Hello again and welcome back. Overheard yesterday a conversation between two locals – someone had never heard of Bradley Wiggins, the person who knew who he was said ‘he’s just like Lance Armstrong except for the fact he’s not a fucking cheat’. Thought that was funny.

Right then…anything exciting going on? A few things to be fair.

Early warning for a major event in Toronto on January 17th  which will be a week from this coming Thursday. Lots of reasons to recommend this; it features our old friend Prince Blanco (Shatter The Hotel Project), proceeds support Jail Guitar Doors and Strummerville plus admission is just $5. Rather than rely on me for the facts here is the official blurb below. I know we get a lot of readers from Toronto and the surrounding area so I hope many of you are able to make it along.

Please mark this one on your calendar and come on out for LONDON’S BURNING, a live tribute to The Clash and Joe Strummer, featuring Special Strummerville DJ Prince Blanco, as well as a screening of the Joe Strummer documentary, “The Future is Unwritten”. The cost is $5 and all proceeds are going to two worthy charities, namely, Strummerville and Jail Guitar Doors. 3030 is the fabulous new jewel of the Junction, featured in NOW magazine as one of the 10 best restaurants in Toronto as well as a great new concert venue.

Doors: 8pm
Documentary screening: 9pm
LONDON’S BURNING play your favourite Clash tunes at 11pm.
Prince Blanco DJ’s Clash inspired music all night long.

It has been 10 years since Joe left us and this event is celebrate the music of his band, a band that Rolling Stone magazine famously called, “the only band that matters”.

Watch for door prizes and special drinks.

If you need any additional information please let me know. There is a facebook page for the event and you can learn more about the venue/restaurant right here.

Don Letts & Prince Blanco

In other less important news, thank you for taking the time to vote on the best blog post from 2012. At present the final two look to be the advice given on the tube train by Joe Strummer and the special guest posts we had on the site from The Baker. To participate in the voting in case you missed it you’ll need to visit the posts from January 1st and also the 2nd. Speaking of voting I’m also resurrecting The Clash Cup later this month. You have been warned…it will be fun. Also tonight, depressed Newcastle supporters can get along to the Joe Strummer tribute at Komedia in a few hours. It will be far more enjoyable than losing to Brighton (again).

Finally today in what is turning into a bit of a random post – here is a link to a German dubbed/subtitled version of ‘The Future is Unwritten’ which will be handy should you speak German. Many years ago I worked for a German company but never learned more than enough to order beer and food – I still might watch it though.

Sorry for the short post – lots to be getting on with today but I shall be back soon.

The end of the week already, see I told you that it wouldn’t be so bad. Hope all is well at your end and thanks for coming back for a visit. Before getting started today I wondered if anyone had read any recent news about the alleged two Clash films that are in production? Last we heard both were officially being made and then it’s been all quiet since. I know we wondered who could possibly play not just Strummer but any members of the band and I think the consensus was to pick an unknown actor rather than a face we recognise. Speaking of similar looking faces perhaps this chap in Canada who spends his life finding unrelated doppelgangers to photograph might be the first person to call. Are there chaps walking around in the snow in Winnipeg who look like Paul Simonon and would you even be able to tell under four layers of clothing?

Today I wanted to gather together some of the uploaded videos from the many Joe Strummer tribute concerts that took place the weekend before Christmas. As ever with live filming via a phone or low end digital camera the audio and images can often leave a lot to be desired but it was the flavour of the evenings I was after. Also, if you happened to attend any of the special nights and have worthy memories don’t hesitate to share them below. I haven’t seen as many uploaded videos as I had expected which could be due to the holiday and New Year so we might revisit this in a couple of weeks.

Some are in packed clubs or pubs and some are in what look like coffee shops, the sentiment however is consistent.

Alessandro Mela is a singer/songwriter from Ferrera, Italy. Here you can watch his Clash/Joe medley (don’t think K-Tel) featuring pieces of four songs without missing a beat. He also writes his own stuff and if you like you can follow him on Twitter. Meanwhile at the 100 Club in London a two evening party was had celebrating the life and influence of Joe, I’m expecting to find more videos as I dig deeper but here is a great (only half sadly) cover of White Riot by I think Rebel Truce (?) if someone who was there could confirm for me that’d be a good idea.

Glen Matlock was also on the bill at the 100 Club and above he covers the 101′ers Keys to Your Heart. I really like the grainy footage of this video and the other uploaded by ‘Joe Stunner’, you can almost squint and pretend this was December 1976. Speaking of old looking footage, this clip from an earlier tribute in the month in Somerville Massachusetts shows The Unstables performing ‘Julie’s been working for the drug squad’ – they sound great in truth although it looks like it was filmed in 1966.

Meanwhile you needed to be in Vancouver for a rather different take on London Calling by Ralph Shaw on a type of banjo/ukelele hybrid *(according to my novice eyes). It is his voice that I keep focusing on though, after two or three listens I can’t decide who he reminds me of. Any suggestions? From the same event here is Colleen Rennison doing a stellar version of Brand New Cadillac.

Down in Brixton at The Windmill here is footage of The Lone Groover performing his song ‘Dreams of Strummer with very excellent backing visuals.

Embarrassed to say this was a gig that I missed (sorry) in Durham, not the one near Newcastle but the big one in North Carolina. Above you can see B-Side Project and Danny Hooley performing a warm rendition of Johnny Appleseed.

Back across the sea to Italy for the final one for now, featuring Mauri Clash covering a cover – in this case Armagideon Time followed by Career Opportunities.

All of these videos show it doesn’t matter how you interpret Joe and Mick’s music – just that people are still doing so as a rule of thumb is a fine thing. I don’t think there is any mileage in saying that is a poor cover version to any artist who is trooping out there in tribute to Strummer and playing for free and typically helping to raise funds for a local cause or Strummerville, or whatever. In the most simple terms I love that it continues ten years on and if anything gathered momentum this time around for obvious reasons.

Having explored a bit more as I wrote today’s piece I’ve realised that there have been many more uploads over the last few days so I’ll put together part two at the very least of this in the next week. Have a fine Friday, I’ll be back soon. Don’t forget you can keep current or communicate via the facebook page, twitter or get the blog sent as a feed via the RSS.

Good morning from a frosty but sunny Clash Blog towers, thanks for making your way back to the blog. Hope your year is off to a brilliant or at least a reasonable beginning, I have to say that things are good here so I won’t curse it by saying anything….

A little bit of housekeeping is in order first today so a reminder for those of you in or near to Brighton on the south coast of England. Come on even those in London can make it down by train and make a weekend of it by the sea. The annual Joe Strummer tribute takes place this Saturday (Jan 5th) evening at 7pm at Komedia. Full information via this link, ages 14+ and admission is £13.00. One of the very best Clash tribute acts ‘Take the Fifth’ are headlining and the night also features The Sex Pistols, Experience, Groovy 101 and Radio Clash. In addition DJs will be spinning Clash and Joe tunes all night. I hope some of you will make it along.

Right then, on to other things. Most of you have probably noticed that the ‘official’ www.theclash.com website is now live and redux. It came back online late last month and has been totally overhauled. I’d love to tell you that it is a fantastic site, full of information you’ve never read before, photos and videos that are hard to find and all of this designed for easy navigation and interaction whether you are brand new to the band or a long standing Clash nut. I’d love to tell you all of that but none of it would be true.

I need to try and be objective though, this is the official site and will by default get tens of thousands of visits every week. Based solely on that I was expecting a great deal more, particularly as it has been so long in the making. Instead it looks like a standard band website and the main reason for it to exist sadly seems to be the store where you can get officially licensed t-shirts for $30 / £20 plus shipping. I anticipate the box set will be added there shortly too. The site looks like Sony Music just decided they needed something official out there, so they’ve added photos of each single and album, a handful of official videos and excerpts from the band’s history – mostly taken or reworked from the Big Pink Clash Book as best I can tell. Perhaps it will improve in time?

The navigation area on the new official Clash site, perhaps the best part of the site

When you first visit the site visually it looks alright and promises a lot, a bit like the sleeve of Cut The Crap perhaps. A camouflaged boombox with a cassette spinning plus a radio dial that you can spin to look at different years of the band’s history and buttons for the tape deck that take you to Albums/Singles/Video/Gallery/ Gigs and Store. That all looks decent but it was when I started exploring the site that I felt let down. The information keeps repeating itself, there really is not that much to read and nothing seemingly new. For a site that Sony claims is ‘run by The Clash’ some sort of official welcome message and newsfeed would have been encouraging. With further research I see the site is made by the same team who built websites for Kasabian, Calvin Harris and Amy McDonald. I realise as I write this I sound quite negative but that is because I was expecting so much more, considering how long there has been no official site I thought something special was probably forthcoming -  a site that would feel like the band were behind it. Instead it looks like a tumblr page with a bunch of photos and very little substance. Trying to summarise important moments in the history of the band in two sentence snippets seems lazy and unambitious to me.

Is it all bad? I do like the ‘gallery’ section which includes original interviews and photos from the actual reproduced pages of the NME and such, however even that flatters to deceive as when you click on the image it is still far too small to read the text. The other area with potential is the gigs section that looks for fans to send in their memories of gigs if they attended them. A worthy idea but already being done with so much more finesse and depth on the Black Market Clash site. In fact that site remains the grade A resource for the band for fact checkers that the new official site would like to be. If you haven’t explored that site in depth it would be time better spent.

The inner pages are crowded, messy and hard to navigate. A little like the sleeve of Cut The Crap

Still, it might be in its infancy and see improvements and perhaps there is every chance the bulk of people who visit it will love it. I really wanted to but don’t at all, its average which is not representative of The Clash. It could and should have been so much more interactive with the potential of current web design. What do you think of it, am I being unfair?

Just in case…all images above are the official property of www.theclash.com.