Let's Go Burning Down the Road

I've posted this song before, Generations by Electric Dog House, a song I find inexplicably great, one of those songs that just hits the spot. 

Generations

Electric Dog House were a Joe Strummer one- off from his time in Los Angeles in the late 90s, a three piece band of Joe, ex- Damned drummer Rat Scabies and Seggs from The Ruts. Joe and Rat had met at a Ministry gig and then on Grosse Point Blanke and formed Electric Dog House recording a grand total of one song- Generations. It came out on an album also called Generations: A Punk Rock Look At Human Rights (Green Day, Bad Brains, some members of X and various other bands appear). The CD is front loaded- Joe, Rat and Seggs are track one and Generations also appeared as a CD single in promo form in 1997, presumably for radio stations. Electric Dog House don't even get a mention in Chris Salewicz's biography of Joe, Redemption Song, but the song did turn up on 001, a solo career retrospective from 2018. 

The song is fantastic- rattling and alive sounding, the drums and bass bouncing round the overloaded mix, Joe's guitar all blurry and fuzzy, two or three chords and a wonderful vocal, Joe singing a typically Strummer- esque opening line, 'Back in the day/ even circles were squares', and including some more very Strummer sounding imagery- radio waves, telegraph keys, demonstrations, cities, wars and buying pyjamas for your four year old girl- with a refrain that summons up visions of LA smog, sunsets and highways, 'Let's go burning down the road'. The mix is muddy in places, the insturments pile up twoadrs the end with no separation between them, and some people would have applied more production to it, smoothed it out and given it a radio friendly punch. It would be worse for it. 

The video  is perfectly apt too- Joe, Rat and Seggs in the studio, grainy home video footage, marchers, Joe's 50s car cruising the streets, his England flag with the word Irie stenciled across the St. George's cross and messages about human rights. 

Strummer Mix

Today would have been Joe Strummer's 70th birthday had he lived. In way of a tribute and celebration of the man, his music and this event I've put together not one Sunday mix but two. Both mixes are post- Clash solo songs. The first is twenty minutes of solo Joe rocking, motorcycle guitars and leather jackets, and the second, half an hour of Joe in global/ dubbed out mode. Happy 70th birthday Joe, wherever you are. 

Strummer Rockers Mix

• Johnny Appleseed
• Generations
• Trash City
• Coma Girl
• Burning Lights

Johnny Appleseed is from is second album with The Mescaleros, Global A Go- Go (it was also a single). Generations was a one off song recorded with Rat Scabies and Seggs from The Ruts as Electric Dog House and released on an album called Generations: A Punk Rock Look At Human Rights. Trash City was a 1988 7" single, Joe and Latino Rockabilly War, recorded when Joe was doing the soundtrack for the film Permanent Record. Coma Girl, a tribute to his daughter Lola and the Glastonbury festival, was on 2003's Streetcore, his last album, recorded with The Mescaleros and released posthumously. Burning Lights is just Joe and his Telecaster, one of the key songs of his post- Clash years, a rumination on being yesterday's man. It was in I Hired A Contract Killer, a 1990 film by Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki. 

Strummer Global/ Dubby Mix 

• Mango Street
• Sandpaper Blues
• Yalla Yalla
• Yalla Yalla (Norro's King Dub)
• At The Border, Guy
• X- Ray Style

Mango Street was one of the B-sides on Joe's Island Hopping 12", a single ahead of his first solo album Earthquake Weather, a largely instrumental version of the song Island Hopping. Sandpaper Blues and X- Ray Style were both on the first Mescaleros album, Rock Art And The X- Ray Style, Joe's return from the wilderness in 1990. Yalla Yalla, written and produced by Richard Norris was the first single from the same album. Norro's King Dub is from the 12", Richard Norris' dub of the song. At The Border, Guy is from Global A Go- Go. 

Back In The Day

Today would have been Joe Strummer's 69th birthday had he lived. We'll celebrate that with a song from his back catalogue, a favourite one of mine and one I've posted before. Generations was recorded for a CD compilation album called  Generations 1: A Punk Look At Human Rights. In the 90s Joe seemed to flit between living in Hampshire, London, Somerset and Los Angeles. While in L.A. Joe bumped into Rat Scabies of The Damned at a Ministry gig and went backstage where they met a very frail Timothy Leary and then went out on the lash with Al Jourgensen. In the morning Joe and Rat decided to form a new band with Segs from The Ruts on bass, called themselves Electric Doghouse and recorded one song- Generations. 

There's a live, one take feel about the song, the energy flowing between the three punk veterans. It's messy, the meters being overloaded and the needles in the red. The drums, bass and guitar all bleed into each other. Joe's voice has a ton of reverb on it and the words are pure Strummer-

'Back in the day/ Even circles were squares/  Radio waves/ Like pollen in the air/ When there ain't no water/ And there ain't no trees/ Just a dry wind singing/ Through the telegraph keys

And generations/ Leave resonations/ From demonstrations/ To all the destinations

Let's go burning down the road...'

Generations

Back In The Day

'Back in the day
Even circles were squares'.

Another lost piece from the Joe Strummer jigsaw, Generations was recorded in a day in 1996 while Joe was in Los Angeles. Having spent some time driving around the surrounding areas in his Cadillac with Shaun Ryder, Bez and Richard Norris, getting hopelessly lost on occasion, Joe was beginning to get back towards a band style scenario. The Mescaleros started to come together not too long afterwards, Joe writing with Richard Norris. England's Irie, England's unofficial Euro 96 song led to Joe's only Top Of The Pops appearance with Black Grape. Joe was on the move. Contacted about a project to put out an album called Generations- A Punk Rock At Human Rights Joe went away inspired to contribute a song and wrote the lyric quickly. It was then recorded in a day in LA with Rat Scabies and Seggs from The Ruts on bass and drums. The producer Jason Rothberg came up with the name Electric Dog House. Joe's response was along the lines of 'well we're not going to come up with anything better today' so Electric Dog House it was. It's a funny song with plenty of charm- loose drumming and some organ open it up and then Joe comes in. The mix and echo on the vox make it sound quite chaotic and the instruments pile up towards the end but there's a good tune inside it, a nice chord change in the chorus and an affecting lyric- 'let's go running down the road' Joe repeats. It's a shame the three of them didn't go on to record anything else together.