And The Ass Saw The Angel (Readings & Theatre Music) - Mick Harvey

Advantages: The Clash again
Disadvantages: The Last Real Clash Album

...being unsure of his position and future in the band, soon this was to be made painfully clear. The most recognizable tune next drummer Topper Heatons "Rock The Casbah". It is kinda scary that 22 years on with the clown prince of the oil barons in the Whitehouse that this song is even more relevant today. Geroge W Bush is an agent of Satan sent to destroy all that is good and pure in the world, and watch out for Condoleeza Rice, a woman cut from the same mold as Thatcher if ever I saw one. Anyway back to the Clash "Red Angel Dragnet" dredges up some heavy reggae and dub which were major influence to the UK punk rock scene. Followed rapidly by Joe Strummers Poignant "Straight To Hell", never were the Clash so atmospheric it is one of my all time favorites, and you can hear where U2 got a lot of their ideas from here (ach well you can't always... Read review

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Advantages: Image, songs
Disadvantages: The paradoxes

...The punk rock/new wave explosion in the UK in the late 1970's spawned some of the most exciting and energetic music of all time, and most people would cite Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols as being the key group. They were certainly the first and the most outrageous, but in many respects it was The Clash who were the more important, being longer lived, leaving behind them more original material and going through the greater progression during their existence. The Pistols were undoubtedly a hard act to follow, but The Clash's re-engineered and rebranded version of rock and roll saw them adopted and lauded by many for whom the snot nosed Pistols were just too much to bear. They also left behind them some of the hardest, sexy, generous, warm and uplifting rock music of all time. At the same time, they were an enormous, unsolved paradox... Read review

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Advantages: Great music and lyrics
Disadvantages: None

...with the “sobbing” heard late in the song. Crow Jane The second track which does not really stand out. A fairly pedestrian dark story about a girl who murders twenty guys who done her wrong. Everyday occurrence in Caveland! Crow Jane is actually a minor character in Cave’s novel “And The Ass Saw The Angel”. O’ Malley’s Bar An astonishing piece. Cave guides us through a loner’s visit to a bar where he murders in succession all the occupants – I lost count of the body count! The music is essentially repetitive and merely accompanies and complements the action. This builds slowly but inexorably as we listen to the murderer rant, from ravings to quasi-philosophy and some remarkably poetic comparisons – he likens two of his victims to Sts. Francis and Sebastian as he thinks of “sparrows... Read review

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