Culture Clash

I need someone to check something for me: Joe Strummer's grave. Because I am fairly certain that Joe is spinning like a Philipino sweatshop loom right now.

If you don't know what I'm referring to, please take a good look at the photo, at the top of this posting. That's Mick Jones, alright. But it's the "Mick Jones" Joe was referring to in "Complete Control" as "You're My Guitar Hero!" The Mick Jones who wrote "Train In Vain." The Mick Jones of the Clash. The Yahoolagins at Yahoo! have put his photo to accompany the story about Foreigner. That Mick Jones is the Mick Jones of, really, the worst rock and roll band of their era. Foreigner got everything wrong about rock music. Too loud. Too leaden. No irony. Did not "roll" [or as the Angel Apologist would say, "swing."] No sense of humor. In short, no compelling reason to listen to these guys.

Two points: you can tell a lot about the quality of popular music in an era by looking at who was popular. When the era includes Yes, Toto, Foreigner and Rush as top selling acts, you can safely say that the era was bereft.

The second point. The Clash often had the same failings that Foreigner did. But they also had Joe Strummer, whose single-mindedness [he was a good deal older than most of the punks] redeemed the fact that they were often too preachy by half. And usually they swung, and could be very funny [see, for example, "Rudy Can't Fail."]

So, Joe, wherever you are, try to rest easy knowing that the rest of us, up here and not in heaven, still believe in you.