Monday, August 8, 2011

Priorities: I haz them!


Lately, this front has been quiet as I've been trying to push my life along in other areas. One of which has been searching out a new day job. My job now pays more than the mall and, as someone who's held down plenty of those jobs, I'm grateful. Still, even in this economy, I've had the feeling for a while now that I can find something a little more satisfactory.

It occurred to me tonight that, even though I was never offered the job, the most promising lead I got this year was one based on my writing. I wonder if that's supposed to mean anything...

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

RetroActive*: Cool'n Out with the Mighty Joe Strumm



*This piece was originally written and unleashed on the world on December 26, 2005. So it's safe to assume that I was probably plied with nothing but time, whiskey and records. Still, I had to go digging cause there was something in here that resonates for me still, to this day. Enjoy.

Steel yourself citizens, this just might be a little more myopic navel-gazing than you're used to. But, for whatever reason, this has been on my mind a lot in the last week or so. Maybe it's the notable dates of this month weighting heavily on my mind. Maybe it's a resurging interest in Jeff Buckley and soul music. Maybe it's just a need for the thirstfully honest music that only Joe Strummer could make. And while I'm not sure what brought this train of thought on, I know this much: I'm still bummed we didn't get more music out of Joe Strummer.

We never got a chance to get disillusioned with his post glory days output like say,... Johnny Rotten (that's Lydon to us), Rollins(yeah, I said it... but can anybody tell me what the album after Come In and Burn was?) or even Joe's Clash compatriot Mick Jones. True, Mr. Strummer released three albums on Hellcat Records before driving that great big cadillac in the sky, but i never felt disillusioned by them.

Actually, that's not entirely true. I believe it was about halfway through his sophomore effort, Global A Go-Go, that I realized the Clash were never coming back. And god forbid, if they did, they should've been making a reggae record. But still, once you got past the initial shock of Strummer sans Jones, these were good records. Truly global music as they incorporated his gutter folk music vibe with a little punk, a little hip-hop and whatever else his band could throw at the wall.

And then, there was that voice. I always joked with my friends that you knew who was singing for the Clash by how intelligible the words were. But underneath that, there was always this voice screaming for a little more humanity in the world. A voice that would threaten to hobble the hippies for, despite wanting the same goals, not being hard core enough. In a different time, it would have been interesting to see if Strummer would have been a Communist or a Socialist(i.e. guns vs. no guns).

Nonetheless, Strummer's Hellcat output featured an older, more somber and wise voice that at moments seemed to want to escape the weight of the Clash legend. At turns however, his voice still seemed to brilliantly rage with the intonation of "I AM Joe Strummer, dammit!" That uncontrollable fire- I think that's the sort of thing I miss the most. Strummer always held a gravitas that most others could only aspire to. Like Eddie Vedder. Does anybody else miss Mr. Vedder's wino antics?

I am saddened to think that I've only these three Hellcat records but happy at the same time that I've got them at all. It may just be time to move on to Bruce Springsteen. It could be argued that Strummer is what Springsteen would have been were he English. It could be argued that Springsteen is what Strummer would have been if you could understand his words. It could be argued... but I'm not sure I'm ready to understand the words.