Recently read Chris Salewicz' biography of Joe Strummer (titled "Redemption Song").  Good read.  Long swathes of quotes from Strummer's friends, family, and acquaintances are often illuminating, sometimes repetitive.  Interesting to have different people's perspectives, and insights.  In some ways, this gives a real "you are there" feel of how things really were that would be hard to get out of a more conventionally discursive authorial biography.  On the other hand, this also means that one doesn't get quite as coherent an image of how the man did what he did, and one is left with unanswered questions about, and contradictory perspectives on, some matters.  in some ways, a biography in which the author took more of a position, made clearer statements about the subject, might be more satisfying.  Or maybe just an easier read.  This biography makes you think about who this really was, and what his impact was on the people in his life---clearly intense, as was his impact on our culture and music.  And the choice to write it this way avoids the possibility of presenting a partly-false picture of Strummer as told by the author to himself.

I like to read biographies of artists to see how it's done, how it happens.  And yes, I'll admit that this is in part because I wonder if I can use these lessons to help me do something great, or at least satisfying.  My only real complaint about the book is that analysis of the music and especially, how it was made and the musical interaction between Strummer and the other Clash members, especially Mick Jones, is somewhat, though not totally, lacking.  It's clear Strummer and Jones needed each other artistically, were a fantastically synergetic combination, and it also seems clear that Strummer's decision to "fire" Jones, breaking up the Clash, deprived us of some fantastic music they still could have made.

Listening to the posthumous "Streetcore" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, mixed by Martin Slattery and Scott Shields in part from guide vocals by Strummer and preliminary tracks.  Really excellent, even so.  Perhaps because some of the vocals weren't necessarily intended as the final versions, Strummer sounds relaxed, to good effect, but still reminiscent of the more discursive, rambling, poetic Clash lyrics at times.  "Coma girl" and "Arms Aloft" feature the kind of 16/8 or 8/8 even guitar chinking out the same chord that is almost an alt.cliche by this point (see Snow Patrol...)... but nice stuff.  Arms Aloft goes into a more bouncy guitar-rock chorus on "..arms aloft in Aberdeen".  No wonder I like this bit... I now realize that this is a close relative to the riff to which the Kinks set the words "I believe that you and me..." [last forever] in "All Day and All of the Night", i.e. one of the catchiest, most insistent guitar riffs of all time.  That in itself is a lesson about how musical creation can work---you don't necessarily need to be afraid when bits of something else find their way, perhaps transmuted, into your work...it happens to everyone, including the best of the best.  Of  course, "Arms Aloft" is no "All Day...", but it's nice, the Kinksy bit is tucked into the song naturally and the song doesn't sound like (and isn't) a Kinks ripoff at all.  Get Down Moses is an excellent reggae-drenched song; "Long Shadow" is like Neil Young and Leonard Cohen channeled through Joe.  Midnight Jam, mellow almost psychedelic, slowly swinging guitar-jam (the main hook reminiscent of a particular song from Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow", with a little dub influence on the vocals.  Silver and Gold is Joe doing an acoustic version of what sounds like a classic country/cowby song.  Nice closer.  Must check out his other albums with this configuration, I guess (there are two).

Another late-career Strummer endeavor was his collaboration with the sui generis kick-out-the-jams rave/soul/house/funk/jam band Black Grape (formed from crucial remnants Shaun Ryder and Bez of the Happy Mondays).  Typified by their hit single for the Euro 96 football tournament, the freaky anthem England's Irie, here live at Top of the Pops (Strummer's first appearance there; the Clash promised never to play the show).

Black Grape's first of two albums, It's Great to be Straight, Yeah! is weird but very good in a loose and slightly cheesy way.  Every track seems to be on Youtube.  Not-quite-randomly dipping into the craziness (warning, expect profanity and irreverence, and even (gasp!) bad taste), here's In the Name of the Father.  Prime candidate for any list of Top Ten Songs with Sitar Intro.  Another top track, the reggae-and-soul tinged Shake Your Money.  The Grapes take on a late 60's/early 70's guitar-jam kind of riff in Submarine (with allusions to A Day in the Life).   (If you can figure out what they mean when they sing "and the boy was so proud / of the crocodile on his sock / someone had to tell him / it was planet Reebok", you're thinking too hard.)  One of their better B-sides is Straight out of Trumpton.  But doesn't compare to It's a Big Day in the North... as near as they get to mellow, Balearic-isles house, a genre that I don't listen to much, but that I'm not surprised is improved by convex combination with something like the Grape's hyper-energetic punk/funk craziness.