Good morning and welcome back to another weekend at last. I must confess that Saturday’s are much more pleasant now that Arsenal are once again looking like a team who actually have some fight in their stomach, it certainly makes getting up at 5am much more rewarding.

image courtesy Erik the Fish http://www.flickr.com/photos/23662057@N03/

In a quest to keep the blog more current expect to see a few more short posts in the days/weeks ahead. I think if I try and get short updates out as I see them/think of them it might be a better approach. We’ll try it and see. On the agenda this morning is the Justice Tonight tour in the UK next month AKA the ‘Mick Jones Review’. I was surprised to see that tickets are still available at five of the six venues with currently only London on December 8th being sold out. Interestingly the night(s) before the London concert are open on the schedule so perhaps we might see a second night added if a venue can be found as The Scala has another event booked on the 7th. An extra night might also avoid people looking to charge £75 on ebay per ticket. I hope many of you in the UK (sod it, it would be worth a trip over from mainland Europe) are able to get tickets for one of these, I don’t think opportunities to see Mick Jones play perhaps 6-8 Clash songs are going to come along very often. Tickets for the other five nights can be purchased here.

Finally on the same subject, if anyone has a spare ticket available for the London concert please let me know. Someone from Ireland contacted me and desperately wants to make it over only to find the show has sold out, if you can help please contact me and I’ll match you up. That’s all I’ve time for right now but more later I assure you, in the meantime below the video below might make you go and get a ticket.

Mick Jones ‘Train in Vain’- Liverpool 24/9/11

Good Friday morning to you and thanks for dropping in. I only have a few minutes so wanted to direct you to something rather enjoyable on Facebook and also share an amusing newspaper article from the same source. Facebook as you know is famous for having pages (groups) that will support or disown almost anything, for example even Rick Perry has 170,000 ‘fans’ which goes to show at least that number of people in the US think of the Bush years as the good old days. One of these weeks I’ll do a Clash fan’s guide to Clash pages on Facebook (there are now dozens which range from the rather good to the abysmal) although I noticed that the ‘official Clash’ page finally has someone from Sony music spending 15 minutes per week updating it with relevant stuff when it had been full of spam the last three years. Incidentally that page has over 2 million fans who I’m sure love the spam for girlfriends from the Ukraine  although I’d prefer if they just came here for their news (The Clash fans, not the Ukrainian brides). Anyway, as ever I’ve wandered off topic – I wanted to make sure that those of you who spend time on Facebook join the Big Audio Dynamite Appreciation Society.

The page is nearly 1,500 strong now and you’ll see a lot of very knowledgeable BADdies posting on a regular basis. If you’re looking to find the answer to B.A.D. questions or meet some like minded souls it’s a good place to start and it’s linked at the end of the first paragraph. At present it’s particularly a good time as there have been efforts to design a B.A.D. Appreciation Society (BADAS) shirt which is resulting in some good stuff it has to be said. Go and have a look and share your opinions I think the winning design might end up getting made and sold. Perhaps you’re connected in the print/clothing business and can help make it happen or want to submit a design of your own.

From that same page I wanted to thank John who apparently keeps his attic full of Clash related memorabilia and dug out the clipping below from his collection. The source was the Daily Mirror paper in the UK circa 1986, at that point in history Mick Jones wasn’t the smiling elder statesman of punk rock that we all know and love today but was at the cutting edge of baseball cap/white raincoat chic and a go to guy for clubbing news, views and all night parties. I confess I prefer his 2011 fashion sense which has seen him gradually morph into a reincarnation of a famed black and white film star (answers below please). Back in 1986 however he apparently (quite doubtful) wrote into an advice column in said newspaper looking for hangover cures whilst his band were on tour. This was due to him needing a ‘day to recover’ from the band’s festivities. I don’t know if the letter was real but regardless it’s funny to see what the Mirror would publish in their quest to appear hip. If you speak to Mick ask him, he’ll remember either way. As someone already quipped it sounds like something out of Viz.

Finally I have to do a little bit of shameless panhandling, to get the blog on a new (safer) hosting with better bandwidth I’m trying to raise some extra funds, so if you’ve enjoyed the blog and are in a position to spare a pound or a dollar I’ve added a graphic on the right where you can donate any amount you choose via paypal. I’m going to also set up a registration number so a percentage of funds can go to Stummerville should anyone actually oblige, however there is zero pressure or obligation. That’ll be me done for now, I have to get some work done and then head out to the airport to pick up the bloggette. In the meantime please feel free to keep current via Facebook, Twitter or get the RSS feed  thanks for reading and sharing the blog. Tim

Good evening, hope your day was a good one. I just ate far too much Thai food and feel like sleeping so let’s see if I can finish what I started as soon as I opened this post. You join me on a fairly special night as this marks the 800th post on The Clash Blog since I started writing it in late June of 2009. In fact it’s now 876 days since we began this daft idea so 800 posts in 876 days isn’t too shabby. That means something like 700,000 words have been written so far and at the time of writing there have been 636,000 individual visits to the blog. Thanks for your continued visits and support of the blog. All my worries about having enough to write about were completely unfounded as I usually feel a good few items behind. So I’ll bore you with one other number – on average I spend about 2-2.5 hours researching and writing each post so over the course of just under two and a half years that’s about 1,800 hours of time working on the blog or (sadly?) just over 10 weeks of my life during that time. Blimey. Here’s to the next 800! (apologies I like numbers) Thanks to everyone who takes time out to read and circulate this stuff and to the band of course without whom I’d just be chatting about any old nonsense. Or perhaps I do anyway.

image courtesty summerisoverblogspot.com

In the excitement of the Paul Simonon undercover with Greenpeace story some of actual details of The Good, The Bad and the Queen concert in London were somewhat overlooked. It would seem that the band plus string section clicked again as if they’d never been away and if you’re a fan of the album you’ll know that the music itself is so organic and haunting that I can see how it would be like slipping back into a comfortable pair of shoes. The good news as far as I’m concerned is that I have it on fairly good authority that there will be another album to come from the band and as far as I know from the original four members. It’s something I’d look forward to as I think it really does work, in reality it’s probably primarily Albarn’s numerous other ventures that have kept it from happening. Don’t forget it was Paul Simonon who said he wanted to stagger his schedule so that he had a music year, an art year and then a music year. 2010 was his lengthy commitment to Gorillaz, 2011 was his art year and of course his time in jail which may mean 2012 will see him back on the road. Whether it will be with TGTBaTQ remains to be seen, I’d say it’s a decent outside bet. Back to last week’s concert in London though, I wanted to share the video clips I found which are of various levels of quality. While the quality isn’t always stellar it is really great to see Paul back on stage with the guitar strap hanging around his waist, here’s some to get you going.

‘On Melancholy Hill’ (different angle)

‘Northern Whale’

Performing on the Greenpeace boat (from afar)

‘Herculean’

‘The Bunting Song / Nature Springs’ (features annoying bastards talking over the end of the first song)

Naturally all of these sound better on CD – so if you don’t own it jump over to Amazon over on the right —> (hint hint) and your Clash Blogger will get a few pence. I’ll be back very soon, have a brilliant Thursday. Tim