Sandinista Rides Again

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It’s not like the world really needs another tribute album. There are already hundreds out there, running the gamut from the obvious (like the Beatles or Hank Williams) to the asinine (like string quartet renditions of Evanescence.) Still, the idea of an album recreating the Clash’s Sandinista! is outrageous enough to pique a perverse curiosity. It certainly wasn’t their most cohesive effort, rambling as it did through a myriad of musical styles. What it may have lacked in focus, however, Sandinista! stands alone as the Clash’s most audacious album.

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It makes sense, then, that The Sandinista Project would be equally audacious in its attempt to recreate the original work’s 36 tracks, using almost that many artists, interpreting them in often unexpected styles. Certainly not an album for Clash purists, TSP often draws its inspiration more from Appalachia than Kingston, and at least as much from the honky-tonk as the disco. What rock journalist turned producer Jimmy Guteman and the diverse assemblage of musicians represented here have done is taken the original album’s material and placed it in a present-day context.

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Think of it as a renovation project of sorts.The world is a much different place (at least, superficially) now than when the Clash released Sandinista! in the dying days of 1980, but the themes they expressed on the album are as relevant now — if not more so — as they were when 1984 loomed on the horizon of uncertainty. It’s only the context that’s changed. So when Jason Ringenberg and Kristi Rose take “Ivan Meets GI Joe” out of a frenetic London disco and have them face off in an East Texas honky-tonk, it’s not only amusing, but somehow more relevant - we get two over-the-hill adversaries in a beer-soaked bar fight. Likewise, Ruby on the Vine’s rendition of “Rebel Waltz” conjures up images of American warriors fighting grimly against hopeless odds, just as the Coal Porters’ version of “Something About England” brings it home to the mines of Kentucky, rendered in a purely bluegrass idiom.

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While TSP often transports the original album from reggae and dub to acoustic bluegrass and country, it explores other translations as well, with somewhat mixed results. The new version of “One More Time/One More Dub,” featuring swirling guitar runs by Voidoid alumnus Ivan Julian and spectral vocals by Iranian-born Halle, is a haunting soundscape of Middle Eastern beats melded to psychedelic trappings. Ethan Allen brings a sleazy back alley feel to “Corner Soul,” evoking a B-movie noir feel to the material. On the other hand, the Lothars’ theramin-inspired rendering of “The Call Up” merely sounds cold and robotic. The least said about Stew’s “Broadway” cover, the better - it would have been a bad disco song in 1977, and it certainly doesn’t fare well in 2007.

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Even though much of TSP consists of radical rethinkings of the source material, there are some nearly spot-on covers here. ”The Magnificent Seven,” as performed by Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers, opens the album, and more or less evokes the spirit of the original’s white boy rap. Sadly, Camper Van Beethoven could have called in their version of “Kingston Advice.” Willie Nile’s scorching cover of “Police On My Back,” however, reminds you why the Clash were the “only band that matters,” at least in 1980.

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The Sandinista Project has its flaws, just as its namesake did. Labors of love are like that. Where Guteman and the various artists succeeded here is in their passion for the project. In many ways, it’s as experimental as its source material, and in that regard, they’ve done the Clash proud.

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(I should note here profits from the album’s sales are split between two charities - Amnesty International, and the Joe Strummer Memorial Forest, which is a division of Future Forests, an organization fighting global warming.)