Hello again, just a short one for your Sunday morning/afternoon to be getting on with as I keenly wait for my coffee to brew. I need some as remarkably I’m actually cold for once as I watch Liverpool and Everton kicking lumps out of each other in what looks like cold rain off the Irish Sea.

Rarely do I make a ‘comment’ from a previous blog entry into a new post but as this one sheds more light on the filming of the video for ‘Bankrobber’ it seems worth it to me. The Baker, being featured in the video below was in a good position to answer Gil who had asked him what he remembered – “Baker, I’ve always enjoyed watching the “Bankrobber” video. I like the combination of the serious (the band in the studio) and the funny (you and Johnny running around). It looked like it was fun to have been a part of that vid…thanks for the behind-the-scenes memories!”

 

“That was another crazy day at Lewisham Odeon. Don Letts turned up with his film crew to take some footage to splice into a video for ‘Bankrobber’. Having no pre-conceived concept it was an on-the-spot idea to have me and Johnny dress with bandanas’ over our faces and pretend to rob a bank.

I was already less than enthusiastic at the idea, as I already had a full day of work preparing for the show that night. But Don assured us it wouldn’t take long and would be great and Johnny coerced me along. I couldn’t see the point – we were the most unlikely-looking bankrobbers you could ever conjure up….Johnny’s gangly stick insect figure looking ten-feet tall made me look even shorter and squat than normal. Later watching the finished video, I finally understood the comedic visual Don was trying to put forth and it worked quite well.

So he filmed us leaning up against the wall, running out of the bank, running down Lewisham High Street alarming shoppers, tearing across roads, jumping over the camera – it went on and on and all I could think about was what I should have been doing the whole time back at the gig. Suddenly two police Rovers came screeching round the corner, grabbed us and bundled us all up against the wall!

“This is all your fucking fault, Green!” I yelled at Johnny as the cops padded us down. “Now we’re gonna end up down the nick and miss the gig, you cunt!”

After much convincing that it was all a stunt, the cops let us go with stern faces and we made it back to the Odeon just as the soundcheck was ending. Fortunately, there were few problems equipment-wise and all’s well that ended well. Ironically, the funniest part of the incident, was the part Don couldn’t film – Johnny and I screaming at each other hands against the wall….”I’m gonna fucking kill you Green when this is over….” “Its your fucking fault Baker for looking like a thug!”

Later, back at the hotel, we divied up the fee Johnny had coaxed out of Don, so that was alright. I always wondered what the fans made of it….what did you think Gil?”

The Baker.

Hello everyone welcome back to the blog on this lovely, rainy, chilly night. I realise that sounds like England for 10 months of the year but perhaps I’m just a bit homesick. I just looked at my emails/newsfeed of Clash related stories and realised I better get the Cortina out of the garage and put in some oil as it’s time for another edition of Westway Traffic. If you’re new to the blog Westway traffic is where we try and zip through a number of stories all at once that I don’t have extensive room for on the blog, just click the red links for more news. Off we go, good clutch control needed.

Tour News: It’s always good to see those that have played and toured with The Clash back in the day, it provides a nice line of continuity especially for those of us who weren’t old enough to have seen these acts headlining for/supporting our boys back then. John Cooper Clarke is out on an extensive UK poetry tour that still has two weeks to run. Former/occasional Sex Pistol Glen Matlock is also finishing up a small US tour. Both of these entries remind me I need to remember to write about things when I first read about them. Improvement to follow.

Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros, Blackpool Nov 2002 (image rights 'A9Two' on flickr, see link below)

Pictures of Joe Strummer, November 2002: Just above of course, no link needed except to the source here on Flickr. We don’t see many/enough photos from Joe’s last UK dates so was nice to see this one uploaded from Blackpool on 13/11/2002. Please make sure to visit the link above as there are a series of shots from the same gig. Thanks and credit to ‘A9Two’ on flickr.

DigitalFix reviews Global A-Go-Go reissue: Just a short piece but worth a look, they reckon it was Joe’s “best post-Clash album and showed him to be as relevant as he was in his late 1970s heyday”. Tonight I’d agree with that, check with me again in the morning.

MusicRadar gives overdue props to Topper Headon: A bit of an oversight that Topper didn’t make it in the book they are promoting ’100 Drum Heroes’ so this piece is part apology and part ‘we made a mistake’ if you ask me. How can you get past a list of ten of fifteen without Topper’s name coming up?

Strummerville Merchandise: If you’re a regular reader you’ll know that any extra help we can send towards Strummerville really helps right now, so with the season of shopping coming up how about a t-shirt featuring Joe’s handwritten lyrics to London Calling? I’d need a large if you were wondering.

That Strummer NME Cover for his 60th Birthday: You hopefully all saw the great photo on the left that graced the cover of NME in August, but take the time to take a look at the original photo plus much more of the work by London based Scottish photographer Peter Anderson. After looking through some of these I’d have been perfectly happy to have just been his secretary for the photo shoots he did back in the 1980′s.

Right, I have to get some dinner worked out, if not cooked. Started this post last night and then today has been a bit of a blur so far. Have a great start to your week, I’ll be back soon.

Hello again good people and thanks for coming back or perhaps arriving here for the first time in which case welcome aboard. It’s far too hot here today, partially because it is mid-October and partly because it should be about 72f at this time of year and instead today reached 103f. Too hot by far and whoever is in charge of this weather ought to know I moved away from Phoenix to escape this.

Do you remember the sort of heat you’d get from the mass of bodies down the front at a Clash concert or at others when things got a bit tasty? It has been a bit like that this afternoon. I think the hottest concert I ever attended was The Wedding Present at The Town and Country in London (now the London Forum) in about 1989. It was unbearable but that didn’t stop the manic dancing down at the front, I remember having a suede jacket that was actually soaked through as if it had been raining afterwards. Now I get tired if I decide to shuffle for more than two consecutive numbers, those were the days. I remember that my first decade of concert going would invariably result in a handful of people getting pulled out of the crowd either onto the stage or into the pit due to the heat at the most crowded or rowdy concerts. Either tickets were often oversold or ventilation was just that poor. It didn’t even matter if it was the dead of winter in London, small to medium venues would often have sweat dripping off the ceiling especially in low-roofed places like ULU. What was the hottest gig you ever attended or the most impacted by weather or other strange turn of events? I’ve got tales such as Mark E Smith of The Fall having a banana smashed up in his face and leaving after 3 songs or the National Front turning a Redskins/Smiths concert at the South Bank in London into a near riot and accidentally starting a fire in a waste paper basket at an Aztec Camera gig, that was the same night I also accidentally went into the ladies toilets. Not a great night overall. One day I’ll need to chronicle some of my concert memories before I forget them all. It’s hard to remember specifics of that much before 1985 or so although I was lucky enough to see so many great acts from that era.

Joe Strummer, Amsterdam - 1978 (image the exclusive copyright of Martijn de Jonge)

My overriding memory of Joe Strummer remains him adlibbing into the microphone a lot between songs with one hand against his ear, his elbow forming a triangle to his upper body with his right hand holding the mic stand with his guitar hanging down. Fortunately it is one often seen in photos but is burned in my memory anyway for safekeeping. The other memories always involve Mick Jones; constant movement and often running diagonally across stage as if he was wound up like a mad toy whilst Paul seriously looked like he would smash someone over the head with his bass with no hesitation. He wasn’t quite as animated onstage as Mick or Joe from my memory but he cut the most dynamic figure with the more limited movement always seeming to have more gravitas, or maybe that’s my cloudy memory. As for Topper, he was the glue that kept the sound on track.

I was looking at a list of music venues in London where I saw concerts during the years I lived there and it was really depressing just how many are no longer there. I know London isn’t unique in that but are other cities quite as quick to tear down venues that have decades of wonderful history and memories? What is the best place you ever say a band play live – and is it still standing? In London I’d have to say that The Brixton Academy, Hackney Empire, Kilburn National and The Astoria would be four of my favourite bigger live venues. Brixton is now the O2 Academy, The Hackney Empire is still just about there after 111 years and The Astoria was torn down in 2007. According to what I read the Kilburn National still stands and will reopen under a new name in the new year. Honourable mention to The Lyceum where I first saw our boys and now The Lion King graces that stage…sigh.

One of these days I’m going to chronicle every venue that The Clash ever appeared at, a series that I optimistically began back in 2009 under the heading ‘Clash Landmarks’. If you have a local venue that you know or knew well that The Clash played at and would like to write about it please get in touch. More soon – Tim