Joe Strummer, the undisputed pioneer of punk and former front man for The Clash, is captured in this revealing and touching portrait. Dispelling the punk persona to reveal a die-hard performer who gives it all on-stage, then stays after the show to sign autographs for every last fan, the documentary hits the road with Strummer’s new band, The Mescaleros, as they tour for their second album, Global a Go-Go. This insider’s view was shot by filmmaker and long-time Strummer friend D [Read More...]
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“Let’s Rock Again!” tells the story of Joe Strummer, a man who ended up having to remind the world that “I was in the Clash.” Dick Rude’s film, shot in 2001 and 2002, followed the onetime punk star and his new band, the Mescaleros, as they toured the States and Japan. It covers the 18 months before the singer’s death of a heart defect.
The film and DVD extras show Strummer signing endless autographs while listening to fans tell how he changed their lives. “Everybody’s got a story to tell,” Strummer explains. “You can’t hurry them along.” Rude calls his old friend “a born sweetheart.”
Strummer took a decade off after the Clash went supernova. His young band was a hard sell, but the music was good and his shows made fans happy with “nuggets from the past.” The main DVD extra is a treat: Strummer and the boys working through “The Harder They Come” and dub-era Clash songs like “Armagideon Time.”
Director Rude did a 15-minute Q&A session at the Tribeca film festival, included here as an extra. He tells the audience it was “very difficult for me to cut this movie” after Strummer died.
Other extras have Strummer talking about his life on the road. “Performing is partly joy and partly terror, and you have to be able to deal with both emotions. It takes a lot of spirit to perform.” One of the last extra clips has Strummer considering the death of another punk star, Joey Ramone: “It doesn’t seems real. … He was one of the best.”
Images are full-screen; audio is in stereo. The presentation is good enough, despite some here-and-there synch problems.
A very brief review: If you both like and respect Joe Strummer … if you realize that he invented his own mold and then broke it to remain utterly unique AND if you love wonderfully challenging music that still can kick you in the gut, THEN YOU NEED TO CLICK THAT “PURCHASE BUTTON” near the top of this page and bring “LET’S ROCK AGAIN!” into your home. Don’t be fooled by the title - it takes on a whole new meaning when you hear Joe say it near the end of the film. One huge caveat for those who LOVE Mr. Strummer. As joyful as the music is and as enraptured as Joe seems when he’s playing it with this amazing band of brothers that he’s assembled, there is an underlying sadness to the film that you wish could be wiped away. This story was supposed to be a fairy tale; one with a happy ending where Joe is sitting on his porch at age 85 teaching London’s new breed of punks what matters and what doesn’t. Watching Joe dig and scratch for airtime by glad-handing dunderheaded button-pushing dj’s seems tragic and backwards. They should be bowing before him and feverishly explaining how “The Call Up” changed their perspective on everything - but like I said, this isn’t that fairy tale. Joe always knew it was all about the music and so he did his glad-handing with pride and dignity … for the chance at one more go in the studio … and another tour … and another chance to joyfully blow out his voice in honor of THE TRUTH and all the working musicians who went before him. This film makes me miss him all the more - and in a weird and unfair way, that’s good.