To say I miss Joe Strummer and The Clash is as pointless and redundant as remarking: “Wow, it is really hot in Tucson in the summer.” Although I did not really know Joe personally, I was lucky enough to meet him more than once, and saw the mighty Clash live and firing on all cylinders numerous times back in the punk days. One of the remarkable things about Joe was that after even the briefest of conversations you had the feeling that you actually did know him, and that he was genuinely interested in what you had to say. He was a real person.

Despite the fact that Joe has been gone for nearly seven years it is, surprisingly enough, still a great time to be a Clash fan. In recent years we’ve been blessed with From Here to Eternity, a live compilation which is actually my single favorite Clash album; Combat Rock being my least favorite with, let’s face it, really only a handful of decent songs (yes, I know I am in the minority there, but what’s new about that?).

We can can watch and re-watch Don Letts’ masterful film Westway To The World, which I consider to be the finest rock documentary every made. I am in no way a fan of director Julian Temple’s work—I find it gimmicky and affected—but he does cover interesting subjects and his Strummer documentary, The Future Is Unwritten, is important viewing for any fan of punk rock history.

Chris Salewicz’s Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer is, for my money, the best rock bio ever written (well, maybe first equal with Dave Marsh’s Who chronicle, Before I Get Old). Sony finally saw fit to officially release 1982′s Live at Shea Stadium on CD and punk rockers can revel in all things Clash related on Tim Merrick’s Clash Blog, ingeniously subtitled “The Only Blog That Matters.”

Dick Rude’s 68-minute film Let’s Rock Again is tauntingly short, but remains an entertaining and good-hearted record of Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros on the road shortly before Joe’s death. And that is the really tragic part. After years of self-imposed exile in a post-Clash wilderness, Joe had finally reinvented himself, teamed up with long-time friend, mentor, and musical collaborator Tymon Dogg and was touring with an eclectic and highly talented band. The new songs may not have had quite the musical kick that his great songwriting partner, Mick Jones, brought to the old Clash numbers, but there was an expansive, world music vibe to the Mescaleros. And Joe looked happy in concert, like he was finally doing what he wanted.

The three Mescaleros records: Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, Global A Go-Go and the posthumous Streetcore are a glorious jumble of musical styles. Those records do not fit into any known category of music and quite right too. By 2001, Joe was a mature composer, singer and performer at the height of his powers, drawing upon his love of richly diverse musical forms including jazz, reggae, blues, ska, rockabilly, folk, and punk rock. What could he have accomplished given another ten years behind that battered Telecaster?

In the wonderful novel High Fidelity, infused with a passionate love for the details of rock music, author Nick Hornby’s narrator returns home to listen to The Beatles after mooning over failed relationships:

“The Beatles were bubblegum cards and Help at the Saturday morning cinema and toy plastic guitars and singing ‘Yellow Submarine’ at the top of my voice in the back of the coach on school trips. They belong to me, not to me and Laura, or me and Charlie, or me and Alison Ashworth, and though they’ll make me feel something, they won’t make me feel anything bad.”

And that’s what The Clash were to me. They were my band. The best, most radical, most exciting, most loyal and gifted band there ever was. From the first time I saw them on the Out Of Control Tour in London back in 1978, to those brilliant Mescaleros shows in New York in 2001, the sounds, memories and experiences feel almost as if they belong only to me. They were that moving and that personal. Joe was an inspiration and he set the bar so high with his songwriting ability, it seems almost hopeless that another artist might one day fill his shoes.

“Just because we’re in a group
You all think we’re stinkin’ rich
An’ we all got model girls shedding every stich
And you think the coke is flowing
Like a river up our noses
And every sea will part for us
Like the red one did for Moses”

From “Cheapskates” by Strummer/Jones

Some favorite memories: Watching the debut of “White Man In Hammersmith Palais” at The Clash’s three-night Camden Music Machine event in London, 1978; Mick Jones jumping into the crowd at the Crawley Sports Center, later on the same tour, and pounding a bouncer who was beating up on a fan; Joe surprising the heck out of us with “Keys To Your Heart” at the 1989 Palladium show; and seeing Joe belt through “Rudie Can’t Fail” that one last time on the Mescaleros 2001 US tour.

My all-time top five Clash songs:

“White Man in Hammersmith Palais”
“Complete Control”
“Rudie Can’t Fail”
“Safe European Home”
“London Calling”

Learn more:

Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer by Chris Salewicz
Strummerville Foundation for New Music
The Clash Blog
Joe Strummer obituary by Geoffrey Notkin

And finally, I am not going to end this piece by saying: “Well at least we still have Joe’s music.” I feel cheated. I want more, and my heart longs for all the rousing, sad, and beautiful Strummer songs we will never hear.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 1st, 2009 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Music. Tags for this post: Before I Get Old, Chris Salewicz, Dave Marsh, Dick Rude, Don Letts, From Westway to the World, Joe Strummer, Julien Temple, Let's Rock Again, Mick Jones, punk rock, Redemption Song, The Clash, The Future is Unwritten, The Who, White Man in Hammersmith Palais. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.