Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros “Global a Go-Go”
In 2000, just three years after winning a Gold Glove at second base for the Royals, Chuck Knoblauch lost the ability to throw the ball to first base. He could throw towards first base, but his throws were so erratic that within a year, he would be moved to Designated Hitter and Outfield. In 2001, one year after arriving as the most touted rookie pitcher in all of baseball, Rick Ankiel lost the ability to throw strikes. Control hadn’t been much of a problem before for him. But then, one day, he had none. He was such a tremendous athlete, that he transitioned to Outfield and became a viable major league hitter. Neither of these players ever regained their peak form. One day they could do everything and the next day they could only do something else. And to many, that something else felt like less.
A similar thing happened to Joe Strummer.
In 1982, he was the man and the image at the front of “The Most Important Band In The World.” To see Joe Strummer in the late 70s or early 80s is to see a man who seems intent on everything and capable of anything. He was not merely cool. To so many, he was heroic. Over the course of a legendary five year run, he and The Clash had changed everything. They had produced the equivalent of sixteen album sides during that span, each of them essential. They had introduced an almost effortless, instinctive brand of egalitarian, socialist politics into Punk music. They had bridged rockabilly, hardcore and, improbably, reggae, in a sound so big and so vital that it was easy to wonder if any other bands from that era even mattered. They went from playing tiny English clubs to having hit singles and opening for The Who at Shea Stadium.
One year later, Joe Strummer would kick his partner, Mick Jones, out of the band for a combination of dickishness and apathy. Two years later, they would release “Cut The Crap,” a genuinely terrible final album, with Joe as the lone front man. And, by 1986, The Clash were no more. By his own account, around this time, Joe Strummer simply lost the ability to make The Most Important Music In The World.
Over the ensuing thirteen years, he would release only one studio album, “Earthquake Weather,” which was greeted (on merit) with critical and commercial indifference. During this long hibernation, Strummer kept busy. He scored and composed soundtracks for Alex Cox’s films. He acted, most notably, as a drunk, self-hating, petty criminal in Jim Jarmusch revelatory “Mystery Train.” He produced records. He added guest vocals. He deejayed. He traveled.
But, from the outside, he had seemingly lost the ability to be “Joe Strummer.” Some part of this relates to the fact that he was in a prolonged contractual battle with Sony, who owned rights to his music. Strummer had resolved to not make music for Sony ever again,, and certainly not under the terms that he had agreed to as a young man. But, and perhaps moreso, Joe Strummer had lost confidence. He was unmoored without Mick Jones and his band. He could not and would not be what he saw up close in The Who. His voice, once a titanic howl of rasp and spit, had weakened a bit. And the ambitious music that just poured out of him a few years earlier -- an unprecedented fusion of punk, rockabilly and reggae -- got harder to access.
To fans, this absence may have felt tragic. But, it seems, not so to Joe Strummer, whose socialist humility was not put on. Joe Strummer didn’t want to be an important man. He didn’t feel like an important man. Some of this was confidence. Some of it was his make up. Some of it was his politics. In every interview with Joe Strummer, you hear a man incapable of putting himself ahead of others. It feels unnatural, unfair and ugly for him to do so. Joe Strummer loved making Important Music. But he detested the role of Important Man.
So, what had changed by 1999, when Strummer and his band, the Mescaleros, formed and delivered their debut? Frankly, the answer is simple: Joe Strummer needed money. By this time he was forty seven. He had negotiated his solo work out from Sony. And whether out of love or necessity, he started to write songs again. The timing was fortuitous. Ska-Punk, a genre that Strummer had virtually invented, was en vogue. He signed to Hellcat Records, co-founded by Tim Armstrong of Rancid. “Rock Art and the X-Ray Style,” the Mescaleros’ debut, had all the makings of a wonderful second act story. Unfortunately, the album was a mess. It sounded quarter baked. It sounded like a band tinkering. It was intentionally modest in ambition, no doubt. But, it was also simply not very good.
It was fair to wonder, in 1999, was Joe Strummer, our Punk Rock hero (as opposed to the very wonderful, very present human), really, truly gone?
The answer, it turned out, was “no.” Joe Strummer was not gone. Less than two years later, he and his band returned with more confidence, ambition and resolve on “Global a Go-Go.” “Global a Go-Go” is almost impossible to describe succinctly. It’s sprawling in content and style. The most common underlying tone is Dub Reggae, a music that Strummer deeply loved. But, as the title suggests, the record explores World Music sounds throughout. Within individual songs, you feel the band turning the dial from Jamaica to London to the United States to Belfast to Africa. If this sounds hard to pull off musically, it is.
Much of “Global a Go-Go” does not work. Strummer’s voice is not the detonating device it once was -- blunt but also with range. And while it still has considerable charm, the vocals are mixed back and frequently aided with Dub-style echo. The band sounds like they are having a lot of fun. They are spontaneous and flexible, if nothing else. But there is a quality here of a English Jamaican band of buskers dropped into a studio. They have talent. They have ideas. They have great weed. They have fun. But it’s unclear how much they care about the final commercial product. And, candidly, it’s unclear how much they should.
None of this is to say that the album isn’t charming, fun and, occasionally, great. It’s a vast improvement over their debut, but you have to be patient with it. None of the ideas stick for very long so the whiplash of the genre-hopping takes a moment to get used to. The album is called “Global a Go-Go” and it is, if nothing else, true to its name.
“Cool and Out” starts as a peppy Ska track that insists on changing the station every thirty seconds. Here, Joe and the band sound like late “Sandinista” era Clash. This is a partial complement, I know. But, given the breadth and almost improvisational nature of these songs and this album, is what I can muster for many of the tracks. The title track is among the more compelling songs. It builds upon a deep, sturdy Dub groove. The band navigate hairpin turns in pace and narrative, but that is clearly the intention. To me “Mega Bottle Ride” is the album’s best moment. It kicks off with an acoustic guitar shuffle and little bit of keyboard looking for a groove. Once they find that groove, the song builds itself into something of Country Folk anthem. For just a moment, you feel like you are listening to The Clash, if they were inspired by The Mekons rather than Lee Perry.
All of these divergent references, instruments and ideas can make “Global a Go-Go” a challenging listen. It meanders, for certain, and clocks in at almost an hour, before the eighteen minute version of the traditional Irish Folk song, “Minstrel Boy.” There are consistent through lines, though. The lyrics circle our connected world, culture and politics. And at the heart of the music is Reggae. I can almost hear where he wanted to go. In the hands of, say, The Beastie Boys, all of these turns, stops and starts, name drops and genre hops would be labored over and baked until they were perfect. That seemingly would require a pretense and self-importance that Joe Strummer had disabused himself of. It might feel like masochism to me, as his fan. But as a middle-aged man, it’s hard not to deeply admire the humility he so valued and the fun Joe Strummer was evidently having in this moment.
The son of a Foreign Legion worker, Joe Strummer traveled the world as a child and young man. He had an endless curiosity about the world and its music. Not built to simply observe, wherever Joe Strummer went, he was always there. And he was always one of the people. In this way, perhaps “Global a Go-Go” and not, say, “London Calling,” is the definitive Joe Strummer record.
Two years later, Joe Strummer died, at the age of fifty, the victim of an undiagnosed heart defect.