The Strummer Files: Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Live at Acton Town Hall (2002/2012) & Assembly (2021)

Craig Stephen digs deep to come up with yet another addition to The Strummer Files, the blog’s extensive overview of Joe Strummer’s post-Clash musical legacy …

Live At Acton Town Hall (2012) would turn out to be the last-ever gig for Joe Strummer and his band. And suitably it was recorded for posterity.

Strummer and the Mescaleros played the inconspicuous Acton Town Hall in west London on 15 November 2002. But, on 22 December, Strummer was cruelly taken from this world following a massive heart attack at his Somerset home, aged just 50.

This release captures that gig beautifully and it was one that is significant in ways beyond the fact it was the former Clash frontman’s final ever gig.

Firstly, in fitting with Strummer’s solidarity with the working man, even when Clash riches took him into a different financial sphere from those he was defending, it was a benefit for firefighters who were striking for an improvement on their dismal wages (firefighters save lives FFS). The Fire Brigades Union-led industrial action was the first nationwide strike in the UK since the 1970s and didn’t officially end until June 2003 with a pay rise that was below the FBU’s demands, which would have seen firefighters paid fairly for their heroics.

On the stage too, there was a momentous moment when Strummer was joined by former Clash man Mick Jones for the encore, the first time the pair had performed live together since the last classic line-up Clash gig in 1983.

Thankfully, someone at the mixing desk had the foresight to press the record button, and initially the set was released in a limited vinyl run in 2012, and five years later it was released again on vinyl, for Record Store Day. Those responsible didn’t bother with any artwork, sticking a flyer into the transparent plastic sleeve. Regardless, what a treasure this is.

Strummer splits the material roughly half and half between Mescaleros tracks (much underrated) and Clash classics.

This allows recent Mescaleros material such as ‘Shaktar Donetsk’, ‘Tony Adams’, ‘Cool ‘N’ Out’, ‘Bhindee Bhagee’ (about a New Zealander who’s just got off the plane in west London and wants to know where he can buy mushy peas) and ‘Mega Bottle Ride’ to be performed. ‘Johnny Appleseed’ is an absolute standout and there are even a couple of works in progress played for one of the first times – ‘Get Down Moses’ and ‘Coma Girl’, both of which would appear on the posthumous Streetcore.

I got on the Mescaleros bandwagon quite early when I received and reviewed the debut album Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (1999) for a Scottish newspaper. I never felt in any way disappointed in any of the trio of Mescaleros albums. They weren’t meant to sound like The Clash. They traversed the globe for sounds and ideas; the band were worldly-wise and clearly enjoyed themselves making these records.

But in reality it is The Clash tracks that people mainly want to hear and there’s plenty of those, foremost those with a reggae tinge, such as ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’, ‘Police and Thieves’ and ‘(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais’. The band rachet up a gear for ‘Police On My Back’ (which appeared on Sandinista!) and ‘I Fought the Law’.

Then Jones appears for the encore to join in on ‘Bankrobber’, ‘White Riot’ and of course (given it’s in aid of firefighters) ‘London’s Burning’. I imagine the place was buzzing by the end, you can sense that on the record.

Thoughts thereafter naturally turned to a Clash reunion and rumours are that it was being considered with Strummer seemingly contacting Paul Simonon just before he died about reforming. Simonon, apparently, was dead against it.

Assembly (2021)

Coming three years after Joe Strummer 001, a double album of Strummer solo tracks from studio albums and obscure sources, Assembly is a compilation of, well, much of the same. The focus though is more on the three solo albums with tracks such as the Wailers’ ‘Redemption Song’, ‘Yalla Yalla’ and ‘At the Border, Guy’. Most fans will have these albums anyway.

What it does offer pre-Mescaleros is ‘Love Kills’ from the Sid and Nancy soundtrack and ‘Sleepwalk’ from 1989’s somewhat underwhelming Earthquake Weather. It would’ve been better to have included ‘Gangsterville’ from the same album or one of the tracks from the Walker soundtrack which was entirely-Strummer contributed.

There are unreleased gems in live versions of ‘I Fought the Law’ and ‘Rudie Can’t Fail’ performed at Brixton Academy the year before the Acton Town Hall gig, and a home recording of ‘Junco Partner’.

It’s a sturdy compilation of the critical tracks in the Mescaleros cannon, which was shorter than it should have been. But that’s life.

What we really need now is a compilation of Strummer’s post-Clash tracks that includes film material and stuff on low-selling and now hard-to-find singles.