After Earthquake Weather, his 1989 solo album Joe Strummer spent by his own admission many years in the wilderness, returning in 1999 with The Mescaleros to some success and acclaim, right up to his untimely death in 2002. In no particular order, he played with The Pogues after they kicked out Shane McGowan, wrote several low-key film scores (Walker, Straight To Hell, Sid and Nancy), finally appeared on Top Of The Pops with Black Grape on their Euro 96 song England's Irie, and had an eight year long dispute with Epic, his record label. Joe claimed he bored them out, eventually him releasing him from his contract.
In 1998 he popped up in, of all places, the South Park Chef Aid album. Joe is drawn faithfully in South Park style on the inner sleeve, but you can't see it as my scanner's on the blink and the picture doesn't seem to be on google images. The song is a little rock 'n' roll ditty, over in a couple of minutes, and can't have taken much longer to record than it does to listen to it. It also features, cock-rock alert spoiler, Flea from the loathable Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine. Thankfully it sounds like neither of those bands, more like a lost rockabilly track Joe discovered and sung over. There's some typical Joe surrealism 'we got a surface module and a ... belly dancer', and some good Joe lyrics alongside a dumb chorus. It's not got the hazy charm of Earthquake Weather or the all fired-upness of The Mescaleros stuff but it's OK. One for the completists I suspect.
19 It's a Rockin' World.wma
In 1998 he popped up in, of all places, the South Park Chef Aid album. Joe is drawn faithfully in South Park style on the inner sleeve, but you can't see it as my scanner's on the blink and the picture doesn't seem to be on google images. The song is a little rock 'n' roll ditty, over in a couple of minutes, and can't have taken much longer to record than it does to listen to it. It also features, cock-rock alert spoiler, Flea from the loathable Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Tom Morello from Rage Against The Machine. Thankfully it sounds like neither of those bands, more like a lost rockabilly track Joe discovered and sung over. There's some typical Joe surrealism 'we got a surface module and a ... belly dancer', and some good Joe lyrics alongside a dumb chorus. It's not got the hazy charm of Earthquake Weather or the all fired-upness of The Mescaleros stuff but it's OK. One for the completists I suspect.
19 It's a Rockin' World.wma