Joe Strummer "Earthquake Weather" 1989***

I wasn't old enough to catch (pseudo) Clash at the historic Rock In Athens festival in '85, but I had the privilege of seeing Joe Strummer with the Mescaleros during his next appearence in Greece on November 2001, only a few months before he suddenly died (at 50) from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. I left absolutely exuberant, thinking "so this is how a true rock'n'roll concert is!". Most concerts give you the impression of witnessing a spectacle, more or less like in the theatre: The play may tell the truth, the writer may have invested his soul in it, but what you are witnessing is a show, calculated to produce an emotional response. If the actor is good enough, he tricks you into believing that it's all real. Strummer was not a fake. He was a veritable man of the people, playing his heart out, having fun, absorbing the audience's love and returning it twofold. His musical history and people who met him speak of a man who loved and respected his fans and adhered closely to his socialist principles. It's telling that he never reformed The Clash despite repeated multi-million offers. From the group's disbandment until his death he only shared the stage with Clash co-founder Mick Jones once: At a benefit for striking firemen. What mountains of cash could not do, happened in the spirit of solidarity to the strikers. Maybe this goes some way into explaining his lengthy disappearance from the music scene: Strummer needed the camaraderie, the feeling of belonging to a group with a mission. Between The Clash's breakup and the formation of the Mescaleros (not just a band, but first and foremost a bunch of friends) he spent 16 years in a musical wilderness, during which he only completed this one album, recorded in 1989 with the help of a band he named Latino Rockabilly War. He appeared in a few films, wrote music and songs for a few soundtracks, became a touring member of The Pogues for a year - but mostly basked under the Andalucian sun, having broken his ties to the record industry. "Earthquake Weather" was a half-hearted attempt at a comeback, but it suffered from weak production and even weaker promotion. It ended up selling a mere 7.000 copies when "Combat Rock" had sold 5 million. It fell out of print and even now is only available in the form of "manufactured on demand" legal CD-Rs, cheap knock-offs with photocopied covers which, to top it all off, are credited to Strummer & The Mescaleros who were formed a whole decade later - it's as if his record company is still punishing him for his uncommercial stance. But exactly just how justified was the company's lack of faith and public's indifference? I'd say he had already lost the record company's trust when Clash released "Sandinista!" - an experimental triple LP for the price of a single one. Their next record "Combat Rock" was taken out of the band's hands and given to an outside producer to make fit for mass consumption. It spawned two huge hits "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" and "Rock The Casbah". I'm sure that, by giving him another chance, they were secretly hoping for a similarly big single. They would then be able to look past the rest of the album and its experiments with world music and focus on pushing the hit. It didn't turn out that way - Strummer would never write a hit again. He had the lyrics and the vision, he had the stage presence, but he was still one half of a classic songwriting team: By themselves, he and Jones were good songwriters - but only together they could achieve greatness. As for the fans, they obviously wanted him to continue on the punk road. He had gone that way with "Cut The Crap" and, although the album was weak and received terrible reviews, it still made the charts - No.16 in the UK and No.88 in USA. He wanted to try something new, but no-one knew what to make of it - it would be another 10 years before critics and fans accepted his fusion of rock'n'roll and world music. Retrospectively, this album makes sense as an awkward evolutionary link between the Clash and the Mescaleros. It suffers from a somewhat muddy production, with layers of instruments not clearly defined and drums buried low in the mix. Joe's lyrics and vocals are, on other hand, as good as ever and Zander Schloss's lead guitar heroics a welcome addition. The album's opening sentence is an affirmative "Let's Rock Again" from lead single "Gangsterville", a song strongly reminiscent of Sandinista!'s "Junco Partner". "King of the Bayou" carries a New Orleans flavor and "Island Hopping" sports a Carribbean rhythm. Now, The Clash have been courting reggae from their very beginning, but this was the first time that Strummer really tapped into the spirit of the tropics. "Slant Six" is a return to his punk roots and ''Dizzys Goatee" (about jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie) dub adorned with electric blues guitar solos: never heard that before-or since! "Shouting Street" strays into Chuck Berry territory, just like Joe's pre-Clash days with The 101ers. "Boogie With Your Children" is a disco attrocity. I can only hope that Joe was going for a sarcastic, Frank Zappa-style,anti-disco satire - but I'm afraid he was seriously trying to copy Prince! "Leopardskin Limousines" is an endearing acoustic ballad - another unsuspected side to this former punk. "Ride Your Donkey" is a likeable reggae-ish ditty. "Sikorsky Parts", "Passport to Detroit" and "Highway One Zero Street" are a more or less successful melange of rock, punk & funk. They would fit but pass unnoticed in any Clash album circa 1979-82. "Jewellers & Bums", on the other hand, sounds like the product of talentless Clash imitators. The album closes with a beautiful Latino ballad called "Sleepwalk", proving that yes, Joe Strummer must be a blood relative to Manu Chao. Another generation, nationality and descent, but there's something very strong linking those two. To summarize, if you can just forget about the Clash and if you've enjoyed the Mescaleros, this is an album well worth discovering. Here's hoping to a decent sounding remastered (and, hopefully, remixed) version in the future, but in the mean time the original LP's and CD's can be found second hand - and, of course, there are always the torrent sites for those with shallow pockets...

**** for Gangsterville, King of the Bayou, Island Hopping, Sleepwalk

*** for Slant Six, Dizzys Goatee, Shouting Street, Leopardskin Limousines, Sikorsky Parts, Highway One Zero Street, Ride Your Donkey, Passport to Detroit

** for Boogie With Your Children, Jewellers & Bums