I took a different, more somber approach to this week’s show, inspired in part by the track “Silver and Gold” from the final Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros album, Streetcore, which was posthumously released in 2003, and from the untimely passing of a Chicago legend, deejay and former program director Lin Brehmer of 93XRT.
On “Silver and Gold” (poignantly, the last song on the last album he recorded), Joe repeatedly sings, “I’ve got to hurry up before I grow too old.” And boy, ain’t that the truth … a truth brought even more sharply into focus by the death of Lin Brehmer, a guy who called himself our Best Friend in the Whole World and was an all but ubiquitous and omnipresent figure in Chicago for nearly four decades.
Apropos of this Clash-themed podcast, WXRT, and Brehmer in particular, were longtime supporters of the Clash and Joe Strummer. Like most Chicago area Clash fans of a certain age, I first heard the band on XRT, and Lin and many other XRT folks kept the memory of the Clash and Joe alive long after they were gone. And when Joe himself died unexpectedly at the unreasonably cruel age of 50 in 2002, I turned to Brehmer, out of the blue, for a little moral support, blindly emailing him with the day’s most pressing question: What’re we gonna do now??
I ask myself that question a lot lately, especially having reached the age where so many of my music heroes are aging and passing away. The answer, I think is: Keep listening to the music. The music is the thing that keeps them alive, and keeps alive our connection to them. And this isn’t just true for the artists we lose. It’s true for folks like Brehmer, and for friends and family members who’ve gone before. The music we shared is the connection. Don’t let go of it.
Finally, in this week’s Great Artists, Good People segment, I talk about a guy who always fit the bill: the great Tom Petty. Not only was Tom Petty one of my favorite artists of all time, but my late brother Tom loved him, too, and Petty’s music will always remind me of brother Tom.
I first saw Tom Petty live in 1982 at what was then (and will always be!) the Assembly Hall on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign. My wife and I were lucky enough to him there again in May 2017, just about 35 years later. Little did we know that it would be the last time we saw him. He died on October 2, 2017. I will be forever grateful for getting to see him that one last time, to hear him play the music that keeps him alive for us forever.
So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
