This is Strummerville Sessions, a 3 part TV series, directed by Don Letts and presented by Jaime Winstone on Channel 4.
Filmed over the past few months the series focuses on six Strummerville bands captured at our festival campfire tour, our Westway Round The UK tour and at our Notting Hill Carnival Party.
Episode 1: Featuring Rum Shebeen & The Riff Raff
Episode 2: Featuring Beans On Toast & Molotov Jukebox
Episode 3: Featuring The Supernovas & Thee Deadtime Philharmonic
All the bands featured in this series are on our DIY pages. Visit the following links for more info and free downloads:
Beans On Toast
Molotov Jukebox
Rum Shebeen
The Riff Raff
The Supernovas
Thee Deadtime Philharmonic
One love,
Strummerville x
Beans On Toast, the gravel voiced troubadour from Braintree, wrote this track ‘Tour Blog’ whilst on the road during our recent Westway Round The UK tour. We love it!
Big love, Strummerville x
More about Beans On Toast
http://www.myspace.com/sexdrugspolitics
Excerpt:
The Strummerville tour bus recently came to town, bringing a bunch of new bands to one of Bristol’s most beloved music venues, The Croft.
The line up consisted of south east London vagabonds and tour headliners Rum Shebeen, who brought the house down with their unique sound, a blend of ska, garage rock and tropical music. Also on the bill were raucous mod punks The Supernovas and the rugged voiced, gleefuly inebriated troubadour, Beans on Toast. Once the bands had played, the gig goers were also treated to a very special appearance from the prolific film-maker and punk veteran Don Letts, who DJ’d a set of old and new school dub reggae.
The Joe Strummer New Music Foundation was set up shortly after the iconic front man of The Clash sadly passed away in 2002. Its mission is to carry on Joe Strummer’s legacy by supporting up and coming artists who are influenced by Strummer’s vision, DIY ethic and punk mentality. ‘We’re a music charity and we give opportunities to people through music’ Strummerville’s charity director Trish Whelan explained.
‘We give bands bursaries to go and record demos, we’ve got rehearsal rooms in London, Belfast, Milan, we’re building a music room in an orphanage in Malawi, we support Jail Guitar Doors the Billy Bragg incentive for providing guitars in prisons for people who are rehabilitating through music and we just funded the setting up of the Rinse FM academy in London’. So how would a Bristol band get involved? ‘Just check out our website, we’ve got a huge DIY platform’.
Excerpt:
When I entered the Boardwalk on the Sunday night I was instantly drawn to the stage. Behind the drum kit was a huge banner depicting the Strummerville logo but what caught my eye was the ribbon lighting draped along the front of the stage, as well as being wrapped around the huge speakers, it certainly looked set for a hell of a night!
Straight away it was obvious, with the cheeky grin and slight twinkle in his eye, this was no ordinary acoustic set, but Beans on Toast did keep his promise and start with a love song….of sorts. With chorus lines like “Last night I had a girl sucking on my……conversation!” or “sucking on my……dignity!” it was pretty obvious the sort of love he was going for here! The second song, ‘All I Want To Do Is Give You A Flower’ fared no better as it made constant references to prostitutes, paedophiles and gangrape!
The Supernovas had the unenviable task of following this, but these four guys from North London more than held their own. Exploding with drums and guitar, in a style not to dissimilar to The Clashes ‘white Riot’, they opened with their debut single ‘Ace Face’ before heading straight into ‘Shot Down By The Fuzz’, both these and the rest of the set were short sharp and extremely catchy punk.
Next up, in what I have to admit is turning into one hell of a night, was the five piece Rum Shebeen. With Dave Ashby on vocals the crowd really took to this band as he is a born showman, blissfully swinging his arms about in all directions with almost slapstick abandon he relished every moment on stage. Talking to Dave after the show he had this to say; “We’re from Camberwell, as in the Camberwell carrot; basically we got in touch with Strummerville and played a couple of tracks to them! They asked us what do we want to do and from there we’ve released a single, gone on a national tour, played festivals, all of which didn’t seem a feasible reality before”.
Now every leg of the Strummerville tour has a local band and in this case it is the Derby based lyrically alternative dispossessed of Thee Deadtime Philharmonic opening with a song that raises concerns of the senseless killing carried out by soldiers and police alike, singer Murdoch takes to the stage and just seems to spit venom at every syllable. Murdoch explained after the set; “We have been number 1 in the Strummerville download chart for six months now with an old demo version of the song ‘Spine’. But now we have been given help to record a proper version with producer Paul Tipler who worked with Dr Feelgood”.
Collection of photography taken at The Flowerpot, London as part of the Westway Round The UK Tour (our home coming). Featuring The Yalla Yallas, Nimmo & The Gauntletts, Bare in the Woods, Beans on Toast, The Supernovas and Rum Shebeen.
Photography by Edward Bishop [www.edwardbishop.me] and Stuart Westwood Photography
Rum Shebeen were interviewed by Fiona Ledgard (pictured with Rum Shebeen, below), Manchester’s finest radio presenter, as part of the Westway Round The UK Tour. It was aired on Thursday 21st October 2010, on The Anything Goes Breakfast Show on Manchester’s ALL FM.
Archive: Listen To Full Interview
STRUMMERVILLE – Clash collaborator Don Letts DJs alongside a trio of up-and-coming young acts at the first ever UK tour from the late Joe Strummer’s Strummerville music foundation.
Joining Letts will be gravel-voiced troubadour Beans on Toast with songs of sex, drugs and politics. He won’t be short of material – his debut album, Standing on a Chair, boasted some 50 tracks. Also on the bill will be Camden quartet The Supernovas and tropical punk ensemble Rum Shebeen.
The Strummerville Westway Round the UK tour visits The Croft on Monday, October 11.
Tickets are priced £6.75 adv and available by ringing 0117 929 9008.
STRUMMERVILLE – The Joe Strummer Foundation for New Music – is hosting its first ever new band tour, Westway Round The UK, and it tears into Newcastle this month. Up and coming bands Beans on Toast, Camden foursome The Supernovas and Rum Shebeen (dubbed as a tropical punk ensemble) will be playing, together with whats described as a s election of Newcastle’s local heroes, aka the Jukebox Allstars. All will be revealed on the night…
This autumn we are thrilled to present the Westway Round The UK Tour with Rum Shebeen, The Supernovas and Beans on Toast. Each night will be headlined by a local band we have been working with. We’re also delighted to have Don Letts DJ-ing for us in Bristol.
In Sheffield and Manchester we will be joined by Thee Deadtime Philharmonic, in Leeds by The Yalla Yallas, in Glasgow by Chomsky Allstars and Newcastle by the Jukebox Allstars.
Our home coming show will be an all-dayer at The Flowerpot in London where we will be joined The Riff Raff, Nimmo & The Gauntletts and Sound of Rum.
Lots of love,
Strummerville x
Buy The Tickets:
| Date | Venue (linked to map) | Price | Buy | |
| 10/10/10 | The Boardwalk, Sheffield | £5 | Order Tickets | Join Event |
| 11/10/10 | The Croft, Bristol | £6 | Order Tickets | Join Event |
| 12/10/10 | Mine Venue, Leeds University | £5 | Order Tickets | Join Event |
| 13/10/10 | King Tuts, Glasgow | £5 | Order Tickets | Join Event |
| 14/10/10 | Moho Live (In the City), Manchester | £8 | - | Join Event |
| 15/10/10 | Digital (JukeBox Club night), Newcastle | £5 | - | Join Event |
| 17/10/10 | Flowerpot, London | FREE | - | Join Event |
Watch The Trailer:
Listen To The Bands:
Grab The Tour Poster & Stick it Around Online:
On Twitter? Get the latest Westway Round The UK Tour updates using #westwaytour
Excerpt:
“Over seven dates – from Sunday 10th October to Sunday 17th October – ‘Westway Round The UK’ will bring a selection of fast-rising bands, picked from this year’s Strummerville campfire sessions at Glastonbury, Lounge On The Farm, Secret Garden, Endorse It and the Goodwood Vintage Festival, to venues around the UK. As well as showcasing local Strummerville supported acts in each town.
The tour begins at The Boardwalk in Sheffield (formerly the Black Swan – where the Clash played their first ever live gig) and will rouse your musical palette every night until the tour culminates at The Flowerpot in Kentish town, with an all-dayer not to be missed. Get tickets for each event early to avoid disappointment.”
Excerpt:
How did your part in the Strummerville tour come about?
Well, we got involved with Strummerville after The Great Fire Of Nambucca burned all of our equipment to the ground, which Strummerville were generous enough to replace for us. Since then we’ve been gigging around the country with them – particularly on this year’s festival circuit which was wicked. We were also lucky enough to be taken out to Texas to play at SXSW and are doing the Westway Round The Uk tour with them, so it’s a relationship that has been going from strength to strength really.
Excerpt:
“The work of Strummerville includes funding for new musicians, providing a DIY platform for un-signed artists to showcase their music, The Rinse Academy, campfire sessions at UK festivals to showcase new talent, rehearsal space and so much more.
This year will see the first ever Strummervile national tour kicking off on October 10th with Rum Shebeen, The Supernovas and Beans On Toast all cramming into the Strummerville bus.”
