CLASH STASH CUTS CRAP

A Track-By-Track Clash Tribute That Cuts The Crap

                                                     TUESDAY MAY 8, 2007 AT 4 A.M.

BY DON ALLRED

 Stoned and bold and tight and loose and nostalgic and speculative, outward-bound (past "post-punk"), mostly coterie-generated (yet with extra sparks: Tymon Dogg! Kids!), the Clash’s 3-LP, 36-track Sandinista!, released in the late-1980 shadows of still-peaking Thatcher and Reagen, also sounded stress-tested by the DIY clash of identity and adaptability. Most of the many artists who completely cover the original album on The Sandinista! Project double-CD, commissioned four years ago by long-game journalist Jimmy Guterman (The Self-Portrait Project may one day follow), tap into the achievement and potential of this driving, driven undercurrent.

For all the work involved, it doesn't sound labored. The Mekons' Jon Langford and Sally Timms (with Ship And Pilot) get New Orleans street song "Junco Partner" higher, lighter, and tighter than the Clash can; blue notes are bluer too.

More clearly than ever, these songs embody the risks and payoffs of conflict. On "One More Time/One More Dub," ex-Voidoid Ivan Julian tilts galaxies of guitar through rippling immersions led by Iranian-American singer Haale, as his bass pushes notes almost deeper than feeling, with constant harassment from ex-Lounge Lizard Dougie Bowne's drums. Julian also deploys guitar on "The Call Up," one of the original set's strongest tracks. Here, re-tuned voice keen Clash warnings to "young people down through the ages," while The Lothars' ancient Space Age theramins swoop like patrols of lost souls pressed into service over grinding post–Oil Age reggae beats. Project only stumbles when it stays passively close to original versions—unlike Wreckless Eric, rattling and wailing through what was once a little too sweet, "Stepping out a rhythm that can take the tension on/Stepping in and out of that crooked, crooked beat!"

(for more on this, check https://thefreelancementalists.blogspot.com/2008/02/don-allred-nashville-scene-country.html)