Good evening Clash fans, nice of you to drop in. I’ve not much to say about the football today that hasn’t already been said and its one of those times I’m rather pleased not to be back in London as the collective anguish/frustration is a bit of a let down in truth ~ most of it stemming from ridiculously high hope that England are one of the best 4 or 5 nations at football on earth. That hasn’t been true since about 1969/70 it just seems the media and some of the public are slow learners, or it could be that England’s dreaming. Lack of a good World Cup song might only be part of the problem it would seem. While Germany’s continued dominance over England continues at football, at least we have The Clash and a host of other bands before and since. I’ll let you state better suggestions, but Kraftwerk and Trio aren’t going to win that competition are they?

Strummerville camp

Been doing a little more information gathering about Glastonbury before we get back into something approaching normal service and its been a very busy weekend out West by all accounts as well as a bit too warm. After the performance by Gorillaz on Friday night at the Pyramid stage it seems a star studded impromptu birthday celebration for Mick Jones took place. Kate Moss was there (Pete’s no longer in the picture) and a full account can be found here on Musicrooms.net. I can’t imagine Mick feeling anything other than politely ‘ahh yeah thanks everyone’.There are some photos over at The Daily Star but they are such libelous pricks I can’t give the link in good conscience.

It seems that one of the biggest highlights of the Strummerville Campfire sessions at the festival was The Drums who played long after midnight this morning to a packed audience. Lovely that Joe’s favourite spot continues to bring along his vibe. More on that from the NME website. I’m hoping we can get some videos for some of that over the next few days and of course full reports back via Strummerville.

Just a follow up on the piece I wrote about photographer Francesco Mellina and his wonderful work that captured some of the very best punk and post punk artists during his many years residing in Liverpool. If you are looking for a very affordable but very unique gift for a Clash fan or for yourself (why not?) take a quick visit to this link. Its an excellent box set of classic photographs taken by Francesco including Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, David Byrne and more. You can I believe purchase them via this link, if you have any trouble please contact me and I can put you in touch with Francesco. The price – just £7.99 – not sure about international shipping yet.

The Stone Roses

Finally unrelated but worth a read….for a short spell at the end of the 1980′s England had a band that looked set to take on the past and bring us all into a great English rock music revival. Think Oasis but miles better, The Stone Roses released perhaps the best debut albums of all time – it certainly competes with The Clash  depending on my mood. Sadly record company issues, hype and other delays meant that was the summit of their work. Only one other album was released but its best avoided. I know some readers of the blog are half my age – if you don’t have The Stone Roses debut in your collection I implore that you get it. It’s timeless and simply brilliant. I write about it due to a great interview with Ian Brown from the band in The Guardian. He is asked what record brought together the Stone Roses and he explains it was The Clash debut. You can read the whole interview here (you should) but an excerpt is beneath.

I played him The Clash and he went and bought it the next day, and played it every day for about 18 months, before and after school.       – Ian Brown on John Squire

More tomorrow, take on that new week with the passion of a German midfielder and we’ll talk soon.