Don Letts filming the Citizen Sound! (Image courtesy Pete Stevens)

Hello everyone – nearly through another week of thrills and spills. I’ve got a backlog of things to cover and will try to ramp up the posts over the weekend. I will say it looks likely that we’ve got some very interesting Clash associated interviews exclusive to the blog coming up in the next few weeks and I’ll probably need your help – so keep in touch!

Last Friday night Prince Blanco (Mark Matthews) was back over in London from his current home in Toronto to reach the pinnacle of a year’s worth of work. It also involved heading to the right side (N) of the river! Mark has spent months organising, recruiting artists, marketing and collaborating on the Shatter The Hotel project on behalf of Strummerville. Actually for extra insight I’d recommend that you check out the podcast I mentioned the other day – during which Pete Cogle interviews Mark about the project. Last Friday marked the very special event that coincided with the UK launch of the album and in conjunction with Strummerville, the troops all rallied at The Inn on The Green. I’d asked Mark to check back with us when he had returned to Canada and he’s subsequently been kind enough to write this brilliant account of the evening beneath. Thanks to everyone who made it along that evening, all the artists who contributed and everyone who has so far purchased / downloaded the album. I’ll be back with more Clash Cup, some news and other special features soon – for now here’s Mark:

On Friday, February 5th we celebrated the UK launch of Shatter The Hotel: A Dub Inspired Tribute To Joe Strummer at Inn On The Green in West London. I must admit, I was a bit stressed getting everything organised for the event especially since one of our contributing artists DubCats, who were set to perform live on the night, unfortunately had to cancel at the last minute. Anyway, two lagers, a couple of quick interviews followed by a schedule tweak and we were back in action.

The punters starting rolling in around eight-ish and we began the night in fine style with ‘Lost In The Supermarket’ contributor and most recently Roots Manuva’s remixer Wrongtom who mashed up the place with a wicked set of what was essentially reggae as recorded by punk artists – think of ‘Jah War’ by The Ruts and you get the picture! Nice.

Up next ‘London Calling’ contributor Dubmatix with singer Mighty Howard hit the stage and tore the place up with some serious roots and dub. This was Dubmatix’ first ever performance in London and based on the reaction of many of the hardcore Ladbroke Grove lot, it definitely won’t be his last!

Mighty Howard - Image Courtesy Pete Stevens

Toronto based producer Citizen Sound who contributed ‘One More Time’ to the CD hit the turntables next and kept the crowd on it’s feet with a fine selection of chunes, including a nice white label alternate version of Joe doing ‘The Harder They Come’ all the while egged on by London DJ and mashup king J-Star.

Glasgow’s Chomsky Allstars hit the stage next and gave the crowd their trademark punk-fuelled selections. I joined them onstage for their Shatter The Hotel contribution ‘Know Your Rights’. The band brought some amazing energy to the room and I found out on the night that appropriately, they will be going into the recording studio very soon as they themselves are recent recipients of assistance from Strummerville!

Closing the night, the one and only Don Letts who lit up a packed dancefloor with some boombastic reggae cuts. Most of us were having such a great time by this point that we didn’t realise the bar had closed!

Cheers to all the artists who donated their time and talent to this event and to everyone who came out to celebrate with us! Special thanks to friends old and new: Trish and Bell from Strummerville, Dave Pitt and all at Inn On The Green, Slits’ biographer Zoe Street-Howe, Strummer biographer and Shatter The Hotel contributor Chris Salewicz, bassist Leo Williams (carrying regrets from Mick Jones), the very dapper Gaz Mayall, the legendary Robin Banks, rude boy Ray Gange, all the old Big Audio Dynamite gang – Guy, Desmond, Karl Statton, Rosamund, Brady from the Hollywood Brats (check your Clash history!), photographer Pete Stevens, Pete Cogle and the young geezer who shouted ‘Prince Blanco, you’re a legend!’ prompting the crowd to give me a very warm and heartfelt round of applause…thank you all very, very much!

A grand night was had all ’round and I have to thank the wonderful people of Portobello Road and ‘Da Grove’ for making me feel at home and for extending me honorary west London ‘citizenship’ for the week I was there – you made this sarf London boy feel very welcome! The best part of all is we raised more than a few hundred quid for Strummerville in the process!!

By the way, Don Letts came with a film crew in tow and filmed the entire event for last minute inclusion in his upcoming documentary about Strummerville. The film is set to be shown at this year’s SXSW festival in March – stay tuned to the Clash Blog for more on this!

Mark Matthews aka Prince Blanco
Toronto, February 2010