When punk rock exploded on to the streets of London in 1976, the Sex Pistols burned bright and quickly self-destructed, while the Clash soared above the constrictions of punk orthodoxy, delving into jazz, dub reggae, gospel, ska and soul, emerging with an arsenal of classics. Their five albums and many singles yielded Complete Control, Straight to Hell, Bankrobber, and dozens more memorable tunes. Rolling Stone magazine named London Calling the album of the 1980s, while current raves like the Manic Street Preachers, Green Day and Rage Against the Machine all worship at the Clash altar. Joe Strummer, the group's outspoken vocalist, acquired onerous responsibilities. He was labelled "spokesman for a generation", raising expectations which sent Sid Vicious and Kurt Cobain to an early grave. Fans slept in the group's hotel rooms; they refused to play Top of the Pops; and to the anger of record label CBS, the triple album Sandinista sold for the price of one CD.
The Clash roadshow travelled to Belfast in 1977, where a cancelled gig led to a riot. "It was like Tiananmen square," said Strummer, with characteristic overkill. "Punks lying down in front of Land Rovers. It was amazing." The final album, Combat Rock, was a multi-platinum breakthrough which took the listener from drab London cityscapes to the jungles of Asia, providing the group's most glorious pop moment, Rock the Casbah, a Top 10 single across the globe.
The Clash broke up in 1983 thanks to a punishing record contract ("it was child abuse, man," said Strummer, of the impossible 10-album, 10-year contract, signed in 1977) too many drugs and successive management disasters. A short-lived Clash Mark Two saw Strummer team up with fresh musicians, but the absence of guitarist Mick Jones sank the project after one forgettable record. The Clash left behind 100 songs on five albums in just six years, an output unthinkable today, where bands generally spend two years between records.
Strummer, now aged 47, has emerged from the woodwork to wage war on "crap rock" and stake his claim to a place in the hall of fame, forming a new band, the Mescaleros, and releasing an album, Rock, Art and the X-ray Style in October. The period which elapsed since Strummer dropped out of sight has seen a new generation of youth seize the subculture throne, as punk was swept aside for techno, acid and rap, just as Strummer dispatched Peter Frampton and other radio-friendly dinosaurs to an unmarked grave.
A glance at the Strummer file, however, reveals that he never really went away - after the Clash he toured with the Pogues, while in 1991, a Levi's ad gave the band the number one they never had while they were together, as Should I Stay Or Should I Go hit the top. The Levellers and the Happy Mondays dragged Strummer out of hiding and he drifted into soundtracks and cameo roles, appearing in Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train and Alex Cox's Straight to Hell. His fans were busy too, notching up 200 websites, while the "World Church of Strummerology" is out there for the truly bizarre and needy Clash casualty. Like myself.
The first time I heard mention of Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution was on the cover of the 1980 Clash album of the same name, bought with Christmas pocket money. Five years later I found myself lying in bed with dengue fever in a dusty village in rural Nicaragua, a punk rock political journey inspired by the Clash's magnificent triple album.
Critics slammed it for the endless dub remixes and electronic overlays, but Strummer stands by the whole unwieldy lot. "Ask the skinheads in Perth," Strummer tells Uncut magazine in its forthcoming September issue. "They take acid and listen to it all night, the whole way through."
In 1988 on a visit to Chile to observe a national plebiscite on dictator Pinochet's rule, I had lunch in a village outside Santiago, where my host family described the tense years of political repression, their books buried in the garden. The family's teenage son, emboldened by the whiff of change in the air, went off to his bedroom and came back with that Clash album, its 36 tracks a blistering antidote to the dictatorship.
He pointed to one track in particular, Washington Bullets, a rum-laced salsa scorcher in which Strummer dissected imperial aggression against Cuba, Tibet and Afghanistan - "if you can find an Afghan rebel that the Moscow bullets missed/ask him what he thinks of voting communist/ask the Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet/how many monks did the Chinese get" - before rushing to Nicaragua - "well the people fought the leader and up he flew/with no Washington bullets what else could he do?" - going out on Pinochet's massacres - "As every cell in Chile will tell/the cries of the tortured men . . . please remember Victor Jara in the Santiago stadium."
Joe Strummer was born John Edward Mellor in Ankara in 1952, the son of a Foreign Office employee, and spent his early years between Turkey, Germany and Mexico, before he was packed off to boarding school in Epsom, Surrey. Boarding school was a nightmare - "we were beaten like sheep," he said - and he failed every subject. He took drugs and discovered the Who and the Rolling Stones, graduating to art college. Expelled for taking LSD, Mellor survived by cleaning toilets, digging graves and washing dishes.
In 1974 he found his way into a squat and a band, the 101ers, who played fast and loose R'n'B, quickly acquiring cult status at their regular slot in the Elgin pub. The Sex Pistols supported the 101ers in April 1976, turning the music scene upside down. Strummer jacked in the R'n'B and formed the Clash. Guitarist Mick Jones had some material written, but it all revolved around his complicated love life. Strummer took one look at I'm So Bored With You, rewrote it to read I'm So Bored With the USA, and the fun began.
The Clash released their first single White Riot in March 1977, inspired by the Notting Hill riots in which black anger at police brutality spilled over into street violence. "I was trying to say these guys have a point - when they're pushed to the wall they fight back," said Strummer.
The first album was recorded in three weekends, a fierce sonic assault tempered by the hint of an occasional melody and a stunning cover of Police and Thieves, the Junior Murvin reggae classic. The grim social portrait of a nation at war with itself, paralysed by unemployment and racism, touched a nerve and it hit the Top 10.
Joe Strummer was the manic frontman with the uncontrollable shaking leg, his face contorted as he spat out the lyrics, dodging a hail of phlegm from the crowd, who "gobbed" to show their appreciation. Hepatitis followed one direct "gob" down Strummer's throat, putting an end to that custom. Mick Jones was the reincarnation of Keith Richards and Paul Simonon posed behind his bass, while Topper Headon beat out the rhythm of the swamps on his enormous drum kit.
Strummer lived in a squat and played benefit gigs for Rock Against Racism. He carried his possessions in several plastic bags, largely books and magazines, a stream of information which fuelled his complex lyrics, taking you beyond "f. . .k the system" and into more profound territory, which called out for personal commitment to social change.
The final album, Combat Rock, turned them into a stadium band with mass appeal, embraced by US audiences but drowning in a whirlpool of drugs and ego. They split in 1983.
Now Strummer is reborn as a rockabilly techno warrior, playing with the Mescaleros, whose name suggests cheap Mexican liquor. The new single Yalla Yalla, out next week, is described as an epic acid punk single, while the European tour won rave reviews. "We destroyed Paris; they wouldn't let us leave the building," he said. "I had to walk through the crowd in my socks and plead with them to leave."
The Clash release a live album, On the Road with the Clash, in October - but talk of a reunion is greeted with a swift "don't even say that", as if the mere suggestion would jinx Strummer's own comeback. The Mescaleros, meanwhile, play old Clash classics, White Man In The Hammersmith Palais and London Calling, something Strummer justifies in the name of "a new generation of people who never heard them before".
The Clash made millions but the money went down the plughole of fame and excess, with Strummer facing middle age as a cab driver before he found the courage to give rock'n'roll one more chance. "I've gotta pay my mortgage off," he said in a recent interview. Clash fans never stopped listening to the music, following the advice of the American critic Marcus Greil, who heard the band and expressed "disbelief that mere humans could create such a sound and disbelief that the world could remain the same when it's over".
Amen.
Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros play The Olympia on Tuesday, August 24th.
