Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros

Liner notes (1999) say, "this album is dedicated to all freedom fighters. a big shout out to all long distance session rats and night hoods everywhere, blimey, luce." The name of the CD is Rock Art & the X-Ray Style, and Strummer, formerly of the Clash and now deceased, is the only musician's name on it that I recognize, but that doesn't mean anything. I stumbled across it at the library, where you never know what you'll discover, bless the place.

Keep the lantern bright
Keep food upon the table
If you shape it well tonight
As well as you are able...
(from "Sandpaper Blues")

I've been listening to this daily for about three weeks now, and the library wants it back, so I guess I'll return it and listen to something else. Hard to articulate what it is I like about it, so maybe I'll just go outside and dance about architecture instead of trying to talk about music. One thing I can say is that talent will out, and the really good ones smash the boundaries between categories, styles, genres.

Hold onto your hats because we gotta go,
Because the noise inspectors with the sound detectors
Were coming on down the beach...
It was a techno D-Day, a techno D-Day,
Way out on Omaha Beach,
Where the troops believe in a life of freedom,
And this is all about free speech.
(from "Techno D-Day")

One of the downsides of living largely unplugged from pop culture is that I don't hear about stuff until years later, after the buzz has passed and the players are either out of the business or gone from this worldly incarnation. So, for example, I didn't listen to the Clash until Jessi Golly played a mix tape for me in 2001 or 2002. Better late than never I guess. And thank goodness for records.

Even though Gven Golly, in her territorial imperative mood on a Sunday afternoon, wouldn't let me play it really loud the way it's meant to be played, she did pick out the best unpolished gem of the whole disc the first time she heard it, as she always does: it's "Willesden to Cricklewood," the last track that brings all the tormented energy and emotional range of the other nine songs to a sweet conclusion.

How I would love to speak
To everybody on the street
Just for once to break the rules
I know it would be so cool