If he stayed, there would be trouble. So he went, and now it's double. Joe Strummer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter of the Clash, died yesterday at age fifty. Not may details yet, but the apparent cause is of a heart attack.

"The only band that matters," the Clash had a political edge that put them on a different plane than most of the other punk bands of the late '70's or early 80's, and the politics came from Strummer.

Strummer also took the band beyond the basic three chord pounding of other punk groups by adding a Reggae beat and a world-music outlook. Check out the albums "London Calling" ('79) or "Sandanista" ('80) to see what I'm talking about.