HERE COMES STRUMMER

He also makes guest appearance on that long awaited Bez solo album plus hear Strummer doing Bez here...

Former Clash frontman Joe Strummer has announced five dates in June, the first with his new band The Mescaleros.

Strummer revealed to NME he will be playing old Clash favourites ‘London Calling’, ‘Rock The Casbah’ and ‘White Man In Hammersmith Palais’ as well as new material.

The tour calls at

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Liverpool Lomax (June 6) Glasgow King Tut’s (7) Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms (9) Dublin Olympia (22) Belfast Limelight (23)

Strummer & The Mescaleros aim to release their first album, ‘Rock, Art And The X-Ray Style’, in September, preceded by a new single, ‘Yalla Yalla’, in June. The records will come out on Strummer‘s own label, tentatively titled Casbah Records.

Of the new single, co-written by The Grid‘s Richard Norris, Strummer said: “You know that feeling sometimes when you’re out with your mates or feeling good, and you’re coming down the street and it’s probably late at night and you’re going on somewhere and you’ve got that sort of feeling of ‘yalla yalla yalla’. I wanted to get that feeling in a song.”

Ex-Sex Pistol Steve Jones makes a guest appearance on Strummer‘s album playing guitar on an instrumental track called ‘Ocean Of Dreams’.

The Mescaleros are made up of ex-Black Grape multi-instrumentalist Martin Slattery, bassist Scott Shields, keyboardist Anthony Genn, who has worked with Pulp and Elastica, drummer Smiley and percussionist Pablo Cook, who used to play with Earl Brutus.

Strummer revealed the band wouldn’t have got together if it wasn’t for his collaboration with Keith Allen‘s Fat Les project on the single ‘Naughty Christmas (Goblin In The Office)’.

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Strummer has also been working with Happy MondaysBez on his long-awaited solo album. The pair have DJed together and last winter recorded demos. No song titles have yet been decided.

Strummer said: “I claim to be the first man to get Bez to sing and you can hunt me down for that or cheer me to the rafters.

“One song goes (adopts Bez‘s alleged singing style): ‘No-bodeee ever saaaaid it was gonna be eeeeeasyaaah’.”

Click here to hear Strummer do Bez

Strummer said the long-awaited Clash live album, set for an autumn release through Epic, was being organised by fellow ex-Clash members Mick Jones and Paul Simenon, with artwork from Topper Headon. The album features performances from eight or ten gigs and has been described by one industry insider as “fucking awesome”.

Tickets are available from nme.com‘s 24-hour ticketline on 0870 121 0125 or click here to go to our online gig guide and ticket service.

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