M’colleague, the wonderful Tara McGinley put me on to this exhilarating, stripped down version of The Clash’s “Safe European Home”.

Posted over at The Clash Blog, the track (from the album Give ‘Em Enough Rope) has been pared back to its constituent parts—vocals, guitar, bass, drums. These isolated tracks were posted on YouTube by user flip2k, as Clash Blog explains:

A good year or two back I wrote about the brilliant work being done by ‘flip2k’ on YouTube in relation to The Clash. I’ve still no idea who flip2k is but every time I share the work that he or she does a lot of people become extremely happy, myself included, so that’s reason enough to share the links again.

‘You see flip2k will from time to time take a track by The Clash and upload the segregated multi-tracked elements of just guitar, bass, vocals or drums. It’s actually far more exciting than it sounds. In the past I’ve focused on the amazing work done with Complete Control and London Calling but he/she has also added Safe European Home, Train in Vain and I Fought The Law. If you want to hear the precision drumming of Topper in its purest element you’ll just have to take the time to explore each of these. The same can be said for the enraged vocals of Joe (especially on Complete Control) and the almost motownesque harmonies offered by Mick on Safe European Home. That’s without me even getting into the guitar and bass tracks. I can guarantee you’ll hear elements you’ve never heard before, just try the guitar on Safe European Home for example.

Amongst other goodies, flip2k also has an isolated version of The Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” (from Combat Rock), which we’ve posted below. Enjoy!
 

Vocals—“Safe European Home”
 

Guitar—“Safe European Home”
 

Bass—“Safe European Home”
 

Drums—“Safe European Home”
 
Via The Clash Blog, with thanks to Tara!
 
Bonus stripped down version of the classic ‘Rock the Casbah’, after the jump…
 

 
In 2007, Asheton described his guitar sound: “I get a brighter and brassier sound than a lot of people. It’s almost painful. I’ve been told, ‘Your guitar sound is painful, man!’ And I go, ‘Hey, cool. All right!’”

I love this description of Asheton’s playing on “No Fun” from Tim Lucas:

For the first 2:43 of the song, Asheton anchors the song with steady, distorted, rhythmic riffing from the right channel—and just when we think we’ve heard everything this anthem to teenage boredom has up its patched denim sleeve, Iggy’s pleas prompt Asheton to launch into the fuzziest, dirtiest, squiggliest, squealingest, noodly guitar solo ever heard, absolutely merciless in its full-on drilling against the hard stone walls of ennui.”

The man who gave courage and inspiration to thousands of fledgling punk guitarists, launching a rock and roll revolution, the godhead of psychotic, six string, sonic sublimeness, Mr. Ron Asheton: