Just wanted to advise that the lack of posts is due to some major issues with the wordpress site (namely the software which the blog is built on). We’re looking into the best method for repairs and upgrades.

We’ll probably take the site down this Friday – then clean the database so old articles are still accessible. It may mean the blog is down for a week or so. I’ll keep you posted via facebook and may even transfer posts there for a few days. It should result in much quicker page loads and easier navigation. It’ll be worth the wait. I’d love to say this is because I’m taking a week in the Caribbean but that wouldn’t be true!

Why don’t hackers just stick to supporting Tottenham and not go online?

Tim

Good Morning, hope you are in good spirits this weekend? I’ve had better weeks and then my chosen football club allowed a 92nd minute goal yesterday which confirmed a bad 3 day spell. If you are from Birmingham or support BUFC please take my frustration with you on this day (especially Aston Villa who rolled over for Chelsea to allow seven (!) goals at the bus stop in Fulham). Enough about me and football let’s instead focus on some Clash related news as its decidedly more upbeat.

Don Letts interviewing Joe Strummer

Where to begin then? I need to thank a Clash Blog reader named Anja for sending in news of the documentary about Don Letts that is coming out this Summer. Its titled ‘Superstonic Sound – The Rebel Dread documentary’ and based on the preview it looks excellent. Every single time a film like this gets made I start lamenting I don’t live in the UK, New York or Los Angeles as seeing independent films in much of the US can be a serious challenge at best. The film is scheduled to be previewed at the Roundhouse in London on June 7th, the official tag for the film is a Documentary film on Don Letts and his family legacy. From Dub To Punk; A journey with the legendary DJ who witnessed Britain’s Culture Clash. The paths of the The Clash has been nicely intertwined now for over 30 years and it looks to be a film that Clash fans will want to see. Read a lot more via the official site – here is the overview:

Don Letts is an unsung hero of British music. “Superstonic Sound: The Rebel Dread” is a documentary about the Letts family legacy that mirrors the history of BASS in the UK from Dub, Reggae and Punk to 80s pop, Hip Hop and Dubstep; a musical, cultural and personal link between past and present. Don’s father was amongst the first Jamaican immigrants to Britain and he brought his sound system with him, introducing London to Jamaican Dub with its heavy BASS accent.

Don grew up in Brixton, immersed in Dub and Reggae. In the context of Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech and KBW – Keep Britain White – grafitied across the walls of London, Don became the lone Rebel Dread crossing musical and cultural boundaries between black and white. He became DJ at the first Punk club, the legendary “Roxy” where in between live Punk sets, he played hard core Dub-Reggae and fortunately for him…

“The Punk kids liked it. They liked the obvious anti-establishment vibe, they liked the BASS lines and they didn’t mind the weed either.”His son Jet, now 24, is trying to make it as a DJ and producer of Dubstep – the latest sound in British music and a direct descendant of Dub, Reggae and Hip Hop. If Reggae was black music and Punk was white guys influenced by Jamaican music, Dubstep is perhaps the first true combination of black and white musical and cultural traditions in today’s post-racial London.

Three generations of DJ; the Letts family has been an integral part of British music for over 50 years. Their story IS the story of BASS in British music.

The preview should get your blood flowing too !

Many of us enjoyed the Mick Jones Rock and Roll public library last summer under the Westway. Whether you were able to attend personally or viewed the many videos and articles (we did quite a few!) that were online it was the second chance to get a unique view of Clash and cultural memorabilia that Mick Jones had gathered together over the decades. For over 9 months I’ve seen some clamour for the exhibition to go mobile (although not sure if crossing the Atlantic will happen it would be lovely to see) I’ve got some good news as it will be heading to East Anglia in the late Spring. While you might expect the exhibition to make it to Manchester, Glasgow or the Midlands in contrast you can find it in Norwich later this year. Specifically the Rock and Roll Library will be presented from 13 April to 22 May at the Norwich University College of the Arts. Full details available via the site and we’ll note this on the calendar nearer the time. I’m hoping that this signals we can expect other cities to be visited soon, the initial choice of Norwich is an interesting one. If you are in the states its a bit like finding out that after New York the first city the exhibition visits is Des Moines (not to offend Iowans but trying to draw an analogy) as Norwich is a small city of 135,000 in East Anglia  fairly remote from much of England though fairly near to Cambridge, Ipswich and Peterborough (hmmm that just reinforces my point).

I’m just gathering other info from Austin – but to close for now this really pissed me off (as I already mentioned on the Facebook page). Q Magazine published a list for the ‘greatest frontman of all time’ as voted for by their readers. While I appreciate that the list of twenty names was compiled in 2010 I sincerely assumed that Joe Strummer would make the the top five even though 5th would be a bit of a sham. The actual results tell me more about Q readers than about the history of Rock and Roll but you might be amazed. Who would be your top five? Here are Q Magazine’s (more on this here) top 20.

1) Liam Gallagher
2) Bono
3) Freddie Mercury
4) Damon Albarn
5) Chris Martin
6) Matt Bellamy (Muse)
7) Jim Morrison Bob Marley
9) Paul McCartney
10) John Lennon
11) Robbie Williams
12) Debbie Harry
13) Mick Jagger
14) Morrissey
15) John “Johnny Rotten” Lydon
16) James Brown
17) Bruce Springsteen
18) Robert Plant
19) Tom Meighan (Kasabian)
20) Joe Strummer

Strummer in 20th? Hard to fathom or even consider, Chris Martin, Robbie Williams, Kasabian’s singer? Come on…what a pile of shit, time to write to Q – I’ve long ceased reading the photo-heavy journalism-light mag. Here’s my top 5 just off the top of my head based only on bands that I’ve seen live:

1 – Joe Strummer 2 – Damon Albarn 3 – Jarvis Cocker 4 – Morrissey 5 – David Gedge

Love to hear your list ~ be back soon and cheers for stopping in.

So here we are then March 15th, which if all went well and flights were made the nearest incarnation that the SXSW music festival has ever had to the legacy of Joe Strummer should be upon us at about the same time as I write this. I’m of course referring to the first night of Strummerville events at the festival and hopefully in 24 hours the first tweets, video and articles will be online for us to review. Billy Bragg (who is treating Facebook as a friend…well done Billy) seems to be in the habit of updating events somewhat regularly – per his earlier update:

“If you’re down in Austin for SXSW, you will be able to see me perform tonight at Latitude 30, 512 San Jacinto St 8pm-2pm. Strummerville and Jail Guitar Doors are hosting an event at the British Music Embassy with Chris Shiflett, Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly and myself among others. Kicks off at 8pm, I’ll be on around midnight”         Billy Bragg

Bragg also adds that “As part of the Jail Guitar Doors USA launch this week, Wayne Kramer has organised a visit to the Travis County Jail just outside of Austin on Friday morning, to deliver some guitars to the inmates there”. Hopefully all these snippets of information will become something more lucid as the week unfolds and in the interim I beg your patience. The event marks the debut on US soil for Strummerville and also the first events connected to Jail Guitar Doors USA – so both sites will also be worth keeping an eye on I’d venture. Hopefully one of you might even have made their way to Austin this week, if so shoot me a message via the blog or Facebook and we’ll have a chat. Wrapping up Austin for the night, what Clash event (non-concert) took place just outside of the Texan city that cemented the band’s success in the States?

Sometimes the misinterpretation of songs/information published that become borderline gospel (allmusic.com ‘guide’ indeed) seems to be the source for this shoddy article. Within it a brief examination ‘I’m so bored with the USA’ and ‘Train in Vain’ and both write ups verge on the distasteful. Citing “I’m so bored…” as the blueprint for all Clash themes and the song that ‘they always opened US gigs with’. Neither statement is close to being accurate nor is the assertion that the song was meant as much more than a complaint about the infestation of American television shows on British TV and US culture in the UK in general during the mid/late 1970′s. How right were Strummer’s lyrics? I distinctly remember my house glued to Columbo, Starsky & Hutch, Police Woman and Kojak on seemingly every weeknight for a spell there. The song is about a bored Londoner’s view of American culture seeping into England from that specific period of time – not some giant thesis about the animal that is the United States. Perhaps something got lost in the translation, though I think any member of The Clash would be honest enough to say they weren’t in a position to really write about the States until a few years later in 1979. I won’t dig much deeper into the article, just not quite sure what the point was – oh and it links to a ‘Live Clash performance 1980′ when in fact the footage was taken from the final ever Clash gig (Strummer Jones) at the US Festival in 1983. Whatever happened to fact checking – perhaps it was better that there was no internet in 1976-1983 eh?

Newport, South Wales….not only a place that Joe Strummer spent a few years pre 101′ers when he was simply Woody Mellor but also a place I

TJs in Newport

don’t think I’ve ever had a better laugh. I used to go there for work twice a year and there were some great chaps always game for a pint and recollections of punk’s glory days. Funnily enough everyone in Newport seemed to have a Joe Strummer story though I’m sure most were embellished or borrowed from someone else. Seeing as Strummer had little or any money when he lived there I doubt he was a regular in the pubs of the town which contradicts the folklore. I’m sure however that like everyone who grew up in Newport he spent a night or two at the city’s best music venue TJ’s, over the 35+ years of its existence every band you can image played the famed venue, and it was also apparently the location of Kurt Cobain’s proposal to Courtney Love. It was one of those places that the venue even made up for an average act, I know Joe Strummer eventually played there so I’m guessing it was because he visited it back in the early 1970′s. I’m writing about Newport tonight as I was sad to read via the NME that the owner of the club John Sicola passed away today at the age of 66. TJs was/is Newport when it comes to music, RIP and thanks for keeping music alive in South Wales.

More soon – thanks for dropping in.