No Ordinary Joe

It's been Joe Strummer week around my house. First off, I finished the really excellent Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography Of Joe Strummer by Chris Salewicz (his Mick and Keith is also highly recommended). It's easily one the best, and certainly one of the most thorough, rock biogs I've ever had my hands on. The only problem being that when reading about a life like Joe's, one feels only jealously and inadequacy at one's own meagre existence. Even during his so called lost years between the end of the Clash and the emergence of the Mescaleros, he really seemed to be having a ball. Bastard.

I also laid out for the DVD of Joe Strummer:The Future is Unwritten. reading the afore-mentioned biog filled me in on the fact the Julien Temple, the director, was a close mate of Joe's and it certainly shows here. This is rock n' Roll documentary as it should be, a film worthy of it's subject. Go and buy it, even if you don't like Joe, a great rockin' history, the footage is revelatory. The Clash showed how to do it, get in, make one of the greatest records of all time, change everything, stop, do not reform.


Earthquake Weather, Joe's first solo non soundtrack album, isn't the greatest record ever made and not a patch on the great work he later did with the Mescaleros (If you're reading this then I hardly need tell you that The Clash were one of THE great groups and their records, for the most part, reflect this) but it's still worth a listen. It's out of print at the moment as far as I'm aware (no doubt it'll be re-released at some stage) so here, for your delectation, is one of the highlights, Island Hopping.

I was lucky enough to see Joe Strummer live three times (with the Mescaleros of course, I'm not that bloody old), twice in the Olympia and once over in London supporting the Who at Wembley Arena. I've great memories of the Olympia shows - His changing of the lyrics of 'A Message To You Rudi' to incorporate mentions of O' Connell Street, His leg going a mile a minute as he shouted at the band, half his age, to hurry up into 'White Riot', White Man in Hammersmith Palais and Joe walks back out at the end to urge us to support local groups. Joe was the man, plain and simple. To Paraphrase Bob Dylan, talking about Johnny Cash, You could set your compass by Joe.


If anyone knows where I can get hold of some of the Joe Strummer radio shows from the BBC world service then let me know.