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Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, Global A Go-Go
Imagine if your local Indian restaurant had a lousy houseband playing
Celtic-tinged folk and rock, mixed with Asian and African sounds.You’d be
quite scared yeah? They’d have to do a cracking Aloo Gobi before you’d go in
there again. Well on this evidence Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros could be
coming to a Tandoori near you. The first few tracks of Global a Go-Go should
end with a gravely voice barking: “Thanks very much, that and other songs are
available from the van after last orders. Don’t forget it’s two for the
price of one on all starters before 8pm”.
Ok, perhaps that’s a bit harsh. Strummer’s downbeat moulding of eclectic
influences isn’t a disaster, but it is underwhelming at best. In it’s
defence, it’s the only album I know of to boast a track named after a
Ukrainian football team. Plus track four, Bindi Bhagee, reminds me of the
theme music to Only Fools and Horses. But apart from that there’s precious
little to divert you on here, save for the horrible realisation that the man
once proclaimed as one of the great lyricists of his generation has penned
the following lines:“When Alan McGee went to Dundee he caused all the rock
bands to flee, I read it in the NME, Yeah, it was the key”
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