Joe Strummer

From Patti Smith and Joe Strummer to Iggy Pop and Keith Morris, see our list.

After months of President George W. Bush beating the war drums, bearing false evidence that Iraq had a hand in the 9/11 attacks on The Pentagon and World Trade Center, the U.S. and U.K. launched war on the Middle Eastern nation March 19, 2003. Thus began an ill-advised, misguided military action that cost us many […]

As long as there’s been a punk scene, its denizens have argued as to which city invented it — New York or London? Truth be told, it was neither because history’s first proper punk band was the Stooges from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Which would make Detroit punk’s proper birthplace. But if much of the sound […]

There are a lot of people out there who know what punk rock is but have no idea how to explain it to a novice or an outsider. It would seem simple enough to define it as “three-chord teenage rebel music,” but what about all those songs that have four or more chords? Or all […]

Born Michael Ian Olmo, the artist launched his career on SoundCloud — a trajectory not unlike the one taken by stars such as Post Malone, Travis Scott and Lil Peep — and garnered thousands of streams on the strength of a single song. Knowing he had to create more, he put out A Dance With […]

Boston, Massachusetts, Sept. 25, 2021: The 1965 Mosrite Ventures II electric guitar played by Johnny Ramone on every Ramones album from 1977 onward and at 1,985 of their live shows sold at auction for $937,500. Not bad, considering the punk guitar architect paid $200 for it, after his original one he bought for $50 in […]

Welcome to Alternative Press’ 10 best punk vocalists of the ‘10s. As we noted when counting down punk’s greatest guitarists of this period, the genre was 35 years old in 2010. Punk rock had a history and a tradition by now, as well as a rule book it was never supposed to have. Which, of […]

September 1963: A young R&B combo called the Rolling Stones are rehearsing, preparing for a recording session. Their manager, former Beatles publicist Andrew Loog Oldham, was tearing his hair out. They were about to record their second single, a follow-up to their modestly successful remake of Chuck Berry’s “Come On.” But they had one problem: […]

1997: All media is declaring the alternative–rock explosion—for which Nirvana lit the fuse—over. This means the commercial pop-punk wave Green Day touched off was over in their eyes, too. That selfsame media could not have been more wrong. Green Day had just issued their fifth album, Nimrod. The Offspring, the band who made the catchphrase […]

This past March 5, the French punk label Guerilla Asso quietly slipped a genius album into the marketplace: Rocket To Kingston, credited to Bobby Ramone. The melding of the isolated vocal tracks from nine of Bob Marley’s most deathless classics to edited Ramones backing tracks, it sounds like a joke on paper. The cover even […]

Alongside Hank Williams, Bob Dylan is arguably the greatest American songwriter of the 20th century. Last year’s blues-drenched Rough And Rowdy Ways proved that he’s hardly lost any of his gifts in this century, even as he approached his 80th birthday this past May 24. But the minute he walked into New York’s Columbia Studio […]

Nashville songwriting great Harlan Howard once defined country music as “three chords and the truth.” Many have said that definition could also be applied to punk rock. Therefore, it stands to reason that the figure writhing behind the mic stand might be the most essential member of any punk band. After all, it isn’t the […]

Some promo copywriter at the Clash’s American label, Epic Records, came up with the questionable slogan “19 songs by the only band that matters” for the sticker that appeared on the face of 1980’s U.S. release of London Calling. While singer/guitarist Joe Strummer, lead guitarist Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon didn’t […]

To consider Alternative Press’ list of 1994’s top 15 punk albums, one has to bear in mind two factors: Green Day’s Dookie was released Feb. 1. Kurt Cobain died by his own hand April 5. The alternative nation’s voice was suddenly, shockingly stilled. After three years of the most popular music being an agonized scream […]

You would think television (the medium, as opposed to Television, the band) and punk rock were a match made in heaven. After all, the music and culture are sharp, edgy and visually arresting. This should have made punk flawless televisual fodder, right? Truthfully, punk and TV collisions have more often resulted in mutual incomprehension and […]

Akron, Ohio born and bred Christine Ellen Hynde has led the Pretenders from the top of the charts since the band’s debut single, a 1979 rethink of Ray Davies’ “Stop Your Sobbing” that killed the Kinks’ 1964 Mersey Beat-ish original on contact. Sort of a spiritual big sister to Joan Jett, she led that gang […]

IDLES are the band of the moment in the U.K., where their explosive and powerful music has become one of the soundtracks to a nation in flux. The Bristol-based quintet have reinvented rock, making it feel urgent again and adding a level of sensitivity and necessary self-questioning. IDLES are embracing empathy and mindfulness to find […]

It does seem positively quaint. But there was a time when it looked like the world completely hated everything regarding punk rock. Popular culture reflected that back at us. Somehow punk was going to destroy the values Americans held so sacred back then. Many thought punk was a mere fad that was the equivalent of […]