Chairman Ralph's Ministry Of Truth

Before Joe Strummer's return engagement at Chicago's [Cabaret] Metro, his new album with the Mescaleros, ROCK ART & THE X-RAY STYLE, was released. Songs that he had perfected at the earlier Chicago gig were even better than I expected. The slow build of “Forbidden City,” and mood-setting “Tony Adams,” were terrific. The Mescaleros are a versatile band, and able to transfer their live efforts to record.

The November 1999 gig was packed to the gills and I was lucky to get a spot on the floor where I could see and hear the band. The soundtrack to THE HARDER THEY COME played, and built up anticipation for the return of Strummer. Joe strode onstage casually despite the crowd's rabid anticipation. The first surprise of the night was “Island Hopping,” from his 1989 solo album (EARTHQUAKE WEATHER). After that it was full steam into the purposeful “Diggin' The New.”

The Mescaleros seemed even more confident than they had been last summer. They got rockin' on “Techno D-Day,” funky on “Tony Adams” and intimate on “Nitcomb.” The band dipped into the past, playing “Trash City” from Joe's mid-'80s recording with Latino Rockabilly War (PERMANENT RECORD). Alongside the expanded Clash songs, the audience was treated to “Safe European Home,” “Rudie Can't Fail,” and Clash-era cover “Pressure Drop,” by Toots & The Maytals.

We may never see the reunited Clash play live again (although, as Joe might say, “The future is unwritten”), but Joe Strummer has the intensity and willingness to deal in the here and now that his punk-era intentions, and more importantly, the present, provide.


HANDS UP, EVERYONE: WHAT BECOMES A LEGEND MOST?
ANSWERS ON A BEER-STAINED POSTCARD, IF YOU PLEASE...

I'm not sure how Tony planned to round off his review of the Mescaleros' fall '99 return to Cabaret Metro, but this is the version that occupies some real estate in the yellowing manila folder dedicated to my Fanzine That Never Was ("FRIDAY STREET: GUTS AND CONTENTS"): hence, I kept his original title. Somehow, though, it feels complete to me, and definitely in keeping with Tony's punk rock sensibility: short, sharp and to the point, thank you and goodnight.

Still, Tony's concert review raises an interesting question: what becomes a legend most, especially when it's the glorious past that seems to excite the public more than the faint-praised present? The press bio for Joe's album, ROCK ART & THE X-RAY STYLE, made that issue plain from the opening bell, as follows: "Learning to live with legendary status can be daunting, the temptation to wallow in the past always being the easy option to follow."

Yet the CHICAGO SUN-TIMES's man on the ground, Jim DeRogatis, took Joe to task just for that reason. Reviewing the Mescaleros' inaugural show at the Metro (July 5, 1999), DeRogatis pondered how Joe's set opener, "Diggin' The New," could rest so easily beside the Clash nuggets that everybody expected to hear: "Unfortunately, he spent most of the rest of his 15-song set reveling in the old."

In DeRogatis's opinion, renditions of Clash classics like "White Man In Hammersith Palais" and "Tommy Gun" seemed jarring, "because they were so firmly linked to the punk past."

DeRogatis drew another line in the sand with the opening act, Jon Langford -- another Class Of '77 graduate, saddled with that damning "ex"-prefix in front of his name, that is, "ex-Mekon" -- whose set struck him as more appealing: "It was passionate and of the moment, with no sign of the time machine that Strummer laboriously hauled behind him."

Indeed, these are all valid points; however, in the decade since the above-named review ran, it's equally apparent that popular culture has never been more resolutely stuck in rewind. The 2009 pop landscape has already seen the Specials doing business without founder Jerry Dammers; the Jam, without a certain P. Weller, on guitar and vocals; Sham 69, without its Yob Of All Trades, Jimmy Pursey (who maintains, "I play for today," as he launches his new band)...and that's just on the Brit side of the pond.

In America, the Baby Boomers seem more firmly in charge of the asylum than ever, with megatours running in meganormodomes, with megadollar gate prices to match. (Summed up succintly, the line of defense might read: "We didn't start the fire, culturally speaking, but damned if we're going to sit there and let somebody else put it out...and that's why we'll never shut up about it, and why you'll never stop hearing it from us!")

Now, clearly, none of this circumstances happened in a vacuum; on the most mundane level, this business is driven by bodies of music that the consumer wants to hear again, and again, and again...to the exclusion of any newer ideas, no matter how raw or unformed they appear on first glance. Surely, The Only Band That Matters would have been subjected to that din, had they only reformed...right?

Indeed, it's tempting to ponder what Joe might have made of all the endless reunions and recyclings of back catalogs, but one irony seems to have eluded his most critical appraisers: what struck many of them as laziness may have been carried a whiff of hard-won wisdom. In hindsight, one quote from that official bio stands out more than most: "I realize I could cool it. Many performers don't realize the public gets sick of you; they could do with a rest from some of these seriously ambitious people. The machine grinds on, so there's no hope of that happening."