It was 11 years later in 2000 when Tymon again hooked up with old friend Joe Strummer. Strummer had formed new band, The Mescaleros, which Tymon became a fully-fledged member of in November of that year. His first gig with the band was at the legendary 100 Club. That same year, a tour with The Who followed, and over the course of roughly two years he ended up playing over 70 shows with group. He co-wrote most of the songs on the group's 2nd full-length album Global A Go-Go, and played violin, mandolin, Spanish guitar, acoustic & electric guitar on assorted tracks, most notably on "Mondo Bongo", "Shaktar Donetsk" and the epic 17-minute plus "Minstrel Boy". The welcome addition of Tymon to the original line-up resulted in the band having a further world music vibe to their music. From Rob Morgan’s 2003 interview, Tymon says of the epic “Minstrel Boy” piece: “I remember back in ‘83, I’d go around to Joe’s house. And he’s sitting around with a Fostex or a little tape recorder, and he had a little keyboard and a songbook that was open to “Minstrel Boy.” I knew the song because my mum used to sing it when I was a little lad. I always quite liked it. I think the lyric is 200 years old. The tune is hard to know. Somebody did write it, but no one remembers so that’s why it’s called “anonymous” or “traditional.” [laughing] Or maybe a woman wrote it! He was sitting there with the little book, which I thought was strange because the Clash was still together. Mick had not left yet. I said, “Are you going to do that song there?” And he said, “Yeah, I’d like to.” I thought, funny song to do. I think it was a bit of a trip that Joe wanted to do that; Mick was going into hip-hop big time. Joe had picked up a music book in the streets of London. I was trying to get away from the studio after about four or five days. This book had “Minstrel Boy” and Joe started talking about it, and then about two in the morning he said, “Let’s go back and knock it down.” And that’s the exact recording [on the album]. In fact, that recording has me getting the violin out of the case. I’m playing it to Martin, who’d never heard it before.”
Joe Strummer passed away unexpectedly on December 22nd, 2002 from a congenital heart defect. Just six days prior to his tragic death, Joe had spoken with Tymon over the phone from Scotland about wanting to get a new musical project together for the following year. Richard Dudanski also remembers a similar last conversation with Joe (from February 2007 email): "The last conversation I had with Joe (we'd argued in '76 but within a couple of years were back to being mates) was here in Spain, Sept 2002, and he was emphatic that he wanted to keep going with Dogg, whatever happened with the rest of the band (The Mescaleros)... in fact had a project that he mentioned more than once, for the 3 of us to drive South into Senegal/Mali on a bus kitted out as a recording studio." A tribute show was held in Granada, Spain on August 20th, 2003. Tymon appeared on stage with Mick Jones, Richard Dudanski, Jem Finer, Tom Larder, and Julian Hernandez, as The Amigos. Some friends of Joe later decided to reunite in a particular place in Granada, El Sacromonte, and play some of his songs. It was for an intimate audience of 300 people, and an unforgettable tribute to a lost friend.
Richard Dudanski has kept in regular contact with Tymon over the years... Tymon even lived in Granada (Richard’s home for years) for a year or so. Richard played Santoor on the “Lagartija Nick / Step Murray" song, and produced the FGL: De Granada a la Luna album. Tymon played live with Dudanski’s present band, "El Doghouse", a couple of years ago and also put some violin tracks down on an a couple of tunes that the band are currently recording for a new album.
As of March 2006, Tymon has been performing various gigs around England with new band, The Quikening. A single, Guantanamo, was released on 12” vinyl in September, and on CD March 1st 2007. A new album has been confirmed for Spring 2008, along with a possible tour of Europe and gigs in Japan also in 2008.
Regarding the main musical influences he has felt in his own unique music, Tymon says (from February 2007): "Irish music was definitely an influence in general on my music at the time (circa early 70's) and I heard some fantastic Irish fiddlers, just playing in bars in Dublin, Gallway and everywhere between. I was just travelling around, sleeping under a piece of polythene in ditches and fields or, in Dublin, on Steven's Green. In Clifden I was playing in a bar, singing and playing the violin and harmonica (on a brace) at the same time. I found an old derelict cottage on the hillside and slept there - I'd been given a lift by this couple and they drove off to sleep in their van. The guy, Patrick, was Irish he thought I was crazy to sleep there he said, 'We'll come back in the morning and I bet your hair's gone white with fear - have you never heard of the Banshees?' In the middle of the night I did get scared and thought I was seeing a ghost but it was just a draught from a crack in the wall blowing stuff around. There were some old convict's clothes there and some crutches but I thought, 'Hey it's free!' The next day Patrick and his girlfriend came back and when they saw my hair hadn't gone white they moved in!
The next influence was Indian. 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.
I also empathize with a lot of world music - especially Bulgarian gipsy music where they use the violin to accompany the voice as I do.
The strange thing was that I'd been doing things intuitively trying to break away from the American-Anglo dominance of rock music which I felt had peaked with Hendrix, Dylan, the Beatles, the list goes on...and then I discovered afterwards that these musical treasures existed in other musical cultures. It felt like synchronicity."
After forty-odd years in and out of the music industry, Tymon has wound up working with a vast array of musical talent both in the studio and on stage that continues to this day. A list of those include: Joe Strummer, The Clash, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, James Taylor, Justin Hayward, The Mescaleros, Richard Strange, Ian Hunter, Ellen Foley, The Poison Girls, Glynn Johns, Peter Asher, Liam Genockey, Pandit Ramesh Misra, Salah Dawson Miller, Richard Dudanski, Roy Harper, The Cramps, Trapeze, Neville Staples, The Fall, Stone the Crows, Rory McLeod, Charles Hayward, Lol Coxhill, DM Bob & Jem Finer, Orphy Robinson, Hugh Hopper, Robb Johnson, Claire Hamill, Enrique Morente, Compay Segundo, and Malcolm McClaren among others.
- The biography sections were written with books and various magazine articles as reference, mainly Spencer Leigh’s 1975 piece for The Last Trumpet magazine, Chris Salewicz's Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer (HarperCollinsPublishers, 2006), Pat Gilbert's Passion Is A Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash (Gardners Books, 2004), The Record Collector magazine August 2000 issue, Rob Morgan's August 2003 Tymon Dogg interview for Strummersite.com, Fred Mills' January 2003 Tymon Dogg interview for MAGNET magazine, The Moody Blues December 1969 Tour Programme, and also Radio4A 101.4FM's 2005 3-hour tribute to Joe Strummer. All quotes/text where featured in the three biography sections remain the work of both the writers and the magazines in which they originally appeared. Oh, and please overlook the typos, grammatical errors and downright ineptness of my writing in these bio. sections and elsewhere on this site - 7devonapes.
