A recent comment on a Clash post prompted me to investigate Joe Strummer's first band The 101ers, as even thought I'm a massive fan of The Clash, I'd never gone further back to see how Strummer started out, as I'm not really that keen on pub-rock, which I always thought was the 101ers forte. The group was named after the squat where they lived together at 101 Walterton Road, Maida Vale, and consisted of John 'Woody' Mellor (aka Joe Strummer) on guitar/vocals, Clive Timperley on guitar/vocals, Dan Kelleher on bass, guitar, and lead vocal on 'Surf City', and Richard Dudanski on drums. Their early gigs included several at the Windsor Castle pub, and a residency at the Elgin, which is why they were bundled together with other pub-rock bands of the period, but by the time their debut single 'Keys To Your Heart' was released in 1976, Strummer had joined The Clash and the 101ers were no more. During their short career they'd recorded a number of demos in 1975 and 1976, all of which were original songs, and these were collected together on the 'Elgin Avenue Breakdown' compilation in 1981, along with a number of live recordings of rock 'n' roll covers. By extracting just the demos and adding in a couple of live originals which didn't make the first issue of the compilation, plus an alternate, rawer take of 'Keys To Your Heart', we can approximate what an album could have sounded like had one been issued in 1976.
02 Silent Telephone
03 Steamgauge 99
04 Rabies (From The Dogs Of Love)
05 Keys To Your Heart
06 Lonely Mother's Son
07 Sweet Revenge
08 Motor Boys Motor
09 5 Star R 'n' R Petrol
10 Keep Taking The Tablets
11 Surf City
12 Hideaway
13 Sweety Of The St. Moritz
Nice selection--thanks! I hope you went on to listen to his post-Clash work with the Mescaleros, et al.
ReplyDeleteThis is excellent! How about what if Joe stayed with the Pogues to record an album together! XD
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