The Clash, Joe Strummer, and Me

Once referred to by critics as “The Only Band That Matters,” I started liking The Clash in my late teens. Like most people who came of age in the early 1980s, the first time I heard The Clash was when I heard Rock the Casbah from Combat Rock. I saw the video on MTV [back when they showed actual music videos]. Four guys playing music in front of an oil pump while an Arab and a Jew were getting off on their music. That was better than most videos of the time. I read about their politics. I didn’t think much of it. I was never unemployed, I never lived in an inner city, I didn’t know why punks were so angry. Growing up in suburban America, how can one relate to such things? Not very well I’m afraid. But Rock the Casbah? That wasn’t punk. That wasn’t angry. It was just straight-ahead rock and roll. Where was the anger I heard about? Little did I know, The Clash were on their last legs by then, and they left punk in the dust long before I ever heard them. Then a friend handed me a copy of London Calling. “Okay” I thought – still no anger here but there’s a lot of variety in the music. There was rockabilly, lots of reggae [who thought white English guys could play reggae?], ska, hard rock with the title track, and even pop [Train in Vain]. Still I thought “this isn’t punk, it’s The Clash’s version of The Beatles’ White Album.” They’re all over the stylistic map on London Calling. But this was great stuff. The same friend who loaned me London Calling then loaned me Sandinista! Not only did they cover all the styles they covered on London Calling, they added a few more. They added dub, rap [The Magnificent Seven – yes!!!]. a waltz, gospel, funk, psychedelic explorations. You name it, it was on Sandinista! But still, where was the angry punk of legend? I had to go back to their first recordings. I never owned them, but later in life I got a double cassette of The Story of The Clash, Volume 1 and there it was. There were quick two minute songs like White Riot, London’s Burning, I’m So Bored With the U.S.A. But even then they were starting to break the punk format with [White Man] In Hammersmith Palais and Julie’s Been Working for the Drug Squad. I liked it all.

One day in 1983 I read a small blurb in Rolling Stone magazine [before it became a fashion mag] that Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon fired Mick Jones. That was like Lennon firing McCartney. The Clash put out one more album called Cut the Crap. If they had indeed "cut the crap" there wouldn't have been an album. It was bloody awful. I wanted nothing to do with it [I still don’t]. In my mind there could be no Clash without Mick Jones. In 1986, The Clash were history. What a shame. Mick Jones formed his own Big Audio Dynamite. I got their first album This Is Big Audio Dynamite. There wasn’t a lot of guitar, but there was a lot of dub and sampling [before “sampling” has become big in hip-hop]. It was interesting. Their next album was No. 10 Upping Street. Imagine my surprise when I found that Joe Strummer produced it with Mick Jones. Apparently Joe Strummer realized his crass mistake and made up with Mick. Be that as it may, I never really caught on with Big Audio Dynamite. Shortly thereafter, Joe Strummer made an album called Earthquake Weather and promptly assumed a low profile for the next decade.

I didn’t give two thoughts about Joe Strummer or Mick Jones or anything Clash-related until 2002. I was doing my usual channel-surfing on cable when I saw a blurb on CNN that Joe Strummer had died right before Christmas. That day was eight years ago today. “How could that be?” I thought. He was still fairly young [he was only 50]. So as usual, when a rock star dies I decided I wanted to check out their work. I read up on his albums with his group The Mescaleros. All the reviews said “if you’re expecting The Clash, you’ll be disappointed.” The critics were right in one respect – the anger and venom of youth were gone, but they were also wrong because like the London Calling and Sandinista!, Joe Strummer was all over the stylistic map. I bought the albums and was surprised by what I heard. It was a shame that it took Joe Strummer’s death for me to rediscover him. He left some pretty good damn work behind. RIP Joe.

Director Julien Temple, a friend of Joe Strummer, made a documentary on Joe Strummer called The Future Is Unwritten. Also, Chris Salewicz [he of the New Music Express and The London Times] wrote a biography of Joe Strummer called Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer. I have it - it's a good read. The Independent Film Channel showed Let’s Rock Again, a tour documentary by Dick Rude of Joe Strummer trying to get his name re-established in the music world while touring for his Global A Go-Go CD. When I’ve seen and read all of this I hope to write about them at a future date.

Until then, there’s a lot of Joe Strummer’s music on my iPod. Here it is:

The Clash
London Calling/The Magnificent Seven/Brand New Cadillac/The Leader/Police on My Back/Rock the Casbah/Should I Stay or Should I Go/Bankrobber/Armagideon Time/Know Your Rights/Straight to Hell/Rudie Can't Fail/The Guns of Brixton/(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais/London's Burning/White Riot/Somebody Got Murdered/Charlie Don't Surf/Kingston Advice/The Street Parade/Wrong 'Em Boyo/Death or Glory/The Card Cheat/Revolution Rock/Train in Vain/Clash City Rockers/Stay Free

Joe Strummer
BBC World Service/Tony Adams/Mega Bottle Ride/The Long Shadow/All In A Day/Global A Go-Go/Arms Aloft In Aberdeen/Willesden to Cricklewood/Bhindi Bhagee/Johnny Appleseed/Coma Girl/Ramshackle Day Parade/Burning Streets (London Is Burning)/ Get Down Moses/Shaktar Donetsk/Minstrel Boy [Black Hawk Down version]/Redemption Song/"Punk Rock Warlord"