Greetings once more from a very happy Clash Blog towers, the happiness is due to having all the windows open and temperature being below 80 for the first time since probably April. This calls for a a celebration of sorts so I am equipped with a cup of coffee and am also listening to XTC ‘Drums and Wires’ as I write. I’ve found myself listening to XTC rather a lot recently and I’ll go on record by saying they were one of the most influential bands of that era, in fact they’d sing on that rung just below The Clash with few other contenders. You can hear their impact on so many bands of the last twenty years, whether that influence was always intentional or not is open to debate but I hear them all over the place.

So, it’s Thursday already and I can finally start to cross a few more older stories off of my list. By now you’ve almost certainly heard that Mick Jones headed up to Merseyside last month to take part, a headlining part it turned out in Liverpool’s ‘Don’t Buy The Sun’ concert. I could (and perhaps might on my other blog) write an essay as to why you shouldn’t buy The Sun (english Murdoch operated gutter press newspaper) and I’m proud to say I never have. It’s a paper that looks to wave nationalistic, hateful, poorly researched, racist, divisive and frankly ridiculously sensationalistic views under the guise of a newspaper by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Unfortunately as poor taste would have it The Sun is also one of the best selling daily papers in England, except in Liverpool. If you’re of similar vintage to me you’ll forever remember the events that took place in Sheffield in  1989 when an FA Cup Semi-Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest was so poorly policed that almost 100 football supporters were crushed to death. There were a number of mistakes that day but the fulcrum of the blame laid with some very poor decisions by the police. As someone who went to see my team home and away and had stood on that same section of terracing a number of times Hillsborough hit me and the people I knew very hard, we all realised it was could just have easily had happened to us. However I digress, the story and the facts behind that tragic event were slow to emerge but it didn’t stop The Sun from making up their own mind and wrongly blaming Liverpool supporters for not only causing the tragedy but also acting like animals during the rescue operation. It was hideous knee-jerk journalism and quite rightly resulted in the city turning on the paper and almost completely ceasing to purchase it. That was 22 years ago and the Sun and Murdoch haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory in the intervening years.

This summer of course saw the explosion of the phone tapping scandal with the sister paper The News of The World which comes out every Sunday. A paper that thrives on celebrity gossip and sensationalism was brought to it’s knees due to a scandal that simply wouldn’t go away and Murdoch reacted by closing it down to appease public pressure. Not that his News International empire has even caught a cold as a result but this closure was a sign that there was a limit to what is accepted by even a patient public. Anyway, enough of the history but if you want to you can read much more about Hillsborough and the Hillsborough Justice Campaign via this site and also the Don’t Buy The Sun campaign via this site.

Mick Jones has a longstanding and warm relationship with Liverpool which extends all the way back to the time of The Clash, so when friends Pete Wylie and Peter Hooton of The Farm invited Mick to the event it was something he was happy to get behind. It also helps that he’s been a dedicated football support since childhood, in his case Queens Park Rangers. I’ve read a lot about the concert plus there is some great video footage and I will get those links for you over the weekend, but many have said it was just an amazing evening with Jones receiving a hero’s welcome and performing some Clash songs which were completely unexpected by many I would think. For today though I wanted to link you to a few things that we didn’t  get enough of when Big Audio Dynamite were touring – in depth interviews with Mick Jones. I guess that’s fair enough as the range of questions were well thought out and varied ranging from Clash history to the recent riots in the UK and his feelings about Liverpool. These are some of the best I’ve seen this year.

The Olympia, Liverpool

The first interview was in the live4ever ezine and the interview takes place around the Liverpool concert. Also interviewed is Mick’s cousin Martin Muscatt of the band Taurus Trakker, an excellent read and here’s the link. Also worth a visit is the Taurus Trakker website where you can learn and hear more and also purchase the new album ‘Building Ten’ which features (you guessed it) Mick Jones amongst some other special guests.

“You do it because you know it’s what you enjoy the most, I was born for this to tell you the truth and it was all I ever wanted to do really. I remember going to the careers officer at school and being asked what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to be in a band and they said they couldn’t help me”  Mick Jones

Sabotage Times is the home of the other interview conducted with Mick when he was on Merseyside and it’s a brilliant one too. You’ll see some duplication with the other interview as he must have had a mini press conference of sorts but there is more than enough to make both worth reading. Stopping just short of being sunkissed I’ve got to say Mick continues to come across as the nicest bloke imaginable. Right then I hope you enjoy both of these and I’ll get those other loose ends pulled together this weekend. Huge thanks to Sabotage Times and live4ever for the Mick transcripts, bookmark those sites! Don’t forget you can keep current via Facebook, Twitter get the RSS feed for the blog or email me.

“I was brought up by my maternal grandmother, so I was a latch key kid with a key round a chain to get in and out of the council flat. But to come so far is an amazing thing, it’s a story for everybody and I love to use it to inspire other people. It doesn’t matter where you’re from – its what you are. For me to be here playing after all these years is such an incredible thing”    Mick Jones

Hello once again and cheers for dropping in at the blog. Hope your weekend had some decent aspects and you managed to navigate your way through another Monday. I’m on my continued quest to get current on the blog but something came through my email inbox today that I just felt had to be shared before I chatted on about anything else.

First of all though thanks to Ian (sorry I don’t know where you’re from Ian) for taking the time to send the photo below. There is a back story to the photograph I should try and share also, that being that the photographer of the piece sadly passed away last Friday. His name is Bob Arihood and was according to the Village Voice the premier chronicler of the East Village in New York. That’s high praise indeed for Mr. Arihood who was afforded a fine obituary in the Village Voice for the difference he made in the neighbourhood. Here’s a link to learn more about Bob via the voice.

“Bob chronicled the neighborhood like no one else did. A resident since 1972, Bob would record and report the people and places that most outlets simply let flutter away. We weren’t lucky enough to know Bob personally, but we were smart enough to know that if we heard sirens on Avenue A at 2 a.m., Bob would already be there with his camera.”

As for the subject matter it’s the Joe Strummer Mural in New York that we all know and have our own unique feelings/sentiments for. My primary sentiment is London needs to have something located somewhere appropriate that recognises Joe in some similar fashion and it’s a travesty that we’re still waiting for that almost nine years since we lost Joe Strummer. You’ve all seen photos and videos of the Joe Strummer Mural in NYC and it’s rightly become a gathering place for those who visit the city who want to honour or connect with Joe. As you’d expect it means something different to everyone who visits it but leaves an impression every single day as people take their moment to visit. Thus this photo tells me more about the mural than any other I’ve seen.

Image courtesy Bob Arihood

Bob Arihood captured this photo in July of this year. It’s beautiful, it’s timeless and it leaves me with something approaching the perfect mixture of somber thoughts but holding onto the appreciation of  knowing about The Clash and the life of Joe since I was just a kid. That’s why the mural must always remain along with the memory of Joe.

I encourage you to have a look at more of the work of Mr Arihood, he captures New York in the most remarkable way, here is a link to his blog. Have a good night Clash people, I’ll have more soon and please send in great things like this as I do miss things now and then. Tim

Hello again, I came back for more and I hope you’ve done the same. How was your Thursday then? I hope reasonable and with some merit. I’ve spent the better part of the last two hours reading some opinion pieces, listening to some interviews and watching footage from the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ events that have been gaining momentum over the last twelve days. Speculation that I actually spent the time that the Clash Blog was quiet organising events in New York City is completely unfounded. I’m part of the lower middle class who can’t afford health insurance never mind a ticket to NYC, so I can’t take any credit.

His crime was having good video equipment in his hands...

It does seem though that a movement is growing, in terms of the media (finally) giving coverage to the issues in Manhattan but also the formation of dozens of other protests in cities throughout the USA and now seemingly around the world. As you can see from this site it is definitely getting organised. After the very different events in London (but with a comparable root cause) I wondered why nothing sparked across Europe and into the US. The rioting in London and elsewhere was quelled by courts processing the arrested 24/7 and a sudden threefold increase in policing. The calm was restored but the economic climate that is part of the fury remains. The chances of finding work, keeping your home or getting an education without going into extreme debt are issues that cross the Atlantic but still no protests were noted. Too much excitement watching TV and the debates whilst watching the 401K dwindle perhaps. Suddenly it seems that a grass roots thing is taking place and being heard. The banks are seen as the conspirators and our choices in government both seem to cater to big business rather than the populace. I recall a teacher telling me 30 years ago that corporations will be far more important than the politicians in years to come, a sensible protest would become the right to choose who leads those corporations rather than the political parties who aid them. I never forgot his words.

It’s one of those times when I wish the Clash Time Machine was in full working order and Joe Strummer could take himself in outspoken, motivational 1979 mode to the streets of New York today and join with the protestors. A few songs could have been busked and inspiration for a new Clash song or two would have surely been found. Then again Joe Strummer did somewhat foreshadow much of this at the end of side 2 on London Calling. I’m not in New York so can’t profess to know exactly what has been going down but it seems like the perfect time to get out one of those stacked speaker PA systems from the Notting Hill Carnival and blast Clampdown from the windows of your dirty cheap apartment in the village (remember it’s 1979 mode) so that the police could listen to the lyrics. As one girl shouted at the police on a video that I watched “You should be standing with us, all of your pensions are at risk too”.

The Clash – Clampdown (on ABC Friday’s April 25, 1980)

Speaking of Clampdowns has anyone else noticed that CBS/Sony have removed literally hundreds of official Clash recordings (studio versions/official videos) from YouTube recently?