Out of nowhere I thought about Joe Strummer earlier today and realised it's nearly eight years since he died, and felt a pang of sadness. I've never felt as affected by the death of any famous person as I did by Joe's. I've featured several Clash/Strummer oddities and rarities here at Bagging Area but there's a few more to go round.
Joe's post-Clash back catalogue is pretty messy. Some stuff is out of print, some hard to get hold of, some pretty much unknown. Before his three albums with the Mescaleros and his late 90s comeback Joe got involved with several soundtracks. He worked with director Alex Cox providing the drum machine heavy Love Kills to Sid And Nancy, wrote the score for Walker, and several songs for Straight To Hell (among them the excellent Evil Darling and Ambush At Mystery Rock). Joe contributed a song to the soundtrack of Grosse Point Blank, several to Permanent Record, and an unreleased score for When Pigs Fly.
The track here is The Minstrel Boy, an Irish folk song based on the events of the failed 1798 rebellion, and came from the film Black Hawk Down. Those readers who own Joe and the Mescaleros' Global A Go-Go lp will know that the album closed with an eighteen minute instrumental version of this song. This version is over in just under six minutes and features possibly the best vocal he ever got on tape in his solo years. Stirring stuff.
Joe's post-Clash back catalogue is pretty messy. Some stuff is out of print, some hard to get hold of, some pretty much unknown. Before his three albums with the Mescaleros and his late 90s comeback Joe got involved with several soundtracks. He worked with director Alex Cox providing the drum machine heavy Love Kills to Sid And Nancy, wrote the score for Walker, and several songs for Straight To Hell (among them the excellent Evil Darling and Ambush At Mystery Rock). Joe contributed a song to the soundtrack of Grosse Point Blank, several to Permanent Record, and an unreleased score for When Pigs Fly.
The track here is The Minstrel Boy, an Irish folk song based on the events of the failed 1798 rebellion, and came from the film Black Hawk Down. Those readers who own Joe and the Mescaleros' Global A Go-Go lp will know that the album closed with an eighteen minute instrumental version of this song. This version is over in just under six minutes and features possibly the best vocal he ever got on tape in his solo years. Stirring stuff.