Today is International Clash Day, which was started by KEXP-FM to give middle-aged milquetoasts an opportunity to tell us how London Calling changed their lives, on whatever social media platform they're stinking up these days.
No one gives a crap about The Clash anymore except a few old diehards, which suits me just fine. With the happy exception of a relative handful of very cool cats, Clash fandom had become so feeble and putrid over the years that it nearly destroyed my love for the band (all fandoms eventually get toxic). Luckily, it ultimately failed in that task.
Anyhow, I wrote this overview of Joe Strummer's post-Clash catalog for Classic Rock on assignment, back when The Future is Unwritten documentary was released, but I don't believe it ended up running. It was a long ways back, but I seem to remember it got 86'd because the editors felt Joe's solo work wasn't of enough interest to the readers.
I do believe I got paid for it anyway, so there's that. And now I can run it here...
Joe Strummer's post-Clash solo career got off to a frenetic start. After taking a beating for 1985's quasi-Clash clusterfuck Cut the Crap, Strummer re-teamed with former partner Mick Jones the following year, for both the 'Love Kills' single (for Alex Cox' Sid and Nancy biopic) as well as co-writing and producing No. 10 Upping St., the second album by Jones' new group, Big Audio Dynamite.
Strummer followed that with a full-length soundtrack LP for Cox' controversial antiwar film, Walker. Enlisting a full cohort of seasoned studio musicians, Strummer eschewed rock altogether for a rich brew of Latin jazz and traditional American music, which earned him back the critical respect Crap had squandered.
But a plot got lost somewhere - a second soundtrack effort (1988's Permanent Record) was a near piss-take and horrified the film's producers. Strummer then hooked up with a bizarre radical sect called Class War and toured on their behalf that same year.
Joe then moved house to Los Angeles, where an up-and-coming Hollywood manager (the late Gerry Harrington) tried to get him interested in being a rock star again. But Strummer was losing himself in a fantasy world of beatniks, gangsters and lovelorn senoritas, and writing reams of lyrics that were essentially incomprehensible to everyone but himself. He eventually released a straight-ahead rock album in 1989, but it bombed badly and he lost a small fortune on a self-financed tour.
However, Strummer didn't mope around for long - The Pogues hired him as producer in 1990, and as Shane MacGowan's touring replacement in '91/'92.
Several projects were announced and scuppered over the next several years (including a Clash reunion or two), leading fans to wonder if Joe would ever record or perform again. But in 1999 he emerged from his self-described "wilderness years" to kick off four feverish years of touring, recording and all-night raging with The Mescaleros before his death at the age of fifty.
Joe Strummer's natural environment was the stage, not the studio, so the ultimate document of his work is a live album (which is available as part of a Mescaleros boxset), if not a live DVD (which is not).
It was on stage that his muse was truly channeled, a fact Strummer knew all too well himself. Joe did release a handful of solo albums, but none reflect the legendary shamanic power he projected onstage. That said, each contain a few cuts as good as anything The Clash ever recorded, making them well-worth investigating.
The 101'ers: Elgin Avenue Breakdown (Astralwerks/EMI)
A compilation of studio and live material by Strummer's pre-Clash barnstormers, Elgin is a document of a lost world of hippie squats and proto-punk pub rock. Every bit as as frantic and speed-fueled as the early Clash, The 101'ers took their cues from Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, rather than Iggy Pop and Johnny Thunders. So in place of the rage and sneering of punk, you get joy and exhilaration with your thrashing beats and grinding guitars.
Lovely, life-affirming stuff... and their live shows sound like indoor hurricanes. (8 of 10)
Joe Strummer: Walker - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Astralwerks/EMI)
Joe's first full length work following Cut the Crap might as well be from another planet. Infinitely more memorable than the film it was composed for, the Walker soundtrack is a rich 50/50 mix of percussive and atmospheric Latin and Appalachian music that's a million miles away from West London in both sound and spirit.
Much of the credit really has to go to Stummer's assembled players, particularly the virtuoso guitar/mandolin/ banjo/whatever player Zander Schloss (Circle Jerk who also played Kevin in Repo Man). But 'Tennessee Rain' is as classic a piece of Americana as any written by an English public schoolboy. (7 of 10)
Joe Strummer and the Rockabilly War/ Various Artists: Permanent Record Soundtrack (Epic)
Joe was so lost in space in the late Eighties that when hired to score a film about teenage suicide in the Pacific Northwest, Strummer quickly squeezed out a batch of Southwestern-flavored garage rock throwaways with lyrics and rhythms plucked from his 1950s fantasy world. The producers of the film were outraged and only 5 of the 12 songs Joe recorded were released.
These are of minor interest, with only the catchy punkabilly stomper, 'Baby the Trans' and the mournful 'Nothin' 'Bout 'Nothin' on par with Joe's Clash work.
Outtakes circulate on bootleg but are every bit as awful as Joe later admitted they were. (5 of 10)
Joe Strummer: Earthquake Weather (Epic)
Largely initiated by Harrington, Earthquake is essentially another showcase for Schloss's dazzling guitar wizardry. Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons was plucked from a psychiatric hospital and paired with Flea clone Lonnie Marshall on bass. A disengaged Strummer sketched out some random riffs, upon which the band worked up rough simulations of mid-period Clash rockers in his absence.
Joe blessed these rave-ups with some of his career-worst lyrics ("Doing a dance called the Robocop/This gesture means I love you") and then pissed off to the desert when Sony suits came to the studio to hear the album. Total world sales: 7,000. (6 of 10)
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (Hellcat) Joe's first Mesacaleros album is like his last, a kind of compilation album of recordings from various sessions with various players. As such Rock Art suffers from a kind of schizophrenia, much like late-period Clash.
This was a different Mecaleros lineup than the later version; this one works up a kind of tropical soft rock with Britpop flourishes. There are no stunners here, nothing that would convert the neophyte. And the better tracks, like 'Tony Adams' and 'Yalla Yalla', would grow immeasurably in stature as epic, Stones-like jams in concert.
But seeing that it got Joe off the couch and back onstage, it might as well be Sgt. Pepper's. (6 of 10)
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: Global a Go-Go (Hellcat)
Strummer spent his nights in the Nineties raging at festivals like WOMAD and Glastonbury and this album captures the universalist idealism of that era. It all seems a bit naive in the post-9/11 era but Global remains an eclectic and vigorous folk-rock hootenanny.
The deliriously catchy 'Johnny Appleseed' shows Joe in Springsteen/Dylan mode and 'Cool 'n' Out' and the title track leaven the funky travelogue rhythms with some welcome British guitar aggro. 'Mega Bottle Ride' is a vintage Faces track in all but name, and 'Shaktar Donetsk' is a moody, brooding ballad that the early ELO would be proud to call their own. (7 of 10)
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: Streetcore (Hellcat)
Having finally gotten the eclecticism out of his system, Joe set about making a straight-forward rock album before his death. What was eventually constructed from those sessions is anything but, though Streetcore does have more Clash-like material than its predecessors.
With the vocals unrecorded, the gaps had to be made up with cover versions and a dub of his World Service voiceovers pasted onto an unfinished track. 'Burning Streets' sounds like a lost Oasis ballad, but began life as a very Clash-like rocker. The instant garage-rock classic, 'Coma Girl', and the very Clash-like punk-reggae, 'Get Down Moses', are wistful reminders of what could have been. (6 of 10)
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: Live at Acton Town Hall (Hellcat)
After a white-hot NYC residency in April, longtime Strummer watchers noticed his energy seemed to flag throughout 2002, making this set less bracing than ones found on earlier bootlegs. But this gig's significance is incalculable, since it marks the first time Joe and Mick Jones shared the stage in nearly 20 years, and would be the last time they would ever do so again.
The circumstances were eerie: the gig was a benefit for striking London firefighters and Mick succumbed to a sudden urge to grab a guitar and plug in during 'Bankrobber.' He'd stay on for two more numbers, 'I Fought the Law' and 'White Riot.' (7 of 10)
Let's Rock Again (Image DVD)
The Mescaleros had evolved into a post-modern Grateful Dead, serving up a rich brew of Clash numbers, classic ska moonstompers, punk classics (like 'Blitzkrieg Bop' and '1969') and jammed-out originals for a mix of veteran Clash fans and newly minted punk rockers.
The band toured incessantly, Dead-style, and this poignant documentary captured Joe trying to sell Global a Go-Go to a largely apathetic music industry. Rude eschews full performances but the moments he captures are electric; a multi-headed hydra of sound with Joe reaching a new peak of his powers. (8 of 10)
Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (Legacy DVD)
Joe's longtime mate Julien Temple made a warts and all documentary covering his entire life, from his peripatetic childhood to his squatting days with the 101ers to international stardom with The Clash and beyond. Joe's charming cartoons are animated as sequeways and Temple digs up footage that will surprise the most dedicated collector.
The campfire chats are a bit precious, as are the testimonies from professional testimonialists like Bono and Johnny Depp. But otherwise a worthy document of a colorful and charismatic performer. (8 of 10)
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