Released in 2018, Joe Strummer’s «001» vinyl box set (1952-2002) could promise some pleasant surprises. The 3 records (and the seventh side including an unpublished title with Mick Jones, «U.S. North», written with his companion of the Clash), takes up what the angry rhythmist of the four Londoners, recorded before the first album "The Clash" (1977). Other unknown recordings were put in the box with his first band, The 101ers, others in solo, between 1975 and the date of his disappearance. We find Joe's songs accompanied by members of The Latino Rockabilly War, The Mescaleros, and other contributions to various projects, all chosen from Strummer’s personal archives. Unfortunatly, it does not take two tunes to disappoint itself of the platitude of the tracks, which range from a rather quiet rock, some more exotic rhythms, or even an incursion in the country american style exhilarating. A fan box that makes me say that the other social freeshooter of the Thatcher era, Paul Weller (The Jam), was much more prolix and regular (and continues to be), and that if Strummer was a brilliant stage frontman, rather sympathetic and rational in interviews, his glory stories are summed up in the first album of 1977, the only one that can be described as "punk", and the untouchable «London Calling» (1979), between ska and rockabilly. The triple «Sandinista» was full of useless titles, drowned in dub reggae and rap, missing the opportunity to make a single excellent volume, and that «Combat Rock», was saved by his two hits «Rock the Casbah» and “Should I Stay or should I Go”. A little short for a rocker who worth better than that.
The Claypool Lennon Delirium: “South of reality”
And since we didn’t talk much about the Beatles, let’s talk about this strange but interesting second album released this year, which will surely go unnoticed by most amateurs in general, but which deserves a special mention. Released as a double album, in the format of the «Half Speed Mastering», produced by Les Clayton and Sean Lennon, «South and reality» hides behind this cover worthy of Alice in Wonderland, a set of 9 tracks that mix progressive rock, and alternative rock, without predefined rules. Celtic harmonic lines, supported by Clayton’s one bass. One finds there the defects of the genre that reigned during a part of the 70s: musical passages that draw their sources in extreme orients. Some songs recall Tears for fears, themselves, avowed sons of the Beatles, who bring the seductive pop part that saves this double album. «South of reality» deserves to be looked at, because more digestible than the productions of the same genre, and which will be able to please without effort the fans of Pink Floyd, who would like to throw themselves in a contemporary psychedelic bath. 
Siouxsie and the Banshees, vinyl reissue, above average design And since iconography is back with the return of vinyl, let’s celebrate the reissue of the 12 records of the Siouxsie and the Banshees catalogue which has always cared for its covers, always in good taste, in various styles. The minimalism «Join hands» (1979), with beautiful shades of blues on silver tones of «Peep shows» (1988); the most expressionist and enigmatic «The Scream» (1978) and «Kaleidoscope» (1980, the mannerism of Gustav Klimt of the double live «Nocturne» and “A Kiss in the dreamhouse", in "Hyaena"’s cubist memory, from the tribal «Juju», until finally, the very elegant and feminine «Superstition» and «the Rapture», the band never followed the harshness of most of its records; Each of them is a painting, and of course the priestess of the post-punk Gothic, an indispensable artist, despite an irregular discography.
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