Punk Rock Warlord

I saw the Joe Strummer documentary. If you aren’t a fan, don’t bother. If you are a fan, what a treat. A treasure trove of riches.

Weird thing is none of the people talking about Joe are identified. Is the movie assuming we’re just going to know Joe Ely or Tymon Dogg or Don Letts when we see them? That was strange to me.

It’s loaded with stuff I’d never seen before. Like Joe at age 5. He already had that face. Tons of photos of his squatting days, even before the 101ers.

I enjoyed Topper in this. Joe seems to have spent his time antagonizing Topper. He really wasn’t nice to him at all. And yet Topper seems to have come through it all looking good and seeming happy and not bitter.

Bernie Rhodes comes off as an asshole. No surprise there, I guess. Mick Jones seems a bit goofy.

One terrific thing is that there is a ton of non-Clash music in the movie, all stuff that Joe played on his radio show. It all sounds great. Of the Clash songs that get thrown in all over, I thought the best sounding was Magnificent 7. It sounded fantastic.

I felt really sad at the end of the movie. It felt like I was reliving the news of his death all over again. Is it weird to miss someone I never met? Maybe. Maybe not. But, boy, do I miss Joe.