Good evening, hope your day was a good one. I just ate far too much Thai food and feel like sleeping so let’s see if I can finish what I started as soon as I opened this post. You join me on a fairly special night as this marks the 800th post on The Clash Blog since I started writing it in late June of 2009. In fact it’s now 876 days since we began this daft idea so 800 posts in 876 days isn’t too shabby. That means something like 700,000 words have been written so far and at the time of writing there have been 636,000 individual visits to the blog. Thanks for your continued visits and support of the blog. All my worries about having enough to write about were completely unfounded as I usually feel a good few items behind. So I’ll bore you with one other number – on average I spend about 2-2.5 hours researching and writing each post so over the course of just under two and a half years that’s about 1,800 hours of time working on the blog or (sadly?) just over 10 weeks of my life during that time. Blimey. Here’s to the next 800! (apologies I like numbers) Thanks to everyone who takes time out to read and circulate this stuff and to the band of course without whom I’d just be chatting about any old nonsense. Or perhaps I do anyway.

image courtesty summerisoverblogspot.com

In the excitement of the Paul Simonon undercover with Greenpeace story some of actual details of The Good, The Bad and the Queen concert in London were somewhat overlooked. It would seem that the band plus string section clicked again as if they’d never been away and if you’re a fan of the album you’ll know that the music itself is so organic and haunting that I can see how it would be like slipping back into a comfortable pair of shoes. The good news as far as I’m concerned is that I have it on fairly good authority that there will be another album to come from the band and as far as I know from the original four members. It’s something I’d look forward to as I think it really does work, in reality it’s probably primarily Albarn’s numerous other ventures that have kept it from happening. Don’t forget it was Paul Simonon who said he wanted to stagger his schedule so that he had a music year, an art year and then a music year. 2010 was his lengthy commitment to Gorillaz, 2011 was his art year and of course his time in jail which may mean 2012 will see him back on the road. Whether it will be with TGTBaTQ remains to be seen, I’d say it’s a decent outside bet. Back to last week’s concert in London though, I wanted to share the video clips I found which are of various levels of quality. While the quality isn’t always stellar it is really great to see Paul back on stage with the guitar strap hanging around his waist, here’s some to get you going.

‘On Melancholy Hill’ (different angle)

‘Northern Whale’

Performing on the Greenpeace boat (from afar)

‘Herculean’

‘The Bunting Song / Nature Springs’ (features annoying bastards talking over the end of the first song)

Naturally all of these sound better on CD – so if you don’t own it jump over to Amazon over on the right —> (hint hint) and your Clash Blogger will get a few pence. I’ll be back very soon, have a brilliant Thursday. Tim

Monday night it is then, I’m about ready to chuck on a CD and let sleep wash over me which is pretty pathetic seeing as it’s not even 8pm yet as I write this. In fairness last night was an up and down affair and I think I’ve got a cold of sorts. Actually change that, I think it’s just all the dust in the this dusty desert oasis known as the Sonoran desert. When I watched Lawrence of Arabia there was no mention of dust? I can’t recall the ancient Egyptians struggling to complete the pyramids due to dust. So why then does this particular desert have so much bloody dust then? Because they’ve built too much is why – and as soon as any winds comes along the air quality would put a Chinese metropolis to shame. Right then, enough complaining, in between my sneezing a short link to the big story of the day that I’m sure you’ve seen doing the rounds.

Not only did Paul Simonon spend some time on a Greenpeace ship earlier this year in the Arctic (cool enough) but he also managed to get himself arrested when he and the crew ventured onto a giant oil rig off of the coast of Greenland which resulted in him spending two weeks in jail (bloody cool), remarkably none of his colleagues realised the true identity of Simonon as he went undercover/incognito throughout the ordeal as he had posed as a cook on the boat (cool for Simonon, less cool for his Mumford and Sons loving shipmates not spotting him, nobody else sounds like Paul). I don’t know whether the Mumford & Sons analogy is correct but I’m just basing this on the video below released by Greenpeace. So it turns out that the association between Greenpeace and The Good, The Bad and The Queen concert last week ran a lot deeper than the 40th Anniversary and the London arrival of Rainbow Warrior III. Obviously Simonon’s association and convictions run so much deeper than a concert, but for him to take part in what looks like an undercover role of his own volition with Greenpeace earlier in 2011 is rather unique. It all sounds a little like espionage coupled with the arrests and jail time being very heavy consequences for the events based solely on the video comments. I remember a few people (you know who you are) blurting negative comments about Simonon’s involvement with Greenpeace saying the organisation was full of flaws when his association and the recent concert was announced a few months ago. At the time I felt that to be really harsh and the development of this story shows that Paul sees this a very much more than name dropping and a photo opportunity. As if the coolest bass player ever needed more ammunition to convince the doubters.

My sincere thanks to Robin at Greenpeace for the extra information and his insight beneath, you can read much more about the tale here on the Greenpeace Blog.

“We thought this is a story you guys might be interested in. Today Greenpeace revealed that Paul Simonon, former bassist for The Clash, went undercover on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza earlier this year during its campaign against Arctic oil drilling. During his time on the ship Simonon’s identity remained a mystery, known to his fellow crew members as simply ”Paul the assistant cook”. The current The Good, the Bad and The Queen member was amongst a team of 18 activists who scaled an oil rig in the Arctic demanding to see the Cairn Energy’s oil spill response plan.

Simonon and his fellow protesters were eventually arrested by Greenland police and thrown into jail for two weeks where Paul continued to cook for his fellow inmates!”

Ahoy mates, thanks for stopping in at the blog (Paul should’ve been wearing his Gorillaz gear). Also, consider this, if Bono or Chris Martin or any one of a number of ‘activist rock stars’ had a similar experience do you think for a split second that the story would have been kept under wraps until after the associated concert for Greenpeace? Of course not. That speaks volumes. Video to follow – have a good one. Tim

Stories from the Rainbow Warrior: Jailhouse Rockstar (That’s the Greenpeace headline, I’m innocent of such cold puns)

Greenpeace is an independent global campaigning organisation that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace.

It comprises 28 independent national/regional offices in over 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, as well as a co-ordinating body, Greenpeace International.

Good morning to you, it rained all night here so the air has a nice and fresh quality rarely associated with the desert. Lovely. This won’t be a long post therefore as I need to fuel up on coffee and then take the bicycle out and get some exercise or at the very least go and walk the Clash Blog dog (written earlier, completed this evening). Kim just bought the dog a red wool jumper, I don’t know about that. I noticed on yesterday’s post a glaring error and normally if I make a mistake or don’t fact check I’m corrected rather quickly by readers, this time though, nothing. The title of the post yesterday referenced Paul performing once again with The Good, The Bad and The Queen which I abbreviated to TGTGaTQ in the post headline which means nothing at all, brilliant. A schoolboy error and once I’m shocked to have got away with. What next? Mike Jones, Joe Strimmer, Paul Simon, Tipper Headon? Perhaps I’m getting senile after all, I noticed yesterday I’m struggling to remember lyrics from songs more often than once before.

Old songs are what brought me to today’s post also as I was listening to Madness while working in the ‘garage of fear’ yesterday sorting through a ridiculous mountain of stuff. I know that The Specials and The Beat are the two bands from that genre that I’ve returned to more often over the years but for a good spell during those first 3 or 4 albums especially I was essentially mad about Madness too. I liked the fact that they were from north London and although they were hugely successful (in Europe if not North America) you always sensed that it hadn’t gone to their collective seven (and then six) heads. Madness as a live band were never going to be as fiery as The Clash or attract quite the same element as The Specials but they were the best band imaginable if you were a teenager racing down cider and planning to dance badly for an hour and a half.

Madness live in Australia, 2009 (Image courtesy TrentSC on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/trentcsc/with/3450776465/)

To the casual fan who bought the singles and the average observer Madness were seen as a good times for everyone pop band who merged ska, sixties R&B and classic skinhead moonstomping into the ‘nutty sound’. If you weren’t paying attention you might have missed that they had a lot to say as well. Suggs’ lyrics were sharp and observational as the band developed that looked at politics, homelessness, poverty and many inner city issues that the band were in tune with. What was most telling was that the moment the band decided to get far more ‘serious’ in tone on their final album proper the sales dried up and they split up essentially, returning as ‘The Madness’ later on. Subsequently they’ve reformed a few times and continue to tour to great acclaim for the most part.

I’m only nattering on about Madness as Suggs took part in the Quietus (one of my favourite music blogs – bookmark it if you can) ongoing series of ‘my favourite 13 albums of all time’. His selections overall are rather great in my opinion and happily features the debut album by The Clash. What makes the series so interesting is rather than just a list of albums and a sentence about each the artist gives a lengthy explanation as to why he or she chose it. The Clash notes in particular are really interesting but all are worth a read as it describes the impact of The Clash on him, his band and the scene at large. I’d have loved to have been a bit older and kicking around Camden Town in those years. Here’s a link to his thoughts about the Clash album and also one for the entire list. What artists would make your thirteen best albums?

But I always had a soft spot for The Clash, because they had the reggae thing, like us, and there was a bit of soul in their music, for want of a better word. Joe Strummer definitely had a bit of soul in his voice. Every fucking track on that album’s brilliant, but my favourite’s ‘London’s Burning’.        – Suggs of Madness on the Clash

Right, I’ve got to get ready for a busy Monday so we’ll talk soon, don’t forget to stay current via Facebook, Twitter get the RSS feed  thanks for your support and sharing of the blog. Tim