Another quick update for you, you’ll have to bear with me as I am finding the energy to type with the brief return to cooler weather. Just ate the nearest thing I’ve had in years to a North London kebab from this new Greek place that has opened nearby. If it were raining and 35 degrees colder I could have squinted and pretended I was walking down to Turnpike Lane tube. His menu I must mention, he was Greek but decided anywhere that bordered the Mediterranean was fair game, Greek food rubbed shoulders with Italian, Turkish, Middle Eastern and Moroccan.  Couldn’t help but think of Joe singing Bhindhi Bhagee as I scanned the menu, welcome stranger to the humble neighbourhood indeed.

Regular readers will remember a lot of the work last year and this Spring that centred around the Jail Guitar Doors project. One of the many special moments was the rare reunion of Mick with Topper Headon as they partnered with Billy Bragg to record a new version of the song that christened the project, the original post was nearly a year ago which is hard to believe.  Since that time the Alan Miles film that chronicled the project has helped raise awareness along with the continued efforts of Bragg plus Wayne Kramer who launched JGD USA.  Following a year spent touring and being an activist for electoral reform in the UK plus his protests against RBS bonuses Billy Bragg is back to help Alan Miles with a Scottish leg of the project. To date only one prison in Scotland has allowed Jail Guitar Doors to donate guitars to inmates but the hope is that may well change soon. Bragg and Miles were in Edinburgh for the Scottish launch of the film Breaking Rocks this week at the Cameo Cinema in the city. After the film Bragg plus two former inmates performed tracks from the cinema stage. I’d like to link you to Reel Scotland.com who have a nice feature on the event in addition to exclusive audio interviews with both Billy Bragg and Alan Miles. Nice work by all!

Meanwhile in the USA you really should follow Wayne Kramer on facebook, lots of information always added plus photographs etc and former MC5 star is a really humble bloke too. Speaking of prison I watched Shawshank Redemption again recently for I don’t know the 30th time, I keep waiting for that film to seem anything less than brilliant and I don’t think it ever will. Just a brilliant film. Lastly….Gorillaz….(sorry) but it seems .5C/G are taking the piss a bit announcing just one date of the US tour in New York’s Madison Square Garden on October 8th. Are they going to announce one venue per day for the next two weeks? Feed Good (inc) not really just a bit of an needless extended wait to find out how far we’re all going to need to drive/fly.

OK I think I’ll wrap it up there and go back to thinking of Greek food and North London.

Good Morning and this would be Sunday I believe…and guess what it’s not even raining this time. First things first in my previous post I reference an interview with Alan Miles via the See it Loud site and in the most amateur styling I forgot to include the link – thus you’ll find it here and sorry about that mistake. I’ve got a Clash Cup planned for later tonight and also warmly encourage you to forward questions for the Charity Director over at Strummerville - Trish Whelan that we’re going to be interviewing for the blog (read more about that here).

Quick blast from Carbon Silicon first, per the update on their site and Tony James’ sporadic twittering a new 4 track EP is fairly imminent entitled ‘What Are You Thinking’. More news as we get it but its fair to say that CSi are in a vein of productivity which is really good to see.

Image courtesy Life Magazine

My back hurt a bit the other night after playing football and I wished I lived near South Woodford (East London if you’re not from the smoke) so I could pay a visit to see Terry Chimes and fix my back. Notice I said near South Woodford and not in it, as most of East London is simply a good place to get your face smashed in, or so it was during my youth. Needless to say my back is fine again now and my thoughts of moving to E18 have eroded as quickly as they arrived.

I saw ‘Alice in Wonderland’ with the chap who plays guitar on the Mick Jones/Shane MacGowan Haiti charity single yesterday. I don’t mean I watched the film with Johnny Depp but that I watched the new version of the Lewis Carroll book yesterday starring the actor/guitarist. I’m not a film critic but if that moveit was an album it would be Sandinista! – all over the bloody place but essentially rather good. Note to self – a six year old still crap themselves at the site of a pretty imposing dragon. Spinner.com put together a fun list of songs ideal for an Alice In Wonderland soundtrack although I think they should add ‘If music could talk’ based on my review. Spinner also weigh-in on the Clashrillaz rumour that is getting to be a bit silly now.

Finally for you a quick interview with Don Letts from the Yorkshire Evening Post. I imagine Letts along with other notables will be arriving in Austin this weekend so I’d expect to hear more from the filmmaker with his finger on the Clash pulse. Oh…we also raced past 400 strong on the facebook page for the blog – thanks all

Lots of other short things to get to over the next 48 hours so please drop back in.

Tim

Well hello again, all things being equal it’s the end of your working (or studying week) or perhaps you are part of that fraternity of people who work weekends? I’ve been in that boat and the rest of the world just don’t relate to you if you have a week day off cos you have to work a Saturday or Sunday do they? Anyway if you are a weekend worker I hope you enjoyed your day off during the week. Not sure why I brought that up – mostly to welcome in the weekend before we see what’s come over the Clash newswires the last 36 hours.

Quite a lot of activity to be expected in the next week or so as Stummerville makes it way to Austin for the SXSW music festival and hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of a rumour that’s been circulating for the better part of two weeks about Simonon and Mick Jones becoming part of Gorillaz live band. Initially I heard that the two former members of The Clash would be appearing with Gorillaz at Coachella and then that they would actually become a semi-official part of Damon Albarn’s live band for gigs coming up in the UK. Now it seems the rumour is heating up as the NME are joining the speculation I’ve offered above. Two thoughts on this, first I think where there’s smoke you tend to find fire so I do expect it to happen at some level, secondly I don’t care if you fail to enjoy the music of Gorillaz (I realise some Clash fans are more than a bit turned off by it) the fact that Albarn respects his musical heritage enough to include Paul and Mick is good enough for me if that’s what it takes to see them play live on the same stage together. To extend that point, Blur made some of the most interesting music of the 90’s while I’d take all three Gorillaz albums and The Good, The Bad and The Queen as representing some of the more diverse things done during these last ten years. The heritage of a musician who takes chances and constantly evolves is entirely in keeping with the spirit of The Clash and for me has more merit than Simonon and Jones joining a band that attempt to be a modern day Clash circa 1978 (I won’t name names but there are more than a few of those kicking around with a US origin). Let’s see what happens and keep an open mind to new music – in as much as there were Clash fans who disowned the band after the release of London Calling you’ll find Blur fans who can’t find value in what Damon does now. I’m banking on it being made official next week.

This is great (thanks for the heads up Alan Miles) and make sure you make some time to listen. A podcast is up with an special feature about JGD. It kicks off with the reworked version of Jail Guitar Doors with vocals from Billy Bragg and a new verse from Mick Jones. It’s a pretty lengthy podcast which doesn’t

image courtesy Laura Levine

exclusively feature Jail Guitar Doors related material but there’s enough on there to keep you interested. The bulk however features an extensive interview with director Alan Miles (who put the film ‘Breaking Rocks’ together about the charity)  and tracks by some of the artists associated with the project. The link to the site is here and they give you a further outline there especially if you want to skip to your ‘Clash’ bits.

New York City and The Clash is a theme we’ve touched on more than once on the blog, accepted wisdom is that Manhattan gradually became the overseas headquarters of The Clash especially from 1979 onwards. As the British press started to reject the evolution of the band they spent more and more time in the US and Canada, New York becoming the hob for the band. It extended beyond the residency at Bonds and other famed concerts but they also were immersed and inspired by the scene in the city not to mention recording and mixing so much of their music in the town. I only meant to write a sentence there…sorry…I mention the pairing again as PopMatters posted a good article about New York and the band that’s worth a quick read.

I’ll have more over the weekend – Clash Cup and more. Thanks for visiting…..