In 1971, Tymon became friends with one John Graham Mellor - soon to be known as Joe Strummer of The Clash fame. Both ended up sharing a flat that year at 18 Ash Grove (aka “Vomit Heights”) in Palmers Green, London, with artist Helen Cherry (later of Frugivores), Deborah Kartun and future The 101'ers guitarist, Clive Timperley. It was around this period thatTymon began to take serious interest in learning to play the Violin. Tymon (from February 2007 email):

“I didn’t really try to play it until I was about 20 - much to the horror of the people I was living with at the time [in Vomit Heights] who thought I was pretty good on the guitar but had to listen to this horrible screeching on the world's worst violin. I had strung it with guitar strings and tuned it like a guitar, because I knew about the guitar - 4th instead of 5ths. I tried to play chords on it and bowed them - I still play like that quite a lot actually. Then I found out the 'normal' tuning and tried that - I realized it gave more range so I had to start learning how to play it all over again. My first impulse was to write songs to it like I was already doing with the guitar. The first song I wrote that way was 'Comes the Rain' and I arranged an American spiritual song called, 'Death Don't Have No Mercy' - they've never been released.”

In July of ‘71, Threshold Records re-released Tymon’s 1970 single, AND NOW SHE SAYS SHE'S YOUNG. Later that year in September, the ‘Vomit Heights’ crowd moved into a second-floor, three-bedroom flat at 34 Ridley Road, Harlesden, London. The flat consisted of Tymon, Joe Strummer, Helen Cherry, Robert Basey, an unknown Frenchman, and Kit Buckler (who soon moved out to be replaced by a fellow named Richard ‘Dick the Shit’ Evans).

In early spring of 1972, the then 22-year old Tymon and 20-year old Strummer (who had returned to London in May after dropping out of Newport College of Art) took to busking in London’s Green Park Tube Station during the late evenings between Easter and summer. Together the pair also busked and hitchhiked around various parts of Europe such as Amsterdam (where they also visited a friend who serving time in a Brada jail), Belgium and France. In a January 2003 Magnet magazine interview with Rock journalist Fred Mills, Tymon recalled those early busking days (©2003, Magnet magazine):

“Well, the problem was, like, we went to Amsterdam once, and we lined up a load of gigs, about five, which is all right. But I’d always arrive penniless, just bad organization. So I’d say to Joe, “Let’s go out and play a couple of songs before the gig in the streets, and then we’ll have a meal.” They [police] took the violin, basically. So Joe had to go scour the town to turn up a violin for this gig! Stuff like that happened. [laughing] Then we had to hang out in Amsterdam to get it back from the courts. Couldn’t leave it! So all the money that we had, we had to pay them back. They couldn’t allow busking, such a “free and liberal town” at the town. You could smoke pot, but no street music. I remember hitchhiking out of town with absolutely nothing again! We’d just bought the violin back. On the way to Paris, a guy picked us up in a car, who was going to this big gig in Brussels, so he asked us to play in the bar while the theatre was going on. We ended up hanging out in this place in Belgium for about four days. So stuff like that was going on all the time. Going from day to day, week to week.”

Throughout this particular period, Tymon was very much indeed an important influence on the young Joe Strummer's musical education in many ways. In particular, Tymon taught Joe how to play rudimentary chords on an old ukulele by using the right-hand to strum such chords instead of that of Joe's natural left, indirectly resulting this in the unique Strummer strumming style later evidenced in The Clash’s music. Also, the importance of such grounding in the world of busking can also not be overlooked, as this was without doubt a crucial factor in helping the young Strummer express such musicial aspirations. An August 2000 issue of The Record Collector magazine featured the following Joe Strummer quote about such early busking days (©2000, The Record Collector):

"I began bottling for him (Tymon), collecting money in the Underground," Joe recalls, "and eventually began to learn chords off him. I'm left-handed, but I started learning to play on other people's guitars, so I picked up the rudimentary chords the wrong way round. Finally, when I could afford to get a guitar, I was too lazy to start again the right way round. At least I've got some sort of unique style, even if it's a bit grungy or crude."

After being evicted from the 34 Ridley Road flat in April 1972, Tymon then moved in with Helen Cherry into a flat her parents used in London in Miles Buildings - a five-storey apartment building between Church Street and Bell Street. In this building also lived Dave and Gail Goodall, who sold clothing at a weekend clothing stall at the Camden Markets. The Ridley Road collective moved into Dave and Gail’s flat soon after, though most soon left for a farm outside Blandford Forum in Dorset in the summer of ’72.

Solo shows in Berlin, Germany were played in 1973, and this would be the first time Tymon ever played the violin on stage. It was also around this time that he changed his name from Timon to Tymon Dogg. In a 2003 Strummersite interview with Rob Morgan, Tymon explained his reasons for doing so:

"By the time I got to London in my early twenties, as a bit of a joke I called myself Dogg. I moved into a new flat and made a joke to a landlady that I was called Mr Dog and she believed it and said, 'What a beautiful name you have' and then told her sister. They alway said 'hello Mr Dog' after that and my friends heard it and thought it was hilarious. So it stuck. The other guys thought that was very funny and they never let it go. I changed the 'i' to a 'y' because people kept calling me Tim-on and I could see where that was going - Tim!”

In 1974, Tymon was living at 23 Chippenham Road, Maida Hill, London with Helen Cherry, and Dave and Gail Goodall. Joe Strummer also soon took up residence at this address after leaving Newport Art School. 23 Chippenham Road was a ‘short-life’ house, which was scheduled for demolition due to it’s run down state. The low-rent residence was acquired by London Student Housing, which set up accommodation for people involved in a college or university in the capital. Helen and Gail were both students. At the beginning of 1975, Jill Calvert and Mickey Foote (who later produced The Clash's 1977 self-titled debut album) had moved in, with members of ceomdy rock group, Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias, occasionally dropping by to stay awhile.

In 1975 and 1976, Tymon began playing various support gigs with Joe Strummer's new pub-rock band, The 101ers; a band Strummer formed with musicians Richard Dudanski, Simon "Big John" Cassell, Antonio Narvaez, and Dudanski's brother Pat Nother. Tymon was a regular at the Charlie Pig Dog Club, which was a weekly residence at a local dive that the 101’ers organized. He would occasionally join the band for a jam on his violin, and this collaboration continued at their next regular venue - "The Elgin" pub on Ladbroke Grove, that started in spring 1975. In fact, at some of these gigs the 101’ers would sometimes back Tymon on 2 or 3 of his songs. Dudanski says of Tymon's connection to the band (from February 2007 email):

"Tymon was a regular at the Charlie Pig Dog Club, which was a weekly residence at a local dive that we organized. He would occasionally join us for a jam on his violin, and this collaboration continued at our next regular venue - The Elgin pub on Ladbroke Grove, that started in spring 1975. In fact, at some of these gigs we would sometimes back Tymon on 2 or 3 of his songs. I remember us doing manic versions of Elvis’s "Money Honey", and versions of some of Tymon's songs ("Suffer Our Way To The Stars" and "Sick As A Dog") that were to appear on his Outlaw album. Although after the Elgin I can't remember the 101'ers actually backing him, we certainly continued sharing the bill with him on a number of occasions... especially at benefit gigs for the squatters community".

Strummer eventually left the 101ers in 1976 and went on to join iconic punk band The Clash - a band Tymon himself would have a bit to do with in the next few years.

Sometime around 1976, Tymon was charged with ‘intending to busk’ in the London Underground and, refusing to accept the charges, landed himself in court where he would subsequently be awarded £300 for assault by a police officer. He then used these funds to produce 500 copies of his first full-length solo album, TYMON DOGG (aka OUTLAW NO.1). Tymon recorded the album at the 23 Chippenham Road flat, and provides all the instrumentation including Piano, Violin, Guitar, Viola, Cello, Mandolin, Harmonica, Glockenspiel, Harmonium, Shaum, and Cymbal.

Tymon then formed his own band, The Fools, a year later in 1977, with drummer Richard Dudanski and bassist Ron Harvey. Tymon (February 2007 email):

"We had a guy called Ron Harvey who had made his own strange one-string bass, which he played with a bow on some numbers, Richard Dudanski of course on drums [later with Pil]. It was just us three. We did this gig with The Slits who hadn't played for six months because Malcolm McClaren was keeping them under wraps. I'd just got 'the Fools' together and I thought it would be great if we supported them and the place got sold out immediately. It was funny because it was so packed that the front part of the audience got pushed up on to the stage and we were crammed up at the back of it. I had an Indian harmonium and there was no room for the bellow to go back and forward to get more air in it - imagine trying to play the accordion on a stage so crowded that you can't actually pull the squeezebox open, it was like that! And so many people got on the table the mixer was on that it collapsed and the soundman still talks about it to this day how he had to stand there and hold the mixer in his arms. We only did three or four gigs and then I went to India."

Richard Dudanski adds (February 2007 email):

"I went off to Sicily for a few months and came back Xmas '76. I quickly met up with Tymon and we decided to form a band - Tymon Dogg and the Fools in January '77. Called it the Fools 'cos we knew we were being Fools (in commercial terms) in not toeing the current fashion line - i.e. de rigueur Punk... as A&R men were then scrambling like mad to sign leather-clad guitar bands! For me, and Tymon, Punk meant being an individual, so we went our own way. Must say for me it was great to be playing with Dogg (the punkiest of punks) - not only for his take on things, but also for the music. We kept it as a trio with "Ron the Tassel" on bass and a basically acoustic set up with Dogg's violin and acoustic guitar. Ron would also get out his homemade one string bass for a couple of songs. Did a never to be forgotten gig (amongst others) which we organized in the Crypt club with the Slits - I had to literally bail out Ron from Brixton prison.... 2 hours before show was start as he'd been nicked for nothing the night before! We recorded a few things on a TEAC 4 track, including a version of Loose this Skin - very different, I might say, from the Sandinista! version. After about a year the band broke up."

John Peel also promoted The Fools 1977 concert with The Slits on his radio programme. Towards the end of 1977, Tymon left England to go live in India, where he embarked on a spiritual search lasting three years up until early 1980. Indian music and the Indian style of playing violin would also play a vital part in Tymon's musical influences at this point. From a February 2007 email, Tymon said about such influences:

"A friend brought back a harmonium and I started droning on that and playing the violin along to it. It sounded great. Then I found out there are some amazing Indian violin players like L Shanka and L Subramanium. His father had taught four or five of his sons to play fantastically and music is passed on from father to son in India as it's all done by ear - it was never written down. This was considered their family trade. I was very influenced by the way they were playing the violin."

Tymon spent five or six months living in India in 1979, before heading to the Spanish Harlem district of New York the following year in 1980. Tymon, thinking he would be there for only 3 weeks or so, ended up living there for 6 months playing various (and quite properous) gigs around the many folk clubs of NY. In NY, Tymon ran into The Clash's Mick Jones one day in the street as Mick was walking back his hotel, who subsequently invited him back to his room for a beer and a chat. There, Mick asked Tymon if he could actually play the violin Tymon was carrying and, after stunning Mick with his prowess on the instrument, was invited to Electric Lady studios the next day to record a track with The Clash for their forthcoming triple-album SANDINISTA!. After a warm reunion with his old friend Joe Strummer, Tymon and The Clash began work on Tymon's own composition from 1977 called, "Lose This Skin" (which Tymon wrote, sang, and played violin on). Sandinista! was mostly recorded in New York at Electric Lady studios with session help by the "Hole In The Wall Gang" (musicians: Tymon, Mikey Dread, Mick Gallagher, Norman Watt-Roy, Ivan Julian, and Ellen Foley). *An interesting piece of trivia: A few years earlier in 1978, Strummer had apparently wanted Tymon to play on his group's GIVE 'EM ENOUGH ROPE album, on either "All The Young Punks" or "Last Gang In Town".

At the time of recordingSandinista!, Mick Jones was helping Ellen Foley record her second album, SPIRIT OF ST. LOUIS. The album was recorded back in England in July at Wessex Studio with the help of Tymon, The Clash, and The Hole In The Wall Gang (minus Ivan Julian). Three songs written by Tymon featured on the LP, while Strummer and Jones penned the rest of the album. The completion of Sandinista! and Foley's album became enmeshed, with sessions going back and forth between the two. During the tail end of the Sandinista! sessions back in Wessex, England, Tymon lined up a potential squat in an empty house close to the British Museum in Bloomsbury, London. With Strummer, he arrived one night at the address - a large Georgian house in Gilbert Place - and together they broke into their new home. Tymon, Joe, and Helen Cherry lived there until eventually being evicted one day by bailiffs and police while Joe was away on tour with The Clash. Joe’s manager Pete Jenner came to their for aid, helping store all the gear from the squat in the back of his Blackhill office until things could be sorted out. The year 1981 saw Tymon play violin on Ian Hunter’s SHORT BACK 'N SIDES record. The album also features production by Mick Jones, drums by The Clash's Topper Headon, and backing vocals by Ellen Foley, among other well-known names.

In 1982, Tymon released his second full-length solo LP, BATTLE OF WILLS. He produced the album with Rosita Cereza and Mickey Foote (of Clash fame), and was distributed on vinyl and cassette through Dick O’Dell’s Rough Trade Records 'Y' label. Sessions musicians Dawson Miller, Chick McLaughlin, and Mishra help out with backing music. One track from the LP, "Low Down Dirty Weakness", appeared a year earlier on Rough Trade’s BIRTH OF THE Y compilation of '81.

In 1983, after playing various gigs in England together, Tymon and drummer Richard Dudanski got together to record a new batch of tunes, this time with Ralf Schmidt on bass. They did a few gigs together and spent a couple of weeks recording sessions down at noted music Producer/Engineer Glyn John’s (The Beatles, The Who, Rolling Stones, etc.) studio. Joe Strummer helped out with production on such sessions, and apparently also provided rhythm guitar on two of the recorded tracks. However, in the end, the results weren't what Tymon had hoped for. And, therefore, despite Dudanski's attempts at peddling the tapes to various publishers in New York (paid for by Strummer), the recordings were left to sit in an old workroom of Strummer's until a recent rediscovery. The intended album, HOLLOWED OUT, to this day has yet to be released.

The Clash again invited Tymon to help out their 1982 album, COMBAT ROCK. Tymon played the piano on both “Death Is A Star” and “Overpowered by Funk”. Also recorded during these sessions was an unreleased version of Tymon’s ”Once You Know” (from Battle of Wills). Tymon recalls one particular interesting moment during the Combat Rock sessions (from February 2007):

“I was playing the violin through a guitar synthesizer and it came out like a Moroccan orchestra; Joe was in the control room and started shouting 'It's a Casbah, Man.' I wasn't sure what a Casbah was. Joe started leading a chorus with Topper and Paul shouting 'Rock the Casbah'. I didn't think any more of it because I was trying to concentrate on the track but when I came to the studio a few days later they said they'd written a song about me, I couldn't get the link at all when they played it - I thought it was a disco song, then they explained 'don't you remember us all shouting 'Rock the Casbah' at you?”

Two more years in later in 1984, Tymon appeared on The Poison Girls’ THE PRICE OF GRAIN AND THE PRICE OF BLOOD EP playing the violin on both the title track and "Stonehenge". Also in '84, Tymon first started building his own stringed instrument/s; a three-sided triangular harp (in both acoustic and electric forms) commonly referred to as the 'Pyramid Harp' (aka 'New World Harp', 'Tetrahedral Harp') - a creation which he uses to this day live on stage with the Quikening (#Harp's humbucker pickups co-designed and made by friend Kent Armstrong). The instrument apparently made its first appearance on stage with Tymon’s latest band The Quikening at their March 21st 2006 Spitz gig in London. Tymon (August 2007 email):

"I first started building this instrument in 1984 when I was cat-sitting for Paloma (Palmolive) who had given up drumming in the Slits and gone to the States for a visit with her new husband Dave. I told him I had an idea for a new instrument and he said 'we've got a lot of wood in our shed, get on with it mate!' The development of the tuning changed up until 1992. It marries rhythm and melody in the same way as African Kalimbas and Marimbas do. The thought behind it was to make an instrument to blend many chords and in building it I discovered the power of shape."

In 1985, Tymon and artist/musician and then wife Helen Cherry formed the new age musical duo, Frugivores. The following year, the duo released their debut album NEW AGE SONGS, on Beggars Banquet's Coda Records label. A single, MOTH INTO THE FLAME was also released in 1986.

Three years later in '89, a third LP, RELENTLESS, was released on Tug Records. The 13-track album was recorded and mixed by Tymon at home (ie. Secret Location), later mastered at friend Ian Maclean's ID Music studio in Oxford, England.

In 1995, Tymon helped produce Irish singer-songwriter Sean Millar's (aka Doctor Millar) debut album, THE BITTER LIE. The album got rave reviews in all of the national papers and Sean was nominated as Solo Artist of The Year, at the Hot Press Heineken awards in 1996 - in the same category as Van Morrison, Gavin Friday and Paul Brady. In a May 2008 Q & A feature for this fan site, Tymon said this about working with Sean:

"Sean asked me to produce his first album, I said I'd do it if we could do it in three days and with two electric guitars - a telecaster and an stratocaster. He played telecaster and Jim Walker played stratocaster. We recorded 'The Bitter Lie' in Dublin and it was nominated for several awards the next year along with Van Morrison, Gavin Friday and Paul Brady. It (The Bitter Lie) was well received because of Sean's excellent songwriting - we had a brilliant time doing the record. It all came together really well. The engineer, Katherine, everyone worked really well together and we did it in three days, mixed it later, in another studio. Sean and I played some very strange gigs together - like some up the Swiss mountains about ten years ago. I hope we work together again - we had a lot of fun."

From 1996 to 1999, Tymon set up home in Granada, Spain and subsequently ended up working with both Enrique Morente and Compay Segundo, and in '98 recorded the song, "Casida Del Herido Por El Agua", with Spanish-rockers Lagartija Nick for the 1998 Federico García Lorca Tribute compilation, FGL: DE GRANADA A LA LUNA. Tymon on working with Enrique Morente (May 2008 email):

"I lived in Granada for three years from 1996 - 1999. Jose Sanchez was putting together a record to mark the centenary of Garcia Lorca's [Spanish poet] birth. I recorded a track in Enrique Morente's house. I was playing violin and producing Lagartija Nick's contribution. Enrique was meant to be singing on the track and wanted me to teach him how to pronounce the words of a Lorca poem translated into English - when I sang them for him he decided that my version was pretty good and left my voice on it!" Tymon on playing live on stage with Compay Segundo (May 2008 fan site Q & A): "This was also due to the double album (FGL: De Granada A La Luna). It was before 'Buena vista social club' came out so I didn't know who he was. I played the violin on stage in Madrid at his gig there and Robert Wyatt was present - he's a massive Compay Segundo fan - and kept telling me after 'Wow! You've played with Compay Segundo' but I wasn't aware at the time of his stature in Cuban music only that he was an amazing musical talent, to be playing and singing like that in his 80s!"