidney must be living elsewhere.
Paul Simonon realised after a while that the money was in songwriting. During the sessions for what became London Calling he worked up a tune into what would become one of the group's most recognisable and best-loved songs, thanks in large part to 'the bassline of the twentieth century'. The swagger of Guns Of Brixton comes from the swing of the bassline and Paul's rough and ready vocal, the ripping sound at the start (velcro being peeled off the studio chairs apparently) and the chanted backing vocals. One of my favourites.
In 1990 Norman Cook borrowed the bassline for his number one hit Dub Be Good To Me. Without asking permission. Paul and Norman settled in a cafe and according to Paul at the time the cash injection was much needed. I happen to love Dub Be Good To Me, an updating of The SOS Band's Just Be Good To Me with harmonica pinched from Ennio Morricone and the rap half-inched from Johnny Dynell.
CBS, sensing a hit, decided to get a top dj to remix Guns Of Brixton, for the club scene. Jeremy Healy was the dj and a 12" single with three new versions (two are below) was put out. It stormed into the charts reaching number 57. I don't remember the clubs and bars of 1990 being awash with this version either. Well done CBS, good work.
To be honest I quite like the remixes, they present the song a bit differently, give it something else. They're not as good as the original no, and yes, they're probably for completists and the curious only. Return To Brixton (Extended Mix)
Jeremy Healy was in Haysi Fantayzee previous to his dj career. I've been watching the Top Of The Pops re-runs from 1983 this year and the January editions had Haysi Fantayzee on several times doing Shiny Shiny,a sort of pirate, nursery rhyme, tribal, glam, anti-nuclear thumper. Having recorded it, I re-watched it a few times too. Two words- Kate Garner.
Not one for the purists, this is Guns Of Brixton re-worked in 1990 by Jeremy Healy of all people. It's testament to the song's strengths that a baggy-ish remix can't destroy it, and slightly odd that so little is made of Paul Simonon's famous bassline. This remix single came about in response to Norman Cook's Beats International number 1 single Dub Be Good To Me, which was based around Guns Of Brixton's bassline. Record company cash-in? Oh yes. Good fun though and surprisingly listenable. While we're here, how camp is that photo?
