Song Of The Day 1/16/2014: The 101'ers - "Sweet Revenge"

British Pub Rock Week: All right, I'll admit it: British Pub Rock Week has been sort of a dud in the ratings. It's been a summer replacement series. Like The Brady Bunch Variety Hour without the ooky faux-inbreeding and the synchronized swimmers. Perhaps I should have gone more high-concept here. Or low-concept, I can't figure out which. I never know where my concepts are coming from. Is it more porn stars singing disco, is that what you teeming masses want? Guh.

Well, we only got two more of these pubbers to schlep at you, so bear with me. And today's features none other than Joe Strummer, the beloved late Clash icon whose beginnings were a lot more straight-ahead rock and a lot less politicized. Before all that he was the primary attraction for the 101'ers, a pub rock outfit Strummer got together in the waning days of the movement in 1974. You can hear some leanings towards the broader geo-musicology he eventually championed in "Sweet Revenge," which wasn't released until 1981 when it became clear the Clash were going to be a group of some repute. Someone hastily put together a collection of their demos entitled Elgin Avenue Breakdown, and Strummer, confident of his place in the scrolls of history, allowed it to come out.