joe strummer dead

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

today (sunday) at the age of 52 at home.

― stirmonster, Monday, 23 December 2002 06:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh wow. This is sad.

― Sean (Sean), Monday, 23 December 2002 06:28 (twenty-three years ago)

Do you have a source on this?

― Leon Neyfakh, Monday, 23 December 2002 06:43 (twenty-three years ago)

Shenanigans

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 23 December 2002 06:49 (twenty-three years ago)

no mention of this on UPI, AP or Reuters. Or BBC radio for the last 30 minutes.

― Aaron A., Monday, 23 December 2002 07:07 (twenty-three years ago)

i've got it from a source very close to mr. strummer. i wouldn't make something like this up.

― stirmonster, Monday, 23 December 2002 08:24 (twenty-three years ago)

you can trust stirmonster.

― jack cole (jackcole), Monday, 23 December 2002 08:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Unfortunately it is true. Its up on his official site, strummerville.com

"23 DECEMBER 2002

Joe Strummer died yesterday.

Our condolences to Luce and the kids, family and friends."

― Weekender (Nordicskillz), Monday, 23 December 2002 08:55 (twenty-three years ago)

sorry thats strummersite.com

― Weekender (Nordicskillz), Monday, 23 December 2002 09:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Still no sign of this anywhere else as far as I can see. Are you sure this isn't someone playing a sick joke?

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 23 December 2002 09:13 (twenty-three years ago)

this is terrible, what a bad month for music, first mary hansen and now joe from the "only rock band that mattered". rest in peace, my heart goes out to family, friends and fans alike....

― timolane, Monday, 23 December 2002 09:14 (twenty-three years ago)

Refresh the news page at Strummersite and it'll pop up. It's all too true, I'm afraid.

― Michael White, Monday, 23 December 2002 09:15 (twenty-three years ago)

No! This is terrible.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Monday, 23 December 2002 09:17 (twenty-three years ago)

Unbelievable. Well, thanks, Joe, for the rock. You'll be missed.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Monday, 23 December 2002 09:23 (twenty-three years ago)

It's on BBC News now. Damn... this is sad.

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 23 December 2002 09:31 (twenty-three years ago)

Just awful. Words fail me.

― the pinefox, Monday, 23 December 2002 09:33 (twenty-three years ago)

it is sad. hopefully ned will be kinder now

― Vic (Vic), Monday, 23 December 2002 09:56 (twenty-three years ago)

Horrible, horrible news. I had assumed it was hoax and hope against hope it is still (as of this writing it's only up on the Strummer site with the BBC regurgitating. Nothing more in depth, no AP, UPI, NyTimes, etc). Loved the Clash, played the first three as much as I've played any other albums, loved him in Mystery Train, even loved him in Straight to Hell, liked the Mescaleros albums a lot more than I though I would've. He always seemed like a nice guy in interviews, magnanimous sort. He will be missed. Is there any word as to the cause of death?

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 23 December 2002 10:22 (twenty-three years ago)

i didnt love the clash, @ least not since i was like 17 (long time) but that guy always seemed cool. man thats really sad.

― unknown or illegal user (doorag), Monday, 23 December 2002 10:24 (twenty-three years ago)

btw i listened to em for the 1st time in 4-eva a couple days ago, damn "white man in hammersmith palais" is a good song.

― unknown or illegal user (doorag), Monday, 23 December 2002 10:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I know someone who knows P.Simenon. Will try and confirm.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Monday, 23 December 2002 10:29 (twenty-three years ago)

It's all over the wires now so I guess it's true. Very, very sad.

― James Blount (James Blount), Monday, 23 December 2002 10:32 (twenty-three years ago)

Very sad, I feel cold. One of the very best... we shall miss him.

― kinski (kinski), Monday, 23 December 2002 10:51 (twenty-three years ago)

The Revolution Rock - I am in a state of shock.

According to BBC online it was a heart attack. Can't take it in. RIP Joe.

― Paul Cunningham, Monday, 23 December 2002 10:59 (twenty-three years ago)

Agh! Nooo! This is so sad. RIP, Joe.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 23 December 2002 11:07 (twenty-three years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2600669.stm

Given how many factual errors there are in the article I'm hoping he's alive. But generally speaking - this is crap.

His onstage freak out at glasto a few years ago was a favoured live gig memory of mine.

― tigerclawskank, Monday, 23 December 2002 11:13 (twenty-three years ago)

"And I was gripped by that deadly phantom
I followed him through hard jungles
As he stalked through the back lots
Strangling through the night shades

The thief of life
Moved onwards and outwards to love

In a one stop only motel
A storm bangs on the cheapest room
The phantom slips in to spill blood
Even on the sweetest honeymoon

The killer of love
Caught the last late Niagara bus

By chance or escaping from misery
By suddeness or in answer to pain
Smoking in the dark cinema
You could see the bad go down again

And the clouds are high in Spanish mountains
And a Ford roars through the night full of rain.

The killer's blood flows
But he loads his gun again

Make a grown man cry like a girl
To see the guns dying at sunset

In vain lovers claimed
But they never had met."

Death Is A Star

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 23 December 2002 11:15 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow, that BBC piece has to be one of the worst articles I've read in recent memory. It sounds like it was written by an alien.

― geeta (geeta), Monday, 23 December 2002 11:20 (twenty-three years ago)

I know the editor. I'll pass your comments on.
Sad news. I'm not the world's biggest Clash fan but growing up in London just wouldn't have been the same without them. Plenty to thank Joe for.

― Zora (Zora), Monday, 23 December 2002 11:52 (twenty-three years ago)

That is sad news. RIP

― Joe (Joe), Monday, 23 December 2002 13:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I know most people here probably didn't agree but I thought his last couple of albums were so, so good...this is just terrible news, terrible.

― J0hn Darn13ll3 (J0hn Darn13ll3), Monday, 23 December 2002 13:45 (twenty-three years ago)

My sister is going to be devastated, seeing as she's one of the biggest Clash fans I know of.

I got to see Strummer live a few years back (wish I could remember which band he was opening for!) and he was one of the better live performers I've seen. It's too bad.

― Nicole (Nicole), Monday, 23 December 2002 13:59 (twenty-three years ago)

His passionate eloquence made him perhaps pop's best interviewee. Utterly compelling and charismatic on the WESTWAY TO THE WORLD docu, as he wraps his unreeling sentences around bittersweet memories.

― the pinefox, Monday, 23 December 2002 14:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Goddamn. One of the all-time greats, for real.
The Clash at the Cape Cod Coliseum in '82 remains the best show I've ever seen. Nobody was more wired on stage than Mr. Strummer. He took intensity to the next level. And was he ever passionate about the power of rock and roll.

― Jim M, Monday, 23 December 2002 14:59 (twenty-three years ago)

hopefully ned will be kinder now

Hey now, I can separate my feelings about the band from the man, and it's crap to die at that age of a heart attack, and crapper to leave people behind (though such is life). Read the news elsewhere this morning and I spared him and his loved ones a kind thought -- there's no reason not to.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 23 December 2002 15:29 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow. I was dumbfounded when I heard the news. I hope that Joe's family can take comfort in the fact that he literally changed the world during his short time here.

Like many people, the Clash were my gateway from Top 40 into punk rock. When I was 14, I shoplifted _Sandinista!_ from my local chain store, figuring "the Clash would have wanted it that way" and I was somehow taking a stand against big business. I was amazed at its depth of styles. _Sandinista!_ showed me that punk rock didn't HAVE to be three chords and fashion trappings. Indeed, it could be anything you wanted it to be...even just "a mike and boom in your living room."

We post-baby-boom children of punk will not have the privilege of growing old with our heroes. So many of them are already gone. It's up to us not to forget.

― mike a (mike a), Monday, 23 December 2002 16:36 (twenty-three years ago)

...and fashion trappings
You mean like armbands, splatter painted clothes and up-turned collars?

jsrip

― v (1411), Monday, 23 December 2002 17:09 (twenty-three years ago)

True, the Clash had those things, but that's not what I took away from them.

― mike a (mike a), Monday, 23 December 2002 17:27 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know what to say. I can't believe it's true. I could kick myself for missing the opportunity to see him last year. Now it'll never happen.

Damn. Damn. Damn.

― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 23 December 2002 19:02 (twenty-three years ago)

Just a few weeks ago, I read that he was not averse to a one-off Clash reunion for the rock/roll hof induction this coming sprine.

― Horace Mann, Monday, 23 December 2002 19:20 (twenty-three years ago)

This is so, so, so, so f***in sad, London Calling was literally the last thing i listened to before i went to bed last night (found a good site for lyrics, was paring the real words with what i've been yelling along with the album. Not that far off was i)

God bless ya Joe, you're missed for sure...

damn....

― Phil Dokes (sunny), Monday, 23 December 2002 20:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Crushingly sad. I'm not someone who is normally moved by the passing of rockstars, but c'mon....Joe Strummer?!!?!?! He's just someone you always expected to be around, and irrefutably the coolest gent in the world. So very, very sad.

Digging my BRIGADE ROSSE shirt out, like the sad fucker I am.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 23 December 2002 20:44 (twenty-three years ago)

When I told him my favorite Clash song was "Street Parade," he just laughed:

"The Street Parade"
When I was waiting for your phone call
The one that never come
Like a man about to burst
I was dying of thirst

Though I will never fade
Or get lost in this daze
Though I will disappear
Into the street parade

It's not too hard to cry
In these crying times
I'll take a broken heart
And take it home in parts
But I will never fade

I was in this place
By the first church of the city
I saw tears on the face
The face of a visionary

Though I will disappear
To join the street parade
Disappear and fade
Into the street parade

― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 23 December 2002 22:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh I hope we don't have people standing around like hippies crying. That his family have requested contributions to the upcoming SA benefit in lieu of flowers is encouraging tho.

*tear wells up*

― Hunter (Hunter), Monday, 23 December 2002 22:39 (twenty-three years ago)

This whole thing is going to stick in my craw for the next few days. It's tragic, it's frustrating, it's -- to use a parlance simultaneously too trivial and altogether appropriate -- fucked up. I always felt his voice had some underlying melancholy to its roar, and now it'll be at the forefront the next few times I hear "Straight to Hell" or "Something About England". Maybe there's something on MTV2 about him right now.

Oh hell, it's New Found Glory.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 24 December 2002 00:27 (twenty-three years ago)

― original bgm, Tuesday, 24 December 2002 01:12 (twenty-three years ago)

two weeks pass...

only just heard about this. RIP Joe.

― Jeff W, Thursday, 9 January 2003 09:55 (twenty-three years ago)

six years pass...

;_;

― smashing aspirant (milo z), Tuesday, 22 December 2009 07:13 (sixteen years ago)

Six years ago I was hoping to distract myself and went to see Gangs Of New York at Grauman's Chinese - big sprawling mistake there. The best part of the movie was the trailer for Kill Bill 1

There was a bar still open and I went in for a beer - the band inside said that they were going to play a Clash song in tribute and started in on "Should I Stay Or Should I Go." Didn't have the heart to tell them that it was a Mick Jones song. Got drunk anyway.

― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 09:19 (sixteen years ago)

I think he would have been amused by the whole RATM thing. RIP Joe.

― Soukesian, Tuesday, 22 December 2009 09:32 (sixteen years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.