You been drinking brew for breakfast

Lots of stuff about Joe Strummer at the moment, to go with the documentary 'The Future Is Unwritten' and the recent biography.

I saw him twice, once years ago on a dodgy 'Rock Against the Rich' tour, and then at Cambridge the year he died. The RATR thing was at Rock City in something like 1987 or 1988. I went with Jim and his mate from the egg factory, a guy called Robert who had a bedsit in Carrington, near where I ended up living with Clive for a couple of years. I remember making our way into town from Robert's one roomed abode, stopping at the Nag's Head and various other Mansfield Road pubs on the way to the gig.

The event was 'organised' by Class War; I think there were three groups including Strummer, one of whom was a very decent reggae band, I can't remember their name. Strummer was terrific, he played loads of old Clash songs, and 'If I Should Fall From Grace' by the Pogues - which I guess dates the gig as around the time that LP came out, and before he joined the band as a stand-in front man, covering for one of MacGowan's bouts of 'nervous exhaustion'.

I've blethered on about the Cambridge experience already on this blog, but let's just say that at the time, soaking wet, frustrated by camping stools, rugs, assorted other obstacles to navigating the site, Jim and I were of the firm belief that the event required the Cleansing Fire of Punk Rock, and Strummer was the man to provide it. A lot of old Cambridge punks materialised on the Saturday evening for a taste of sweaty nostalgia, and for a while it seemed as though leather jackets might outnumber beards and sandals. Fair play to the festival organisers though, booking Joe Strummer was I guess quite a brave move, but I think Cambridge has often experimented with acts outside the sphere of what most of us define as 'folk music' - Nick Cave, for instance.

Anyway. Strummer was by most accounts a genial man who was generous with his time - we saw him strolling around the Cambridge site, taking it all in and chatting to people. He was making some good solo records too, after a few years hopping between acting jobs and soundtrack work. Global A Go Go is well worth a pop if you haven't heard it. I've got London Calling on at the moment - a glorious, glorious record, thrilling tunes like Clampdown, Hateful, Death Or Glory...becomes just another story.