Strummer's Skeleton Unearthed

He said: "We didn't know him as Joe Strummer then, the type of music he was interested in was nothing like punk.

"We knew him as Woody because he was a big fan of Woody Guthrie.

"We lived in a rundown house just behind the railway station.

"We just had a reel-to-reel tape recorder. There were a number of us living there and we used to be in various bands and wherever we wanted to do any recordings we just used to turn this on.

"Of course nobody really knew what was on the reel-to-reel tapes.

"I just made a cassette one day of what was on the reel-to-reel tape before I left college.

Hey, I played in a Dead cover band in college - give the guy a break.