Joe Strummer died yesterday.

For me, the word “hero” is not too strong. The Clash were my favourite band of all time, and I’ve continued to follow his solo work. He’ll be sadly missed.

There are two spooky coincidences about this two me. First is that I heard about it in a text message from . This is a strange, sad echo of his recent posting in which he dreamt that he texted me about discovering a Clash gig at a con.

The second is that yesterday, I set up my turntable for the first time in several months. The second record I played was Combat Rock.