Hello gang in all the corners of the world, how was your day then. Don’t forget if you have a special Clash related story from your particular country I’d be glad to include it on the blog. Did you start a band because of The Clash, do something out of character as a result or had your life changed by seeing them live? This is the place to share it and I’d like to start handing some of those stories over to you when possible. You already know my story for the most part, first heard them coming from my brother’s room round about my 12th birthday and 30 years on barely a day passes where I don’t think of a song or a lyric or at the very least look at my photos of the band on my bookshelf (not to mention the books about them). My continued passion for music is traced back to The Clash and I hope/think my ability to listen to almost any band objectively (almost….not Coldplay or The Police of course) stems from the fact that The Clash were so ambitious with what they recorded so long ago. How can you become addicted to London Calling or Sandinista! as a young kid and then not look for bands to push themselves to their own limits? Of all the things I appreciate about The Clash the assistance they provided in helping me spot formulaic music is close to the top of that list.

Anyway, off topic a bit but I wanted to share with you an account of a special Joe Strummer night that took place last week in Hamilton, Ontario (just along the lakefront from Toronto). In the chaos of last week I missed covering this earlier so my thanks to Skip for making sure this gets an appropriate nod on the blog. One place I’d like for the blog to excel is to make sure Clash fans know about events in advance that might be of interest, whether they are in Rennes or Rochester, Derby or Darwin we’ve got readers from literally every country and if you give me enough notice I’ll add these events to the events calendar I’ve put on the site and provide extra information to help promote where I can. Art exhibitions, tribute nights or concerts are all fair game so please share the word if you know of something that I might have missed, especially outside if the US and UK where I tend to catch wind of a higher ratio for obvious reasons. Skip wrote up the following review on his cool blog “The Hills are Alive” and allowed me to share it here. Please visit his blog to check out some more photos and videos from their 9th annual Joe Strummer tribute night in addition to some other great stuff….check it out and say hello while you’re there.

We were lucky enough to experience 2 straight nights of Joe Strummer songs at This Ain’t Hollywood this past weekend.  Great crowds (the first night was capacity packed, second one almost) and a way better experience than having to live thru an evening of Gorillaz or Big Audio Dynamite to get your 2011 Clash fix.  It was so good we already can’t wait for the next version on Good Friday and Easter Saturday of 2012.  There wasn’t a bad act amongst the lineup with a heap of supergroups, one-offs, reunions and special guests appearing.  Folk, Punk, Celtic, Rock, Reggae, Rockabilly, Thrash genres and everything in-between were all covered.  Personal highlight had to be seeing the Letdowns (ex-Wetspots) play.  Ah, so many good shows they’ve had and all the memories just came flooding back the moment they hit the stage!  Our fave song, Straight to Hell got a sweet treatment and hearing Burning Lights from the soundtrack of I Hired a Contract Killer was fantastic!  Top marks for The Saints Are Coming for bringing a great Celtic twist to some songs that we wish the video we took did more justice. And speaking of video, this event got us thinking about investing in a better camera to take videos of live music with since our current setup is hit and miss. its just an everyday digital camera and not meant for live music.  Ahhhh, there’s always a reason for more gear!

Here’s some pics and some of the best of the video evidence (ed: please visit his blog).  Visit our youtube site for all the vizness. More videos still being added as we post this.  Thanks for the memories Strummer Night #9, we’ll see u again for 10!

image courtesy FulsumPrisonBlues on Flickr

Thanks so much for sharing that with us Skip, I hope we can expect even more audio/visual goodness next year. Thanks for keeping the spirit of Joe alive and well in Ontario. I’m going to wrap it up there for tonight but will see you in the comments and tomorrow as well I’m sure. Cheers – Tim

Rockers Galore at the Strummer Tribute

Nice work…you found your way back to The Clash Blog so thanks for dropping in. Is it really Thursday night already, it seems just yesterday it was Monday and I was trying to see how many tasks I’d accomplish this week. Best laid plans.

Hope all is well in your world, I should have a podcast lined up for you either tomorrow or more likely over the weekend but you’ll want to swing by as there is some rather big news I’m keen to share. Did any of you manage to see the Bob Gruen documentary on Sky Arts 1 in the end? I’m hoping so and also tell me it did more than give a passing reference to The Clash. Surely? Let me know and speaking of great rock photography which when discussing Bob Gruen we are doing by default I wanted to share with you a useful internet tool which I know some of you will use. Have you ever stumbled over a great photograph and wondered if it was safe to ‘borrow’ (you should always credit if you can) or if there was a higher resolution (bigger) version of the image available elsewhere online? This site accomplishes both tasks and having tested it I’d say it works a treat, you can either provide the site with a web address of the image you are interested in (if there are many image files you’ll just need to select which one) or if you have a photo on your hard drive you can upload that also. The site will then provide you with a list of locations that the image appears upon and give you the image size and more information too, it’s really handy if like me you really enjoy photos and collect them for your Tumblr, Blog, Twitter or Facebook account. Oh yeah you’ll need the link won’t you? The site is called ‘TinEye’ reverse image search and its close to being idiot proof, let me know what you think.

Clash stuff? Yes I’ve some of that too….how does a lovely weekend in sunny Spain sound? How about if the weekend included another music festival that featured Big Audio Dynamite? I know…Mick’s gonna get either get a suntan or sunstroke the way this summer is shaping up but the B.A.D. boys will be appearing at the Benicàssim Festival July 14-17 in the town of the same name. What you need to know, its a beautiful beach town on the Mediterranean just down the coast from Barcelona (dive dive) and between the seafood and red wine you’ll be able to get your hands on you will be all set. I never did take a summer off to just travel around Europe and see bands, this would have been a bloody good one. As for the festival it features Arcade Fire (joined at the hip with B.A.D.), The Strokes, The Streets (!!), Portishead, Elbow and some band that sang ‘Golden Brown’ and invented punk rock. All the details you need are available via this link, 4 day tickets are £165 which includes a camping spot. I’ll see you there then…

As you know it is getting hard to track Big Audio Dynamite’s whereabouts this summer and they’ve been good enough to update their MySpace page with all the info you need and I’ve also added the festival details on the left. I make that a (magnificent) 7 festival appearances lined up, wrist bands will be the order of the day.

In other news, if you are the rare breed who still prefer buying CDs over downloading (me too) that Gorillaz album that snuck out over Christmas is finally to get a proper release next month. More info on that soon at which point I’ll give it a full and proper review, most people who have offered me an opinion told me its really good if a little bit experimental. Then again it was recorded on tour buses and an etch-o-sketch or something wasn’t it?

Otherwise here is an interesting piece about the early days of The Stone Roses and if you read it you’ll notice that The Clash were apparently quite a large influence on the band. I guess I find that a bit of a shock but in a good way, I think I’ll play their debut album this week in honour of them acknowledging The Clash. Ahh…The Stone Roses, did any band ever make such a fantastic debut album and then fail to deliver on that promise quite as epically? Answers below please.

Right back to the business at hand, The Clash Blog beagle has been sick all day. She was (the vet thinks) bitten or stung by an insect and her poor old head is puffed up like Coldplay’s own sense of self-importance and her medication has her all wonky too. Tim

Good morning everyone, seems that would make Friday then which I’m sure nobody is going to turn down especially as it has been a week strewn with rather rubbish news to say the least from around the world. That’s all going to change I’m sure of it…Ides of March and all that. Last night was drunken amateur night in the US or as its more commonly known St Patrick’s Day, which has as much in common with being Irish (for many) as me celebrating St Andrew’s Day. I can say that with confidence as I’m 50% green with my Mum being a Dubliner so I come from a mixed marriage happily, people don’t expect that news when they (Irish-Americans) slate the English…I usually suggest they keep the hatred to themselves as I’m half of what they proclaim to be. Its a weird thing, to be sure.

Right I was going to settle into a more normal routine today but I’ve instead (via Mark and emails – thanks) been made aware of a new ‘W’ hotel opening up off Leicester Square in London, which of itself doesn’t sound too exciting but there happened to be an opening night party on Wednesday that featured Mick Jones. The strange coincidence is that (after yesterday’s post) the band also featured Roger Daltrey of The Who, along with Zak Starkey on drums and a chap from Kasabian. Collectively and for one night only they went by the name The W’s. It was a bit of a star fest with Kate Moss introducing the impromptu lineup who performed a number of songs which you can learn more about here via contact music.

Kate Moss launches into Remote Control with Mick looking on...

Mick to his eternal credit seems so happy to collaborate with others even if they (Daltrey) need a lyric sheet to get through a live rendition of London Calling which I’ve got the video for beneath. Come on Roger, I can remember all the words to Magic Bus its only fair you reciprocate. In fairness though its pretty cool to see the two on a stage together but apologies for the sound and video quality. They also performed SISoSIG which featured Mick singing of course which is linked here for your viewing pleasure, Mick’s having a good time its fair to say. If you’re like me it can be hard to hear anyone but Joe Strummer (or myself) singing London Calling and even if that someone is Roger Daltrey is leaves a hollow feeling. Though I would like to have heard him take a stab at it 30 years ago when he could still belt it out. Oh and a point and a trivia question, the crowd do their best to annoy by mimicking Joe’s apparent howling at the appropriate moment and until recently I always assumed that to be a howl. In fact it isn’t, do you know what Joe was trying to do with that vocal affectation? Answers on the comments section if you will. I do need to add I think Zak’s drumming is pretty tasty. I think Kate Moss should have sang a song…but which one?

Mick Jones, Roger Daltrey, Zak Starkey and a bloke from Kasabian – March 16, 2011

Right then, I’m on holiday today so I need to get back to that. We’ll talk soon. Tim

See below for the Daily Mirror’s comments – a newspaper that doesn’t seem to even know the titles of the songs performed.