The Clash “Combat Rock” and “The People’s Hall” 1982/2022 special edition reissue. Today marks the 20th anniversary of Joe Strummer’s death (d. December 22nd, 2002 at age 50 which freaks me out as I’m now a year older than he was) so I’m finally taking out this 40th anniversary release. It’s a triple LP: one record is Combat Rock in its entirety. The other two (well, one and a half as one side is blank) is The People’s Hall, a 12-track compilation of previously unreleased tracks, demos and early versions of tracks recorded between the release of their single “Radio Clash” in November ’81 and the release of Combat Rock in May ’82.

I still have the copy of Combat Rock I bought back in the early-to-mid 80’s (used, probably at New Frontier Record Exchange in Appleton for a couple of bucks, maybe in ’84?) and have written about it before here. I do feel like this reissue has been remastered a bit (or possibly my old copy is just in kinda bad condition) as the spoken/growled word portion on “Red Angel Dragnet” is shockingly clear and up front. Or possibly the 180g quality vinyl is just that much more superior than the cheap shit back in the 80’s.

The People’s Hall is a catalog of The Clash’s residency at the venue, located in the Republic of Frestonia. “In 1977, squatters on Freston Road, Notting Hill, in London, declared independence from the British state. Facing eviction by the Greater London Council (GLC), the community figured the best way to evade the constraints imposed on them was to just free themselves of those constraints altogether. So they lobbied the UN and established a 1.8-acre microstate-“The Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia”-complete with its own postage stamps, visas, and passports….The “Frestonian National Theatre” (at the Peoples Hall, Freston Road) ran the London premiere of Heathcote Williams’s The Immoralist, while the “Frestonian National Film Institute” held regular movie screenings. In 1982, as Frestonia celebrated its fifth anniversary, the Clash recorded much of Combat Rock at Peoples Hall.” (Vice) According to the liner notes, Motörhead also recorded at the People’s Hall. The three sides of the LP are uneven offering: there’s some pretty good tracks like an excellent version of “Radio Clash” that is horn-heavy and extra stomping, “He Who Dares Or Is Tired” which sounds suspiciously like The Jam’s “Town Called Malice” and “Idle in Kangaroo Court.” But it also includes some pretty boring and irrelevant material like some random recordings of sounds and conversations like “Outside Bounds,” a field recording from outside Bonds, the New York casino where the Clash played 17 shows in 1981. Some material lands in the middle, vaguely interesting but not really necessary like the funked-up hip hop rap by graffiti artist Futura (“Futura 2000“), “Radio One – Mikey Dread,” a mellow reggae groover occasionally overlayed with answering machine recording conversation and a very over-produced version of “Know Your Rights.”