Though I have been a fan of Joe Strummer since The Clash, even I had my doubts last year, when I first saw him live with the Mescaleros at Akasaka Blitz. The band spent a shaky first hour probing the audience for signs of recognition of songs from their first album "Rock Art and the X-Ray Style." In the end, the audience got what they wanted -- back-to-back Clash anthems. But I felt sorry for Joe and the Meskys. Expectations must have been high on both sides of the equation. Somehow that first album lacked confidence. But give an excellent group of musicians a couple of years to get to know each other better and, in this case, you get an excellent second album.
"Global A Go-Go" rocks and grooves and glides. The boys have perfected that stripped-down sound they were looking for -- kind of acoustic but NOT acoustic. Some songs smack of Celtic roots ("Minstrel Boy"), while others whiff of a Louisiana swamp ("Mondo Bongo"). Joe and the Meskys kidnapped Roger Daltry one night after they opened for The Who at a recent concert and forced him to join in on the vocals of the title track.
"Global A Go-Go" also aptly describes the range of musical genres that Joe and the Mescaleros are drawing from to blend their own special sound. The lyrics, on the other hand, are pure Joe, who has lost neither his sense of humor nor his need to wag a finger at politics. By far my favorite track is "Cool n' Out," in which he describes what might happen if one spiked the gin at the G-7 summit with hallucinogens. "That tickles my marrow bone," sings Joe.