Monday..that’s alright, midsummer’s day and all that. This was the longest day of the year it would appear, remember as a little kid staying out in June until 930-1000 at night when home time was limited to sunset? It felt like all the laws of conventional childhood freedom had been broken just due to the rotation of the planet, anarchy couldn’t be far off until we realised that the sunset would be back to 830pm in another month or so. But yeah it was all about the possibilities when you were seven…not that we did much…started fires, built rafts to float on ponds and found daring shortcuts on footpaths that weren’t public. Just what am I on about? Yes…midsummer – Glastonbury is nigh and I’m sure that will dominate proceedings the next week or so along with hopefully numerous reports from the field.

Speaking of big festivals The Clash *with Mick, essentially bowed out with their biggest ever concert at the US Festival in Southern California in 1983. Not the best event ever, the whole buildup was fraught with tension over appearance fees (and where to donate them) combined with inner friction which showed that the huge ascendancy of the band which had already seen Topper booted out was perched to cause more chaos. The US Festival didn’t cause The Clash to self destruct but it is certainly the symbolic moment when Mick and Joe weren’t on the same wavelength any more and this was to prove the case in more detail when they returned to London. So here’s what I want to know – how can a huge festival 27 years ago finally reveal a life performance that’s causing a buzz in Clash circles as the full version of London Calling is seen for the first time in its entirety? Funnily enough I hear from people all the time who’ve seen The Clash in small towns and famous gigs from the earliest days through to the The Clash Cut The Crap lineup but I never hear from people who were at the US Festival. Surely some of you are out there…if so what memories do you have of that night?

So back to the video (below) and what do we have? A UFO, but of course, opens up proceedings and then Joe making a nice little introduction about something for the centuries (to come). Mick Jones actually standing within 5 feet of him at the beginning and then off doing his own thing for the rest of the song. Paul another 40 feet to the right going through the song methodically, I hate big stages and then of course Joe. Lyrics in the wrong order, missed verses, missed lines but getting it back together for last third of the song. London Calling performed live seemed to have the lyrics routinely messed up by Joe, far more than any other song that springs to mind. I’ve no idea why. The audio is pretty good, and the camera angles suggest this was ‘officially’ recorded, the video quality is very good although it only heightens the appearance of a band that were by that time pretty fractured.

I just want to know just where these tapes sat for over a quarter of a century?

Have a lovely night ~ lots more tomorrow.

Tim

Hello again ~ hope your day was pleasant and the world is treating you in a decent fashion. Not much news from the desert, the inevitable heat and lack of clouds have arrived a bit like a boorish drunk coming late to a party and determined to make up for lost time. Its mildly odd returning to the blog after the extended break as I’m forced to look in the past to move forward so I’ll ask your patience as I’m sure to link to stories that are old hat to you in the days ahead or natter endlessly about topics that you are tired of already.

Quite a few significant things have passed in the world of The Clash during our ‘lockout’ from the blog. Rumours of scab action publishing a cut the crapesque version of the blog with Bernie Rhodes telling me what to write each day are unfounded. In fact Bernie Rhodes is all too often cited as the reason for all things negative with The Clash which is a telescopic view at best, many are too quick to overlook just how important he was in the creation of the band and the identity they adopted. One of those missed events was the release on DVD of the Don Letts film about Strummerville on May 31st – a landmark event for the foundation and further chronicling of The Clash. As of yet I’ve not seen the film but it gathered a really healthy swell of goodwill and good reviews during screenings and I’m sure all serious Clash fans will want a copy. How nice it was for me just getting the blog back into first gear to receive a ‘welcome back’ message from Strummerville and a reminder that the timing was good…hence the DVD…hence me writing about it tonight!

The link to preview the film at Strummerville is here - and you can purchase it here. The DVD is just £10.00 and as far as I can tell this would not be an ‘all regions’ DVD. Can anyone confirm that for me? I don’t want you having it shipped to Detroit or Damascus only to find it won’t play on your DVD player. Also note – this is the exclusive venue to purchase the DVD so if you see it down at Camden Market this weekend its not legitimate and funds don’t go to Strummerville!

As I said I’ve got to catch up with email along with Clash news so if I owe you a reply sorry, I will get caught up this weekend. We’ve got a lot to cover soon – especially that Gorillaz / Glastonbury event. An idea posted over on the facebook page has got me thinking about how things aligned to make that happen and I’ll write more about that this weekend. Speaking of Facebook – our Clashblog page now has in excess of 700 fans (!!) so thank you all, if you haven’t followed the page please do as I often link more Clash stuff there and we all chat a bit more. I decided this afternoon that we need to get to 1,000 fans before Joe Strummers Birthday. So invite your friends as we need to add 290 people before late August. It can be done! The link is over on the right hand side…that would be over there ——>

Two other quick things worthy of a quick read if you have time and then I’ll let you return to your dinner/breakfast/lager: Firstly I enjoyed this quick semi-sentimental look at Joe Strummer from the Grand Junction Free Press (of all places!). Then this is a great read – an interview with Mark E Smith of The Fall about his involvement with a World Cup 2010 song in The Independent. Since I was about 13 I’ve swung from devotion back to indifference when it comes to The Fall, though at times they’ve made some great music with more lineup changes than a crappy West Ham side fighting relegation worries. Oh and to our many good friends in Italy….you lost to Mexico today! I just thought you should know.

Right then, thanks for paying a visit, I’ll pop through your online letterbox again this weekend. I’ll leave you with the new BP logo.

Tim

It’s been pouring with rain the better part of 24 hours, weather like this makes me long for a ride on a double decker down to my local pub. The Sunday papers to read all about the football and have a nice flaky sausage roll. If you’ve always lived in England and bemoan the clouds and rain just trust me when you live in the sunniest place imaginable you do miss the rain. So I’ve been happy as can be this wet winter while the locals can’t stop complaining about the weekly rains.

I’ve been reading (again) the excellent Chris Salewicz bio of Joe Strummer recently, nothing certifies a great book as much as being able to read it again and still find a lot to enjoy. The complexities of Strummer are something to behold but the sincerity and dedication of the man can’t be questioned. If you haven’t read it – it is a book that will at times make you recoil at times as you learn about Joe up close from those who knew him, and while it’s not a book that seeks to put a halo above Strummer’s head it is still a book that needed to be written. I mention this as I was reading about how Joe was perfectly happy as a late teen (and again in his 40′s) to visit a 3-4 day music festival or even an extended country party. It might involve just a sleeping bag on the grass somewhere but his borderline nomadic tendencies probably made being in a band that was constantly touring that much easier to adjust to. Much of it was also possibly because he moved so often before the age of ten (and from country to country) and then felt that he was ‘discarded’ into a boarding school. If that represents the first seventeen years of your life it is fairly easy to understand that Joe probably never felt settled anywhere/felt at home anywhere depending on your point of view. I went the long way round to get there, but knowing and wet and gloomy the English weather can be, how did he manage to rough it when needed? Was the weather that much better in the late 60′s? From my memory (1974 onwards) the only summer England has ever had that was very warm and dry was 1976 which was also the summer that punk germinated in London. Just a coincidence? It does make you wonder. Incidentally there are 10 signed copies of Salewicz’ book Redemption Song – The Ballad of Joe Strummer being given away in a drawing via his site – so drop on by.

I’ve only one other short thing this evening (Clash Cup tomorrow) and it’s something definitely worth a read. The blog ‘Ariff Minds The Gap’ has written a good article about ‘Cut The Crap’. He has more of an opinion on the album than I can compose at present, well at the very least he explores some of the legend behind the making of the final ‘Clash’ album. I’ve got to be honest, if I was introducing someone to The Clash I’d most probably suggest they stop their historic education with Combat Rock. Am I being unfair?

Finally, I found myself in the mood to at last tackle the film ‘Control’ this weekend by Anton Corbijn. As you are no doubt aware the film focuses on the last 7 or 8 years of Ian Curtis and the formation of Warsaw who were to become Joy Division. I read a great deal about the film when it was released in 2007 and then partly by intent never saw the film. I’m pleased I waited, it gave me distance from all the reviews and recommendations and I was able to watch it with my knowledge of Curtis and Joy Division as it previously was – fairly in keeping with the film. I must say I thought it was incredibly creative in it’s production and the major character of Ian, his wife and his mistress were all superbly cast. The film has a brutal starkness to it and the use of Black and White only adds to the desolation of the story itself and the settings of Manchester and Macclesfield in the mid-late 70′s. My only complaint was the minor characters (example, the rest of Joy Division!) were somewhat shallow and bordered on cliched but that scarcely detracted from a stunning film, my comment is tempered by the fact that the film was truly about Ian Curtis after all. The palpable sense of despair and confusion circling his life almost brings you to frustration, but the final feeling is one I’ve had since I first heard he died when I was just a kid – what a tragically brief life. You almost sense that Curtis was dying as soon as he joined the band. Sam Riley as Curtis and Samantha Morton as his wife Debbie are simply remarkable. I hope you’ve had the chance to see the film, if not you should.