The Big Green House

Monday, December 23, 2002

 

The Right Profile

Rock and roll obituaries. They�re kinda like prostate exams � nobody likes them or looks forward to them but they do serve a purpose, and after a certain age you know you�re gonna see �em a lot more often.

I�m not trying to make light of a bad situation. Not really. Just a coping mechanism.

So. Joe Strummer died yesterday, of a heart attack, at age fifty. Not a particularly �rock & roll� death, one might say. There are those who would have you think that it�s all about wretched excess, or being larger than life. You�re supposed to go out with a spike in your vein or face down in a pool of (hopefully) your own vomit, or, failing that, wrapped around some immovable object (tree, light post, etc.). You know, the traditional R&R exits?

Punk rock, however, was meant to do away with all that �hammer of the gods� crap. The idea was to humanize the music again, to bring it down to an everyday scale. Mere mortals played those guitars, which meant that you could, too, if you felt so inclined. So, if you follow that line of logic out to its utmost extreme, Strummer�s was actually a very punk passing. He died like a regular guy, at home on a Sunday. Not at all like a Rock Star.

The thing is, though, it still doesn�t seem right. He was larger than life, and as such should have been immune to things like heart disease. If you�re going to take the stage and keep it you have to be larger than life, in one way or another. The Clash weren�t just ordinary guys up there, despite all the rhetoric to the contrary. They were four talented guys, and that made a very big difference. They knew what they were doing and they were very good at it (as were The Mescaleros, Joe�s latest band).

Were they �the only band that mattered�? Of course not; they were a band that mattered, which was rare enough.

Did they change my life? Not really. They did make it better, though, and you can�t ask much more of ordinary guys.

Thanks, Joe.



bmarkey 12/23/2002 05:54:00 PM