Still no license plate, we’re getting closer to driving around with just a Clash sticker on the back of the car. Another cloudy day in the desert and it makes a nice change and is a lot cooler too. I didn’t mind wearing long trousers and breakfast outside today, not normally options for July here. Still no word on the .5C/G US tour dates so perhaps we’ll need to get through the weekend. I know they won’t play here in Phoenix so Los Angeles or Las Vegas will be likely, although getting tickets for Los Angeles might be a bit tricky. Don’t you know who I am ticketmaster (or did they officially go away?) I’m from TheClashBlog….’the what blog?’ and thus the conversation will end right there. Off topic a bit but the British witch hunt in DC is getting on my wick at present. First BP (which incidentally is 39% owned by Americans – 40% British) are seen as the great Satan as if Chevron and Exxon don’t drill offshore and now we have the Lockerbie issue. Why doesn’t the senate/congress focus on domestic issues for five minutes and stop printing UB4os for a few months? We gave you language, baseball, Monty Python and The Clash – how about Washington DC says thanks and moves on! We did after all follow the blind leader(s) into Iraq. What next, an inquiry into Russell Brand and Ricky Gervais stealing work from less funny American comics?

I’m excited that you enjoyed yesterday’s post about ‘Clash shopping’ seems some of the items in question even sold out! How great is that…?

You probably recall our coverage of the frankly brilliant Ray Lowry London Calling exhibition at the Idea Gallery in central London. I’m excited to learn that you’ll now get a chance to see the exhibition in Manchester, New York and Tokyo. Following the huge success and endorsement from The Clash it’s very fitting that people outside of London will get an opportunity to see Ray’s work up close and personal. I keep getting these very strong signals that I need to relocate to New York or Los Angeles to be better positioned to do the blog….thankfully you’ve been great at giving me first hand reports from London. I’d be wandering around Manhattan with a digital camera trying to chronicle everything and never get time to do any paid work – so perhaps it’s not the best idea. So Ray Lowry: The London exhibit and auction created a lot of worthy attention being listed as The Guardian’s pick of the week and getting coverage in Mojo and the NME. featured in the NME and Mojo magazines.

The initial artwork was partially auctioned in London, so far raising some £20,000 for the Ray Lowry Foundation –the project set up after Ray sadly died to assist young artists. Only a third of the donated work has so far been sold so forthcoming auctions will occur at the new locations for the exhibition. Crawshawbooth (just North of Manchester) is confirmed – the details are beneath

‘London Calling’ exhibition comes north

Preview night – 22/07/10 6.30 to 8.30 pm Exhibition dates – 23/07/10 to 07/08/10

Opening times – Monday to Sunday 10am to 4pm,  Late night – Thursdays 9pm close

Admission – Free     Venue – The See Gallery, Oddfellows Hall, 1 Binns Street Crawshawbooth, Lancashire BB4 8AA

I’ll do some digging around to get details about the stops in New York and Tokyo. Thanks for dropping in, if you have any thoughts or questions please post a comment.

Cheers for coming back to the blog / finding it for the first time. What is it about lists and when did that trainspotting tendency become something for public consumption? Growing up there were two lists I always looked out for – my older brother would always put together a mix tape – yes we used to have to put on a record, hit play+ record+pause on our cassette deck cue up the song and hope your index finger jabbed that pause button at the optimum moment. Too long and the extra second of silence (with a bit of hiss) would ruin the flow of the tape, too late and introduction of the song might be cut off for half a beat. If you were my brother neither happened, he had it down to a science plus the dual sound meters so he could get the recording level just right thus eliminating those annoying highs and lows. Anyway each year he’d tot up his best singles from the year, note the time on each and convert his knowledge into the best 90 minutes of music you could ask for. On a more professional level by the time as about 12-13 I became aware of John Peel’s festive 50. The NME would always publish the final version and you’d measure your own credibility against his 50 tracks. I think I peaked round about 1985 when I probably had 34 or 35 of Peel’s 50 for the year, probably not coincidentally I worked in a record shop at the time so our discount would take about a quid off of the price of a 12″ single.

I’ve continued/bastardised my brother’s habit and managed to list my own top 10 albums just about every year since about 1981 and it makes me laugh when I look back now at those lists. I’d meant to write this evening about a few lists The Clash have just appeared on but I’ll save that for the weekend – the results aren’t satisfying to me so I’m likely to vent and today seems such a nice day otherwise. What has also made me defer is those John Peel lists, I had it in my head that although he introduced me to much that I like I don’t seem to recall him having much time for The Clash. Unlike so many bands they never recorded a session for him – but nor were The Clash mad about radio’s treatment of them from the very beginning. I do wonder whether the band were ever invited to record a peel session? If you know for certain please write in. My memory though isn’t correct which probably means I started be more aware of John Peel round about 1980.

In 1977 The Clash were number 9 on his top 50 with Complete Control – worth noting is the Sex Pistols highest song was number 11. Considering it was the year when punk really broke commercially its interesting to note Peels Top 10 consisted of two tracks by The Motors and some Neil Young. The Clash also made number 27 with White Riot that same year.

In 1978 Peel really did endorse The Clash with Complete Control (again!?) in the top 10 but much higher as the number 2 song of the year in addition White Man in Hammersmith Palais was 7th for the year. At 15 White Riot and at 23 Police and Thieves. Its interesting to note Peel had songs that were by then over 18 months old making his end of year list – I’m fairly certain that wasn’t typical.

In ’79 the four tracks I’ve already mentioned appeared on the festive 50 occupying slots 3,5,26 and 49. Interestingly nothing from Give ‘em Enough Rope made it and of course London Calling was released at the time he’d have been making the list. Also 1979 saw more first generation punk records than the prior two years – is it possible that John Peel was a bit behind the times (unlikely) or did the list answer more to the wants of the audience?

1980 saw The Clash appear four more times – adding Bankrobber to the chosen tracks, 1981 saw two nods and Combat Rock brought 3 tracks to his list in 1982. My understanding was voting for tracks began further into the 1980′s but based on these lists I’m now not so sure. The same website gives an overall weighted ranking score for Peel’s favourite bands and while its no shock to see The Fall, The Wedding Present and The Smiths take the top 3 slots I was pleased to see The Clash in at number 17. Much as I love and miss John Peel I always thought there was some bias against bands from London and The Southeast – that might be valid as The Clash are the highest band on that weighted list from my part of England, while fully half of the 16 bands above are from Manchester, Sheffield or Leeds (and surrounds). Either way thank you John Peel and my brother David for making me as prone to make lists as the next person.

More over the weekend including some lists I hope, come on Holland!

*** additional insight below from a visitor Steve N *** (really useful)

Good post and I know exactly what you mean about lists.

Re Peel and The Clash, they were asked to record a session for Peel in 1978 I think, but Mick was going through one of his perfectionist stages and the session over ran and they ran out of time. Peel was always a bit pissed off about this and thereafter never had much time for The Clash. I think this is all documented in Johnny Green’s  book as he says that Joe always regretted not getting it together to do the session. I remember hearing him play ‘White Man’  in 1979 and then sardonically saying on the lead out ‘The Clash, turning rebellion into money there’, so he obviously didn’t have much time for them then. I remember him playing ‘Pressure Drop’ alot when ‘English Civil War’ single came out as well, saying he thought it was much better than the A side.

The Festive 50 tracks were never chosen by Peel, they were voted by the listeners firstly as their top 3 tracks of all time, then after he got bored of the same tracks reaching the top spots, he changed the criteria to the top 3 tracks of the year (in early 80′s I think). He used to get quite grumpy with the lack of some of his favourite tracks either not making it or being too far down the list as I remember, so he was always scrupously honest.

Good evening, just walked in the door after playing football in 105f heat and I feel a bit like a dried out husk of something or other. Will chug down some more water and see if that helps, that said I don’t think we did any worse than France in the World Cup today – what a shambles that was. I must say I’ve really enjoyed looking at the photographs from the Ray Lowry exhibition in London that just opened (more details on this earlier post). Looking at Lowry’s work takes me right back to his illustrations that were in the NME for so many years and of course the brilliant work he did sketching The Clash. I thought I’d include some more on the blog today to give you a bit more sense of his ability to capture the mood of The Clash camp which perhaps above all else is what he did so well. His role was so unique, and while there have been hundreds of photographs that have caught the band forever frozen in their youth there is something about his drawings that adds a spark of humour or frustration to the proceedings that he witnessed. Very cool stuff and I hope some of you in London and surrounds are able to make it to the exhibition at the Idea Generation Gallery. (All images courtesy Ray Lowry and the Gallery)

Its quite remarkable that events like this are happening with more and more frequency now, all through the 80′s and into the 90′s The Clash were initially seen by the establishment as both a sell out and an implosion but gradually as the 90′s wore on the perspective of time and obvious influence on other bands saw the stock of the band increase. That turn around has continued ever since to the point where strangely The Clash have never been regarded as highly by the press and media in general as they are today. In essence that’s a good thing but I’m sure like me you wonder why the consensus had failed to notice what a wonderful band they were much earlier. Apparently it all happens for a reason but the pleasant upshot is that I don’t think in truth the members of the band (including in the belated case of Joe Strummer) truly understand how much they changed our expectations of music and so many lives. Just as vital is the fact that it keeps happening, thousands of people who weren’t born when The Clash ceased to be will now cite them as the greatest band ever. This rarely happens with rock music, it puts The Clash in a special place. Thus the thought of more gallery exhibitions cropping up (and not just for The Clash but that whole era) manages to both make me feel a bit old but also remind me that we were onto something special. Those albums and singles, concerts and memories really did make a difference and perhaps the biggest difference might be how you average Clash fan views things ever since. But it does signify something special, not to name names but we don’t see the growing interest in the music, the clothing, artwork and photographs of Dire Straits do we? (just to name a name). Dire Straits would be an example of a band that sold millions of albums at their peak, far more than The Clash but are now just a footnote and a sweatband.

With all that said there is another Clash related exhibition that I hope you’ll take a look at and happily its right up the other end of the country in Liverpool. The venue strangely is an opticians (!) but they also regularly feature special collections for exhibit. Photographer Francesco Mellina was a vital observer of punk and post punk in the NorthWest and many of his images are very special. His current display features photographs of Strummer amongst others (Sex Pistols, New Order, Siouxsie and The Banshees) and will be on display throughout the Summer until August 31st. I managed to find a recent podcast interview with Mellina about the work on display at the opticians/gallery, the audio is a little choppy but still worth a listen. ArtInLiverpool.com have a fuller feature on his work and the link is right here for you. Mellina was born in Italy but settled in Liverpool in his 20′s and was very involved in the punk/post punk music scene and photography on Merseyside – after more than 30 years he must be an honourary scouser and a vital one at that. Find out more about Francesco via his facebook page. The exhibition (I almost forgot!!) is located at:

Optimark, 72 Bold Street, Liverpool – Tel 01517 076866

(less than a 10 minute walk south of Liverpool Lime Street….we were chased to that famous old train station by Liverpool fans more than once)

From the garage to the galleries….The Clash keep rolling along. Thanks for stopping by…more very soon.

Video above: Francesco Mellina Exhibition – magic stuff