Hello once more, thanks for all the visits today and the feedback on the guest review – tis kind of you. I’ve got to admit it’s time for Westway Traffic as there are quite literally dozens of recent things I’ve yet to link out to and share. If you’re new to the blog Westway Traffic is where I just give a quick 2-3 sentence link out to various Clash related stories that find their way to my feeds and are worth a look. I filter our about 3/4 of these or we’d never get anywhere so if you’re in the mood jump on the Harrow Road and we’ll zip along the Westway until we get to Acton. (Just click the bold link if you fancy a bit more)

Absolute Punk poll – The Absolute Punk site asks one of those very generic questions ‘which punk band was the most influential?‘ which of course is very broad and they only give you a choice of three; on of whom are The Clash. I won’t spoil the poll results for you but when you vote you can see the current tallies. There is also a comments board if you like that sort of thing. Absolute Punk as a site tries to be all things to all people and thus you’ll find a lot of bands written about that are punk in as much as they use electric guitars, but its an active site with some good content from time to time.

Made Manual’s 10 best punk albums – Made Manual seem to make a living out of making lists and there’s no harm in that although I’d suggest some lack of accuracy.

Image courtesy Bob Gruen

What there list does have is 5 or 6 albums that deserve at least consideration for any top 10 punk albums including Wire, The Sex Pistols, Black Flag, The Minutemen and Bad Brains. There is one Clash album on the list but somehow it’s not the debut Clash record. Thar should make makes you question the list, when you also see that The Damned and Buzzcocks are both strangely excluded you see the holes appear in front of your eyes.

Strummerville Sessions for Channel 4 – All 3 episodes are now online so put aside some time *(just like I now need to) to watch them all via the Strummerville site. I remember at first reading that this would be broadcast in the UK and assuming we’d be out of luck elsewhere. Sometimes technology really does make the world a smaller place eh? I’ll write more about these after getting current I’m sure. Speaking of Strummerville they also have the Joe Strummer painted Christmas cards back in stock and some nice holiday bundles of gifts available at greatly reduced prices. Speaking of the holidays, I also write for Planet Forward and they are currently having a huge 50% off sale of their eco-friendly gifts so please have a look there also. Tell them I sent you – these make great gifts.

Louis Simonon - More modeling from everyone’s favourite bass player’s son. Photos of Paul’s lad…I don’t need to elaborate do I? OK yeah, he nicked my haircut circa 1987….

Clash logo decal for Android phone – I have no idea what a Clash logo decal will do for your phone? Will it provide better reception and fewer dropped calls? If not I can’t say I really give a shit but perhaps you might – and it’s just $0.99. When someone has a mobile phone that doesn’t hang up on me – ever – let me know and I’ll be interested.

The tale of Wally Nightingale – Finally tonight a tale that I’m guessing 25% of you know already and the rest of you will see just how easily fate can change history by huge degrees. We all know the names of Rotten, Strummer and Simonon but one of the formative punks was the unlikely Wally. Its a short article but one that shows you can never be sure when history might have been knocking at your door. Even The Clash have a series of candidates of nearly men, a list we need to explore in future posts.

That’s all for now…which link did you like most? Tim

Good morning to you…I’m in an awful mood..woke up at 520am to watch Arsenal somehow contrive to toss away a 2-0 lead at home to……s***s! I’ve simply got to get that thought out of my mind so thought I’d write about something that makes me happier. I’m this close (fingers very close together) to giving up on football for the season and focus on music and 18th century Russian literature so you may see a change of tone to the blog in coming weeks. So a bit of Clash related news instead this morning.

If you are in the UK or indeed get your music streams online you are probably fully aware of Xfm (music that rocks – so they say). As you know I’m always up for a list and the station are going to be playing their ‘top 1,000 songs of all time’ between now and the end of the year. Unlike most of these lists they’ve actually revealed which songs are in the mix before kicking off so naturally enough I had to see what songs by The Clash were in contention, having anticipated a more diverse list I thought there would be 4 or 5 songs on the list and yet remarkably there were 12!! On the one hand I thought that was a brilliant total out of 1,000 until I saw some of the less adventurous selections/bias toward newer bands (Arctic Monkeys I mean you). Overall though The Clash were better represented than all of their peers, some of the more interesting totals follow: Arctic Monkeys – 13, Beatles – 14, Big Audio Dynamite – 1, Blur – 19, Buzzcocks – 2, Doves – 7, Echo & Bunnymen – 4, The Jam – 9, James – 5, Joy Division – 4, Libertines – 7, Manic Street Preachers – 12, New Order – 9, Sex Pistols – 3, The Smiths – 12, The Specials – 2, The Stone Roses – 14, The Stranglers – 5 (hah!), Suede – 6. So, nothing in there by Wire or XTC while shite such as The Zutons have two songs. As with all such lists you’ll obviously find holes and they don’t really mean all that much but I do think the representation by The Clash is healthy especially when you look at their contemporaries and number of included songs. As for the twelve Clash songs on the lists there are a good number of obvious selections and a few that I wouldn’t have included – but each to their own I guess. Here’s the dozen:

The Clash London Calling
The Clash Rock The Casbah
The Clash I Fought The Law
The Clash Should I Stay Or Should I Go
The Clash Train In Vain
The Clash Bankrobber
The Clash Complete Control
The Clash Guns Of Brixton
The Clash Tommy Gun
The Clash White Riot
The Clash  Janie Jones
The Clash White Man In Hammersmith Palais

Apparently there’s a book out with all of the 1,000 songs explored which you can purchase here, or attempt to win here by selecting your top 3 songs of all time. It gets me to wondering whether your favourite 20 songs of all time would include a lot of Clash songs or a handful. Maybe something we can try and tackle in 2011 after we eventually finish The Clash Cup (which we will, with the next edition this weekend I hope). Anyway, a moderate thumbs up to Xfm for including what is a healthy representation for our boys! Here’s the link to the list in full of all 1,000 songs.

Also, tonight, very short notice if you happen to be anywhere near Bologna in Italy there’s a Clash night at 9:00pm for just 10 Euros admission. I realise that maybe one person reading that might be able to make it along, but we get lots of visits from Italy so I wanted to share it. Here’s a link to the event…..Teatro Comunale di Dozza (BO)Via XX Settembre, 51 ,Dozza, Italy.

Right, off to go and smack a Spurzzz fan. – Tim  — Comments on the above post are welcomed – I’m getting an echo in here lately!! Also if you want more bits and pieces please check out my other blog…Thanks~

Hello again everybody just time for a quick one (update that is) and more to follow later. I’m really going to make a commitment to more brief updates on the blog mixed in with my more lengthy meanderings which I know can be a bit too time-consuming to write and I’m sure to read as well. Some of the nightly updates with research, linking, tagging, proofreading, photos and rewrites often take up to two hours and yet I feel I’m always missing things that should be covered. One such thing I wrote about a few months ago when it was announced that the famed 100 Club in central London was facing closure due to spiraling costs at Christmas time this year. I was overdue for an update on the blog and quite a lot happened beyond the Facebook group and musicians lining up to say how sad it would be to see the famous club shut down after so many years in existence. There have been a host of pledges and benefit events looking to raise cash for the venue in the weeks and months since, in fact on November 25 Roddy Radiation (from The Specials) will be amongst the acts playing at the club on a special ska night.  More details via this link.
100 Club owner Jeff Horton has given recent interview saying that he is looking to begin talks with potential sponsors that could save the 100 Club for the future, also happening concurrently is a campaign to raise £500,000 to keep it open – and actually change the club’s designation to charitable status and enable grant money (from this government are you sure?) to help in the future. Horton said:

“I genuinely do think that without their help and without the dedication of those people involved then who knows – maybe people wouldn’t want to be stepping forward now into the breach and I wouldn’t be in talks now about moving on and moving these talks forward.”

I should add that Horton also says that Joe Strummer playing there was his favourite memory at the venue. At present, the closure in just over a month’s time does look to take place but hopefully news will break in the coming weeks that such a stupid decision has been averted in time. A Who’s Who of musicians have all supported the Save the 100 Club Campaign (linked here) http://www.savethe100club.co.uk/campaign.html and a rumour was bouncing around that the Frank Black of The Pixies was donating up to  £100,000 to the cause. I know in these cash-strapped times opening your wallet to help out a music venue might not be the most practical decision you can make, but help at least if you can by circulating the news if you have a Facebook account, join their Facebook page, if you have a website add the badge/logo to it with a link to the campaign. Even sharing this post of facebook or twitter helps to spread the word.

If you’ve never been inside the little place it’s not really like anywhere else I’ve ever been but this video has been made which gives you an inside view of it which I think you’ll enjoy. Hopefully good news will come this side of the holidays, if they downsize the Royal wedding by 2% they could probably safeguard every music venue in London. Too many amazing places have already closed, this must not be the next one. I’ll be back soon – wow less than 550 words!!!

Save the 100 Club Documentary