Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Joe and Bruce

Given the tension of the past week, I thought I’d launch the weekend with an extracurricular open thread regarding other, thought related interests.

A friend sent me a link to an interesting letter one of my heroes wrote about another (keep reading, it’s below the fold). Way back when the 70s turned into the 80s, narrow-minded and dogmatic punks (a perverse contradiction if there ever was one) often snickered that Joe Strummer of The Clash was basically the English Bruce Springsteen. They meant this as a smear of course, because Bruce wasn’t anti-establishment enough for them. Indeed, there were clear resemblances. They did look a bit alike at that point. Both loved to belt and snarl their vocals. Both played telecasters. Both displayed a working-class perspective and a commitment or claim to a certain kind of authenticity. Both had a great ear and love for an uplifting hook (hell, Joe admitted to being a fan). Both shared some of the same heroes, like Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Johnny Cash. Both loved the history of Rock ‘n Roll.  

A little later, we found out that Joe had attended one of Bruce’s 1975 landmark gigs in London, supporting Born to Run, when Bruce was mortified that the promoters were billing him as The Future of Rock and Roll. Turns out that it was a formative experience for Joe. Their mutual admiration, which makes so much sense, gradually became public knowledge.

In 1997, Mark Hagen was in the middle of producing a documentary entitled “Bruce Springsteen: A Secret History” and he asked Joe for a quote. Here’s Joe’s fax:

If you can’t read Joe’s maniacal scrawl (which I’ve been deciphering for 30 years or so now) here’s a transcript:

ATTN: MARK HAGEN

Dear Mark – here’s my contribution

BRUCE IS GREAT… IF YOU DONT AGREE WITH THAT YOU’RE A PRETENTIOUS MARTIAN FROM VENUS. BRUCE LOOKS GREAT… LIKE HE’S ABOUT TO CRAWL UNDERNEATH THE CHORDS WITH A SPANNER & SOCK THE STARTER MOTOR ONE TIME SO THAT A ENGINE STARTS UP – HUMMING & READY TO TAKE US ON A GOLDEN RIDE WAY OUT SOMEWHERE IN THE YONDER… BRUCE IS GREAT… BECAUSE HE’LL NEVER LAY DOWN & BE CONQUERED BY HIS PROBLEMS HE’S ALLWAYS READY TO BUST OUT the SHACK & HIT THE TRACK… HIS MUSIC IS GREAT ON A DARK & RAINY MORNING IN ENGLAND, JUST WHEN YOU NEED SOME SPIRIT & SOME PROOF THAT THE BIG WIDE WORLD EXISTS, THE D.J. PUTS ON “RACING IN THE STREETS” & LIFE SEEMS WORTH LIVING AGAIN… LIFE SEEMS TO BE IN CINEMASCOPE AGAIN. BRUCE IS NOT ON AN EGO TRIP… BRUCE IS ACTUALLY INTO THE MUSIC… WE NEED PEOPLE LIKE THIS… A LOT OF RECORDS TODAY ARE MADE BY PEOPLE JUST TO FEED THEIR FAME. BRUCE IS GREAT… THERE AINT NO WHINGING WHINING OR COMPLAINING.. THERE’S ONLY GREAT MUSIC, LYRICS & AN OCEAN OF TALENT. ME? I LOVE SPRINGSTEEN!!!

(Signed, ‘Joe Strummer’)

The piece my friend sent me can be found here: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2…

In the film, Bruce on stage calls Joe “one of the greatest rockers of all time” and launches into Sonny Curtis’s ‘I Fought the Law,’ which The Clash famously covered. When Joe passed away of a sudden heart attack on Christmas Eve 2002, Bruce flexed his industry muscle and put together a tribute at the Grammys with Little Steven, Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, and Tony Kanal. They brought a crowd filled with the cheesiest figures in the music industry to its feet with a roaring rendition of London Calling. If you haven’t seen it:



When Bruce headlined Glastonbury in 2009, he opened with a cover of “Coma Girl,” the song that opens Joe’s last (and posthumous) record with The Mescaleroes, entitled “Streetcore.”  Joe wrote it about his daughter at Glastonbury, where he had established himself as fixture, both on stage in front of a new generation and around a campfire he held throughout the festival every year, a place for anyone to gather and chat with him.  

Here’s a youtube of Bruce doing “Coma Girl,” the footage ain’t great, but it sounds awesome.


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55 comments

  3. janicket

    The first time I heard his bitter acoustic version of “Born in the USA” it blew me away.  I already recognized the anger that animated that song, the antithesis of what the jingoists took from it, but that stark, in your face, no mistake remaking of the song to me is one of his most powerful moments in music.

  4. Peter Jukes

    But Joe… Joe… he was OUT THERE.

    Saw him three times at Friar’s Aylesbury, and then a stellar performance in Rock Against Racism. He was the key figure in my youth (apart from maybe Birmingham’s reggae masters Steel Pulse) who really fused music and meaning for me, pleasure and politics.

    Thanks for the great

    Youtube embed

    Strummer

    Son

  5. Strummerson

    I’ve often fantasized about a next generation ‘Traveling Willburys’ that will never come to pass with Bruce, Joe, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, and Paul Weller.  Now THAT would have been something.  At least I would have liked to have Joe sit in with Bruce on his inspiring Seegar Sessions!

    Joe mentions “Racing in the Streets” from “Darkness on the Edge of Town” in his letter.  I always wondered if his “Burning Streets” from “Streetcore” was an homage (given that he has an homage to Johnny Cash on that album called “Long Shadow” and covers Marley’s “Redemption Songs”).  This comment seems to lend credence to my intuition:

  7. hubiestubert

    I’ve worked events with Bruce a few times over the years. In Massachusetts. In Maine. In Phoenix.

    They have never been good experiences. Not because of the music. Not because of the crowd. But because of the man at the center of the whole thing.

    Maybe this is akin to pissing into folks’ cornflakes, and I hope it isn’t taken as such, but from the perspective of someone who works these sorts of events, Bruce is sort of a selfish prick.

    That’s easy to say. It’s easy, and even clichéd to point at someone who is successful and say, “He’s a git.” Especially when folks do things and extend hands to others in their industry, and do good work otherwise.

    I have a more tight of a focus. Working events, you tend to judge folks on how they treat the folks who aren’t going to advance their career or causes. Who aren’t likely to head to the press. Who, in short, don’t really matter that much in the larger scheme of things.

    When I say “selfish prick” I don’t mean that his rider is ridiculous. It is fairly long and extensive, but that is any stadium show nowadays. Looking at Taylor Swifts’ or Celine Dione’s would make your head spin on the little details. Same with something like Cirque de Soleil. Or the Black Eyed Peas. That is very much the business, epecially for large stadium shows.

    What I look at are how an act treats the folks around them. How they treat the crew. The staff. And the fans.

    Bruce has a reputation for being late to start. Some of that is passed off by the fans as just the crew being meticulous. As someone who works these sorts of events, they are. As professionals, they get in early to take care of things. Those large shows are wired and locked down hours before their rider says they need to be in by. No competent stage crew is NOT done hours before doors. There is stuff that can go wrong, and that’s why you check and double check, and triple check, and do a check by doors as well. From the several of these shows I’ve done, I can do nothing but compliment his stage crew for being consumate professionals and amply competent. Bruce isn’t late for his shows because of technical concerns. He’s late because he rolls into the arenas late.

    His last time at Glenndale, he rolled in late to the show, because he wanted to finish watching the game on TV. And then was late getting upstairs, because he wanted to finish watching basketball. How do I know this? Catering means you’re somewhat invisible. You bring in things, you set up, you tear down, folks forget that you’re there. At least some do. What annoyed me about this time, was that because he was late, he held the doors from opening so that he could do his soundcheck. Meanwhile there was a sandstorm blowing in, and thousands of folks were left to wait in the grit and the wind, hoping for the doors to open, and afraid to leave the line for fear of not getting to their seats in time.

    Which they neededn’t have worried about, since he was already late coming in, the show was delayed more so he could watch his basketball game in peace.

    Not all musicians are like this. Willy Nelson shows up not only on time, but early and is amazing with his fans. Suzanne Vega and Natalie Merchant are amazingly giving to their fans and other musicians, and unfailingly polite to the staff. The Black Eyed Peas have a reputation for being difficult by some, but they show up early, they work their asses off with their fans, and they start on time for every gig that I’ve ever worked with them. Wynton Marsalis will sit on the shoulder of his soundman getting every detail, every possible note and situation, down to the crowd density accounted for, but he shows up on time and in force with the Orchestra, who he drills damn hard. He does the job, and takes it as a job. And has a respect for his fans that is amazing to watch.

    Bruce…not so much. And maybe that is years of doing the shows. Maybe that’s just being shagged out towards the end of a long tour schedule. But having worked with acts that have been doing things as long, if not longer, it shows a basic disrespect for the fans, and the venue. You can piss on my crew, and we’ll still get the job done, and not be too fond of folks, but when you disrespect the folks you work for–the fans–then you gain my ire.

    He’s done good work, he gives his time and effort, but at heart, I can’t be all that enthused. Curse of being backstage maybe. Those who like sausage and law perhaps…

  8. fogiv

    why so many good diaries on a day when I have absolutely no time to give them a proper read, absorb the juices, and vomit my opinions upon your collective shoes?  you mooselims are killing me!

    Quickly, on Strummer:

    Awesome.  Anyone who has a fuck authority sticker on their casket is tops in my book.  strumm, have you read Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain? There’s a cool anecdote about the first meeting of the Clash and The Ramones that I’ll never forget.

    On The Boss:

    Whatever his flaws/failures, he’s arguably the closest thing to Woddy Guthrie we have today, and I think there’s tremendous value in that.

  10. fogiv

    sorry, embedding disabled.  but this is a long <13 minute ‘must see’ of the boss on “VH1 Storytellers’ performing Devils and Dust.  After, he goes through the lyrics line by line, discussing the meaning, the story, and the emotion.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

    must see, and watch it all the way through!  the end is priceless.

  11. fogiv

    of you’re happy (and live in Burlington) you should know that Justin Townes Earle is playing at Higher Ground tonight (8:30).

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