Track Listing

1. Johnny Appleseed
2. Cool 'N' Out
3. Global A Go Go
4. Bhindi Bhagee
5. Gamma Ray
6. Mega Bottle ride
7. Shaktar Donetsk
8. Mondo Bongo
9. Bummed Out City
10. At The Border, Guy
11. Minstrel Boy

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8484 in Music
• Released on: 2001-07-16
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Global A Go-Go, Joe Strummer's second album with the The Mescaleros following 1999's Rock Art and The X-Ray Style mines the same concerns that have always inspired his music. "Johnny Appleseed" and "Cool 'n' Out" centre on Joe's brash eruptive guitar but hark back to his pre-punk folk busking roots, with lyrics anchored by a strong sense of indignation and social commitment. Strummer may pride himself as an original punk warlord, but he realises punk can only thrive by rejoicing in Britain's ever-vibrant multicultural melting pot as he does on "Bhindi Bagee" and the Arabic inflected refugee requiem "Shaktar Donetsk". His longstanding fascination with dub reggae fuels "At the Border, Guy", while the Marconi saluting title track celebrates the power of radio to present new worlds and unite communities. On "Mondo Bongo" he dispenses with his trademark bark for a lovely ballad laced with pre-Clash accomplice Tymon Dogg's lonesome violin. This is real anger with a big warm heart; maturity suits Strummer just fine. --Gavin Martin

fRoots, October 2001
The Strummer crew's previous one, Rock Art & The X-Ray Style, was a motoring favourite and this one has been the non-stop soundtrack of summer 2001. I even went out and bought a six-pack more just to give to deserving pals. There's clearly some convergence going on here. Wiseheads of the Clash era always pointed to the affinity between the politics and DIY ethic of the punk scene and the folk movement. Strummer's music today is more relevant to these pages than ever: not only reflecting current English urban culture and global concerns, but evolving a band sound that has world-augmented its conventional rock instruments with fiddles, hammer dulcimer, accordeon, all sorts of percussion, horns and much more. In among them is our old friend Tymon Dogg, once having guested on a Clash album, now a full paid up Mescalero. It's a new English sound of the 21st century, and there are obvious parallels with the way that Billy Bragg's Blokes also use a swathe of "unconventional" instruments, whatever's right and available from the world's cultures to add interesting textures. Pointed songs in English that work in the new multicultural realities. Like their previous album, this one has a thick and imaginative construction (if Phil Spector had done studio training with the Mustaphas...) that still somehow manages to sound uncontrived, revealing constant new pleasures at each play. The words are devised in the same way: first impressions might indicate a good deal of stream-of-consciousness but (as with early electric Dylan) they're much cleverer than that. Just as a little burst of bikutsi-like guitar might suddenly catch your attention, so do smart little lyrical twists (like the Who reference to Armenia in the title track--it's only later in the small print that you notice Roger Daltrey has slipped in on backing vocals on that one). It's pretty much all extremely good--even a very long meandering instrumental "Minstrel Boy" has its jammed charm in a two-fingers-to-"Fisherman's Blues" way--but the one that probably sums it up is "Bhindi Bhagee". In it, our hero meets a visitor from abroad seeking the culinary delight of mushy peas. Not around here, he's told, but "We got balti, bhindi... dall, halal... rocksoul, okra, Bombay duck... shrimp, beansprout, bagels...avocado, akee, lassi, Somali waccy baccy... pastrami, salami, lasagne." Makes Robin Cook's menu choice sound positively restrictive. And then Strummer goes on to describe the global influences on the band's music in the same off-the-cuff, haphazard way, while all round the music rampages gloriously. As somebody else's song title said, this is the UK talking. Major milestone album: influence will be felt, mark my words. --Ian Anderson

© fRoots Magazine all rights reserved

CD Description
Even when he was leading the Clash, Joe Strummer always incorporated his interest in disparate musical styles into his work. 20 years down the road, he's achieved enough distance from the Clash to express himself fully and freely, so GLOBAL A GO-GO is Strummer's most stylistically diverse offering to date. The album opens with the American folk motifs of "Johnny Appleseed" before moving on to the churning, funky "Cool 'N' Out". The title tune combines hypnotic trip-hop keyboards, reggae guitar, and percolating percussion to celebratethe joys of international communication. "Bhindi Bhagee" successfully combines electronica beats with Eastern tonalities.
"Gamma Ray" is a surreal Cuban-style slow-burner that recalls the Latin Playboys. "Mondo Bongo" and "Shaktar Donetsk" sound like excerpts from a film noir soundtrack set somewhere in Morocco. The album closes with the epic 17-minutes-plus "Minstrel Boy", a folkish selection filled with atmospheric fiddle and acoustic guitar, nearly all instrumental. Itcontinues the soundtrack-like feeling achieved by the earlier cuts, and leaves the listener flouting on a cloud of hazyCeltic mist. Throughout the album, Strummer evinces his trademark socio-political awareness in the lyrics, but he sounds much less angry than in punk's glory days. Sometimes maturity can work for you.

Customer Reviews

The light has dimmed, but the legacy shines........
Awaiting the release of Streetcore and as a regular listener to Rock Art etc, I thought that I should investigate Global a Go Go....Amazing, exciting, provocative and downright melodic this will prove to be one of my Playlist favourites. There's still plenty of north London wit on display as well as the global eclecticism that was setting Joe up as a valuable contributor to all that is accessible in new World Music.....the balance of street hardened sneer in Joe's voice offset by the pleading yell for a better world makes this package an inspirational sound collage. So cruel that Streetcore will be an epitaph to a voice that has been dimmed by the Creator......the musical legacy will surely attract, entertain and inspire for decades to come. A must for anybody who appreciates intelligent, beautifully crafted music.

Top notch audio masala dosa
I came to this with more than a grain of salt but... it's brilliant! Wonderfully performed and beautifully produced - musically uplifting and lyrically positive - it's the perfect antidote to all the cultural paranoia that is being washed over us during these dark days.
It's ambitious, playful, mature, and amazingly successful, blending different musical styles cleverly, and there's not a punk cliche in sight, either. The best album I've bought this year, by a street. Be careful if you get trashed listening to it though, cos that last track ... you might get lost in it forever: it's loooong, maaan.

Joe Strummer at his best.......
When I bought this cd I expected something special from Joe Strummer and he certainly did not dissapoint me. The music is first class and the lyrics are meaningfull. When you listen to Bhindi Bhaji you think its just meaningless until you lsiten and then is it a cry for the loss of the Britishness in this country or is it perhaps informing you that we are now a multicultural society which has enveloped us all.

I would reccommend this to anyone real music with real instruments and the Mescaleros are certainly talented this is not just Joe Strummer and some session players