Elgin Avenue Breakdown (Revisited) [feat. Joe Strummer]

Apart from the Clash, Joe Strummer's output was a little disappointing. Granted, it seems impossible to get past the legend, for him or for listeners. He appears to have been more intelligent-- or at least better spoken-- than your average first-generation punk, and his vocals sounded fierce in their commitment to the material. His lefty politics had a bristling integrity, yet weren't so extreme as to be inaccessible or unrealistic. All in all, he showed many younger musicians that it was possible to play punk that was more than nihilist or fascist. To many, he represents rock's most populist principles, grandest ambitions, and highest callings. A handful of good-not-great albums and one or two side projects were all the solo work he left when he died suddenly in 2002, and none of it compares to his work with the Clash. But really, most anything would have paled next to The Clash or London Calling.

His influences were wide-ranging, although nowadays they're rarely as regarded as those he influenced. He found inspiration in early rock n' roll, particularly the Sun Studio sound (it's no coincidence Jim Jarmusch cast him in the Memphis-set Mystery Train, arguably his finest post-Clash work). And yet, his later solo albums like Global A-Go-Go, Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, and parts of Streetcore drew from world music influences. As in his politics, his music readily acknowledged a world and a culture apart from Western imperialists. Astralwerks is resurrecting two projects that showcase the diversity of his musical interests: a collection of songs from his band the 101'ers and a mid-1980s soundtrack he composed.

The 101'ers were a London pub-rock band that formed in the early 1970s and played around London exhaustively. They cut several demos, prepared a single, and toured with the Sex Pistols before Strummer joined what would become the Clash. Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited-- a mouthful of a title-- collects all their recorded output onto one disc, providing a brief but thorough overview of the band's short career. It encompasses the LP Elgin Avenue Breakdown, which was released in 1981, and a few live tracks and an alternate take of their lone single, "Keys to Your Heart" (reportedly inspired by future Slits drummer Palmolive). In addition to contemporary groups like Dr. Feelgood, the obvious pub-rock connection is early r&b;, derived from early progenitors like Chuck Berry and Ike Turner through the early Beatles-- at times it sounds like Elgin Avenue could be located in Hamburg. They even cover "Maybelline".

While pub-rock has modest aims, Revisited proves generally solid, anchored by songs like "letsagetabitarockin'" and "Steamgauge 99", rambunctious run-throughs that rush headlong into their melodies, as Strummer delivers his lyrics in a garbled slur. But there really are no surprises here, just a general consistency on the studio tracks that bleeds into repetitiveness, hinting that Strummer turned to punk perhaps out of restlessness with pub-rock's strictures. The live cuts of "Maybelline" and "Gloria" suggest he was already halfway there by the time he met his future bandmates.

Skip ahead almost a decade: After the Clash had a top 10 U.S. hit with "Rock the Casbah", the group disbanded, and an aimless Strummer acted in and soundtracked the Nicaraguan epic Walker, starring Ed Harris and directed by Alex Cox. Cox was and still is notorious for Repo Man and Sid & Nancy, and he and Strummer worked together on Straight to Hell around the same time. Walker was an ambitious flop, but Strummer's soundtrack holds up fairly well, thanks mainly to a group of seasoned musicians. His mix of Latin American music with a determined pop flair creates some intriguing moments, like the rollicking rhythms and Zander Schloss's quick picking on "Machete" and the two versions of the samba "Filibustero" (the original and a remix that originally appeared on a rare 12"), which bookend the soundtrack nicely. The vocal tracks sound like barroom sing-alongs, rowdy and slurred, but tuneful and more atmospheric than many of the instrumental tracks.

But Walker is as much a product of its time and circumstances as of Strummer's imagination. With its slick saxophone, "Latin Romance" sounds like a lost '80s relic, a slice of cinematic cheese. Strummer seems as confined here as he did with the 101'ers, which may be due to the restrictions either of the film itself or of the soundtrack form. Like Elgin Avenue Breakdown Revisited, Walker at the very least expands our picture of Strummer as it presents an artist whose imagination was often bigger than the forms he worked in-- a predicament that created a compelling tension between possibility and actuality, the music as it is and the music as it could have been.