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Endless Strummer

Over the past 10 years, few artists have been quite as elusive as Joe Strummer. After the breakup of The Clash in 1986, he dabbled briefly in solo work with the much-maligned Earthquake Weather and a series of acting appearances and film scores for such movies as Sid and Nancy, Permanent Record, Straight to Hell and Walker. Then, when his contract with Epic Records ran out, he seemingly disappeared, cropping up occasionally as a guest musician or producer on records by UK acts such as the Pogues, the Levellers and Black Grape. In 1997, however, his odd exile seems to be coming to an end: In February, Ark 21 released Generations, a human-rights benefit album for which Strummer (under the name Electric Doghouse) provides the stirring title track; his haunting film score will appear in the John Cusack comedy Grosse Pointe Blank, which opens April 11; and a few weeks back he wrote and recorded a track called "Living in the Flood" with reggae vocalist Horace Andy that may be released as a single later this year. Strummer also makes an intriguing appearance on a Jack Kerouac tribute album, Kicks Joy Darkness (due out April 8 on Rykodisc), where he plays music behind a tape of Kerouac doing a live reading of the poem "MacDougal Street Blues Cantos Dos." He's also recently wrapped what he claims is his last acting gig, a role in French director F.J. Ossang's Dr. Chance, in which he "speaks French and wears rubber trousers." John McPartlin talked with Strummer about his eclectic series of projects and the powerful legacy of The Clash.

How did you get involved with the Grosse Pointe Blank film score?

John Cusack called me and said, "Hey, we're writing this movie listening to very heavy Clash tracks like 'Sean Flynn' and 'Armagideon Time.' Do you want to write some bits of score?" And I basically wormed my way in on that.

How did you two know each other?

We nearly acted together in the Spanish desert in a crazed spaghetti western from Alex Cox called Straight to Hell, but he was fired for not shaving his head. That didn't stop us from hanging out a couple of days.

Is your score going to be on the soundtrack album?

No, it's not on it. But I'm gonna release [the music] on my own record. Especially two or three bits of it that are particularly kicking. I'm beginning to leave quite a bit of things in my wake, so to speak. I think I could collect a CD that would be worth putting out in the next year or so. I think I'm going to call it Strummerville because, although it's me on all the tracks, I'm working with [techno artist] Richard Norris on some and [the Damned's] Rat Scabies and Seggs from the Ruts on some, or with a UK percussionist, programmer and musician named Pablo Cooke on others. I thought to give it that name to make it sound like more than one person.

You also make an appearance on a new Jack Kerouac tribute album?

Yeah. The funniest thing about that is that [the project's producer] Jim Sampas sends a cassette of Kerouac talking at a poetry reading and somebody in the back of the bar is playing Frank Sinatra on the jukebox. So in between Kerouac saying, "Nobody looked up," you can hear Frank going [sings], "Come fly with me...." So Jim Sampas calls me and says, "Can you kind of cover up Sinatra, because we don't want to get sued." So I laid in the music behind Kerouac as best I could, but I could still hear Frank going, "Come fly with me." So I had to invent this absurd kind of hyena-cum-Shangri-Las "oooo-ahhh" backing part to pop in at obtuse moments to cover Frank whenever he happened to bleed onto Kerouac's recording. I was laughing to myself all night. It was the most peculiar task I've ever had yet.

How about the Electric Doghouse song on the Generations album? Was that another one-shot deal?

We just cut that one track. Because I was cutting the Grosse Pointe Blank score, I had Rat Scabies and Seggs from the Ruts in the studio. We cut it in downtime, really, on the cleanup day. Seggs' cab was waiting to take him to LAX to fly back to England. The cabdriver was in the control room. I had to drag [the cabdriver] out of the cab and into the control room so he wouldn't blow his top. He just stood there saying, "My cousin plays bongos, you know." As soon as we got to the end of the tune, Seggs had to leg it to the cab and catch his flight.

Where did the Electric Doghouse name come from?

I said, "What are we going to call it? I don't want to call it 'Joe Strummer.' " And [engineer] John X said, "What about Electric Doghouse?" and we said, "We're not going to think of anything better than that."

Any other projects that you're working on?

I'm definitely going to make a record with [country singer-songwriter] Joe Ely. I don't know if you've heard of this, but there's this Tex-Mex techno vibe. It's like walking into El Paso with Kraftwerk under your arm. That's what we're going to try and do. We got three tunes done. I like it, but I don't know if your grandfather will like it. We don't want the mariachi police coming after us. There's a lot of songs I'd like to sing in that style. I'd like to try Robert Johnson in that style, like "Come On in My Kitchen." And we could hire a mariachi band and get a breakbeat going. We don't want to annoy anyone; we're just trying to assimilate things. It's more a dream than an actuality at the moment.

What do you think of The Clash's legacy?

Well, I'm a bit bewildered by the potency and longevity of it. It's like something that refuses to lay down and die. I'm more at peace with it now because I think it's useless to try and fight it.

But doesn't it say something about the power of the music?

Yeah, well, obviously that prides me. I'm only whingeing. Really, I'm dead proud.

Were you upset by the reunion rumors the past couple of years?

Yeah, because I don't like winding people up. I really don't think we're going to re-form, so let's check the new sounds, know what I mean? For God's sake, there's a hundred new groups a minute in hip-hop, techno, dance, rock, rap. Let's dig that.

Do you guys still keep in touch?

Yeah. My kids are friends with Mick [Jones]'s kid. My littlest one is friends with [Paul] Simonon's. We keep it friendly, you know.

~Media Cyanide

From Media Cyanide