Hello again everyone and thanks for spending a moment on the blog. I hope that everyone who wanted to nab a ticket for the Mick Jones Review (not really, see yesterday’s post) was successful in their quest, London is already sold out. They ought to add another night(s). I hope I’ll be able to cajole a few of you into compiling some notes about the tour, sending in set lists, photos or moments of madness. Perhaps we’ll start a sweepstakes for the Clash songs that he’ll add to the mix for the 6 night tour. It would be really special if he chooses a dozen or more to rotate and give hundreds of people a chance to hear different Clash songs performed ‘live’ by a member of the band for the first time ever in some people’s cases. I think it is class/common sense that if the song featured Joe on lead vocals he hands the vocal duties over to someone else. It would be extremely odd to hear Jonesy sing a Joe part. Has it ever happened before trivia lovers? Let me know.

In the fog of war this week I almost forgot that in London this Thursday night The Good, The Bad and The Queen played that special Greenpeace anniversary show. Paul Simonon of course reprised his place in the band along with Damon Albarn for what could be but hopefully isn’t a short lived return for the band. Did some of you make it along? Initial thoughts? Get in touch via the usual channels and I’ll dig out some reviews if I can find some.

Paul on Thursday Nov 10, Image courtesy Greenpeace UK

I’d give my eye teeth to see that band live, in such high regard do I hold the solitary album that they recorded. For the time being (I’ve got more stuff later don’t worry) I’ll have to share the video below that features the band performing this week a cover version of sorts as they borrow a song from Gorillaz – Melancholy Hill. What is interesting is that the seeds of that song were written during the making of TGTBaTQ album in the first place according to Damon’s introduction. Make sure you watch the entire video as a special guest appearance is made halfway through and results in a brilliant performance with Paul in particular pulling out some great shapes with the bass. Thanks to videohound Gil W for alerting me to the video earlier today *(yesterday by the time you read this). Alright then, that’s all I’ve time for at the moment with more to follow. Have a splendid weekend and do something worthwhile. Tim

‘Melancholy Hill’ – The Good, The Bad and The Queen (plus special guest – watch the entire video!)

Good Friday morning to you then. I slept like a homeless cat last night for some reason, literally waking up every few hours to (not literally) walk along the tops of walls and yowl at the moonlight. I don’t know how they manage it night after night, I’m exhausted this morning and in dire need of some coffee which is….just…..about….to….finish….brewing. Ah yes, that’s much better. So where were we? Did anyone see Rick Perry the other night with his inability to recall the third department of US government he is promising to shut down? It was like watching an unprepared student be called upon by a patient teacher and then exposed to his not having a bloody clue. It was a priceless moment if you want to see it but better still should mean that this charlatan of the worst order is now out of the running for the most unpleasant job on earth.

Not for the first time I chose a poor date to not getting around to blogging as some major and unexpected Clash news broke out of London. You’ll surely recall the recent appearance by Mick Jones as a guest of Pete Wylie in Liverpool for a night to support the Hillsborough Justice for the 96 campaign and a well-founded endorsement of boycotting The Sun newspaper. You can read more about the whys and wherefores on that post if you like. Based on everything I read, the videos I saw and those I spoke to that was an amazing evening. Not only did it capture the passion of Clash gigs as it was about accomplishing something (and a very hot topic in Liverpool to say the least) but it also saw Mick give a number of Clash songs a workout performing half a dozen songs some of which he hasn’t played live in decades. Lots of excellent footage is on YouTube if you search for Mick Jones and Liverpool. Well obviously Mick’s long standing friendship with Pete Wylie and the success of the Liverpool gig has borne fruit as a national tour has now been announced with Mick, Pete, The Farm and special guest next month with tickets going on sale today I believe (November 11).

You can read more about it in the NME but I’m sure tickets will sell out quickly. As I’ve alluded to more than once on the blog it seems Mick Jones just can’t get enough of playing live at the moment. If he was someone more attuned to having a publicist the media would be fawning over his activity in recent years as he has lent himself to numerous projects along with his own band Carbon Silicon, the reformed Big Audio Dynamite and a world tour with Gorillaz. Add to that the two incarnation of the Rock and Roll public library and we’re seeing Mick most certainly going through a renaissance and loving every minute of it. I’m sure many who will attend the December tour will be those who saw the other bands I’ve mentioned but I hope some of you who skipped it will be able to make one of these dates. A lot is being made of the fact that this is ‘the first time Mick has played Clash songs since ’82′ which not only is patently wrong but also demonstrates how much of the mainstream press and music press just haven’t been paying attention. I do think Mick is very sensitive about the Clash catalogue and doesn’t use it as something to dine out on – he has too much respect for those he works with and too much pride in his post Clash work. Thus it would seem that the cause of these gigs is probably the most important aspect to Mick, as a football supporter, as an old punk and as a good concerned person. Challenging a newspaper with a tatty reputation and the government inquiry that failed to properly answer the root cause of the Hillsborough disaster. In short a cause that needs to be supported.

I hope many of you will be able to get along to one of the concerts and the next three weeks should see Mick working with Pete to get some more Clash songs stage ready. While the tour it just six dates it does take in Cardiff and Glasgow along with London, Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. Not too handy if you’re in the midlands unfortunately, tickets are available via this link – if you are going please send in reviews, photos or video – more on that in the weeks ahead.

Finally, thanks as ever for visiting the blog. If you’ve have trouble with the site lately I apologise, we are going to change hosting and increase bandwidth to ideally eliminate those isues. However this means added costs for the blog that I’ve always done without advertising. Therefore if you want to help offset some of the costs of the blog in some way there are some banners over on the right that link to Amazon. If you already shop on Amazon anyway for music, films or books please access their site via the blog. They send me a few pennies for every purchase you make if you ‘found’ them via the blog. No pressure but if you can that would be brilliant. Cheers. More later after I get back in that garage, the odds on a move to California are hopefully rising so I need to clean out my stuff amassed over the years.

Middle of the week already? Bloody hell. How goes it today? A very quick bit of self promotion (looking for ways to pay for hosting and bandwidth improvements), you might notice some links on the right to Amazon.com – if you happen to shop there please visit Amazon via the links on the blog and any purchases you make result in a few coins going in the direction of your blogger. It’s appreciated. All is quiet here, leaking roof seemingly repaired and normal sunny weather has returned if a bit chilly causing a house-wide panic with everyone wondering where their coats are. As the days get shorter it always reminds me that November was the month (next week in fact, on the 15th) when Joe Strummer played at Acton Town Hall back in 2002. This probably would have been a footnote to his tour except for the fact that Acton is a rather handy location for Mick Jones who unplanned and unannounced decided to leave this place in the audience and join Joe and the Mescaleros on stage for the last three numbers that night. I’ve never spoken first hand to anyone who was there that night but if you fancy writing your memories for the blog next week on the anniversary of that date it would be rather brilliant. Either way we’ll look back at that in more detail next week.

It was of course the last time Joe and Mick ever shared a stage, there is something majestic in that for a number of reasons almost like it was preordained somehow. Sadly and with no warning Joe Strummer was to pass the following month, there was no warning of that and no health scares would have crossed Mick’s mind to make him think “I better do this now there might not be another time”. Somehow it was meant to be. I also find it very fitting that it was in Acton, only a stones throw west of where Bernard Rhodes took Joe Strummer for his first informal meeting with Paul and Mick in the flat on Davis Road just off the Uxbridge Road. That was where the seeds of the band took root in the early summer of 1976 and just over a quarter of a century later for the most amazing songwriting partnership I’ve ever enjoyed to be reunited just one last time so close by screams poetic justice. I’ve also got a sentimental attachment to the neighbourhood and the venue itself having lived in Acton for a while in the 1980′s and attended a pair of anti-poll tax meetings at Acton Town Hall where the concert took place. Oddly, it’s not even a  concert hall by any description but knowing it took place somewhere I’d felt so invigorated a dozen years earlier all added to a sense of comfort when I read that story nearly nine years ago.

I can’t honestly believe nine years have passed since that remarkable night, nor can I believe it’s twenty two years since I was in that same  building with perhaps 100 people who were angry about the way England was going at the time (sound familiar?). That first meeting led to me knocking on the doors of every council high rise building in South Acton looking for people who would join the fight against an ill-informed tax germinated from the madness of Margaret Thatcher. It all works though, I only lived in west London because of my love for The Clash (mad perhaps but true) and was probably only as politically active due to growing up on a band who said (to me at least) ‘Do something, get involved, question the status quo’. It leaves me reflective but thankful, some people are never inspired by anything.