Righteous
My previous post about Joe Manning and the image I created of listening to him by campfire brought to mind another extraordinary musician, Joe Strummer. As mentioned in YESorNO DC recently, the documentary detailing Joe’s life as a solo and collaborative musician is finally out. The Future is Unwritten is not just a movie about the Clash. It’s not just a movie about 70’s/80’s London. It’s not just a movie about punk rock or revolution. Rather it’s a collage of these things plus an evocative look into the creation of Joe Strummer–punk rock warlord and (gasp!) human. It’s nice to finally peek behind the curtain…Joe is more than just the ‘leader’ of the Clash. He’s the son of a diplomat, boarding school failure, brother of suicide, former hippie, righteous thinker, father, escapist, and campfire enthusiast.
One refreshing thing about the film is that there are no chyrons–graphics announcing the name of the interviewee or location. Childhood friends, lovers, bandmates, fans, celebrities appear without fanfare. Just as, I assume, Joe would have preferred.
As a sidenote, this film sturred me to pick up Psychotic Reactions… again and re-read Lester’s article about The Clash. If you have yet to read it, please consider.
Yeah, I don’t know nearly enough about this band. Time to get schooled. BTW, I’m impressed that you know the term Chyron, that’s quite geeky of you!
Well, all that time at E! making nonsense television really bumped my vocabulary up a notch.
BTW, if you want a documentary about the Clash specifically, check out “Westway to the World” or one of the docs your boy over at YESORNO can recommend…
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0321711/