Three Monkeys Online - the free current affairs & arts magazine

It may seem like heresy (and a rip-off of a Chuck D. line), but the Clash didn’t mean shit to me when I was growing up. I was six years old in the summer of ‘77, and by the mid eighties their punk revolution had already long-been mainstreamed , commercialised (some would argue also by the band themselves) and robbed of its political value.

The first Clash tune that I heard that really grabbed me was the Mick Jones’ sung should I stay or should I go, and I heard it not on the grapevine, but through a Levis commercial - oh the shame of it all.

Since then I’ve had a mild curiosity about the band, but never a fully fledged enthusiasm. To me,  there always seemed a little bit too much bluster and posturing about the Joe Strummer led band. A revolutionary zeal that, like Strummer’s voice, didn’t always sit well with the actual music. When it worked, like London Calling it was brilliant, but more often than not it didn’t. 

Not a popular opinion perhaps. Watching Julien Temple’s recent documentary on Joe Strummer, you’ll hear how important both the band and Strummer were to various artists including Bono, Anthony Kiedis, Jim Jarmusch, and Johnny Depp. It’s an opinion, though, that if anything was strengthened by watching Temple’s film - Strummer was an important artist on lots of levels, but chief amongst his attributes was a charisma and enthusiasm, and it was one that I’ve never really clicked into.

Jump forward to last year, though, and a friday night in a small bustling bar I sometimes frequent. It’s the sort of place where the guys behind the bar use judgement rather than measures, and are liable to drink into the profits of a night, whilst turning the music up. The bar men are clash fans, and most people are chatting away, almost absent-mindedly interacting with the music. Heads are nodding gently, fingers are tapping along to tunes like Police and Thieves,  Rock the Casbah, Train in Vain, and Bankrobber.

Nothing extraordinary.

Then, the opening riff of Police on my back comes out, and we instantly move from finger tapping to jumping in the air. The bar men trampoline in time to the song, which goes at breakneck speed. Every song has a standard speed, and an ideal speed which is often just a fraction faster - not too much, which would sound careless and clumsy; if done properly, that increase in speed is like a graceful accelaration, like someone tripping out of a tackle.  This song’s original authors, The Equals (a fine London band, including Eddy Grant) played the song at its standard speed. Not too fast, and not too slow. When the Clash took it on for the Sandinista! extravaganza they brought it up a level, to that ideal speed. No-one will ever be able now to play Police on my back faster or slower than the Clash’s version, or at least play it at a different speed and sound credible or good.

And that, my friends, is a long-winded way of saying why this is very much a monkeys’ tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq_HtgGOIfE

Caught between the devil (Britney Spears) and Gordon Sumner, the idea that an artist can reflect their politics in music has become a largely discredited notion. When putting their minds towards defeating Thatcherism artists like Billy Bragg, Paul Weller, and the Communards produced arguably some of their worst material - they may have won your respect for actually working for change, but they didn’t necessarily make their way onto your mid-’80s turntable or proto-i-pod (walkman).

From the late ’80s onwards affiliation became the watch-word. Bono was committed to changing the world and played concerts left right and centre for organisations like Amnesty international, but after the success of Achtung Baby wouldn’t be caught dead actually singing about social issues (given some of his earlier attempts, it was no loss). Springsteen followed suit - though always slightly prone to falling off the wagon and on to his pedestal.

Springsteen is interesting, given his propensity to drop the big-band sound of the E-street band whenever he feels like getting serious. His rule of thumb being should you wish to tackle social issues head on, you need to don Woody Guthrie’s cap and stool yourself with an acoustic guitar.

Now, there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that approach - but it ain’t gonna get you dancing, and we’re firmly with that famous Canadian anarchist Emma Goldman on this: if I can’t dance, I don’t want your revolution.

Roy Paci’s Aretuska then is the musical equivalent of the holy grail of the snack industry - a slice of genuinely tasty sugar-free chocolate. It’s political (without shouting about it, a la Skunk Anansie), social, and committed without making your feet yawn.

In Roddy Doyle’s The Committments the theory was proposed that the Irish were the blacks of Europe, and hence the proud possesors of soul. An interesting proposition, and on face-value one that stands up, certainly when comparing the music that’s come out of Dublin compared to that of either London or Berlin. But put your average Irish band - say, for argument’s sake Bell X1 - up against this Sicilian outfit, and there’s no competition. Their ska/rock sound may come from the mediterranean, but it’s roots radical and real.

And what are the politics on display? SImple really. In an increasingly anti-immigration Europe, Paci and his pals remind us that the Southern Italians (and by extension Irish, and others) just a generation or two ago were considered the illegal immigrants that powered the German post-war industrial boom. Gastarbeiter or Guest-Worker was a term used for Italians first, and then later, after the establishment of the EU, for the Turks.

A timely and rythmic way to dance out of the anti-this, anti-that doldrums.

Of course, there’s no video available for this, the best song on the outstanding Parola d’onore album, so to give you a sample we’ll take a hop, skip, and shuffle to the also splendid Todo Joia from the Suonoglobal album (featuring Manu Chao - for whom Paci played trumpet in the Radio Bemba Soundsystem)