The Strummer Files: Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Streetcore (Hellcat Records, 2003)

The third and final instalment of Craig Stephen’s look back at Joe Strummer’s post-Clash legacy:

Posthumous albums are tricky items to evaluate: the quality all depends on how far the artist went in recording the material, and how the people tasked with completing it “interpreted” the work in progress.

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros’ third and final studio album was released about a year after the former Clash man’s untimely death.

Whatever twiddling was done in the studio in that preceding 12 months, both opening tracks sound about as ripe and ready as could be. ‘Coma Girl’ is a rousing, go-get ‘em boy, out of control carousel of a song that screams “gig opener”. Coming across like a spontaneous world music festival meeting of Jimmy Cliff and the Wolfe Tones, it’s a rock’n’roller revved up to 11.

‘Arms Aloft’ is memorable for both being as energetic and as rousing as ‘Coma Girl’ and including my “home” city (as in being 45 minutes away). “May I remind you of that scene/ We were arms aloft in Aberdeen/ May I remind you of that scene/ Let a million mirror balls beam/ May I remind you of that scene.” That’s Aberdeen, north-east Scotland, and not one of the eight versions of it around the United States or those in places such as Canada and Hong Kong. 

‘All In A Day’ meanwhile travels through Montrose, but I may be stretching it a little bit to assume that’s the same Montrose that’s less than an hour away from Aberdeen. As often is the case with Strummer’s solo material, there’s some obscure references:

“The armor ten, and the I-95/ Tupuolo Joe honey and his rhumba jive/ The look came out, and life broke out/ 'It must be a hex'/ I swear the vinyl loaded right on the desk/ Hey, let's go do this.”

Most of the remainder of the album is set at a far more sedate pace: ‘Burnin' Streets’ could be a futuristic follow-up to a famous Clash song: “London is burnin'; don't tell the Queen/ Somebody tried to speak garage and they burnt down Bethnal Green/ Piccadilly's yearning, like a reggae beat/ Soon you're gonna be runnin' down”, with Strummer bemoaning that there are “Too many guns in the damn town”. 

And we’re taken back to 1979 once more on ‘Midnight Jam’ which begins with Strummer as DJ/ announcer: “All transmitters to full/ All receivers to boost/ This is London calling/ This is London calling”, before taking us on a worldwide journey that takes in the sounds of U-Roy and The Indestructible Beat of Soweto as well as a jail in Germany. 

There’s some bum notes: on ‘Long Shadow’, Strummer appears to be trying to sound like Johnny Cash. Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ apparently was added on by a family member, and it really does not fit in with the modus operandi of Streetcore. There is also a version of ‘Redemption Song’ with Strummer and Johnny Cash and you’d be advised to check that one out. 

As posthumous albums go this, I’m certain Strummer would have given Streetcore the green light for go.