Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Michael — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 01:03:33 +0000

Can’t believe it’s taken me this long to post about this amazing five disc Pogues box set lovingly compiled by their own Phil Chevron. After all, it made my best of 2008 list. What better time to rectify the situation than today? This is no mere odds n’ sods set. It includes gleaming gems like “Maggie May” (which I had the good fortune of seeing at The Filmore in 1986), a couple of tracks from Joe Strummer’s stint replacing Shane McGowan (criminally not the haunting version of “Straight To Hell”), and demos galore (including what the band feels is the best song never to make it onto a Pogues record, “NW3,” which would appear as “Mother Mó Chrói” on a Shane solo record. Another favorite of mine is the Sexy Bongo track “Johnny Was.” This comes from a legendary episode in Pogues history where Andrew Ranken, Darryl Hunt, Jem Finer, James Fernly and Phil Chevron formed their own opening act for just one show in Sweden. They wrote all the material at the sound check and performed it that evening, never to be repeated. Phil swears the majority of the crowd had no idea who they were. So here are some of the live highlights for you on this fine Paddy’s day:

Happy birthday Joe!

Michael — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:10:43 +0000

Joe Strummer would have turned 56 yesterday had he not left this mortal coil criminally early. The Clash’s influence on my beliefs about what music can do and what it should strive to be are impossible to put into words.

I had an opportunity to pay tribute to Mr. Strummer on KALX in Berkeley last night. A brief search around the internet made it seem like The Clash was well represented in the myriad tributes across the blogosphere so I decided to focus on his post and pre-Clash output. Both are as deserving of further investigation as “London Calling” and “I Fought The Law” are deserving of repeated plays.

Give it a listen:

Joe Strummer birthday tribute podcast (48 MB)

Songlist:

“Get Down Moses” – Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (from Streetcore, released almost a year after his death and #1on my 2003 Top Ten)

“Straight To Hell” – The Clash (from Combat Rock)

“Keys To Your Heart” – The 101ers (Joe’s first band, from the soundtrack to the recent documentary The Future Is Unwritten)

“Slant Six” – Joe Strummer (from, barring the soundtrack to Walker, his first post-Clash album Earthquake Weather)

“Coolin’ Out” – Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros (from their second album Global A Go-Go)

Joe, you are sorely missed…

Now Hear This » Joe Strummer

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

From the BBC’s David “Kid” Jensen show, 6/21/84

From the BBC’s Janice Long show, 10/10/86

From The Barrowlands, Glasgow, 12/17-19/87

With Joe Strummer from The Forum, London, 12/12/91

Happy birthday Joe!