Before Joe passed away, the status of the Clash had already taken several quantum leaps; it had risen immeasurably since the days of the final line-up’s miserable fading away in 1985. But it took Joe’s shocking death to make evident just how much he and the Clash were quietly, and very personally, revered in all quarters across this planet. In 2012, the Clash is a bigger group than it has ever been; its audience continues to grow on a global scale, an acknowledgement that it is one of the truly greatest teams of musicians ever conceived. That the Clash’s music has stood the test of time is signified by how young kids seem to automatically empathize with the sound of the group, music in which the memory of their incendiary live performances is forever burned.
The Clash singer embraced the crackerbarrel command to think locally and act globally – hence his suzerainty as warrior chieftain of pre-yuppie Notting Hill. In a London underpass in which Joe once busked, beneath the junction of Edgware Road and Marylebone Road, the artist Gordon McHarg established his Subway Gallery – emblematically, its location is also below the elevating approach road to the Westway. On 22 December 2009, the seventh anniversary of Joe’s death, employing official-looking blue plaques, McHarg designated all four separate pavement entrances to the underground space as the Joe Strummer Subway; subsequently this has become a destination for more adventurous tourists.
Meanwhile, Strummerville, the charity set up in Joe’s name with an initial substantial donation from Damien Hirst, has provided funding for a host of new acts. In the summer of 2012, it is making its most robust and practical mission statement: the funding, building and equipping of a recording studio in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone – during that West African nation’s eleven year ‘conflict diamond’ civil war, which ended in 2002, almost all musical instruments and recording facilities had been destroyed. This is a project you imagine would have been very close to the heart of Joe Strummer, who loved world music.
The year 2012 is notable in other ways. On 21 August 2012 Joe Strummer would have celebrated his sixtieth birthday; while 22 December 2012 will mark the tenth anniversary of his passing away. Substituting for the year’s absent Glastonbury festival, the Strummer of Love, promoted by Strummerville, has been set up for the third week of August, close to Joe’s last home in Somerset.
Joe Strummer’s three albums with the Mescaleros, Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, Global a Go-Go and the posthumous Streetcore, are due to be re-released in the month of his birthday. A pair of Clash releases has also been set up for the last months of the year to complement this activity: although Sony had requested a Greatest Hits record, a compromise was arrived at, a double-CD derived from one of Joe’s set-lists from a date at Brixton Academy on the 1982 Casbah Club tour; meanwhile, a genuine collectors’ item, Sound System, a lavish Clash boxed set (an expensive production including not only CDs but also replica artefacts), has been scheduled; as has a poignant documentary, The Rise and Fall of the Clash, by the Spanish director Danny Garcia.
A measure of the abiding influence of Joe and the Clash has come during the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics. In the United States NBC television is employing ‘London Calling’ as the theme music for trailers about the games; and in the UK a sumptuous, clearly extremely expensive British Airways commercial is also using the same song. But you have to wonder: have any of the executives involved actually listened to ‘London Calling’s apocalyptic words?
Whatever the truth of that, the reality is that, ten years after he passed on, Joe Strummer’s subversive spirit and his prescient lyrics are rising up from his final resting place with even greater force than ever: like the personification of the great truth that Joe was and continues to be.
PICTURE SECTION
Muriel Johannes (second from left) was the mother of Ronald Mellor, and grandmother of Joe. Dorothy Johannes (far right) and Marian Johannes (second from right) were Joe’s great-aunts. His half-great-aunts – after the early death of the Armenian Mr Johannes, his wife Agnes married a Mr Spiers – were Mary Spiers (far left) and Maggie Spiers (centre). After the death of Muriel, his mother, when he was ten, Ron Mellor and his brother and two sisters were brought up by Agnes Spiers – Mary Spiers, to whom he was close, later gave Ron the deposit for the Mellor bungalow.
(Gerry King)
With his impish facial features, the sailor-suited Ronald Mellor shows the origins of the perpetual naughty schoolboy expressions of his son Joe Strummer. The youngest of four children, brought up in Lucknow in India, he never knew his father who died of pleurisy in 1917 whilst Ron was still a baby. With him are his brother Fred, and sisters Phyllis (second left) and Ouina.
(Gerry King)
The dashing Lieutenant Ronald Mellor during his World War II service in the Indian army. His eyes have that same floating quality as his son John Graham Mellor.
(Lucinda Mellor)
When the diplomat Ron Mellor was posted to Tehran in what was then known as Persia, Anna Mellor disliked the city: she would be shouted at in the street for not covering her head – with the characteristic stubbornness inherited by her son John, she refused to compromise.
(Phyllis Netherway)
The Mellor family in repose in 1965 at 15 Court Farm Road in Upper Warlingham in Surrey. Whilst younger son John takes up a position between Anna and Don, you can’t help but notice that David seems distanced from the gathering, as though wishing to move away.
(Jonathan Macfarland)
John Mellor at the age of 16 at the wedding reception of his cousin, Stephen Macfarland, in Acton in west London. He spent much of the day with his cousin Gerry: she was struck by his charisma. Johnny went home with a gift, a guitar given to him by his cousin on which Pete Townshend was said to have occasionally played. It was his first such instrument.
(Gerry King)
From small acorns … John Mellor’s (second from right) part as a French waiter in his school’s 1967 production of Sandy Wilson’s Free As Air gave him only one line. Third from left is Andy Secombe, the son of the comedian Harry, from whom John later acquired a drumkit. As he progressed through the school, John became a high-flier in its arts’ projects.
(Andy Secombe)
John Mellor, with his schoolfriend Ken Powell, concentrating on their work at City of London Freemen’s School in Ashtead. The headmaster would regularly write to John’s father, apologising for his inability to further John’s academic progress.
(Pablo Labritain)
Gravedigging was an archetypal occupation for aspiring rock’n’rollers – see also Rod Stewart. But when his seasoned workmates found that Woody was not really strong enough, they asked him instead to keep the cemetery clean of litter. He was paid £15.50 a week.
(Pablo Labritain)
When The 101’ers tired of pushing their equipment to gigs in a pram, they clubbed together and bought this hearse for £50. As they became more successful, they replaced it with a second-hand van. From left to right: Clive Timperley, Mole, Richard ‘Snakehips’ Dudanski, Alvaro, Jules Yewdall, Joe Strummer and ‘Big John’ Cassell.
(Julian Yewdall)
Paloma Romano came into Joe’s life at the beginning of 1975, at 101 Walterton Road. By the time they moved to a squat on Orsett Terrace in Paddington, their relationship was faltering. After Paul Simonon re-named her Palmolive, she went off in a rage to form The Slits.
(Julian Yewdall)
The Clash kicked off 1977 with a gig at the newly opened Roxy in Neal Street in Covent Garden, the punk Mecca for 100 days. As his trusty Telecaster was in for repair, Joe played a borrowed, white semi-acoustic Gretsch. Don Letts dee-jayed the beginning of the punk-reggae fusion.
(Jane Ashley)
The Clash’s gig at London’s Rainbow on May 9 1977 marked the zenith of the White Riot tour, an extraordinary sight of massed punk. The seats that they smashed cost the group £15,000, a big chunk of their CBS £100,000 advance.
(Jane Ashley)
The album cover shot of The Clash came from this same session, by Kate Simon for a Sounds ar
ticle in late 1976. Joe is clutching Paul’s bass, with its Jackson Pollock-inspired paint drips and play-by-letters neck. Joe’s hair, briefly dyed blond, was beginning to grow out at the roots.
(Kate Simon)
A consummate dramatic performer, Joe understood the art of using every inch of floor space, hurtling himself across the stage or leaping from speakers. At this gig at Camden’s Music Machine in July 1978, Sex Pistol Steve Jones joined the Clash on stage, fuelling rumours he was to replace Mick Jones.
(Justin Thomas)
Driven by his unconscious, Joe was frequently in a trance-like state onstage, communing with Jah. At this Chicago show, he was moved to a state of transcendence. The gaffer-tape ‘Strummer-guards’ on his arm saved him from guitar-string cuts.
(Kate Simon)
Paul Simonon’s painting of Joe’s ancestors’ home at Umachan on the isle of Raasay amply conveys the vigour and rigour of life on the Inner Hebridean island. Children at play would be tethered to trees, to save them tumbling down cliffs and ravines.
(Paul Simonon)
Everyone needs a hobby, and Joe Strummer and Mick Jones certainly shared one: Joe specialized in passing spliffs via an under-arm lob, which the recipient was obliged to catch.
(Kate Simon)
Although Joe had had an expensive dental re-fit the previous summer, it appeared his bridgework had vanished for this show at Bond’s in Manhattan in June 1981. ‘There were a couple of teeth situations,’ said Mick Jones. ‘Once we were in the studio and Joe couldn’t sing for weeks because he’d had a big dental session just before we started.’
(Joe Stevens)
With Pearl Harbour onstage in Tokyo performing Wanda Jackson’s Fujiyama Mama, Joe is deliriously happy. The Clash had refused to play Japan unless the fans were allowed to stand, the first act to ever be granted this concession. ‘For this they were considered Men of Honour,’ said Kosmo Vinyl.
(Sho Kikuchi, http://www.shokikuchi.com)
Joe’s fingers would permanently be in shreds when the Clash were on tour. Joe approached life like a warrior monk, which was greatly appreciated in Japan on their only tour of the country, in 1982. The shining clarity in Joe’s eyes is perhaps attributable to the absence of marijuana on the tour.
(Sho Kikuchi, http://www.shokikuchi.com)
For their arrival at Shea Stadium on October 12, 1982, the Clash had rented an open-topped 1956 Cadillac. As the vehicle’s heater was malfunctioning, the group were freezing. The image of Joe with his ‘Mohawk’, part Taxi Driver, part Mad Max, is the defining memory of him for many American fans.
(Bob Gruen)
Every night on tour it would be Joe who chose and wrote out the set-lists, in two versions, a larger one for the crew, and – as here – three narrow ones to be stuck on the top side of his and Mick’s guitars, and Paul’s bass. This trio of lists was found stuck in one of Joe’s personal diaries.
(Lucinda Mellor)
On the May 1985 busking tour, Joe would drop to his knees during his performance of Gene Vincent’s Bebop A Lula. Although the experience bonded together The Clash mk II after a miserable time in the recording studio, the end was nigh. Left-to-right: Vince White, Paul, Pete Howard, Joe, Nick Sheppard.
(Fiona Spear)
Joe happily feeding Jazz, his firstborn daughter in 1984. But he was never one to forget his priorities.
(Gaby Holford)
Joe’s children, Jazz and Lola, were soon pulled into his cowboy world. Here they are with Gaby, their mother, and Joe at a fancy-dress party at The Tabernacle in 1989. Wagons ho!
(Gaby Holford)
Joe with the author at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas on 7 November 1999, following The Mescaleros’ show in the venue.
(Rudy Fernandez)
On May 31, 1995, John ‘Joe Strummer’ Mellor and Lucinda Tait were married at Chelsea Registry Office. From now on Joe’s career finally began to take an upward curve: the days of ‘The Wilderness Years’ were behind him.
(Bob Gruen)
After being given a pair of tickets to Glastonbury as a wedding present, Joe rediscovered his love of the festival lifestyle. Central to this were the campfires he would always create, great levellers. Later, he felt his true legacy might not be the Clash, but the campfire experience.
(Jill Furmanovsky/rockarchive.com)
The complex simplicity of The Mescaleros, coupled with the affecting wit of Joe’s lyrics and vocals, soon found them selling out concerts around the world. In the second line-up of the group, Joe was reunited with his old mentor Tymon Dogg who spars with his visionary multi-instrumentalist Martin Slattery in this photograph.
(Bigpicturesphoto.com)
Despite his age, Joe frequently would perform with The Mescaleros as though he was a twenty-year-old. Joe – here at an instore performance at HMV on London’s Oxford Street to promote the Global A-Gogo album – is yet again thundering through a set that frequently contained a high percentage of Clash songs.
(Andy Butterton/PA/Empics)
The final line-up of Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros. From left-to-right: guitarist Scott Shields, drummer Luke Bullen, Joe, violinist Tymon Dogg, and bass-player Simon Stafford.
(John Zimmerman/Proper-Gander)
On Friday November 15 2002, there took place one of the great moments of rock ’n’ roll. Billed to play a benefit at Acton Town Hall in West London for the striking workers of the Fire Brigades Union, Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros were joined onstage by Mick Jones, the first time Joe and Mick had played together since 1983. The poetry of the event was lent an even greater poignancy by the death of Joe Strummer just over five weeks later.
(George Binette)
INDEX
The pagination of this electronic edition does not match the edition from which it was created. To locate a specific passage, please use the search feature of your e-book reader.
091 391–2, 397, 407–8, 411
101’ers 3, 18, 116, 121–57 passim, 161, 170, 287, 394, 628
Elgin Avenue Breakdown 309–10
Adams, Tony 563
Adebayo, Dotun 312–14
Ahmun, Aaron 513
Albertine, Viv 156, 166, 271
Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias 114, 265
Allen, Keith 9, 11, 104, 379, 477, 526–8, 537–8, 544, 558–60, 599, 601
Altruda, Joey 445
Andy, Horace 547
Ari Up 156, 165
Arias, Jesus 391–3, 397–8, 407–8, 411
Armstrong, Mo 248, 460
Armstrong, Roger 147–8
Armstrong, Tim 544, 561
Aspinall, Louise 633
Baker (roadie) 253, 349, 360
Baker, Ginger 466
Bangs, Lester 207, 242
Bardsley, David 56
Barnacle, Pete 214, 225
Barnett, Simon 590
Basey, Robert 93
Bators, Stiv 449
Beach Boys 53, 361
Beatles 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 346
Bernard, Smiley 567–8, 599, 605
Best, George 537
Bez 531, 537, 541, 548, 555, 558–60
Big Audio Dynamite 6, 393, 398–411
passim, 418, 443, 448–50, 459, 472
No. 10 Upping Street 419–21
This is Big Audio Dynamite 405
Big Youth 4, 106, 145, 165
Black Grape 531, 537, 541–2, 544
Black Hawk Down 618–19
Blackhill 265–6, 307–8
Blackwell, Chris 180, 417
Blair, Tony 572
Blond, Susan 250, 316
Bockris, Victor 290
Bohn, Chris 47, 255
Bond’s, New York 315–19, 378, 456
Bone, Ian 446
Bonebrake, DJ 543
Bono 11, 316
Boo, Andy 575, 583
Boogie (John Tiberi) 138, 146, 148, 154
Boot, Adrian 613
Boshier, Derek 80–81
Bowles, Henry 204, 242–3, 276
Bragg, Billy 384
Bright, Dick 436
Brilleaux, Lee 120–21
Broomfield, Nick 238
Broughton, Connie 499
Brown, Arthur 92
Buck, Paul 46–65 passim, 71, 74–5, 146–7, 155, 162
Buckler, Kit 93, 359
Bullen, Luke 608–9, 611, 625, 633, 636, 638
Burroughs, William 290
Buscemi, Steve 454–6, 615, 622
Bush, Kate 252
Bushell, Gary 256
Buzzcocks 196, 225
Byford, Mike 590
Byrne, Chris 622
Calvert, Jill 98, 104–5, 110–11, 113, 116, 131, 139–40, 146, 154–6, 160, 199
Calvert, Nigel 114
Candy Mountain 427
Cantona, Eric 545–6
Carasov, Sean 350, 355, 363, 370, 371, 388
Carroll, Ted 147–8
Carter, Carlene 234
Carthy, Martin 601
Casablancas, Julien 611
Cash, Johnny 12, 234, 534, 623–4, 642
Cassell, Simon 114, 124, 129, 137
CBS 188–92, 199–201, 205, 223, 249, 300–301, 303, 320, 335, 393
Central School of Art 4, 71, 75–84, 87–8, 145
Redemption Song Page 74