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Album Review
by Scott Sterling-Wilder
19-10-2003
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| J. Strummer/The Mescaleros' 'Streetcore' |
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Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros: 'Streetcore'
(Hellcat)
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros cred the last trip
There were several albums over the past year that were reviewed and listened to with great difficulty; not, not due to being crap but by stirring inner emotional fracas. George Harrison’s posthumous LP, Johnny Cash’s ‘American IV: The Man Comes Round’, Warren Zevon’s ‘The Wind’ and, now, Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros’ ‘Streetcore’. Strummer passed on just before last Chrimbo and, honestly, being a teen-awakening punk, I felt like my elder bro died.
‘Streetcore’ is compiled from demos of several songs Joe Strummer recorded in the months prior to his tragic death last year and, as if he were having a premonition, left copious instructions that elaborately detailed songs and were used for sleeve notes. Spookily, he did this in the early part of December 2002, for the third album with The Mescaleros and fourth overall after The Clash split.
The ‘Streetcore’ disc was assembled by the band’s Martin Slattery and Scott Shields and it features Strumm’s most immediate and accessible material since his early work with the Clash to, ironically, represent evidence of a man riding a crest of his creative powers. There are eight original songs, ranging from ‘Coma Girl’, a ska-poppy ditty about a GlastoFesti-dream to pumping rock-reggae of ‘Get Down Moses’ that touches on the subjects of LSD, the Sea of Galilee and ‘Desert gasoline’ [i.e. Iraq].
Alongside a storming version of Bob Marley’s ‘Redemption Song’ (produced by Rick Rubin), featuring musical guests Smokey Hormel (Tom Waits, Beck, Johnny Cash) and Benmont Tench (Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers), the album also includes a cover of the 1952 Bobby Charles’s classic ‘Before I Grow Too Old’, re-named ‘Silver And Gold’, as well as a version of ‘Long Shadow’ that Strumm wrote for Johnny Cash but the ‘Man In Black’ never got round to recording it.
A very potent LP that could have been something completely different if Strummer have had it finished. But, we’ll never know… As it stands, it certainly maintains the man’s reputation that makes his untimely passing even harder to take.
In the words of the song intended for Cash, “… You know you cast a long shadow on the ground.” Joe could have been writing his own epitaph.
8/10
Scott Sterling-Wilder
19-10-2003
Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros’ album ‘Streetcore’ is released 20 October 2003 on Hellcat/Epitaph
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