This past Tuesday would have been Joe Strummer’s 60th birthday had we not lost him like so many of our great voices. He was only 50 when he died and its hard to believe its already been ten years without him. In their prime the Clash were widely christened “The Only Band that Matters” and that sentiment has lost none of its truth in the passing years. With Paul bringing the style and swagger, Mick supplying consummate musicianship and Joe giving voice to the cause, the Clash succeeded in transcending the numerous labels heaped upon them in their all-too-brief existence. They were too big for punk and 2-tone’s limited scope but never lost sight of the values intrinsic to those worlds; infusing them into their later experimentation with rockabilly, rap, pop and the endless directions they pursued. They were punk with a soulful spirit; 2-tone with an incensed snarl; pop with an idealist’s manifesto. The intensity of their performances is legendary and has been described variously as a rallying discourse, a religious experience and a call to arms. It was the kind of intensity and urgency that can’t be controlled or sustained, always growing and looking for a release, and they would succumb to its pressure after ten short years, six albums and a vibrant flash of inspiration that we’re still only just learning to fully appreciate.
I was nine or ten the first time I heard Joe’s voice. I remember stumbling upon a cassette copy of Combat Rock somewhere around the house that must have belonged to my sister or one of her friends before she moved out. The only music I’d really been exposed to at this point were my parent’s old records; Steppenwolf, Janis, Elvis…not the worst but certainly not my own. I remember thinking the first time I heard “Know Your Rights” that it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before; it sounded angry and a little weird to my novice ears. There was a definite, desperate passion in the voice; he was pleading for me to listen, to act, to do….something, though I didn’t know what. I listened to the tape a few times and smiled whenever I heard “Rock the Casbah” or “Should I Stay or Should I Go” on the radio, thinking to myself “Hey, I know what this is”. After awhile my tastes changed; within a few years I was caught up in a whirlwind of De La Soul and Tribe Called Quest and The Clash had slipped away with my parent’s Buddy Holly and Creedence albums. I never saw the cassette after those first few months.
I didn't find the Clash again until I was sixteen. I was looking for new sounds and a brief flirtation with Nirvana and grunge provided a smooth transition into punk. Whereas with my first experience I had jumped in at the end when the band was on the verge of collapse, this time I started in their frantic, idealistic youth. After hearing “Janie Jones” on a local AM punk radio show and being reminded of my first introduction a few years earlier I almost immediately ran out and picked up their 1977 self titled release . It was everything my angst-ridden teenage heart and soul yearned for; loud, confrontational, inspiring, alive. Songs like “White Riot”, “Hate and War” and “Career Opportunities” fueled my anger over social injustice and inequality and gave my teenage anger a cause to rail against and the words with which to do so. I spent the latter part of my teen years devouring Joe’s words; his thoughts and ideals about equality and justice. His belief that the poor and downtrodden masses were worth something; something more than their current lot anyway. That they deserved to be heard and the Clash could deliver this message to the world without compromising their integrity or losing sight of the message. I believed in the Clash and their message and still do to this day.
As my tastes evolved over time I was pleased to find that the Clash’s expansive catalogue kept pace. The two-tone beats of “Rudie Can’t Fail” and “Wrong ‘em Boyo” were there for my obsessive Specials phase while the haunting strums of “Straight to Hell” complimented my more melancholy tastes. I have sat and listened to "London Calling" until the days were indistinguishable and spread themselves leisurely across the span of a fortnight or more, and there have been near year-long stretches where I've not heard a word in Joe's voice, but have thought warmly of the words with the knowledge that they were intrinsically part of me. Other than the Cure no band has woven itself so completely into my fabric.
I remember the last and only time I saw Joe live; playing a small club in Phoenix with the Mescaleros. A weeknight concert and the general set-up of the club allowed me to push my way to only a few feet from the stage.Joe paced the spotlit stage; boxing our ears with his well honed verbal assault that had lost none of it's frenetic energy after two decades of touring. I'd like to say I remember every song he played; every note and every word that transpired over those two hours, but in my excitement it passed before me in a glorious, hazy dream scape of sight and sound. When the encore came he spoke of Joey Ramone who had died less than a year earlier; about the importance of the Ramones to the Clash and every English band in the early punk years (and, in truth, to every rock band since as we are now realizing). He closed the night with a cover of Joey's classic "Blitzkrieg Bop"; and then the Blitzkrieg was over. I went home feeling like I'd cheated time somehow; that I'd been allowed a glimpse of some transitory yet timeless phenomenon, like the last bit of dream bleeding into the waking dawn. By the end of the year he was gone.
I'm older now; my hair isn't blue anymore and I packed my patch and button covered jacket away years ago. Most of all I'm not the angry, confrontational, punk I used to be. I know what I believe and try to live by those beliefs and let others do the same; but there are times when I feel the anger building just below the calm, responsible exterior; this twisting, clawing indignation building in the back of my throat at whatever social injustice has stirred me. I feel it and I know it's Joe reminding me to keep fighting the wrongs of the world; that there are some beliefs that must hold true and not be compromised. I don't know if its a code to live by, or whether it means he's my hero, but I like to think I'm a better man because I have that guiding voice. In the end Joe wouldn't have wanted to be thought of as a hero anyway; had that sort of status attracted him he could have achieved it by simply following in the footsteps of his father, a diplomat, or his mother, a nurse. Instead he chose a life where the music and the message were the weapons of change for a voiceless, downtrodden majority. In the end he is more than a hero; he is words and ideas that continue to inspire. With that in mind, I'll end with some of those words:
“I'd like to say that people can change anything they want to; and that means everything in the world. Show me any country and there'll be people in it. And it's the people that make the country. People have got to stop pretending they're not on the world. People are running about following their little tracks. I am one of them. But we've all gotta stop just following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything; this is something that I'm beginning to learn. People are out there doing bad things to each other; it's because they've been dehumanized. It's time to take that humanity back into the centre of the ring and follow that for a time. Greed... it ain't going anywhere! They should have that on a big billboard across Times Square. Think on that. Without people you're nothing."
- Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten (2007)
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