Hello again everyone and welcome back to the blog on this fine Thursday afternoon. All is well here in P-Town and as the recipient of your visit to the site I’m very grateful. I’m going to have to open up the garage and take a trip down the Westway this evening as I’ve got more odds and sods than I know what to do with and I doubt you want to read a new post every six hours over the next few days – unless of course you do. August has been a great month so far for the blog with some repainting and cleaning and we’ll be adding much more in September – and you keep coming back for more which is great. The month isn’t over yet but we look set to eclipse the total visits for June and July which will make this the busiest month of the year so please keep telling friends and coming back yourself when you have a few minutes to spend. Tomorrow I’ll be putting together a preview of events for Saturday which mark the birthday of Joe Strummer and I hope some small percentage of you will be able to attend one of the concerts and other events around the world. If you’re in Australia by the time you read that it might already be Saturday in which case you don’t need reminding that Sydney looks to be the place to be with the continued annual celebration of Joe.

Speaking of Joe – I wrote a few weeks ago about the Clash/Joe Strummer pop art that has been created by Simon Dixon back in the UK and this afternoon I received my truly awesome Strummer/RAF piece and its just beautiful. Thanks so much Simon I’ll be getting a frame at the weekend as this merits pride of place and I can have it in place in time for his Birthday – better still!! (gallery 4 on his website if you are looking) With that said let me pull of these side streets and see how much traffic is on the Westway tonight. If you are new to the site its our analogy for multiple Clash related stories all in one post, so get your seatbelt on. Links to article are the headlines.

If I were in London I’d be here: How often do you get to see one of the most important English bands of the entire punk/post punk scene in a venue that holds just 200 people? On November 8th and 9th if you act quickly you can do just that and see Wire at the Lexington. I rank Wire as one of the most important bands to evolve from the first wave of punk and they then did what so many failed to do and evolved into something that continued to be both fresh but resolutely unique to them. Record sales might say otherwise but Wire were one of the most influential bands from that era and beyond. Act fast as hopefully you can get tickets (via the link provided) – besides which its in the republic of Islington so you’ll enjoy the entire evening.

Join a Paul Simonon debate: The age old debate about the relative merits of Paul Simonon as a bass player are going on over at Amazon so free to join in. I fall under the raw musician at the beginning who worked hard to improve but huge amounts during his time with The Clash. Paul would be the first to admit that he wasn’t born with desire (or a habit) to play an instrument from his earliest years (that would be Mick) but the foolish jibes that suggest Simonon remained with The Clash because he looked good are complete nonsense. As far as I know Paul never plugged in a guitar until he was 20 years old and later that same year he was playing live on stage. Yes Mick had to teach him the basics of playing the bass but through years of application and effort he became a good musician and certainly a creative one who took pride in his contribution to the sound of the band. Joe Strummer was never a lead guitarist but that didn’t stop him working to become one of the best rhythm guitarists I’ve ever seen. You’re also a tit if you ignore his reggae influences on his playing and the overall direction of the band.

Still one of my favourite video clips: The Joe Strummer Mural in New York has been visited, photographed and been a site of pilgrimage for Clash fans now for a good number of years. Overall I love that its there but can’t deny it makes me sad, this video clip of two little lads aged around 8 or 9 I’d guess playing a guitar and snare in front of Joe’s image never fails to lift me up a bit. (you’ve not gone mad, I did mention this once before but its Joe’s week)

Links to the NME online Clash tribute(s): I’ll be writing about that special NME edition in the days ahead as it was really lovely to get a copy sent over from England (thanks again). In the meantime wanted to be sure you had a chance to see the the features the NME added to their website via the original link which has memories and some video and also this series of rather brilliant photos.

Attila The Stockbroker – too old to rap? Nah…: I need to write some tales about Attila one of these nights, he’s been playing live for decades now and a more genuine and committed man you would be hard pressed to meet. I first saw him in the mid 80′s with Billy Bragg and he never stops working – his rap (via the link) sums up his love for being an old punk and Brighton supporter and naturally name checks Joe Strummer. Great bloke – find out more via his site or facebook page. He’s a 21st century bard and comes highly endorsed.

Attila the Stockbroker’s tribute to Joe Strummer

That about me done for now but hopefully enough to keep you going, for no obvious reasons this took me ages to prepare and link etc this evening (age??). Probably need another Westway tomorrow or Sunday – and Saturday is reserved for Joe who should be turning 58 instead of leaving us to struggle along without him. Cheers ~ Tim

Hello all and welcome back to the Clash Blog, hope your weekend is going well. Updates from the desert – George the Clash Blog cat is doing a bit better with some medication it seems, still looking for root cause but pinched nerve /arthritis look to be leading contenders for said cat’s recent struggles. Poor old George. I’m alright just got it from playing football and suitably knackered, had a look back at the recent posts and noticed we’ve yet to go on a search for new/odd/interesting videos so far this month so that will be on the agenda. I also don’t know that anything more taxing than looking at videos sounds ideal after dropping more money at the vet. The goal remains the same, hopefully less than most of you have seen many of the videos selected – so let me know if that is the case. Some may not be new but recently loaded to the video directory at youtube et al.

“That’s a good album if you’re into your punk music” This chap might remind some of you of yourselves or someone you know. Very basically this very nice lad introduces us to his collect of ‘Clash stuff’. He’s simply a fan but that pure adoration of the band comes through from him laying out all his cds, records and books. In the background he’s got the band providing backing to his narration as he just rambles on a bit. You might not need the full 10 minutes of the video to get the gist of it but its fun to watch just to see the devotion of a fan. I’d also guess he’s no more than in his mid 20′s as he doesn’t reference double or triple albums so he was probably well after the time the band were in full flow, that in itself I think says so much about the continuing impact of the band. I like the video most for his delivery and instructions ‘don’t download that, just buy it’  – also listen (near the end) for the story of how he got into The Clash it might make you a bit weepy.

Paul Simonon interview – 1990 I realise there are a lot of clips online I’ve never seen before and this is one of them. Taken from Canadian TV in 1990 Paul Simonon and Gary Myrick are interviewed at length (ostensibly of course about Havana 3am). Interesting interview overall if for no other reason in the contrast between a lad from London and another from Dallas, Texas. Also reminded me how Havana 3am did some support slots for Big Audio Dynamite upon suggestion from Mick, another one of those things that gets buried in the mountain of debris in my head. If you’ve never seen it you’ll enjoy it.

London Calling covered by SOR Band? – 31/7/10 Where to begin, I can’t resist a Clash cover version and I don’t add many to these posts unless there is something a bit different. This one is different but they look young, they’re doing their best and its a nod to The Clash. Things to watch for: the club looks like the back of my Nan’s house in Dublin, they are playing the song with keyboards (a bit different), the drummer is Animal from the Muppets as best as I can tell. I feel awful as I can’t share a thing about SOR Band, so if you know them or are them please write in, I think the ‘gig’ was in New York.

The Offspring cover ‘Guns of Brixton’ in Vancouver: They’ve covered this for quite a while as far as I know but I’ve never mentioned it on the blog. Its a good run through of the Simonon track if a little bit too regimented. Tell me honestly that The Offspring are normally a little more animated on stage than this surely? That said its a decent version.

Honourable mentions:

Not karaoke, not a cover but this girl just seems to love to mime to Rock the Casbah. Watch for jazz hands and….well the rest of it, I can’t explain…

The Sunshiners cover ‘Should I Stay…’ , not quite calypso or reggae and neither completely awful or especially good.

That will be all I’ve got this evening, I need to check the cat and it just started raining so I need to go and get wet (it never rains here). Thanks for dropping in.

Good evening ~ welcome back to the blog. At the end of a ridiculously hot weekend a huge thunderstorm is rolling in from the East. Hopefully it will both arrive and not take the power out, its still 101f as I type these words at 9pm. Funnily enough the Clash Bloggette’s daughter wants to go and see Green Day next month, but its an outdoor venue – which in Phoenix in August is asking for trouble and mass heat stroke. I don’t think I’ve been volunteered to attend that one yet. I’ll let you know.

I’m going to post the equivalent of blogging fast food tonight, reasonably quick to make perhaps briefly filling and guilt ridden and compromised afterward. Actually this better be a bit better than fast food – you tell me? That said somewhere between 30-40 Clash/Clash related videos are uploaded to youtube/vimeo/googlevideo/daily motion and other video sites each and every week. While many are already listed elsewhere I’m going to filter through them and share some of the best, worst and strangest things I come across about 3 times a month. I’ve long considered a video only page on the blog but the bandwidth restrictions would result in the need for a server just for the blog, as it is we come close to our single server capacity with normal traffic. Perhaps next year!

So let’s see what I’ve found this week. (It’s a mixed bag, if you haven’t seen 2/3 of what I add it will be mission accomplished)

Mick Jones interview clips from Summer 2009: Something really nice to start and this has just been added to youtube. Its a four minute plus b/w interview with Mick Jones at The Rock and Roll Public Library from last summer. Not an interview as such but more like clips from an extended conversation. Mick is really funny throughout and the focus seems to be as much on the cups of tea and scones as it does the Clash memorabilia.

Mick Jones playing ‘What’s My Name’ with Ebba Gröns 2003, Stockholm: I’d love to provide some information about this clip, I’m sure someone reading can provide many more details. Ebba Gröns were Sweden’s most famous punk band from the late 70′s – I had no idea they had reunited and that Mick appeared with them. More importantly Mick was having a great time it looked, along with the audience and the sound is a good blast of early Clash.

A Clash fan opening and showing The Clash singles box set: I really enjoyed watching this, he does such a nice job just being a fan. In short he opens up the box set, shows you the packaging and the cool mini replica 45RPM CDs that made up the box set. As you’ll see even though it was an expensive item for the collection the wonderful detail in reproducing all of the original singles sleeves is really brilliant as is the fact that the discs each look like a 7″ slab of vinyl. Bloody fun to watch even if you don’t stick around for the duration. Even nicer to own.

G.B.H. covering ‘White Riot’ in Chicago earlier this month: Bloody hell….I’ll warn you first to turn the audio down as the sound quality is pretty shite, but what an oddity this is!! In the Spring of ’84 (I think) I made a late dash to see some of the earlier 2nd wave of punk bands that were still playing live in London at that time. I need to dig out my journals to see exactly who I saw that year but I know I saw The Exploited and GBH around the same time. Even by 1984 a room full of mohawks and leather was looking a bit out of place but I’ve no regrets! Thus I had no idea GBH were touring this year in the States nor how many of the original lineup remain (at least two I think) but turns out they have a new album out on Hellcat! Good on them! Read more on the Hellcat Records site.

There we go then, I really enjoyed that…might do it more often. Let me know what you think, we’ll never get so short on videos that you need to see me trying (and succeeding) to ruin English Civil War on my Telecaster..don’t worry!

Tim