Hello you lot ~ welcome back to the blog or cheers for dropping in for the first time. If you read often you will know that I’m nearly at my wits end with the desert summer heat at this point but I forgot to mention the added extra we also see in the summer months once in a while – the dust storms. Directly east of me is open desert and a few times each year hot desert winds kick up a big wall of brown dusty air that is sometimes a few thousand feet high and then relentless winds bring the wall of dust into the city. It gets everywhere and you feel like you brushed your teeth with grit if you happen to be out in it. On the positive side on nights like tonight its then followed by a hurricane-like storm where heavy rain comes in sideways and the palm trees out back look like they are about to snap from bending too far over. Its been raining like that for well over an hour now so as long as the storm doesn’t knock out the power I will get this written. Flooding and trees down all over town according to the news and lightning  just stuck (not twice but once) the home of someone nearby we know of.

Our Price Records, 1980's - vinyl and more vinyl

I came to a realisation last night that keeping alive the importance of The Clash and their music – or indeed any music that you are really passionate about is partly and maybe mostly up to you as an individual to pass it on. For more than a few years now we’ve watched the decline of the record industry as huge chains of record shops and smaller neighbourhood versions both go to the wall due to the reduction in sales of CDs. Interestingly and encouragingly here its been the small independents that have weathered that storm better by connecting with their customers and creating a scene that people want to remain a part of. Meanwhile Tower Records and Virgin have both shuttered giant stores that used to be full of music and customers. I read that downloads now far exceed sales of singles versus a decade ago but therein lies the problem, people will purchase a song or two that they like but less and less often an entire album. Even the idea of bands releasing albums is considered closer and closer to being archaic. I’m probably at the end of a generation who collect music in a non digital format – my record and CD collection is both something I’m very proud of but also large, hard to move and not ideal for being mobile. One day I’ll have to decide who will want it when I’m done – once I thought it would be a kid to inherit it but now any younger person would look at me and say ‘just where do you expect me to put all that stuff?’ So now that people have digital music collections it doesn’t really lend itself to sharing in the same way as records or even CDs did. The thought of having someone bequeath a few I-pods full of tunes doesn’t have the same appeal as looking at album artwork and lyric sheets, yet even as I write this I know I’m sounding old and out of sync. Yet how do you keep the same passion for bands and artists when the connection is little more than a file on your hard drive?

Along with the slow death march of record shops is the current sad state of radio. It deserves a few articles on its own but for a city with over 2

When radio really mattered...

million people the radio in this town is little short of hideous. Its not just the lack of choice but the creative endeavour that dies with that lack of variety, a few giant companies own the bulk of American radio and its almost like they’ve now realised there is no reward in being truly independent as the internet covers all of those gaps so instead they’ll play nothing but established bankable artists round the clock. Even though there’s really no need for more Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith being channeled into cars driving round the suburbs, that really sums up the choice available outside of top 40 pop and rap in this city. Its not a good situation.

The optimistic side of me says that the internet counters a lot of the doom I’m reciting and to a certain extent that is true. Its easier and cheaper than ever before for a young band to not only get recorded but also to use myspace and any number of the dozens of online venues to get their music heard and ideally bought and downloaded. The glass is still just about half full when I remember the internet has not only led to the changes but also might be the only way forward in the not too distant future.

In spite of all this The Clash and many of their peers are riding a wave of respect unlike anything they experienced in the 80’s and 90’s. 15 years ago punk and post punk music hadn’t apparently matured to the point where anyone other than the original fans would be listening to it on a regular basis, never mind being motivated and inspired by it. At some point in the 90’s – I don’t recall the precise moment but I’m leaning towards 1997 something changed significantly. Maybe it was the 20th anniversary of when it all started? Suddenly saying out loud that a 5 year spell in music that brought about The Sex Pistols and The Clash, The Damned and The Jam, Talking Heads and X was possibly the most dynamic period of music we’ve ever seen. Perhaps the last truly genre altering period as the list of first generation bands and then the post punk apprentices created a musical legacy that was the definition of creative and inspired sounds. There have been brief spells since when it seemed something just as big was launching – Madchester in the late 80’s, Grunge in the early 90’s,  Britpop in the mid 90’s or the New York revival earlier this century. However each of those scenes seemed to end almost as quickly as they began partly because evolving was never on the agenda. Who picked up the pieces that the Stone Roses, Nirvana, Blur and The White Stripes left on the table anyway? That seems to be the stumbling block that punk and post punk never suffered from as it all changed so quickly and The Clash changed right along with it.

I guess I’m left thinking that word of mouth will need to do for the future – make sure people know that ska and rude boy sounds owe so much to The Clash and The Specials, that political rock of all shades was vein that passed from Dylan straight via Strummer and that Big Audio Dynamite were tying things together with rap and rock before the idea was even cemented. I don’t know if I’ll ever fully appreciate or have time to comprehend the overall brilliance of every great act in that spell between’77 and ‘82 but I’m convinced it was crucial. Funny….last night was the Clash Bloggette’s daughters 12th Birthday. The bloggette announced to her daughter that “Wow, you have the same Birthday as Madonna” to which the child replied “Who?” (and she meant it). Goes to show being the biggest selling act of the 80’s and high up in the 90’s counts for nothing without word of mouth. Meanwhile the aforementioned 12 year old knows exactly who The Clash are and can sing along with the best of us even if she makes up her own lyrics at times (I blame Joe).

Mission accomplished I think…..word of mouth….

I am back and hopefully you are too…or if this is your first visit to the blog welcome aboard, take a look around there are (remarkably) 444 other posts on the blog if you feel like getting stuck into the all of the news since June of last year. Some of the posts are good fun and hopefully pretty informative, others might be me rambling on about this and that but I try and tie it back in to The Clash. There’s not a lot of hot off the presses news tonight so I thought I’d tie up some loose ends and make sure some things that have been sitting in the inbox a while get a mention. Joe’s Birthday is just 9 days away now and I’ll get a summary of the events published this weekend. I’ll also be thrilled if you can participate with the facebook ‘Strummer Status Day‘ if facebook is your thing (details here) but the premise is simple; take any Clash or post Clash Joe Strummer quote or lyric and change it to be your facebook status for the day this August 21st.

I’ve finally got a lot nearer to a method to be able to conduct and allow me to record interviews for the blog (good news) I’m also happy to say I have a list of people who have agreed to give interviews to the blog (better news) and if I can get my act together the first of these should be appearing on the blog next month. I’ve had the best intentions with interviews since starting the blog and not yet not set aside the requisite time or found the ideal way to capture good audio. I’ll conduct the interview however it works best for the guest so ideally they will be audio streams or something podcastesque or they may be written if needed – either way starting next month I’ll be aiming to get at least one new interview per month on the blog. We’ve got some great people lined up should of interest to many of you with a variety of Clash tales and related topics.

I need help with a project that I’d like to make a special feature on the site – A Clash fan’s guide to London – I can probably get the basis put together and find images online but I might need the help of some Londoners circa 2010, its been a while since I lived in London and I don’t wanna explain Ladbroke Grove 1996 style if there are changes I should be relaying. For example every pub I knew in Shepherd’s Bush 20 years ago have been replaced by theme pubs (!?!) I receive emails at least every couple of weeks saying “I’m going to London for the first time and I’m a Clash nut, what should I see?” – so I thought it would be great to have something permanently on the blog. I also want to expand the Clash landmarks series, so if you live in a city or town where The Clash once played and can speak with some authority about the venue they played I’d love to hear from you. It brings more of the first person recollection of the neighbourhood and the venue to readers of the blog which I think would have value.

Thanks to Charlie who wrote in to point out that Carbon Silicon are heading over to Dublin next month to play in a few events for the Guinness Arthur’s Day event. The main concert is at the Olympia (Sep 23rd) and tickets are still available here at the very reasonable price of €11.70. They will also be playing earlier in the day at a secret event in a pub, I’m sure the secret will be revealed so watch the blog. Sounds like a good week for me to go and visit my cousins in Dublin. I might be able to afford airfare if I hadn’t just bough a pile of tickets to see Gorillaz on October, I know…he doth protest too much.

Last link for now is a story of an apparent personal meeting with Joe Strummer on this blog. I’ll assume it’s a true story and go with it – if it is it’s worth a read though I wasn’t aware of official dislike between Strummer and Johnny Ramone (although I wonder if the author meant Joey?). Check it out and tell me what you think.

A few short hops – if you were a fan of Orange Juice (I was and am) you surely heard about the serious health scares that Edwyn Collins suffered back in 2005. At the time

Orange Juice (image courtesy the portastylistic)

there was doubt that Collins would make even a partial recovery so to know he is recording and playing live again is heartwarming. Check out the Quietus for a story about a recent appearance he made at the 100 Club in London along with some special guests. Wishing him continued good health.

From the same wonderful site that is The Quietus comes a great article about Louise Wener and her new book. Wener was the Ilford girl who fronted a band I adored for a short while in the mid 90’s – Sleeper – who along with Echobelly constituted the female led bands of the overtly laddish Britrock scene that seemed to sweep up the country for a summer or two. Writing this blog I’ve noticed more than a few readers who swoon on a daily basis over pictures I post of Simonon and sometimes Joe and once in a while even Mick. I’m fine with that as like most Clash fans I know the Clash were the coolest looking band ever and Paul had some decided appeal just by standing still and getting in the way of a camera. Anyway….Louise from Sleeper and Sonja from Echobelly are this lad’s equivalents. Both were really rather good bands and I think probably given short shift but a music press that didn’t want someone to out cool Oasis and Blur (yeah Damon is another one you adore…I get it) especially if fronted by a girl. It was like Blondie and the Pretenders had never happened. That said Britain had offered Siouxsie…and…that was about it unless the Primitives and The Flatmates stood out for you. (I’m not discounting Kate Bush and Sinead but focusing on bands fronted by a woman)….When Sleeper came to a fairly sputtering conclusion I know Wener started writing books – and although they’ve been childrens book up til now this one recounts the highs and lows of being in Sleeper and touches on the sexism and disposable trends that remained in the mid 90’s British music press. I’d like to get a copy – and while I’m not saying Sleeper were the best band of the 90’s they were streets ahead of some of the pretenders such as Menswear and Rialto who got more press and hype at the same time.

I’ve gone on for far too long yet again, hope you made it to the bottom….I’ll be back soon. If the timer on the blog works you should see this post late on Thursday (most of this was scribed in the wee hours last night). ’til next time then  – Tim

Sleeper – Inbetweener (1994)

Hello you lot, hope your week is off to a reasonable start. I know there are 52 Mondays in every year so why does it seem like they come around even more often than that? I was listening to something on a podcast over the weekend about the music industry and the state of cd sales and how singles no longer really exist as a physical option. It was interesting and a bit worrying to hear just how much the market for music has changed, I’ll do some extra research but the inference was essentially this. To reach #15 in the British Charts in 1982 would have taken more sales than it now takes to reach number one. If that’s true you wonder if the single should officially be laid to rest?

Let’s look at then versus now (I’ll base it on the UK as that’s where my experience lays). In 1982 a 7″ single was about £1.25 – or just about $2.00 in US terms. Don’t forget the spending value of a pound or a dollar was also significantly higher then than it is now. So for your money you got a 7″ slab of vinyl, a B-side and ideally a picture sleeve. Remember the annoyance of going out to purchase a single and finding that it was just a plain white paper sleeve? Still annoys me to this day. Today you can download essentially any song for a quid or a dollar, no side, no artwork and nothing to actually touch and hold. I still have two long boxes of 7″ singles from around 1978-1991 and while I don’t play them as often as I once did I still dig them out every few months to look at the artwork…am I alone in this? I don’t think so. Somehow I don’t think someone who is growing up on music today can possible look at their hard-drive, I-pod or MP3 player and be touched with the same romance about their singles collection. Seeing 125 icons in a folder marked ’singles’ on your computer would leave me feeling just hollow really, and even before I complete this sentence I see I’m showing my age.

Singles used to be real events, they were a preview of where a band might be heading with a forthcoming album or offered a track on the b-side (or ideally both sides) that you had never heard before. The best bands (it seemed) made a point of singles providing value, a different version new tracks or alternate versions, if the band made the singles valuable you were even more likely to want to purchase it. There were a few bands that I would purchase every single by from around 1979 (London Calling and every subsequent Clash single) until about 1992. I measured my level of commitment to a band by whether I’d buy all the singles too. When did it all change? I think it began with CDs and the cost of singles getting far too high – plus  the CD single didn’t compliment an album the same way a 7″ or 12″ seemed to be a child of the album. It may have been the fact that CD singles were often in crappy cases or impossible to file as a separate part of your collection but it was around that time that I started to buy less singles.

The market was in decline throughout the 1990’s despite Blur and Oasis making singles hip once more for a short time, but soon after the digital age arrived singles you could see were essentially a thing of the past. We’ve gone full circle now as album sales outweigh singles sales by a huge margin, in the 1960’s the opposite was true. With artists now offering whichever track you want for a direct download the vague notion of a ’single’ is all but gone. It’s sad but it seems inevitable.

Amazingly in the UK for example, due to downloads 2009 represented the most sales of ’singles’ (one track downloads) in the history of the industry. On the other hand less than 2% of those singles were CDs – the album market by comparison still relies on actual CDs – over 85% of album sales in the UK in 2009 were CDs with the remainder being downloaded digital versions.That ratio suggests there is still hope for ‘the album’ I’m sure those ratios change greatly dependent on the age of the consumer too.

I’d meant to write about the choice of singles that The Clash/CBS Records made over the years – as an album by album feature. I’ll still write those articles but seemingly not tonight! More soon ~ thanks for coming by. Tim