Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Shatter the Hotel
A Dub Inspired Tribute to Joe Strummer

Shatter the Hotel: A Dub Inspired Tribute to Joe Strummer - Urgh, the tribute album what a minefield! I've bought a few in my time and most have turned out to be more of an insult than a tribute. Obviously I'm too polite to mention the worst offenders but…….."Fire & Skill Songs of The Jam" (Gallagher's excepted) is an ideal example of where I'm coming from.

Thankfully this is definitely not the case here; by harnessing the infinite all encompassing power of DUB "Shatter the Hotel" is a majestic tribute to Joe Strummer and also (and more importantly) a tribute to the music of The Clash.

On "Shatter the Hotel" (the title comes from "Spanish Bombs") Strummerville have assembled a gaggle of global Dub protagonists to work through the 13 Clash tracks in a similar vein to Easy Star - All Stars work on the "Radiodread" and "Dub Side of the Moon" albums. The style mix is well balanced ranging from the slightly Dub tinged cover version to the out & out dubbed up dislocated (which Clash track is this then?) transformation. Even though there's a multifarious dub massive at work here the whole piece comes over like a coherent album held tightly together between the opening and closing bookends of "London Calling" featuring Don Letts.

Being so strong throughout it would be pretty shitty of me to single out any one track in particular, so I will: Creation Rockers version of "Complete Control" is a sublime bit of work transmodulating the 3 minutes of one of the greatest, most vitriolic punk anthems of all time into almost 6 minutes E A S Y melodica bathed skank - joyous! [VITAL ici "Lost in the Supermarket" by Wrongtom Meets Rockers and "Rudie Can't Fail" by Dub Cats and "Rebel Waltz" by Infantry Rockers and "Spanish Bombs" by O'Luge & Kornerstrone All-Stars].

With STRUMMERVILLE, love, RESPECT & unity - This DUB can't fail!

Thank God that's over. What you've just read above or skimmed through, or at best ignored, is the best I can do at writing what was once called a record review - pretty shitty isn't it? But don't dwell on it cos I want to take you back in time to December '09 when "Shatter the Hotel" was released on download and I'd not yet made a purchase - I'd got stuff to reconcile in my sad old mind bofore that could happen........

Now I can't say I knew Joe Strummer and I certainly can't say I ever really met him, buuuuuuuuuuut - the last time I saw Joe Strummer in real life (whatever that is - & not on a stage obviously) he was standing on his tod outside the Civic Hall Wolverhampton on Tuesday 26th October 1999. It was a good four hours before the Mescaleros were set to play the venue as part of the Rock Art tour and he was just there hanging around taking time to talk to anyone who drifted by. So what do I know? Well it's this (just in case you didn't already know) Joe Strummer was a man. And we shouldn't loose sight of that fact amid the rock n roll iconography, rock n roll mythmaking, general hyperbole and Mojo type bullshit that's been banded around since the end of 2002. Cos for me, when all is said and done, Joe Strummer's music was all about the two H's, humanity and humility. Lyrically he was able to make the intensely personal "universal" and the global "parochial".

So back in December I asked myself two questions: - Does Joe Strummer need a tribute album? and Do I need a Joe Strummer tribute album? My answer to both was unequivocal, NAH!

The Clash are still with us, now more than ever, their music certainly hasn't been forgotten (like some of their contemporaries). We don't have to ask "Can anyone remember The Clash? Can anyone remember them?" in the way Burning Spear had to.

At the Pogues gig the other night "Straight to Hell" was there in pride of place, and at the Babyshambles gig a couple of days later "Death or Glory" got an obligatory airing prior to kick off. Yep the music of The Clash has been tattooed into the psyche of each generation that have followed, passed on like a baton. Their music has remained in the air and on the air; their name is invariably on the T Shirt of the young whipper snapper standing next to me in the queue of whatever venue I'm trying to get into. And these T shirt wearing whipper snappers certainly weren't alive to even breathe the same air as The Clash let alone old enough to see them play live. And cover versions! "There's been a few, and then again too bloody many to mention!" Some credible re-workings by contemporaries like The Beat (Rock the Casbah), and by bands who undeniably loved and worshipped The Clash like The Manic Street Preachers (Train in Vain & Clampdown). But there have also been far too many covers by talentless attention seeking dicks like (naming no names) U2).

So back in December I asked myself two questions: - Do an omnipresent band like The Clash need a tribute album? and Do I need to own a Clash tribute album? My answer on both counts was unequivocal, NAH!

Resolute as ever I stuck it out for 31.78 seconds then I clicked the download button and paid over my KA$H. Never underestimate the mighty power of DUB people! "Shatter the Hotel: A Dub Inspired Tribute to Joe Strummer it's the sort of album I've always said someone should release". I bloody well did!

The CD is getting a launch in London on the 5th (see above) and then you'll be able to buy it! I guess.

P.S.
30th January: I bumped into a geezer today - I can't say where or who or even why we were talking about The Clash - but this geezer with no name DJ'd for The Clash at an unspecified gig in the West Midland conurbation sometime between 76 and 79. [I daren't be anymore specific than that - know what I mean]. Anyway he told me that the night he did his bit with The Clash "Joe Strummer was giving it some big style, bashing it out like a goodun when either Mick or Paul squirted lighter fuel on the back of his trousers and set him alight". Now he says this happened, and I don't need youtube or some glossy photo to confirm it, flamin' Strummer, Strummer aflame, yeah, I believe it!