Hello again on this perfectly stormy Monday night. I’m tired of hot weather and no rain. There….I’ve said it. Apart from that you could tell me ‘what do you expect, you live in a desert?’ to which I’d reply something bitter and dust storm inspired. Just you wait though, in sixty days you’ll be saying goodbye to summer just as it gets nice here, he who laughs last and all that.

I’m going to start my A-Z of Clash cities next month, I’ve decided it can’t wait any longer so if you know your way around a city and especially the old music halls and The Clash played there during their history then I would love for you to participate. I’ll be putting the full list together over the next two weeks so this can be somewhat organised as a work of reference. We’ll look at the times The Clash played in each city, the venues and other particularly insightful pieces of Clash related information for each town. Yes it sounds ambitious, but I also think it could lead to a Clash inspired travel book and of course you’ll all share in the credits of such a venture. It doesn’t mean that The Clash Cup has been shelved either, in fact look for a return of the internet’s longing extended election in the coming days.

Right then, on to some odds and ends that keep piling up. If you’ve ever fancied yourself as the next Mick Jones or even another Mick Jones this may be the opportunity you’ve been waiting for. As you know there are a fair few Clash cover/tribute acts who regularly find gigs and some of them are rather good all things considered. One of them ‘London Calling’ is looking for a new Mick Jones so if you’re interested here is the link. Now they know exactly how Joe and Paul felt in 1984. Here is a clip of ‘London Calling’ playing London Calling and some other tracks.

If you’re someone who has more time than they know what to do with then Listal might be a good website for you. The proviso is that you list the things you love and then rate them accordingly. Surely if you love it enough to list it then it scores high. A strange site but growing in popularity as a way to catalogue your music collection or just connect via social media with people who like the music or films that interest you. You also assign a score out of 10.0 to artists and albums you like, worth noting is that The Clash have a score of 7.6 that needs to be improved although I was happy to see that Coldplay registered a 6.8. Individual members need differing levels of support; Joe has a 7.5, Mick a 7.0, Paul a 7.3, Topper a 7.0. The site also reveals that Topper is just 5’6 tall, is that correct? Each of the albums and DVDs are also rated with London Calling taking top spot with an 8.4 which seems low if you ask me.

Unlikely lists part one (there may have been others but I forget). Check this link to the Hymie’s Vintage Records blog (an independent purveyor of vinyl in Minneapolis) to see an interesting list of ‘The Best Songs about Car Crashes’ which The Clash appear on. Bonus points if you guess the song before you check the link.

Finally today from the Jason Jack Miller blog – here’s a link to a great concert by The Clash at The Aragon Ballroom in Chicago (excellent venue) from September 14, 1979. Free download and decent audio quality, interesting to see that although London Calling was just a few months from release the 19 tracks featured just 5 (if we include Armagideon Time) that were still in the construction phase.

That’s me done for now, more to follow all things being even. If you’re attending any of the forthcoming B.A.D. concerts in the coming weeks and wish to submit a review please let me know. Until then I hope to see you in the comments or on Facebook and Twitter. You can also have a daily update sent direct to enjoy with your mineral water by subscribing to my RSS Feed here

Good morning it’s Saturday at last I believe? Must be otherwise the usual detritus of life would never have afforded me the eleven hours sleep I’ve just had, either way I needed it and feel refreshed for a weekend of football, music, watching Walker again and garage converting tactics. It did mean I didn’t get a new post out last night but we’ve been inundated with fair weather Les Paul fans the last 48 hours anyway.

Tomorrow I’ve got some guest input from the recent Joe Strummer exhibition at the frankly wonderful Subway Gallery in London and news of a forthcoming Clash exhibition on the other side of the Atlantic too. Tonight should see the long overdue return of The Clash Cup to the blog as firstly its proven to be rather enjoyable and secondly I really want to get the idea progressed to round 3 and 4 when the decisions get harder. In fact now that the football season is over I should have more time to blog both here and elsewhere seeing as I’m not getting up at 5am at the weekends to watch Arsenal lose another match.

I’ve a few quick things this morning which will go nicely with your coffee although its probably siesta time already wherever you’re reading this.

Endless Strummer Tour: I don’t mind a slice of plagiarism if its coming from the right place and in this case it is so it would be worthy of a mention. The Surreal McCoys are back on America’s stages for the first time in years with a tour they’ve deemed ‘Endless Strummer’. The band tag themselves quite accurately as Johnny Cash meets The Clash and having listened I’m on board with that definition and also agreeable to the resultant sound. Check out this review of their gig in Los Angeles last week which featured a cover of the cover ‘I Fought The Law’ and see if they are playing in a barn on pub near you soon.

Clash bootlegs without the downloading: If I had enough time in my life I’d probably already have a giant collection of Clash live bootlegs and I admire those who have amassed such collections over the years from tapes and bootleg vinyl back in the 80′s, burned CDRs in the 90′s and of course downloads since then. I’ve never been a fan of downloading music and at Camden Market I was always saving my cash for vinyl rather than tapes of recorded concerts. As a result my music collection of studio work by lots of artists has grown and grown but I’ve few Clash live recordings. Black Market Clash is the place to go for downloads with a remarkable collection gathered over years. If you’re like me and don’t want to fill your hard drive(s) with downloads YouTube is becoming increasingly more reliable as a place to find live versions from these same recordings. Of course you’re going to need to weed through duplicates but one of the primary sources on YouTube is TheDudeStrummer’s YouTube site (Nicola from Italy) who has recently added Clash concerts in Tucson, Jamaica and San Antonio. Check out the link below with a typically electric version of Magnificent Seven from San Antonio on May 22, 1983. Make sure and comment if you can as these people spend a lot of time adding these clips online and helping spread the availability of the music.

Ted at the Controls: From the Daily Mail (sorry) comes a rather cool tale about a 12 year old boy (below) named Ted Lavender (dilly dilly) who is a DJ with a growing pedigree. He recently manned the deck at a Strummerville event organised by Lucinda Strummer and today will be the DJ at the wedding of Joe Strummer’s god-daughter Lily Allen today. You can read the whole story via this link and then of course clear your browser cache so nobody can accuse you of reading the Daily Mail – fascist!

Ted at the Controls (image courtesy Solent News)

Books to get: In addition to trying to see more concerts this year I’ve been also trying to make sure I read more books and drag myself away from the computer more often (also a success, 15 books read since September). I’ve been trying to brush up on my music history especially 1975-1990 and I’ve found another that sounds like it would be worth the time called ‘Retromania’ by Simon Reynolds. Much of the focus looks to be pre-punk but I’d like to read more about his ideas based on this review in the Telegraph. It may help answer why music seems to many to have stalled in its progress. If you get to it before me let me know.

Finally a small favour to ask, as you know I want to make sure as many people as possible know about the blog and help keep it growing. You’re already aware of the help you can give it via facebook, twitter and the other icons at the top of each post. I’ve just added another one called Google+1 which is google’s answer to ‘facebook likes’ but will also appear in search engines. So if you have a google/gmail account I’d appreciate if you can click on the +1 button if you like the post you read. If you don’t like the post you read…comment and tell me why. Thanks.

Enjoy the weekend, do something out of character. You can catch up with the blog in the comments, on Facebook and Twitter. You can also daily blog fix mailed direct with a nice cup of cocoa by subscribing to my RSS Feed here.

Good evening everyone, how was your day then? My personal highlight was cracking some php code and the majestic cup of coffee that started my day…..as you can see it’s been a slow day at Clashblog Towers. Last night I was looking back at the post we (quite literally ‘we’ as 95% of the content was written by you) put together to mark the anniversary of the death of Joe Strummer last December. It reminded me just how greatly he is missed, just how inspiring he was and just what a difference a band made to each of our lives. It left me partially saddened that 2011 and all the continuing chaos lack simply knowing that Joe Strummer is there to observe it with us, conversely it reminded me that I’m still (I hope?) tuned in enough to care about the things that I do because of The Clash and I know many of you are too. I’ve got a shelving unit in my office with a photograph of Joe on it and every day I either say or think ‘hello Joe’ – I don’t need reminding of how much The Clash matter to me but I like seeing him anyway. I need to find a way that guarantees that the 16 year old kid growing up today in Vancouver, Wellington, Barcelona or Cardiff knows all about The Clash and I need your help.

I want to build out a page on the site as a ‘Clash guide to’ every major city, with links to inner pages that will have a ‘Clash bio’ of the individual towns. It will be a big project and I’ll need help but I think it would be a fun one. Some cities (London, New York etc) will take a lot of work and others not so much but for the hardcore fans I thought it might be good to create a list of venues that The Clash played or that events took place with maps, current photos and notes about the venue where we can find them. Sort of like The Clash Landmarks series I’ve been doing but easy to access and archive. Then if you’re stuck on a rainy afternoon in Cleveland or Dundee you can revisit the places mentioned or grab some photos for the blog. It will be a lot of research but perhaps/hopefully something enjoyable and useful for everyone. I know elements of this exist elsewhere but I’d like to gradually make the site a bit more robust as a resource as well as the daily blogging. If you’d like to volunteer to help with a town you know or where you currently live just let me know. I’ve not formulated the exact dimensions of the idea yet but it will happen soon and become real. The idea occurred to me when I was last in Los Angeles and thought of the Clash related places I drove by. Anyway, as usual I’m rambling on but if you are an expert on your town let me know (especially if you have a decent digital camera). For example the photo below is where The Clash played today in 1982 – the City Coliseum in Austin, Texas in 1982. This photo was taken just prior to the demolition in 2002. I checked google streetview and it’s just a park now.

City Coliseum, Austin

Friday is (B.A.) D-Day for me to decide where to go and see Big Audio Dynamite in August although I don’t see either venue selling out the day of ticket release. I’m sure some of you in California and the southwest are going to L.A./Orange County so let me know which gig holds more appeal. I’m thinking downtown Los Angeles would be a bit more exciting on the basis that the concert hall isn’t sitting in car park. Can you imagine the same at Wembley? Oh yeah that’s right – Wembley Arena…..shit hole. Is it still there?

Finally tonight how often have you ever seen a photo of Joe Strummer standing in front of a post for Wire Train? (if you remember them you have my sympathy). You’ll get to see that and also read an interesting piece about the fate of the Vanderbilt University college radio station in Nashville by following this link. Joe had appeared on the station years back during the last US Clash (MKII) tour. It’s a sad sign of the times, years ago college radio in the US was at the heart of what became post punk/new wave (call it what you will) playing great music by artists that wouldn’t get considered by the major commercial radio stations. From the early/mid 80′s onward college radio saved thousands of young ears from a lifetime plagued by John Mellencamp and Rush and showed them the way forward to that ‘alternative stuff’. Radio in the US is dying with the growth of the internet, digital music, satellite radio and easy access to whatever you want to hear coupled with a few large corporations controlling a horribly high percentage of all radio. On the one hand we have more choice and easier access to music than ever yet on the other who is responsible for breaking new bands? I live a few miles away from one of the biggest universities in the country and it only has an AM station. Hard to believe but sadly true.

Alright, I’m off to do some studying – see you in the comments I hope. Tim