I was once
in the same room as Joe Strummer, though I
didn’t
know it at the time. It was the 400 Bar in November
of 1999 at
a Lifter Puller show. My pal Def Jeff was there,
drunk. We
were both huge Lifter Puller fans who learned
an
encyclopedia’s worth of drug slang from their songs. At
this show,
the normally boisterous Jeff could not yell out
requests
between songs as the band had song titles like
“The Gin
and the Sour Defeat”, “Lifter Puller vs. The End
of the
Evening”, and “Cruised and Accused of Cruising.”
His
last-ditch effort was to start yelling “Bill Tuomala!
Bill
Tuomala!! BILL TUOMALA!!!”
The next
day I heard on Radio K that Joe Strummer had
been at
the show with Green Day’s Billy Joe Armstrong. I
began
telling friends that Strummer had certainly heard
my name
yelled, and that the name “Bill Tuomala” was
likely to
turn up in one of his future songs. If anybody out
there has Global
a Go-Go and would care to confirm, let
me know.
Thanks.