The fact they are from Minneapolis probably gives this intro more weight than it needs, but I am a huge fan of The Hold Steady. One of my top five bands of all time, they have a song called “Constructive Summer”. You might know it, but if you don’t, after the solo, just before it gets to the end, its got this verse: “Raise a toast to St. Joe Strummer/I think he might’ve been our only decent teacher/Getting older makes it harder to remember we are our only saviours/ We’re gonna build something, this summer”
The last time I saw them play it, in London last Spring there were playing sold-out club and there were probably a thousand people in the room, and every one of them, it seemed to me, screamed that line, for themselves, for Joe, for the world.
I was at work in 2002 when I heard the news, and it seems that Strummer still has the power to represent something more.
The first song here on “Beat On The Street” is named after him, and the line: “Only Joe would know” seems to frame the whole record, the idea that somehow he would.
He’d probably approve of this solo EP from Marc Platt too. With his band The Real Impossibles (I reviewed a retrospective of theirs earlier this year) he constructed some proper So. Cal rock n roll, and while there’s bits of that on this too, this has a bit more going on – by virtue largely of the more personal, introspective nature of the mostly acoustic work.
“As The City Sleeps” is multi layered, and his lead solo is perfect here, but the feeling that Platt might be a bit of an Anglophile (the subtle use of the word “tele” an English word if ever there was one in “…Strummer”) which had been present throughout, is clear by the time of the Merseybeat flavoured “Did You See Her Smile”.
“Surf In The Rain” is part Spaghetti Western, part surf rock, while “The Beat” is as 50s as you like, there is such an innocence about its lyrics. It is the stuff of American Graffiti, of Diners, Drive Thru’s, you name it.
The last one is back to 60s North West England. “It’s wet and cold on Lonely Avenue”, he sings here, (just like it always is, really) and there’s a feeling of those Hollies records that I grew up with.
Somehow, the vibe is in keeping with the EP. “Beat On The Street” essentially rifles through rock n roll history. Any of these could have been written in one of those “hit factories” you imagine New York to be full of where they wrote songs for the stars. That they are all original is proof of the unmistakable talent of Marc Platt.
Rating 8/10
