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...

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. 

V.A. Saturday And Meeting Paul Simonon

Last Saturday Paul Simonon and Dan Donovan DJed at Then Golden Lion in Todmorden, a night billed as The Casbah Club. I had a ticket and a promise from the generous hosts that we could get a moment with Paul before he played. My love of The Clash (and related offshoots) goes back decades and the thought of a chat with Paul, a brief moment for a photo and a signature was a little mind boggling and I was a little concerned I'd be a babbling idiot- or that it wouldn't happen. As promised though, Gig got us a few moments with Paul and Dan after they'd had some tea upstairs in The Golden Lion. I don't think I was a complete bumbling idiot but I did tell him (succinctly I think) what his band meant to me and that he must hear that all the time. 'It changed my life too', he said. He was lovely, happy to have a chat and sign my copy of White Man (In Hammersmith Palais) and pose for a picture. It turns out, in real life he looks and sounds just like Paul Simonon. And in an instant you realise you're standing next to the man who is on the cover of London Calling smashing his bass, the man who wrote Guns of Brixton, the man who named the band and who is in all those photos. It was quite a moment. 

Not long after Paul and Dan appeared downstairs, playing all kinds of songs to a packed and enthusiastic audience of punks and rockers young and old, any of whom were amazed that an actual member of The Clash was DJing in a pub in Todmorden. The set was wide ranging, reggae and 60s pop, garage and blues and ended up quite thumpy, in some ways not what everyone expected. It was a very good night. 

In 2006 a various artists compilation called Revolution Rock: A Clash Jukebox came out on Trojan- twenty one songs that inspired The Clash, that were on the jukebox in Rehearsals Rehearsals and that led to some famous Clash cover versions. The Clash were a great gateway band, introducing scores of fans to the source material, the songs of Vince Taylor, Willie Williams, Junior Murvin, Bobby Fuller, Lloyd Price, Danny Ray, The Maytals, The Rulers, and James Booker. The album was compiled by Paul and he provides extensive sleeve notes about each song and who brought it to the table. It opens with Jonathan Rchman's Roadrunner and clatters through The Troggs, Desmond Dekker, Bo Diddley, The Kinks, Roger Miller, The Ramones and Booker T And The MGs, Clash inspirations and sources. These three were all covered by the band...

Brand New Cadillac

Vince Taylor and The Playboys released Brand New Cadillac as a B-side in 1959 Bowie said that Taylor was part of the inspiration for Ziggy Stardust. In the sleevenotes to Revolution Rock Paul says the song dates back to 'that period when Mick and me were living in this squat in Davis Road in Shepherds Bush... when Joe met us there we used to play it a lot'. The Clash covered it for London Calling, the second song after the opening title track.

Pressure Drop

Pressure Drop was a 1969 single by Toots And The Maytals and was on the 1972 soundtrack to The Harder They Come, a Clash favourite, as noted by Paul in the sleevenotes. The Clash covered it on the B-side of 1978 single English Civil War in fine Clash- reggae style. 

Armagideon Time

Armagideon Time was a 1979 single by Willie Williams, a song built on Coxsone Dodds' Real Rock riddim. The Cash covered it the same year, their long, heavier extended groove making it to the B-side of the London Calling single. 'A lot of people won't get no justice tonight'.

A Lot Of People Won't Get No Supper Tonight

A London Calling postscript. On 7th December 1979 The Clash released London Calling as a single. I wrote about the song in the first of my posts about the album here so don't intend to add much to that. Except this, the video, filmed by Don Letts on a wet night on the Thames on a barge at Cadogan pier. Letts didn't know the Thames was tidal and that the pier, barge and boat he was filming from would rise and fall- and then it started to rain heavily. Despite all this The Clash, all in black with brothel creepers and quiffs, filmed against the black of the night, give it all.



The B-side to London Calling is Armagideon Time, a cover of a Willie Williams song from 1977. This is politicised righteous Clash rock reggae, the world where a lot of people are going  hungry and aren't getting any justice, where they are gong to have to stand up and kick it over. Joe had been talking before the recording about the ideal length of time a song should last- two minutes and twenty eight seconds according to Strummer- and at that point in the recording of Armagideon Time Clash fixer/road manager Kosmo Vinyl can be heard on the studio mic telling the group their time was up.

Strummer responds instantly 'OK, OK, don't push us when we're hot!' all of which adds to the take. Mick later added some electric sitar and there are the noises of fireworks and bombs going off. Armagideon Time is yet another Clash B-side that stands alongside their A- sides in terms of quality and passion. For the 12" they pushed it even further with a nine minute dub excursion.

Justice Tonight/ Kick It Over

If You Catch Me At The Border I Got Visas In My Name

A month ago I watched the excellent documentary Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., a film about the life, music and politics of M.I.A. The film is made up of home video footage, TV appearances, time spent with Justine Frischmann and on the road with Elastica, interviews and various shaky, hand held video camera and phone clips. It's a fascinating document, energetic and gripping. Much of the film centres around a visit to Sri Lanka which Maya extends longer than intended and the impact this has on her convictions and politics and the effect this then has on her music, her view of herself as an immigrant and a Londoner. As her music becomes more popular and widespread she walks into various controversies. She is accused by the US media of being a terrorist sympathiser (her father was a founding Tamil Tiger). She is set up by the New York Times and responds by tweeting the journalist's mobile phone number. She is invited by Madonna to appear with her at half time during the Superbowl and gives the whole of Middle America the middle finger. Her ambition and attitude are evident from the star and she comes across very well too, likeable and genuinely questioning her own attitudes and beliefs. She has swagger and self- belief and has made some of the best pop songs of the 21st century.

I've posted this before but it never gets tired, a thrilling pop- rap blast riding in on that Mick Jones Straight To Hell guitar sample, Diplo's production and M.I.A.'s lyrics about people's perceptions of immigrants (hence the gun shots and cash registers of the chorus).

Paper Planes

The best use of a Clash sample? Maybe so. Norman Cook and Beats International made very good use of Paul Simonon's bassline for Dub Be Good To Me in 1990, with Lindy Layton's sweet vocal and The SOS Band's song.

Dub Be Good To Me (LP version)

In 1994 Deee Lite sampled the wheezy organ from Armagideon Times for Apple Juice Kissing, a song about kissing on the back row of the movies and therefore a much less political song than Paper Planes, Straight To Hell or The Clash's cover of Willie Williams' reggae tune but all part of life's rich tapestry. And a very smart use of a Clash sample too.

Apple Juice Kissing

Kissing In The Back Row, That's How We Missed The Movie

Another Clash sampling song to start the week, following last week's threesome and  also suggested by Drew. This  time it is from the righteous reggae rock of Armagideon Time, a two note organ riff played by Blockhead Mickey Gallagher and used as the basis for one of Deee Lite's hippy-dippy house grooves Apple Juice Kissing. It's a big jump from 'a lot of people won't get any justice tonight' to 'kissing in the back row, that's how we missed the movie' but it works really well.



Deee Lite are seen as a one hit wonder and there's no doubting Groove Is In The Heart's power to rock a party twenty five years after its release but there was more to them than that one single. The What Is Love? Holographic Goatee Mix is a bubbling, dancefloor treat.

Willie Williams 'Armagideon Time'

You realise you're into the record buying lark deeply when you start trying to track down the original versions of songs covered by your favourite bands. Two decades ago I started collecting the songs The Clash covered, on vinyl wherever possible. In these internet times it's a lot easier. I held out from buying a cd player until about 1996, which made things doubly hard. Once I started buying cds tracks became easier to get hold of due to the re-issue culture cd encouraged, although the price was often extortionate. I remember looking at an Equals compilation in Market Street HMV which had Police On My Back on it for £16.99. More recently Paul Simonon compiled a cd for Trojan containing most of the Clash cover originals, which is where this is taken from, although I've since duplicated it on a couple of reggae compilations. I still don't have all the Clash cover songs on vinyl, although my 7" of Bobby Fuller's I Fought The Law has taken a battering over the years and was well worth the £5.99 I shelled out. This is Willie Williams' brilliant Armagideon Time, famously covered by The Clash as the B-side to the London Calling single.

19 Armagideon Time.wma