You can't see it but there is a huge, ridiculous smile on my face- after a long long time of my looking for this and staring in extreme confusion at that bittorent thingy- Earthquake Weather, courtesy of the endlessly amazing Jim over at Bring Me the Heads. And from my position as a Strummer-lover and as Bring Me the Heads' unofficial PR person, I say: get thee to Bring Me the Heads right now and grab it! ("Ha gitalong gitalong"- ha ha) And don't forget to let him know your appreciation.
3 comments:
that's yummy! thanks!
Yes, it is...I got this album on cassette (!) when it came out, so I could listen to it on the flight to London (where I would live, and work, for six months).
As luck would have it...I missed Joe's two-night stand at Kentish Town & Coountry (now the Forum) by a mere week! But I went to Camden Market, and got boot tapes of both nights...as my consolation prize.
Anyway, I always felt Earthquake Weather got unfairly shrifted at the time, because Joe hadn't been out too long from under the shadow of the Clash...and the mood seemed punitive towards him, for the way the group had broken up.
That said, I think Joe was still finding his feet: the lyrics are pretty dense, more so than on anything he'd release later. (My favorite example is, "Doing this dance called the Robocop, this gesture means I love you"...say what?)
For that reason, I've always liked the more straightforward songs --"Gangsterville," "King Of The Bayou," and "Shouting Street." On the more obscure tracks (such as "Highway One Zero Street"), I think he felt like he was "giving the people what they want," so to speak.
However, "Leopardskin Limousines" and "Sleepwalk" (used as an opener on those London shows, if memory serves me: my tape's not close) are two of Joe's finest ballads. It took Joe the better part of a decade to find his feet, but for my money, the seeds were already there.
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