Joe Strummer: Streetcore : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

When Joe Strummer was around to take for granted, most of his solo projects seemed sadly desultory: Strummer's passion was never in question, but his band the Mescaleros suggested a toy Clash with more world-music spice. In his unexpected absence, however, their 2001 second album, Global A Go-Go, sounds stronger, more plugged into current conundrums, even as his old bandmate Mick Jones' Big Audio Dynamite records keep getting harder to reach for.

Now, Mescaleros guitarist Scott Shields and keyboardist Martin Slattery have finished what amounts to Strummer's detailed sketch for the group's third release. Streetcore continues the band's lightly amplified muscular-acoustic sound. Because his restless, barbed self will never be back to shake us awake, it's almost more fun to hear Strummer spill his subconscious in numbers such as "Ramshackle Day Parade" (Marilyn Monroe meets William Burroughs meets U-Roy) than to partake in the sturdy romance-adventure yarn "Coma Girl." A few songs give you an honest-to-goodness pang: The cover of Bobby Charles' "Before I Grow Too Old" (here called "Silver and Gold") is about kissing life on the lips before it's too late. And Strummer wrote his own finest eulogy in "Long Shadow," a number intended -- talk about pangs -- for Johnny Cash: "If you put it all together, you didn't even once relent/You cast a long shadow, and that is your testament/Somewhere in my soul, there's always rock & roll."

MILO MILES
(RS 934, October 30, 2003)

(Posted: Oct 8, 2003)

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4of 5 Stars

Oh its good to discover Streetcore. I finally got around to belatedly checking out Joe's work with the Mescaleros. I guess I was too much of a Clash fan, and I didn't want to be disappointed. I hadn't heard great things about the Mescaleros discs.

I played it four times straight through. It is authentic Strummer, and I thank the Mescs for bringing it home after Joe's unfortunate departure from the scene, with an unfinished piece of work. They did him proud. It's an unadorned record, but that doesn't mean its not adventurous.

As he says, deep down he will always be rock. He was a rock of a man, and clearly grew in terrific ways. His voice so beautifully matches his lyrics, and his sensitivity beautifully matches his moral strength.

If you gotta go, Joe, Streetcore is a good one to go on.

Feb 20, 2006 21:08:46

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