''Earthquake Weather'' is the first non-soundtrack solo album by former frontman of
The Clash
The Clash were an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1976. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they are considered one of the most influential acts in the original wave of British punk rock, with their music fusing elements ...
,
Joe Strummer
John Graham Mellor (21 August 1952 – 22 December 2002), known professionally as Joe Strummer, was a British musician. He was the co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist, and lead vocalist of punk rock band the Clash, formed in 1976. The Clash' ...
, released on 20 September 1989. The album was well received by critics, but was not a commercial success. The majority of the album was recorded in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
in 1988 and 1989, as evident from the cover photography and design by Josh Cheuse.
It was the first time Strummer had worked on his own musical project. In previous years he had worked with
Alex Cox
Alexander B. H. Cox (born 15 December 1954) is an English film director, screenwriter, actor, non-fiction author and broadcaster. Cox experienced success early in his career with ''Repo Man (film), Repo Man'' (1984) and ''Sid and Nancy'' (1986 ...
on the soundtracks of his films ''
Sid and Nancy'' and ''
Walker'' in 1986 and 1987. He also worked on the production of his former Clash partner
Mick Jones' second album with the band
Big Audio Dynamite
Big Audio Dynamite (later known as Big Audio Dynamite II and Big Audio, and often abbreviated BAD) were an English band, formed in London in 1984 by Mick Jones (The Clash guitarist), Mick Jones, former lead guitarist and co-lead vocalist of th ...
in 1986.
It was the reception and sales of the music score from the film ''
Walker'' that got Strummer into the right mental state to start working on his own material again. He got a group together which consisted of
Zander Schloss,
Lonnie Marshall,
Jack Irons and Willie MacNeil. The backing band became known as
The Latino Rockabilly War. The first project the band worked on was for the film ''
Permanent Record'' with
Keanu Reeves which featured the songs "Trash City", "Baby the Trans", "Nothin' 'bout Nothin", "Nefertiti Rock", and the haunting instrumental "Theme from Permanent Record".
In 2008 the album was re-released although it was not remastered and the version was very bare bones featuring no liner notes and basically a
CD-R
CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital media, digital optical disc data storage device, storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can only be Write once read many, written once and read arbitrarily many times.
CD-R discs (CD-Rs) ...
version of the album.
Track listing
Personnel
*Joe Strummer - vocals, rhythm guitar, piano, percussion
*
Zander Schloss - lead guitar, Spanish guitar, organ, banjo, lyre, vocals
*
Lonnie Marshall - bass, piano, percussion, vocals
*
Jack Irons - drums (tracks 1, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12)
*Willie McNeil - drums (tracks 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14)
with:
*Del Zamora, Dick Rude, Rudy Fernandez - male voice trio
;Technical
*Mark Stebbeds - recording, mixing
*Josh Cheuse - cover photography, art direction
Bibliography
*
References
{{Authority control
Joe Strummer albums
1989 albums
Epic Records albums