Spanish Bombs take down Dutch plus excellent Gorillaz sessions
Hello my friends, sorry for the delay since the last post. It wasn’t because Holland lost the World Cup but more due to me feeling like a betrayed lib-dem voter with a stomach bug these last 48 hours. However huge congratulations to Spain who (just about) deserved to win the World Cup despite doing their best impression of Arsenal circa 1991-94 by winning each game by a dull scoreline of one-nil. I’m thrilled for Cesc Fabregas but also the many readers to the blog from Spain. What does it feel like?? I was born after England won their only World Cup in 1966 so I can’t relate to be honest. Spanish Bombs, ¡¡ rock the province !! and your upside down exclamation marks too ¡¡
Its going to be a very hectic week here at Clashblog HQ so you’ll be relieved to know I’ll be short and sweet with posts over the next few days until things get a bit nearer to normal round here. Until recently I never knew just how strong two sets of opinions were amongst you fine readers. The two topics for debate are as follows:
- Statements that five (5) bad photographs of Paul Simonon do not exist. I beg to differ and the blog will vindicate me
- Being a member of The Clash means having a great haircut is ‘understood’. The jury is out on that one but we can debate of course
Just the quickest link tonight and if you’re not a fan of Gorillaz and more specifically Paul and Mick’s participation with said band I suggest you check out one of the other 400 posts on the blog. But before you go I wanted to share the news of two sad losses over the last few days which won’t be covered in great depth which is a pity.
We say goodbye and thanks to Reggae great Sugar Minott who died unexpectedly at the weekend at the age of just 54. If you are not familiar set aside some time and just enjoy his voice ~ a link is here to his obituary in The Guardian.
My Achilles heel when it comes to music is the 1960′s – I’ve simply had too much to get through from the mid 1970′s onwards. With the possible exceptions of The Who, The Kinks, The Velvet Underground, The Byrds and Love you’re going to beat me every time if we played 60′s music trivia. (I might sneak a few points if Motown was up for debate) With that said I’m told that The Fugs were very important in the underground scene of that era – founder member Tuli Kupferberg passed away this week at the age of 86, a touching story is here from the L.A. Times.
Now then…Gorillaz….I wanted to include the two clips below and links to others for two very good reasons. These are the best clips I’ve yet to see so where we can get a good up close look at our two Clash men. All prior footage has been either in concert of cut and edit TV appearances, this video really lets you watch their interaction with Damon but more enjoyably one another. Equally worthy is the fact that these are really really raw versions of tracks from Plastic Beach, versions that do let you hear Paul’s bass and Mick’s guitar work. Sounding much more spartan and demo than the album and live tracks these bring a whole new dimension (to my ears anyway). Hope to get back with you tomorrow or Thursday at the latest – thanks for dropping in. ¡¡¡¡ CLICK THE IMAGES BELOW TO PLAY !!
On Melancholy Hill / AOL Sessions (click image to play)
Glitter Freeze (click image to play)
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I’ve got to agree with you, Tim, on these clips. First time I’ve actually heard Mick play a note on his guitar with Gorillaz! Now, I know it’s not guitar-heavy music, but I began to wonder if he was playing anything at all. Especially on the Colbert Report clip–where I don’t think either of them was actually playing!
I think they’ve been playing but very low in a mix that includes up to a dozen mic’ed sources
Not a lot of Mick there really…..very difficult to hear the rhythm guitar in the mix at all. The shame is he’s just being used to scratch out a bit of rhythm and not contribute anything particularly distinctively ‘Mick Jones’ like London Calling or Straight To Hell or name forty or fifty other songs….
He’s there – though not loud, just a chopping rhythm. The band doesn’t really lend itself to that…although I think the songs on Plastic Beach were already built by Damon by the time Mick Jones was involved. It is a pity – I know what you mean.
I agree as well, would love to hear much more of Mick, but I have to say, watching them all progress as a unit over time since the live shows started (via video only unfortunately…so far…) it really does seem they’re starting to hit their stride together, everyone looks really comfortable, and it sounds great!
Good points Shannon…makes you wonder how long this will last..and will Paul and Mick want to play together afterwards? Thanks for dropping in
I wonder how long it will last as well, and if it will again evolve into yet something else (more TGTBTQ in some form?),something I enjoy about Damon’s projects very much).
PS I’m always here!