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Underground > Radio & Music >

Joe Strummer R.I.P.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:58 / 23.12.02

08:56 / 23.12.02

I can't find any meaningful info from that link, but the BBC site says he died at home, of a heart attack.

I was never a Clash/Strummer fan, but it's a bit disconcerting how the punk 'old guard' seem to be keeling over.

09:22 / 23.12.02

The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Make me noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely

09:49 / 23.12.02

Fucking hell. Seems an inappropriate time to start with a "never much cared for the Clash" spiel. I know at least several people who are going to be very upset indeed about this..

10:23 / 23.12.02

That surprises me, Riz. I'd have thought they'd have been right up your street.

Very sad day. But we do have the retrospective telly to look forward to (he says, trying to snatch a raisin from from a mound of shit).

10:47 / 23.12.02

BBC Report

The Clash and London Calling are fantastic records, for completely different reasons. The first is pure, focussed energy. The second is anything but that, structurally a rambling mess with emotional peaks and troughs all over the place, but it's a charming mess with a consistently high standard of writing. You can knock everything else Strummer ever put his name to (though his Pogues stuff wasn't half as bad as a lot of people like to claim), but those two records honestly deserve their reputation as classics.

11:06 / 23.12.02

I'm only just starting to listen to The Clash, and I just saw him in concert in June. Christ.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:56 / 23.12.02

That's bad. I've just been phoning everyone I know to pass on the bad news. And they're all gutted.

Matthew Fluxington

12:42 / 23.12.02

Oh god. That's horrible. I just recently became a real Clash fan too.

Such a young age to die, too. This is heartbreaking.

The Natural Way

12:49 / 23.12.02

I shall play 'Atom Tan' loudly in tribute. And I don't care what you fuckers have to say about 'Combat Rock'.

12:50 / 23.12.02

I wanted to post the lyrics to Love Kills from the Sid and Nancy soundtrack, but couldn't find them online. Needless to say how unfortunate his early demise is. His music will remain

12:52 / 23.12.02

I loves me some Combat Rock: partakes the experimentation and humor of Sandinista without the sprawl, distilling it into a set of short sharp shocks.

You know he heard the drums of war...

12:54 / 23.12.02

Holly fuck. I lived by their first record for years and still put it on when I need something incredible. This is terrible...

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

14:13 / 23.12.02

Only half a century.

And the fucking Backstreet Boys are still alive!

There is no Godess.

14:47 / 23.12.02

Okay, let's declare a moratorium on "Joe's dead, but __________ still lives" gags right fucking now, okay?

Matthew Fluxington

14:55 / 23.12.02

Agreed. It's tasteless and disrespectful.

In my own little tribute, I've put up an mp3 of Joe performing "(White Man In) Hammersmith Palais" on my blog for anyone who wants it. It's a fantastic and energetic performance, definitely an example of why the loss of Strummer is so tragic.

15:01 / 23.12.02

My first awareness that music could be political - not just in a vague protest way about the nature of governments and power in general, but actually be based on current headlines - was an Entertainment Tonight interview with Joe Strummer and Mick Jones when they were touring to support "Combat Rock." I was in junior high school.

An interview from 1988.
excerpt: Q: Do you feel good about things now generally?

JS: Oh man, you know. There's certain things you gotta decide in life.... If you ain't confronting them--if you ain't thinkin' about man and God and law, then you ain't thinkin' about nothin'. There ain't no use thinkin' about sex or drugs or rock 'n' roll. That's all red herrings. If you ain't thinkin' about man and God and law then you ain't thinkin' about nothin'.

Q: What do you think about man and God and law? Do you believe in God?

JS: Well, I would say it was about time that you believe in something. And sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll ain't it.... A lot of people used to think they were.

15:50 / 23.12.02

The first thing I see when I wake up, and the last thing I see before I go to bed is my Clash Bankrobber poster on the opposite wall.

Joe Strummer was one of the internal rock and roll pantheon in my life. His voice lent a lot to my world, and I will miss him terribly.

London Calling was one of the first LPs I ever bought with my own money from running, uhm, errands for my Dad.

::aphonia::

Murray Hamhandler

17:08 / 23.12.02

Not cool at all. Why does this keep happening to the not-so-old punk guys? Okay, DeeDee I understood. But Joey? Strummer? A sad, sad day.

03:24 / 24.12.02

I was wearing my Clash shirt at work today, when a little girl asked if I'd heard the news. I hadn't. So she told me. I always liked the Clash.

Tryphena Absent

13:51 / 24.12.02

God, this is so fucking depressing.

18:29 / 25.12.02

It's a sad event but I find all the responses above(and those on the Blog links) quite touching. Kinda what Barbelith is here for, to let us express our feelings and elect our own pantheon of saints.

Brigade du jour

19:38 / 30.12.02

Message for Jymnn Runce. If it makes you feel any better, I think Combat Rock ... well, rocks.

RIP JS. Thanks for being in such a fucking cool band.

Matthew Fluxington

21:07 / 30.12.02

Hey, I love Combat Rock too - especially "Inoculated City", "Know Your Rights", and "Should I Stay Or Should I Go". Classic stuff. It's the earlier, more straight ahead punk stuff that I don't enjoy as much - I think most of their first record is good stuff, but I don't really get off on it as much as the later material.

Brigade du jour

23:20 / 30.12.02

To answer the thread question How Do You Rock?, we must say play Know Your Rights. Loud. And jump up and down on the floor, preferably upstairs so everybody complains at the increased vibration.

He was cremated today with 'Question Authority' printed on his coffin or something, I think.

19:32 / 05.04.04

hey
how is everyone? bored? me to.
im only 15, so i only got into the clash fairly recently, however after hearing their song police and theives in the movie rude boy ive been obsessed with their music. ive only heard a few of joe strummers solo songs, such as love kills. i honestly dont really know too much about his solo career. i would, however, definatley like to learn more.

i was reading some of the posts on js death. and sorry for sounding like such of a teenager here, but, his dying bites bites big time. haha.

anyways, as i said, i love the clash, if anyone would like to discuss them feel free to email me at whokilldbambi(at)aol.com

take care everyone

joe strummer r.i.p.-you kicked ass!!

20:20 / 05.04.04

without wanting to sound pedantic, the song Police And Theives is actually an old reggae/dub tune by Junior Murvin/scratch perry, and covered by The Clash on the first album in a top punk-funk stylee....
But yeah, top tune, top bloke....

lord nuneaton savage

19:06 / 07.04.04

I before E White Riot, I before E.