Don't think the cause of death's been announced yet - the Beeb have it down as 'more to follow' but Joe Strummer is with us no more.
The good die young, eh? Well, young'ish.
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Joe Strummer RIP
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Its on the front page of the NME website...apparently he's thought to have died of a heart attack.
just heard... unbelievable... can't get my head around it...
BBC Online:
never a dull moment. never. always sharp, always miles ahead of the chasing pack. christ! I know there are those who would have longed for one more tour at least. it will now, never happen. christmas time will now be a sad one. goodnight sweet prince.
Very sad and I'm bummed. Saw the news on a newsgroup, but couldn't find anything on internet news sites last night, hoping it was just a mistake. 
RIP Joe :(
oh man, I was just floored when I saw the headline on Yahoo News. He was too young......
RIP Joe
I think I'll be listening to London Calling later on tonight, after I get off work. Much sympathy to his family.
Fucking sad news indeed. What a month - first Mary Hansen from Stereolab, now Joe Strummer from the Clash. Double whammy, double sadness....
:(
Let just hope this will send a message to our guys to keep in shape and cease usage of any illicit stuff 
I also played "London Calling" tonight as a little tribute to him. I was almost forgetting how good this record is.
I had so much respect and admiration for him and he is a real loss to the music.
I feel the same way about him as I do with Jam Master Jay. It's hard when you see your generation snuff it.
R.I.P.
DKS
I knew the storm we had here on sunday meant something. the rain were tears from above and the thunders were the noise of his guitar. joe strummer was entering in heaven...
God Bless Mr Strummer
Never got into The Clash till a few years ago, but they take up a large part of my collection.....Joe will be missed.
Had a signed backstage pass sent to me in 1980 when I'd just come out of a long coma following a motorcycle crash. Sadly ironic that now I'm here and he's gone.
An important guy, an important band, who I felt were never accepted as 'true' punks by some at the time. There was a lot of inverted snobbery back then.
A sad loss....
Originally posted by Spotnick Let just hope this will send a message to our guys to keep in shape and cease usage of any illicit stuff
Erm excuse me but your jumping to some very wrong conclusions here. Scott Shields, who was the original bassist in Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros, is a friend of mine, we went to school together.. Less than a year ago we were discussing drugs and I asked him what Uncle Joe's narcotic of choice was. He assured me that nowadays he touches nothing stronger than red wine.
Slightly offensive to suggest otherwise IMHO.
Originally posted by Grahame Ferguson > Originally posted by Spotnick> Let just hope this will send a message to our guys to keep in shape and cease usage of any illicit stuff
Erm excuse me but your jumping to some very wrong conclusions here. Scott Shields, who was the original bassist in Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros, is a friend of mine, we went to school together.. Less than a year ago we were discussing drugs and I asked him what Uncle Joe's narcotic of choice was. He assured me that nowadays he touches nothing stronger than red wine.
Slightly offensive to suggest otherwise IMHO.
yes, but what about the past? drug abuse sooner or later seriously demages your health even if you stop using them. in fact I read that when you take a large quantity of drugs for a large period of time it´s worst stopping suddenly than continuing taking less and less. because somehow your body gets used to the drug´s effects. and when you stop taking them, as your body has stopped producing all that substances since you replaced them with external ones, some vital stuff begins to die quickly. I think that´s what nic meant to say about the drug abuse and our idols. we know they used to take a lot of drugs. we don´t know if they really stopped or not but in one way or another their lives are in danger because of that abuse, even if they don´t do drugs anymore. I hope nothing bad happens to them, anyway.
Originally posted by almanso > Originally posted by Grahame Ferguson> > > > Originally posted by Spotnick> > Let just hope this will send a message to our guys to keep in shape and cease usage of any illicit stuff
Erm excuse me but your jumping to some very wrong conclusions here. Scott Shields, who was the original bassist in Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros, is a friend of mine, we went to school together.. Less than a year ago we were discussing drugs and I asked him what Uncle Joe's narcotic of choice was. He assured me that nowadays he touches nothing stronger than red wine.
Slightly offensive to suggest otherwise IMHO.
yes, but what about the past? drug abuse sooner or later seriously demages your health even if you stop using them. in fact I read that when you take a large quantity of drugs for a large period of time it´s worst stopping suddenly than continuing taking less and less. because somehow your body gets used to the drug´s effects. and when you stop taking them, as your body has stopped producing all that substances since you replaced them with external ones, some vital stuff begins to die quickly. I think that´s what nic meant to say about the drug abuse and our idols. we know they used to take a lot of drugs. we don´t know if they really stopped or not but in one way or another their lives are in danger because of that abuse, even if they don´t do drugs anymore. I hope nothing bad happens to them, anyway.
Fair play Alamanso. Their are however a variety of different opinions on the long term affects of narcotics. But lets not get into that here. This is a thread about the great Joe Strummer. His passing has been the first rock n' roll death which has touched me on a personal level. Was too young around the time of Curtis' demise.
I think the harderest drug Joe ever touched was the ganja. Joe was quite anti-drug, he did can Topper because of the latters drug problem.
Originally posted by Grahame Ferguson > Originally posted by Spotnick> Let just hope this will send a message to our guys to keep in shape and cease usage of any illicit stuff
Erm excuse me but your jumping to some very wrong conclusions here. Scott Shields, who was the original bassist in Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros, is a friend of mine, we went to school together.. Less than a year ago we were discussing drugs and I asked him what Uncle Joe's narcotic of choice was. He assured me that nowadays he touches nothing stronger than red wine.
Slightly offensive to suggest otherwise IMHO.
It was not directed to Joe Strummer...!! but to our funky bunch.. let's hope they stopped it !
Narcotics touch people differently. Look at how long William Burroughs lived! Hunter S. Thompson is still a journalist for ESPN. Where is Rob Gretton? There's no scale for the harm they give, or joy they cause. I think that Strummer's death could be from a number of things, less notably, drugs.
Strummer did smoke cigges. Perhaps that contributed to his death in some way. God knows how long he was a smoker. I assume his habit preceeded his Clash days. So your are looking at 25-30 plus years maybe.
Topper Headon (Clash drummer) had a bad heroin habit that almost killed him. He kicked the habit but he looks the worse for wear so there you go.
In 1995 i was left in what some may think was the enviable position of being the only guy with a camera available to interview Mr Strummer backstage at T in the Park. I approached him and asked if he was up for a few questions - not a problem - blah, blah, blah fantastic self propelled piece to camera at the end - pointing stright to the lens and instructing a.n.other viewer on all manner of socio-economic injustices - you know what I mean I think - a genius!
Anyway, in 1995 i was left in what some may think was the very unenviable position of being the only guy with a camera available to interview Mr Strummer backstage at T in the Park who proceeded to conduct said interview without sound....
Fuck! - I'm going to be sacked - no joke - shit.
Off I trot to Strummer and explain the problem...
No problem at all and he does the whole thing again - verbatim! even the patent end-rant was exact - a spokesperson for a generation sadly mis/under-represented has gone - he will be missed.
Anyone know how Mick Jones, et al, have responded to his passing? Is there any chance of a memorial concert or some sort of offical observation of his passing?
Aye....good old Joe - someone whom I used ta look up to as a kid.... played their first four albums in quick succession on hearing of his passing.... then I posted up some tributes on various Clash sites elsewhere.... the guy was a poet - he stayed true to his ideals, much respect to him.
2003 will be all the emptier without his presence....
God bless ya mate - thanks for the good times.
Yeah, this sucks...only recently did I start to really get into their music. Obviously, as a young one, I never got his lyrics...but to hear them now, man! If I remember correctly, he was apparently planning a reunion of some sort with the rest of the band after their upcoming induction into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame (or something, sorry I can't remember exactly)...
Rock the Casbah, Joe. :(
Bit late to join this thread, but the Solstice got in the way. First rock star death to actually make me feel sad. (Lennon - wrong generation, didn't mean much to me, Curtis - I only discovered JD afterwards, Cobain - too American, sorry). Usually I dislike public school educated lefty types, but I think unlike most he really meant it (man). And he wrote great songs. A real shame.
(as for the drugs thing, did he not use speed in the early days?)
There will be an homage tomorrow at the Grammy Awards.. done by Bruce Springsteen & Elvis Costello and more...
For those interested.
Originally posted by Spotnick There will be an homage tomorrow at the Grammy Awards.. done by Bruce Springsteen & Elvis Costello and more...For those interested.
Excellent, I will be off work and can thus watch it (chances are it'll be slated for the close-to-midnight air time, after all the Nsync and Avril fans have gone to bed and Eminem has walked off with every award...again)
Well, after all it wasn't so bad.. it makes me think about starting a very morbid thread on the other forum.. :D
Very nice rendition by the Boss, Elvis (the real one), Dave from Foo, and the wierd guy from the Sopranos :D
It was so nice of the Grammy people to make me sit through so much crap (Dixie Chicks, anyone?) before finally seeing the Strummer tribute, but it was almost worth it.
Well, that's one good thing about living on the west coast for once; I'd figured out that the tribute was gonna be late in the show, so I did a bunch of other things whilst waiting for the Strummer tribute. Very good job, I've gotta say, and if you didn't know, that was the drummer for the Attractions, along with the guy from No Doubt.
Another Clash Grammy (sort of): Don Letts won one for the documentary Westway To The World (nice to see a dreadlocked Don flash across the screens of the US).
