Hello again and thanks for dropping back in at the Clash Blog. I hope your weekend went well and that Monday wasn’t a disaster either. I can’t complain about the weekend although I would have liked to have managed more sleep but the time difference between here and the UK meant that I had to get up at some ungodly hours of the day.

Last night I was in the mood for some Joe Strummer, more so than usual and was listening to Streetcore and then decided to see what videos, if any, had been uploaded recently. I came up with the three below that all came from the same source and thought that they were outstanding. I have little doubt some or maybe all of them have been seen previously by some of you but I’m certain that all of you haven’t seen all of them. On that basis plus the fact that these are really excellent examples of just how great Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros were live then I thought this deserved a chance for a few of the videos to be in one easy location and viewable by as many people as possible. That’s how Joe stays with us and I hope you enjoy the 8 or 9 minutes it takes to watch these as much as I did last night. I need to do a much better job of checking uploaded videos and building some sort of archive but time always seems to be against that happening. Volunteers? (the only pay is knowing you’re doing something good)

Speaking of Joe, I also wanted to point everyone in the direction of Strummerville who are having a very special 20% off sale for some specific merchandise at the moment. It’s a great time to make some significant savings, take care of early holiday shopping and also contribute some greatly appreciated funds to the foundation. Here’s a link to the Strummerville sale and please let me know what you decided to purchase (don’t buy me the pink number, really).

On to the videos then and two thumbs up to driftbolt for uploading them in the first place. I’d never seen them before so they made me happy, but apparently they appeared on the HBO series ‘Reverb’ which aired between ’97 and ’01 with the Joe/Meskys episode airing in 2000 I believe although it was recorded the year before. The concert recording took place on Nov 23, 1999 at the Roseland Ballroom which you’ll recall also hosted B.A.D. earlier this year. It was Joe’s 2nd set of dates around the US that year as the band working their collective arse off promoting ‘Rock Art’ and also working some Clash songs into the set. Enough from me – just press play below a few times and enjoy the rest.

Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros – London Calling – Nov 1999

Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros – Tommy Gun – Nov 1999

Joe Strummer interview outtake Nov 1999

I believe that essentially most of the show was broadcast on HBO (can someone tell me for sure?) and you’ll find other songs on the ‘driftbolt’ YouTube link as posted above. See you later – Tim

Tuesday evening, no clouds, cooler temperatures and some unfinished business to attend to. Overall not a bad day to drop in at the blog although I’m at sixes and sevens about what I want to be when I grow up. Follow your heart of follow the money, I’m electing to follow my heart and try and make a living out of this writing thing. So if you know anyone who needs help with website content, setting up a blog or SEO for an existing site just point them in my direction. Consider that advertising and it didn’t cost you a penny. I was reading more about the economy and the various ‘occupy protests’ swelling up everywhere and it made me write at length about the fact that some drastic change is needed soon and I don’t think either of the existing parties in the US (nor many of the standard choices elsewhere) are going to get things ‘fixed’. Too much water under the bridge and too many politicians have already been bought and sold if you ask me. Our local #occupy event takes place this Saturday, if I had my beat reporter costume I’d go down and interview some of those who are mad as hell and don’t think they can take it anymore.

As for The Clash Blog; I thought tonight would be a good opportunity to finally share some of the video footage of Mick Jones and a collection of others performing in Liverpool for the ‘Don’t Buy The Sun’ event that took place recently. I realise this is overdue but other things kept popping up so if you’ve already seen all of the footage below pretend you haven’t but better still please let me know what you thought. Some have said it was ‘as near to spirit of The Clash as you can get’ which is really saying something.

I really like this still from the video - Mick looks like his 1981 Clash gangster fashion age

Regardless I wish I was able to attend this one in person as it did look special. Above and to your left you’ll see a quote from The Farm (I assume Mr. Hooton) sent to me via Twitter, it did seem to have been a special night for Mick and one that apparently continued until dawn the next day. There is some photographic evidence of that at Liverpool Lime Street Station which I really must include in a future post. Until then however all that’s left for you to do is hit the play button on the videos beneath and for me to thank IcicleWorker and Whichway for the videos. Cheers.

Mick Jones & Pete Wylie – ‘Train in Vain’ Olympia Liverpool 24/9/11

Pete Hooton, Mick Jones & Pete Wylie – ‘(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais’ Olympia Liverpool 24/9/11

Pete Hooton, Mick Jones & Pete Wylie ‘Armagideon Time’ Olympia Liverpool 24/9/11

The entire evening looked to have been top shelf and you can also see ‘Stay Free’ and ‘Rush’ performed plus a host of other great tracks from the evening if you follow the links I provided just before we got to the videos. Were any of you there that night? What did you think? If (perhaps due to age) you missed out on The Mighty Wah! and The Farm check them out as they were both excellent, shit my list of Liverpool bands is as long as my arm. Echo and The Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes (+ Julian Cope solo), The Pale Fountains, The Lightning Seeds, The La’s, Shack, The Boo Radleys, The Icicle Works, Benny Profane, Wild Swans to name just a few. Viva Merseyside!

That’s me done for now – more tomorrow I’d imagine.

Warm, tired and lacking in coherence. That might sound like the perfect combination for a blind date or perhaps describes your other household members but today it simply describes me. This heat has to finally relent before I can get myself into a very good writing groove again which is a great source of frustration for me as I’d like to update the Clash Blog every 24 hours or better if possible. More importantly there is enough information to do a daily post and the lack of reaching that goal means I’m not as current as I should be I think revert to the dreaded and dreadful 300 word updates to get me through the summer might be in order. Apologies in advance, I hope you’ll accept that but I think I should be back in the groove in a week or two. I’ve also got a mountain of work on my plate which is a good thing (fuck knows 1 in 10 on both sides of the Atlantic wish they had gainful employment…..the recession that keeps on giving) but the excess of work leaves me not wanting to face a keyboard for a second longer than is truly needed.

Tonight’s post should be part two of the Mick Jones in Minneapolis mini-interview but I’m missing part of the transcript of that conversation (I know…not good at all!) but I will find it and/or catch up with my source at the weekend so we can complete that tale. I do of course know the questions but I’d like to present the answers furnished by Mick verbatim. Look for that over the weekend.

Mick Jones at the Joe Strummer tribute in San Francisco

In the meantime I’d like to thank Gil from San Francisco (regular readers will know him as a wonderful friend of the blog, a man who seemingly captures on video anything Clash related that occurs along the Pacific coast). Not sure where my oceanic theme came from tonight but we’ll just need to ride that wave for another paragraph or two. Keen watchers will know that Big Audio Dynamite wrapped up their American tour dates at the Outside Lands Festival in San Francisco and from what I’ve seen you couldn’t ask for a more picturesque setting in this part of the world. It’s not Glastonbury by any means but certainly a nice location for a gig, namely San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. I’ve only ever wandered through it for a walk as it is after all a park but I imagine it would be a really great place to see a band and I don’t even like outdoor gigs.

Anyway, Gil was down in Los Angeles to see B.A.D. and then followed their itinerary back up North to the San Francisco festival concert on the Friday. It just so happened that the following evening saw the annual Joe Strummer Tribute event in the city with proceeds going to Strummerville. You may recall from last years footage (compiled by Gil) that the event features a rather brilliant raffle and numerous acts paying respect to Joe Strummer/The Clash, I’m often a bit unsure about many cover versions of Clash compositions but for whatever reason this event seems to bring out some of the best in people/acts. Optimistically or confidently (??) Gil had asked Mick if he might be able to attend the Strummer night and the results of that as well as many of the videos of the evening are beneath. This wouldn’t be more than a footnote on the blog if it weren’t for Gil and I must thank him once again and if you haven’t previously clicked over to his YouTube page I recommend that you do – dominated by Clash related videos that are well worth a look so here’s the link. Enough of my babbling have a look at the videos beneath and make sure you watch the last one! (incidentally these may be aligned oddly depending on your browser, it’s me – not you) It’s a long weekend here so I’ll be back with more I’m sure. Thanks for dropping in.

B.A.D.  ‘C’mon Every Beatbox – Los Angeles

Interchords ‘Sightsee MC’ – Joe Strummer Tribute San Francisco

B.A.D. ‘The Bottom Line’ – Outside Lands Music Festival

Clash City Sirens ‘Medley…’ – Joe Strummer Tribute San Francisco

B.A.D. ‘A Party’ – Los Angeles

Montage of bands & Mick Jones at the Joe Strummer Tribute