Saturday 5th February is ‘International Clash Day’ as started by KEXP, a radio station in Seattle USA. In celebration of the cultural contribution of former local resident Joe Strummer and the connection between his band’s ethos and Bridgwater’s identity including being ‘a rebel town’, Seed is holding a local event on this day. It will be a ‘Flash mob’ style public performance at the CornHill, Bridgwater where every guitarist of any standard in Sedgemoor can join a backing band in playing the seminal Clash song ‘Should I stay or should I go’. The event will be live streamed worldwide, including via KEXP as an official event of the day.

Seed is providing, creating and delivering effective learning materials (written and video) with Your Guitar Academy and leading up to the event we will hold a workshop (in Bridgwater), enabling even beginner guitarists who only know one or two chords to participate. At the workshop, intending participants will have a group lesson and practice playing the song together. On the day, John D Revelator will also perform and will provide the foundation for the performance for participants to join in with.

If you’d like to join the fun, sign up here.

The Clash Proclamation

Cllr Brian Smedley (Westover) said “Bridgwater has 7 twin towns. One of them is Seattle. If you check out the signposts on the Cornhill you’ll see one finger points directly west to the Pacific Seaboard of the USA. The link was started because of the Strummer link. Strummer came to Bridgwater said ‘this is a Clash town’ and he was right. So he stayed here. Each year on Clash Day we’ve done a link up with Seattle whether it’s from the Engine Room -which was founded in part due to funds raised by Joe Strummer on his last ever Bridgwater gig at the Palace in November 2002 or from other of our partner towns around Europe in the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia. This initiative by the SEED project is a great opportunity to promote Bridgwater, Strummer and  Bridgwater Strummers. “

The  Seattle Twinning