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Post by larry emdur is my hero! on Dec 24, 2002 13:00:10 GMT 10
Joe Strummer, the leader of legendary Seventies punk band The Clash, has died of a suspected heart attack aged 50. A spokesman for Strummer, real name John Graham Mellor, said the singer died at home in Broomfield, Somerset, on Sunday. U2 frontman Bono paid tribute to Strummer on Monday saying: "The Clash was the greatest rock band. They wrote the rule book for U2. It's such a shock." Members of the Clash were believed to be considering a one-off reunion in 2003, as part of their induction ceremony at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in the US. some notable clash songs: London Calling Should I Stay Or Should I Go Rock The Casbah White Riot  The Clash in their heyday: Strummer is third from left
source BBC News: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2600669.stm |
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Post by TheAstronaut on Dec 24, 2002 13:09:17 GMT 10
Rock the Casbah is in top 100 favourite songs of all time....
I wonder how he died?
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Post by Glen on Dec 24, 2002 17:47:23 GMT 10
Heart attack
R.I.P.
BILLY BRAGG: THE JOE I KNEW
By Billy Bragg
Musician and songwriter
The Clash were the greatest rebel rock band of all time. Their commitment
to making political pop culture was the defining mark of the British punk
movement.
They were also a self-mythologising, style-obsessed mass of contradictions.
That's why they were called The Clash.
They wanted desperately to be rock stars but they also wanted to make a
difference.
While Paul Simonon flashed his glorious cheekbones and Mick Jones threw
guitar hero shapes, no-one struggled more manfully with the gap between the
myth and the reality of being a spokesman for your generation than Joe
Strummer.
All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of
media scrutiny takes real integrity.
Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.
Joe opened the back door of the theatre and let us in, he sneaked us back
to the hotel for a beer, he too believed in the righteous power of
rock'n'roll.
And if he didn't change the world he changed our perception of it. He
crossed the dynamicism of punk with Johnny Too Bad and started that
punky-reggae party.
RADICAL BAND
He drew us, thousands strong, onto the streets of London in support of Rock
Against Racism.
He sent us into the the garage to crank up our electric guitars. He made me
cut my hair.
The ideals that still motivate me as an artist come not from punk, not even
from the Clash, but from Joe Strummer.
The first wave of punk bands had a rather ambivalent attitude to the
politics of late 70s Britain. The Sex Pistols, The Damned, the Stranglers,
none of them, not even the Jam, came close to the radicalism that informed
everything the Clash did and said.
The US punk scene was even less committed. The Ramones, Talking Heads,
Heartbreakers and Blondie all were devoid of politics.
Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin
and a pair of bondage trousers.
Instead, the incendiary lyrics of the Clash inspired 1,000 more bands on
both sides of the Atlantic to spring up and challenge their elders and the
man that we all looked to was Joe Strummer.
INSPIRING FORM
He was the White Man in Hammersmith Palais who influenced the Two Tone
Movement. He kept it real and inspired the Manic Street Preachers.
And he never lost our respect. His recent albums with the Mescaleros found
him on inspiring form once again, mixing and matching styles and rhythms in
celebration of multi-culturalism.
At his final gig, in November in London, Mick Jones got up with him and
together they played a few old Clash tunes.
It was a benefit concert for the firefighters union.
One of the hardest things to do in rock'n'roll is walk it like you talk it.
Joe Strummer epitomised that ideal and I will miss him greatly.
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