Joe Strummer Live At Music Millennium (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 2022) ***
Various Dark Horse Records The Best Of 1974 - 1977 (Vinyl, Dark Horse Records, 2022) ***
Genre: Dark Horse Records
Places I remember: Wax and Beans (Bury) for the live Strummer album and the various compilation of seventies Dark Horse acts, JB Hi-Fi for Assembly
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Coma Girl (Assembly)
Gear costume: Forbidden City (Assembly)
Active compensatory factors: I don't usually highlight compilations on this countdown but these two are on Dark Horse Records and I get to make and break my own rules on this blog!
Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Coma Girl (Assembly)
Gear costume: Forbidden City (Assembly)
The label was George Harrison's boutique label after he left Apple Records, and his son Dhani has relaunched it in the 2020s with these albums. Seems there are going to be more from now on. Cat Stevens' latest is on Dark Horse.
So, let's start in the seventies via Christmas 2022 when I visited Wax and Beans in Bury.
The Best of 1974-77 is a taster of some of the albums released while the original Dark Horse Records was functioning. Ravi Shankar, Attitudes, Splinter, Henry McCullough, and Stairsteps all get two tracks each, while Keni Burke and Jiva get one each.
Throwing them all together on one album reveals the clear strengths and weaknesses. Ravi and Splinter hold their own (Costafine Town is a superb song) but the rest are pleasant but underwhelming efforts from class musicians (that doesn't mean they write memorable songs or can sing).
And so to the Strummer albums. I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed the Assembly compilation, and how many of the songs I knew already. I like the Clash, don't love them, so I normally wouldn't have bought Joe's solo albums without the Dark Horse incentive. In this case, I'm glad Dhani decided to compile/release them and keep Strummer's name out there and available to collectors.
The live album is brief (side 1 repeats on side 2) and it's okay but nothing special.
Where do they all belong? It's an on-going concern so there are other albums to collect in this imprint.
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