Burning Man, Joe Strummer and the Campfire Legacy

Photo courtesy of The LAist’s Ryan Jesena

I finally finished ready Chris Salewicz’s biography of Joe Strummer with a bit of disappointment. Although Salewicz turned up a lot of biographical information, I think the book failed to contextualize Joe Strummer throughout his various periods and communities. For those interested in exploring the man behind the myth–Salewicz’s biography does a better job than most. However, this post isn’t meant to be a book review.

As Burning Man comes to a close, I’ve been thinking about its origins as a sort of art beach bonfire party and what its become and of course what it all means. For me, Burning Man is an almost traditional part of the nation-state model and so can be analyzed as one of its institutions. Like it or not, Burning Man and Black Rock City define themselves against the state on the state’s terms and function like most cities would–enacting regulation, enforcement, zoning, etc., rather than functioning as an anti-city, which would be truly revolutionary. Black Rock City functions as an alternative city and acts well within the bounds of what is permissible and lawful as demonstrated by this year’s response to Paul Addis’ act of arson. As an institution then, I find that Burning Man has long outlived its original purpose–an invent base upon experience over theory etc., etc., etc,. But Salewicz’s biography and its description of Joe Strummer’s belief in the power of campfires to foster an ideal community allowed me to think about Burning Man on the individual level–in a much different way that I had been thinking about it previously.

Before finishing Salewicz’s book, I chalked Burning Man up to be little more than the bonfire pep rallies my high school used to have before home football games. The few I attended completely creeped me out–the juiced up football players stalking around like smug princes in their blue and white letterman jackets while the varsity cheerleaders led a throng of high school students in cheers in the fire-enhanced moonlight—ewwww. It was like no one else had read Lord of the Flies in the ninth grade. I couldn’t help but feel that the boys were never rescued and that Jack’s tribe won the war. The hyper-masculinity of ritualistically burning things turns me way off in general and as logic would dictate, the bigger the fire, the bigger the turn off.

So the symbolism of burning “The Man” is still totally lost on me, but the idea of thousands of smaller campfires where people come together makes sense. Julien Temple, who directed his documentary of Joe Strummer, The Future Is Unwritten, around campfires because of their importance in his approach to life talks at length about them during this interview at the Sundance Film Festival where the film premiered:

For Joe Strummer, the idea of a “campfire” – any loose assembly of people bonded by the rising flames and the advancing dawn - became an art form in itself. The campfire was the melting pot, the wisdom stone, the HolyGrail; the essential outdoor forum for constantly evolving ideas and conversations.

First perfected backstage at Glastonbury Festival – where the nightly assembly was first dubbed ‘Strummerville’ – Joe took his campfires, and his circle of friendships and voices, all around the world, and finally back home to Somerset, where a Stone Circle now commemorates the campfire.

Director Julien Temple: “The campfire was always going to be one of the central themes of the film. In the last ten years of his life, really the time I got to know him best, we had our deepest conversations around the campfire. It was a much bigger thing, once he’d moved to Somerset, where Joe’s house was. Up on the Quantock Hills, a rebel outpost…a place even the Romans had never managed to conquer.

“Just as in his lifetime, we had people from all walks of life sitting by the fire, listening to the music that was so much a part of him. It was a place to lose themselves in the flames; in the firelight everyone is equal, the famous people no more relevant than the not so famous people. By interviewing that way for the film we were freeing ourselves from the ‘talking heads’ of a conventional documentary. We were getting a real sense of the friendship and the connections.

“I had to make it work because it was so important to Joe. He once said to me that he thought the campfire was a better idea than any of the music he had ever made - some nights it really did get that good. The whole thing was about people from completely different backgrounds around that fire, and I hope we have brought the essence of that to the film.

“More often than not, Joe was the last one at the fire. To whoever was left standing he’d say: “It’s you and me at Club Dawn…”

Screw the costumes and the art cars and the dust, if there are even a couple of Joe Strummer-like people running around out there on the playa, then I might at least understand the appeal a bit better now.

Similar Posts:

• “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten” Review
• Julien Temple’s Documentary “Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten”
• Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten, Nevada Museum of Art Film Series

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