“Joe Strummer’s London Calling”: All 8 Episodes of Strummer’s UK Radio Show Free Online

Icon­ic Clash front­man Joe Strum­mer passed away a lit­tle over ten years ago on Decem­ber 22nd, 2002. He was 50 years old, and died too soon, leav­ing his fam­i­ly, friends, and fans reel­ing with shock and sad­ness. Strum­mer was the kind of rock star who could renounce fame and mean it, who escaped the Lon­don punk scene with integri­ty and health intact, and who was a larg­er-than-life human­i­tar­i­an, yet also an approach­able every­man.  It’s all these qual­i­ties and, of course, the song­writ­ing, the dis­tinc­tive mum­ble and growl, the indeli­ble image, and the writ­ing and act­ing cred that have endeared him to a few gen­er­a­tions of loy­al admir­ers. In addi­tion to all of the above, Joe Strum­mer was also a free-form radio DJ, play­ing an eclec­tic mix of clas­sic punk, reg­gae, folk, jazz, afrobeat, and about a dozen oth­er gen­res, all sequenced per­fect­ly and intro­duced in his dis­tinc­tive, asphalt bari­tone.

Strum­mer host­ed his UK radio show, “Joe Strummer’s Lon­don Call­ing,” through 1998, then again in 2000–2001 (excerpt above). He played his share of Clash songs, as well as—in the lat­er episodes—the occa­sion­al track from his last project, Joe Strum­mer & The Mescaleros.

But aside from the expect­ed punk and reg­gae, there was no telling what he might cue up next; from the Balkan Folk of Emir Kus­turi­ca and The No Smok­ing Orches­tra to the new wave rhum­ba of Zaire’s Thu-Zahi­na, Strum­mer had one hell of an eclec­tic col­lec­tion, which should sur­prise no one who knows his work, but it’s still a joy to hear him spin his roller­coast­er playlists.

And now, you can lis­ten to him spin for eight hours straight if you like. All eight, one hour episodes of Strummer’s radio show are stream­ing free from PRX online radio. You can also down­load all eight episodes as pod­casts, in two-parters, free on iTunes. And if it weren’t already your lucky day: a help­ful gent named Zed has done the inter­net a favor and com­piled playlists for each show, com­plete with links for every artist, from the most notable to most obscure. I would per­son­al­ly rec­om­mend tak­ing a full day off and lis­ten­ing to every show straight through to the end. It may be the per­fect way to hon­or the man who did his lev­el best to bridge music and peo­ple from around the world with his work­ing-class hero per­sona.

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Relat­ed Con­tent:

Remem­ber­ing The Clash’s Front­man Joe Strum­mer on His 60th Birth­day

The Clash Live in Tokyo, 1982: Watch the Com­plete Con­cert

Mick Jones Plays Three Favorite Songs by The Clash at the Library

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian. He recent­ly fin­ished a dis­ser­ta­tion on land, lit­er­a­ture, and labor.