“The hippy movement was a failure. All hippies around now just represent complete apathy. There’s a million good reasons why the thing failed, OK. But the only thing we’ve got to live with is that it failed.” ~ Joe Strummer
“What’s holding me up is I’m confused about the nature of the music. Because the modern music doesn’t reach me. I mean to say the sound of the modern electric production. A lot of sequencers… synths. That’s what people are buying. Because that doesn’t reach me, it throws me back to like 1948, but I don’t want to be there. Back there, I’m talking about blues records…. The roots of rock ‘n’ roll is rhythm and blues and that’s like really where I’m at, where I was always at.” ~ Joe Strummer
The Clash: Mick Jones (rocking the pink polka dot necktie!) and Joe Strummer at The Royal College Of Art, London, November 5 1976, by John Ingham, my edit of original via
Movie stills of Joe Strummer starring as a character named Vince Taylor in F.J. Ossang’s crime noir/road movie “Doctor Chance”(France/Chile, 1997).
Set mostly in desolate South American locations (Atacama Desert, Chile), the film is an obscure tale of crime and intrigue: a young gangster dealing with stolen works of art and other dodgy items under the order of an overbearing mother. When both a rival gang and a dazzling prostitute get in the way, he escapes to Chile in a red convertible to meet his mysterious connection, Vince Taylor(Joe’s link to the rocker who wrote ‘Brand New Cadillac’ being a huge nod to R’n’R that is more than obvious). Joe delivers his lines in passable French and also contributed a track to the soundtrack, “Victory Lane”, released in France under the alternate title “Messagero Killer Boy”.
“…Coming back to Strummer, the effectiveness of his performance lies in the fact that Strummer had just to be Strummer to make things work: A power of nature, a punk icon, he makes his presence in the last part of the movie a pivotal one for the film: He is part friend, part savior, part underground anti-establishment fighter.”
