Previously Unreleased Track “Fantastic” Available Now
As part of the celebrations of Joe’s 70th birthday on Sunday 21st August, the previously unheard track “Fantastic,” from the upcoming Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years album, is available now across all DSPs and streaming services. The song stands as one of Joe’s final recordings, with vocals recorded in December 2002 at the famed Rockfield Studios in Monmouthshire, Wales, mere weeks after Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros played their last ever live show at Liverpool University on November 22, 2002. LISTEN HERE
“Fantastic” heralds Dark Horse Records’ upcoming release of Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years, the first-ever comprehensive collection highlighting Strummer’s work with his post-Clash band, The Mescaleros, arriving everywhere Friday, September 16 on 4 CD w/72-page book and 7 LP w/32-page book, special edition packaging and exclusive 12”x12” art print. Pre-orders are available now HERE. Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years includes remastered editions of all three of The Mescaleros’ studio albums, plus 15 rare and unreleased tracks spanning the first demos Strummer wrote for the band to outtakes from their final recordings together, as well as songs like “Ocean Of Dreams,” featuring the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones on guitar. Executive produced by Strummer’s widow, Lucinda Tait, and produced by David Zonshine, the richly curated boxset also includes exclusive new interviews with Joe’s friends, collaborators and Mescaleros band mates, plus never-before-seen handwritten notes, lyrics, and drawings by Strummer taken from the Joe Strummer Archive.
While best known as the front man for The Clash, Strummer produced some of the most exciting work of his career with The Mescaleros. Strummer said during this period: “All that’s happening for me now is just a chancer’s bluff. I learned that fame is an illusion and everything about it is just a joke. I’m far more dangerous now, because I don’t care at all.” Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years highlights this intense period of creativity from 1999-2002, collecting for the first time such extraordinary albums as Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (1999), Global A Go-Go(2001), and the posthumous Streetcore (2003), along with Vibes Compass, a brand-new compilation of 15 B-sides and rarities, including early demos of some of the first tracks Joe wrote for the Mescaleros such as ‘The Road To Rock ‘N’ Roll’, ‘X-Ray Style’, ‘Techno D-Day’, as well as the previously unreleased ‘Secret Agent Man’ and the original recordings from Joe’s last ever sessions, including outtakes of ‘Get Down Moses’, ‘Coma Girl’ and the song ‘Fantastic’. All albums are remastered by three-time GRAMMY® Award-winning engineer Paul Hicks (The Beatles, John Lennon, The Rolling Stones, David Bowie) especially for the release and arepackaged with extensive new liner notes, unreleased images, and four reproduction lyric sheets and chord charts from the Strummer archive.
JOE STRUMMER
JOE STRUMMER 002: THE MESCALEROS YEARS
(Dark Horse Records)
Release Date: Friday, September 16
TRACKLISTING
Rock Art and the X-Ray Style
1. Tony Adams
2. Sandpaper Blues
3. X-Ray Style
4. Techno D-Day
5. The Road to Rock ‘N’ Roll
6. Diggin’ The New
7. Nitcomb
8. Forbidden City
9. Yalla Yalla
10. Willesden To Cricklewood
Global A Go-Go
1. Johnny Appleseed
2. Cool ‘N’ Out
3. Global A Go-Go
4. Bhindi Bhagee
5. Gamma Ray
6. Mega Bottle Ride
7. Shaktar Donetsk
8. Mondo Bongo
9. Bummed Out City
10. At The Border, Guy
11. Minstrel Boy (full-length version)
Streetcore
1. Coma Girl
2. Get Down Moses
3. Long Shadow
4. Arms Aloft
5. Ramshackle Day Parade
6. Redemption Song
7. All In A Day
8. Burnin’ Streets
9. Midnight Jam
10. Silver and Gold
Vibes Compass
1. Time And The Tide
2. Techno D-Day (Demo)
3. Ocean Of Dreams (feat. Steve Jones)
4. Forbidden City (Demo)
5. X-Ray Style (Demo)
6. The Road To Rock ‘N’ Roll (Demo)
7. Tony Adams (Demo)
8. Cool ‘N’ Out (Demo)
9. Global A Go-Go (Demo)
10. Secret Agent Man
11. All In A Day (Demo)
12. London Is Burning
13. Get Down Moses (Outtake)
14. Fantastic
15. Coma Girl (Outtake)