Good morning and thanks for stopping in at the blog, now rapidly heading towards the 800th ever post. Blimey! You find me on a Thursday morning with a full mug of coffee and listening to Diamond Dogs by David Bowie, I’m not quite sure why. That midlife crisis thing may actually be sneaking up on me. I have to pack for a few nights away today so I thought a short update prior to a day’s travel through the desert would be in order.

Not much news comes immediately to mind, I image that Big Audio Dynamite must have flown from Heathrow today or yesterday to Tokyo for their Friday night appearance at the Fuji Rock Festival. I know we get an awful lot of readers on the blog from Japan so I’m quietly optimistic that we may receive photos or some notes about the gig from a few of them. Speaking of the festival they have a rather brilliant lineup of bands appearing over the three days although of course I’m not including Coldplay in that description. Arctic Monkeys are also there and I happened to purchase their new album a few weeks ago, yesterday was my first chance to listen to it in full. Let’s just say I’ve heard better lyrics coming from a random search of the dictionary, which based on the album may have been exactly what he did when writing these songs. Does the music make up for the lyrics? No…sorry. As for B.A.D. I’m pleased to see not only will the band not be playing in broad daylight but they will be headlining on the smaller ‘white’ stage. They are also scheduled to play a long set (22:20-23:40) and I’m not even sure that they’ve rehearsed enough songs to fill an 80 minute slot. Expect a lot of asides from Mick Jones on the night.

Remarkably it’s only 6 months short of being thirty years since The Clash first played in Japan at the beginning of 1982 – a period of time that is really well chronicled in the Chris Salewicz biography of Joe Strummer. The response to The Clash from Japanese fans bordered on the obsessive which I can do nothing but applaud and I hope a handful of those same fans will be at the Fuji Rock Festival over the weekend. Just to get some of you in the mood here is a link to an entire Clash concert recorded at the Sun Plaza, Tokyo back on Feb 1, 1982. Thanks to the original KombatBlog - ‘Nuzz Prowlin Wolf’ for the upload.

On a local level I’m cautiously optimistic about this dusty desert town as not one, not two but three new live music venues have opened here in Phoenix over the last few months. I’m going to need to campaign hard to try and get the owners/promoters of said venues to get in some of the British/European bands to add this town to the itinerary as they have all too often skipped it. On the plus side though after a few years of various closures it is a good sign that perhaps live music is making some inroads – especially in venues that hold between 300-900 people that we are painfully lacking in. So good luck to ‘The Foundry on 1st‘ – ‘The Crescent Ballroom‘ and another whose name escapes me.

Do you ever use/listen to last.fm? The online streaming music software that does offer a wide selection whilst simultaneously performing an appalling job of ‘predicting’ the bands you might like? As a lazy resort I sometimes use it and just found that you can look up the most listened to songs by any artists. So of course I plugged in ‘The Clash’. You should too as the results will surprise and then fill you with dismay, above all else it shows you what we’re up against. Tracks 1 & 2 (SISoSIG and Rock the Casbah) are exactly as you might fear but tracks 3 & 4 might cheer you up. An alarming lack of ‘listening’ on last.fm to earlier material it would seem. They are close to being banned as a result due to this and the fact that I’ve finally got Spotify but I’ll make a decision next week. When you work from home and spend 6-12 hours a day writing, blogging, building blogs and websites the companionship and rhythm of music is crucial so I take this far too seriously.

Have a splendid Thursday, please share/tweet/comment as you wish. Best -Tim

Hello again Clash people, hope the week is off to a decent start and the summer is not as hot wherever you are as it has been over much of North America for the last few weeks. It’s a bit like the famed summer of ’76 in England for hot weather and we all know what the result of that was don’t we?

I really hope that you had a chance to watch the videos of Big Audio Dynamite at the Royal Festival Hall on yesterday’s post. Most of the time I can swallow the fact that I miss this concert or that event in London but I really wish I was there at the weekend to have seen this one. It just looked and sounded right and from all accounts it felt right with the consensus being that Mick Jones seems so vested in the band once again and it shows in every sense. I’m becoming fairly convinced that we’re going to see an album as a result of the reunion, purely idle speculation on my part but I can see now that they’ve tested the water for fan reaction (and the addition of new/younger fans who never saw the band first time around) and the chemistry within the band that new music might well be the result. We’ve already seen the first new song being performed live.

I’d like to once again thank Pete Stevens for the excellent photography below from the weekend, I know he also was able to see the soundcheck in full. He must have an equity card or something. I think it’s the 4th time he’s seen B.A.D. this year – I’m sure someone will now write in and tell me they’ve seen them five times in 2011. Go on then.

Prior to the photos I do want to start sharing some of the recent blog posts that I’ve seen and enjoyed. I always enjoy reading about people’s experiences of The Clash and how they impacted them or briefly met a member or perhaps saw a gig or two. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of that as every experience is different and exclusive to the author of it. In addition, these days with the internet and being able to see photos and videos or read brief accounts of a concert anywhere in the world within a few hours via twitter or facebook things are never going to be as they once were again as any sense of exclusiveness has all but evaporated. That in itself is both a good and a bad thing. How many people saw The Clash in Dundee in January 1980? More importantly how many have written about that experience? How many people had a chance to share a cigarette or a beer with Mick or Joe during the earliest Clash tours outside the UK – and again how many have committed those nights to memory and shared them? It’s those experiences that make me look to see what’s written on smaller blogs or social media, everyone has a story to tell and a lot of them are really good.

I know that a book was being compiled about fan’s accounts of The Clash, that was last year but I’ve not heard more of it since. I must find out where that stands. Anyway, another ramble off topic here instead is a link to a the Clicks and Pops blog where the author speaks of a friend named Julie and her love of The Clash. It’s a simple tale but no less special as a result, although I knew a lot of people (perhaps a lot is a slight overstatement) who owned Sandinista! I also remember getting my first ever Sony Walkman in about 1982 (?) and rushing to the record shop to purchase a tape as I was very loyal to vinyl only at that time, I ended up christening my new Walkman with a copy of Sandinsta! on cassette. Partly because I liked the album but mostly because I was impressed by the fact it was on just two tapes instead of three records and came with a nice cardboard outer sleeve for both tapes. I still have it in a box of tapes. It was odd sequencing as the 36 tracks compiled essentially sides 1-3 of the vinyl on tape one. Years later I got sand in the cassette inner plastic somehow whilst on a beach near Barcelona, it made the tapes screech and groan and as a result and tape two was never the same again although I kept playing it.

Hope you enjoy the photo gallery beneath, just click on the first image and navigate your way through. Thanks again Pete, simply brilliant shots. All these new additions due to  technology to the blog, soon I’ll be made redundant. I just read that The Psychedelic Furs and The Tom Tom Club are coming to town on the same bill and my first reaction was “I must go”, is this the first sign of a midlife crisis? More soon – Tim

All images the exclusive copyright of Peter Stevens

Hello, how are you? Thanks for dropping in to the blog, all of a sudden Monday arrived and sort of knocked me over I must confess. A very weird weekend and the distraction/emotions from horrific events in Norway and a sad end to another person fully consumed by addiction gave the weekend some surreal aspects which I didn’t really navigate. Most importantly I hope any blog readers or your families in Norway were not impacted by the tragic events on Friday, although of course the whole country is at some level. As for Amy Winehouse, it’s very sad but I simultaneously saw a lot of people forget any sense of humanity and suggest/comment it was somehow fair game. In which case I suggest you’ve never known an addict and/or forget just how bloody hard Topper Headon had to work to overcome his troubles. I thought this piece by Russell Brand (love him or hate him) about Amy Winehouse was one of the better things I read at the weekend. I’ve no words for what happened in Norway, extremely troubled people fueled by fury, fear and hatred are a constant risk and we remain in a world where intolerance will lead to such events. Terrorism comes in all shapes and colours.

Mick Jones at the Royal Festival Hall, image courtesy Peter Stevens

We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense.   – Russell Brand

On to brighter thoughts then, by all accounts the performance by Big Audio Dynamite at the Royal Festival Hall at the weekend was quite something. Apparently many are saying their best live gig yet since the reunion (being indoors after festivals perhaps!?) or the venue and the charge from the audience in London? I don’t know the facts but the positive words I’m reading everywhere are very encouraging. I’ll hopefully have a series of photos from Pete to share with you soon, in the meantime I wanted to try a new toy on the blog and share some of the videos taken during the gig. Apart from looking like everyone was having a brilliant time the quality of the audio and video is really good as well. My thanks to ’00liadon’ (and one from ‘fergaiq’ for his youtube uploads. Hope you enjoy these as it looked like a great gig, even greater photographs to follow.

B.A.D. “Medicine Show”

B.A.D. “The Bottom Line”

B.A.D. “E=MC2″

B.A.D. “Just Play Music”

B.A.D. “Rush”

I realise the above would look nicer if I had a sixth video but I’ll sacrifice aesthetics for some good videos. Looks like a really good night and if I’m not being unfair (and certainly don’t intend to be) the sound is bigger and better with the change in personnel? I’ll be back soon, hoping you have a good Tuesday. More to follow, please do all you can to share the blog via Twitter, Facebook shares or word of mouth. Thanks – Tim