The Hammock Papers: Strummer

Showing posts with label Strummer. Show all posts

21 August 2026

Happy Birthday, Joe Strummer

When I started, they told me I only needed 3 chords and the truth. It turned out I could manage with two and some vague ideas.

Joe Strummer, born on this day in 1952

"Bhindi Bhagee" with The Mescaleros ...

05 August 2026

Harder.

We aren’t particularly talented. We try harder!

Joe Strummer

02 January 2026

21 August 2025

19 June 2025

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, "Get Down Moses"

27 March 2025

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, "Global a Go-Go"

Broadcasting.

World service bulletin
From the nightshift D.J.
To all wavebands on Earth
Reconnoiter on the killahertz

This tune is going out to Marconi
To all corners of the globe
There ain't no hut in the Serengeti
Where my wavelengths do not probe ...

If I had five million pounds I'd start a radio station because something needs to be done. It would be nice to turn on the radio and hear something that didn't make you feel like smashing up the kitchen and strangling the cat.

Joe Strummer

06 April 2024

Authenticity.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light, and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: "It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to."

Jim Jarmusch

17 September 2023

Speaking.

Speaking King’s English in quotation …

20 May 2023

Beyond.

Susan Magsamen: "Leveraging the Arts to Service The Human Brain" ...

Our brains carry the signature of our artistic experiences. Following the tracks of aesthetic experiences all the way to its biological imprint in the brain takes an interdisciplinary approach. This is why the field of neuroarts is developing scientific frameworks and methods, such as the impact thinking method, to foster a marriage between the arts and the sciences.

Think of the impact thinking method as the scientific method, but as played by an orchestra. Where traditional science identifies a specific problem to solve and builds upon its findings, neuroarts identifies all the key players that make up an artistic experience and translates the effects of this symphony of sensory experience immediately to our health, well-being, and learning.

Every time you read poetry, listen to music, see a film, explore new architecture, or dance, you are biologically changed. Engaging with art sparks an emotional release that Aristotle called catharsis. Cultures everywhere have developed rituals and customs using art – singing, dancing, expressive writing, drawing, and storytelling – to facilitate catharsis. But the benefits of the arts and aesthetic experiences extend to other areas of our physical and mental health beyond catharsis.

17 May 2023

Nice.

If I had five million pounds I'd start a radio station because something needs to be done. It would be nice to turn on the radio and hear something that didn't make you feel like smashing up the kitchen and strangling the cat.

Joe Strummer

13 May 2023

Reconnoiter.

World service bulletin

From the nightshift D.J.

To all wavebands on Earth

Reconnoiter on the kilohertz

This tune is going out to Marconi

To all corners of the globe

There ain't no hut in the Serengeti

Where my wavelengths do not probe

20 April 2023

Dream.

Joe Strummer's London Calling is online ...

Joe Strummer, the legendary gravel-voiced punk-poet from The Clash, loved to listen to music on the radio. Even as he toured the world with "the only band that matters," he still had a dream to one day spin records for the BBC World Service, where he heard the latest UK hits over the shortwave band as a teenager in Africa.

He finally got his wish in 1999, when BBC World Service premiered Joe Strummer's London Calling. Between then and 2002, Strummer hosted a series of programs with a simple format - one man and his eclectic record collection. His globe spanning playlists included many of the rock, reggae and folk artists that inspired the Clash, plus many surprises.

17 April 2023

Own.

Crashing head-on into the future

Won't even leave a dent

Just walk in like you own it

Remember, it ain't set in cement ...

27 March 2023

Attitude.

Punk rock isn’t something you grow out of. Punk rock is like the Mafia, and once you’re made, you’re made. Punk rock is not the clothes or the music. Punk rock is an attitude, the "don't-give-me-any-bullshit-'cause-I-can-see-right-through-to-the-heart-of-the situation'-attitude. Because I'm wise to the tricks of the world. We're sick of all the bullshit. Give us some truth.

Joe Strummer

26 December 2022

Nice.

Joe Strummer

21 August 2022

Happy Birthday, Strummer

The way you get a better world is you don't put up with substandard anything.

Joe Strummer, born on this day in 1952

With The Mescaleros at the Roseland Ballroom in 1999 (don't miss the opening "Safe European Home") ...

12 August 2022

First.

I received my first skateboarding offense as a quinquagenarian yesterday.

What have I done?

02 August 2022

Clash, "Garageland"

Back in the garage with my bullshit detector ...

Harder.

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL