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