The new documentary, I Need a Dodge, recalls Clash singer Joe Strummer's trip to Spain as the band were imploding in the mid-eighties.
The film details Strummer's time in Spain and the search for the Dodge (car) that got lost somewhere along the way. Strummer became friends with the biggest stars in Spanish music in the 1980s and even produced an album for a rock band from Granada.
Nick Hall made the film. "Soon after I started investigating Joe Strummer’s refuge in Spain in 1984/5, I heard a recording of an interview on Spanish national radio from 1997," says Hall.
"In the interview Joe talks about a car he had in Madrid some years earlier. One day he left the car in a carpark but couldn’t remember which one. And there it stayed. In the interview Joe appeals to the Spanish people to help him find his car. I couldn’t help wondering what had happened to Joe’s Dodge and what he was doing in Madrid without the rest of The Clash. I thought I’d dig around…"
The Irish Film Institute intends to screen this quirky documentary in April. RTÉ TEN will keep you posted!
