Clashless, Joe Strummer To Play Tla

Unlike the Sex Pistols, Blondie and other punk-era contemporaries, the Clash has yet to cash that reunion check. Maybe it's due to the principles that "the only band that matters" once brandished with bravado. More likely, the always-swaggering, often-disorganized London foursome just can't get it together. After all, drummer Topper Headon is still struggling with drug addiction.

This would have been the year to do it. There's a Don Letts-directed Clash documentary, Westway to the World, playing the festival circuit. Johnny Green's roadie's-eye-view memoir, A Riot of Their Own (Faber & Faber), is a terrific read. An awful tribute album, Burning London, came out this spring. And the new From Here to Eternity confirms memories of what a brilliant, inconsistent live act the Clash was.

But instead of a Clash reunion, we've got a Joe Strummer solo tour, with the 47-year-old frontman formerly known as John Graham Mellor backed up by a group of young Brits he's calling the Mescaleros. This, in fact, is probably a better thing, and one way to hold in check the inevitable nostalgia that creeps in when an artist who did his great work two decades ago returns to active duty.

And there are reasons to believe that Strummer's date Wednesday at the Theatre of Living Arts will be a keeper, other than that he will play songs from the Clash repertoire. (He did 12 at a recent Los Angeles show.)

Those reasons are contained on Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (Hellcat), Strummer's first solo effort in a decade, and a far better album than anyone could have expected at this late date.

"On the road to rock and roll, there's a lot of wreckage in the ravine," Strummer sings. With the wizened but unbowed Rock Art, he's dragged himself back out on the highway to find the old engine still runs, and his rock and roll heart still beats.

Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, with the Pietasters, at Theatre of Living Arts at 9 p.m. Wednesday. Tickets: $27.50; $25 in advance. Phone: 215-922-1011.

WILCO, OLD 97'S/

LOS STRAITJACKETS

Two top-drawer roots-rock quartets and an apocalyptic surf band in Mexican wrestling masks. All for two reasonably low prices.