I've always been a fan of music rather than of musicians, but Joe Strummer is the closest I get to having a rock idol. Today, the notion of the socially conscious rock star is Bono, surrounded by his bodyguards, meeting Obama or IMF boss Christine Lagarde to ask them to forgive third world debts, exchange pleasantries, and get their photos taken together. Strummer was his polar opposite: a simple man of the people, traveling the third world in beat-up buses, making friends and playing music with the locals, passionately supporting his ideology from the street level rather than use his celebrity status. Fittingly, his last concert ever (and only time he shared the stage with Clash alumni Mick Jones since they disbanded) was in a benefit for striking firefighters. This performance (in Acton Hall) as well as live recordings with The Pogues have been released as Record Store Day exclusives (in 2012 and 2014, respectively) but I've missed out on them. Getting this one last week was a small compensation. Although I did buy it on Record Store Day, it's not an official RSD-related release, but a semi-legal Belgian limited release of 500 copies in black vinyl, plus 3x100 in yellow, green and purple. The cover is a simple stencil on brown carton paper, with no details on the origin of the recordings. The back cover just states "Rare and Unreleased Recordings!" but from the tracklisting it's obvious that these are mostly taken from 80's movie soundtracks. Strummer's wilderness period between The Clash and The Mescaleros has not only been musically almost barren but under-curated as well. His only album of the period, 1989's "Earthquake Weather" remains out of print, and was at the time such a disappointing flop that he did not enter a recording studio again for a decade. These tracks were recorded with his backing band Latino Rockabilly War prior to "Earthquake Weather" and show him in search of a new sound, mixing punk with rockabilly and world music. To my ears, they sound better than the album did but, maddeningly, no-one seems to have thought of collecting them before. I'd like to have a properly remastered official release, but for the time being this will do. The sound quality, for once, is great. The LP kicks off with "Ambush At Mystery Rock", a surf/western instrumental form the soundtrack of Alex Cox's punk western Straight to Hell. "Dum Dum Club" comes from the soundtrack of Sid & Nancy, another Cox movie starring Gary Oldman as Sid Vicious. It sounds like a combination of Sandinista-era Clash and Strummer's latter work with The Mescaleros. Three tracks from the 1988 Permanent Record soundtrack close side one: "Baby The Trans" is a mix of rockabilly and worldbeat, "Nefertiti Rock" is a throwback to his pub rock days with The 101ers and "Nothin' Bout Nothin'" a garage rocker with a short hard rock guitar solo - I think it's the first one I've heard in a Strummer-related album. The second side starts off with a great cover of Jimmy Cliff's reggae classic "The Harder They Come". It seems to be the version he recorded with Long Beach Dub Allstars for a 2000 compilation album and thus belongs to a whole different era than the rest of the songs here. "Evil Darling" is a vaguely Moriconne-sque ballad from Straight To Hell and "Love Kills" is a tribute to Sid Vicious from the Sid & Nancy soundtrack. It's a tremendous rocker that wouldn't sound out of place in Clash's Combat Rock album. "Trash City", as performed by Latino Rockabilly War in the Permanent Record soundtrack, is probably Strummer's finest post-Clash moment. The version included here is similar but less powerful. I've read somewhere that this album also includes "home recordings with Joe on all the instruments" and I guess that's the one they meant. The inclusion of the original would warrant the album another star, but collectors who already have the Permanent Record soundtrack may be happier with the demo. I'm not, though it gives me an incentive to buy the official reissue if and when it appears - as if I needed incentive.
***** for Dum Dum Club, Love Kills
**** for Ambush At Mystery Rock, Baby The Trans, The Harder They Come, Evil Darling, Trash City
*** for Nefertiti Rock, Nothin' Bout Nothin'
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