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Stream Six Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros Rarities

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: 'The Hellcat Years'

Joe Strummer would’ve turned 60 this year. The Clash frontman’s actual birthday was in August, so that’s when some U.K. festival organizers held a benefit called, yup, Strummer of Love. That’s also when the label that put out Strummer’s final recordings released a 57-track digital compilation of his work with his group the Mescaleros, titled Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros: The Hellcat Years. But the label, Hellcat Records, didn’t stop there.

On September 25, Hellcat reissued Strummer’s three albums with the Mescaleros — 1999’s Rock Art and the X-Ray Style, 2001’s Global A Go-Go and 2003’s Streetcore on September 25 — each stuffed with bonus tracks. NME has posted several of the tracks: rousing live versions of the Clash-covered blues standard “Junco Partner” and Global A Go-Go cut “Bhindee Bhagee,” plus B-sides “Rudy, a Message to You” (a cover of a 1967 rocksteady track made famous by the Specials), “The Harder They Come” (a cover of Jimmy Cliff’s 1972 reggae classic), and “Blitzkreig Bop” (a cover of the Ramones’ landmark 1976 punk single, of course).

Listen to those five tracks here.

There’s one more. Below, via Consequence of Sound, hear a live version of Rock Art and the X-Ray Style‘s “Yalla Yalla.” Why shouldn’t the Strummer of Love last all year?