Sorry for my time away and I hope you haven’t made too many visits in vain? I’m committing to Clash fans at least a short post daily through these hectic few weeks and then you can count on the daily updates and full news round up – analysis – interviews and more that you’ve come to expect from the Clash Blog. Works been busy and there was an avalanche of other daft events that left me with little time for the blog. I started the blog with the intention of daily updates and remarkably there is more than enough news to make that worthwhile. So thanks for your patience (if you’re still with me) and I’ll endeavour to make this your Clash spot for a long time to come.

Suddenly the Christmas season is almost upon us – I know it’s a bit taboo to even say the ‘C’ word in the States but I took a big chance and just mentioned it – Christmas…there, I did it again. Speaking of the holidays, if you are in the UK there’s time to get your hands on something very special from Strummerville if you act quickly. Joe’s last ever hand painted Christmas cards are available as a reproduction for a limited time (image beneath).

What could be nicer for any Clash/Strummer fan in your life than this piece of art from Joe? Speaking of Joe Strummer I’ve got a list of Strummerville events to preview over the coming days as this is the month where they typically peak. In addition to major events in London and here in Phoenix there are others too. If you want to be sure yours get mentioned please email me at Tim – @ The Clash Blog.com and include your information. Thanks!

Also on tap for the holidays is the Shatter the Hotel CD (more to follow on this) an events all around the world; London, Berlin, Glasgow, Phoenix, Bologna, Cambridge and Brighton to just name a few. I’ll spotlight each event in the days ahead for you.

If you are in Arizona (anyone?) I hope to meet you at this:

7th Annual Joe Strummer Memorial Gig.
Sat. Dec. 19th @ 8pm.
Where: George & Dragon Pub (Phoenix Az.)
4240 N. Central Ave.85012
Why: Celebration of Joe’s life and Music
Who: 8 damn good bands
How Much: $5.00 donation
8pm till 2am

Finally, I’ve seen better photos of Lily Allen but kudos on her shirt at least!

Hello everyone – I’m pleased to share all of the updates surrounding the Shatter The Hotel Project as it’s getting nearer to kick off!! Mark Matthews has kindly put together the following information. I hope you’ll join me in supporting this project. Now over to Mark….(I also want to cheer him up…he supports Portsmouth)

Greetings friends of the Shatter The Hotel project!

We are very pleased to announce that all the tracks have now been submitted and we’re now taking a bit of a break to recharge as the ‘real work’ will shortly begin, pre-mastering, manufacturing, looking for distribution, promo, promo…etc. As you may know, we had a little setback last month as Universal Music Publishing (who represent Nineden Music) were unable (or unwilling?) to donate us mechanical licenses for the tracks that we are planning to use on the CD. This means, we will have to cover the cost of licensing the tracks (for North America anyway), effectively upping our project start-up costs and eating into initial proceeds that could have been donated to Strummerville.  Anyway, we’re over it, let’s move on to some good news…

The CD artwork is underway and being lovingly put together by our good friend and fellow Clash fan, Candice Craig over at Sparkly Pear Design (Candice painted the picture of Joe Strummer that partly inspired this project and that you see featured on our various sites). The audio compiling side of things will be ably handled by Associate Producer, Dubmatix and we will have a downloadable audio EPK available to those in ‘the biz’ in the next week or so and don’t worry, we’ll make sure everyone gets a sneak preview! We should have a video EPK available at some point soon as well.

Joe Strummer’s friend and biographer Chris Salewicz has donated his writing talent to us in the form of some fantastic liner notes for the CD project which we have just received (check out Chris’ most recent book ‘Bob Marley:The Untold Story!) – thanks Chris!

Photographer Adrian Boot, who has chronicled The Clash as well the reggae music genre extensively, has donated two rarely seen early photographs of Joe Strummer, made possible through his Urban Image organisation – thanks to Adrian and Richard.

We’re currently in the middle of putting together a show to celebrate the release of the CD around mid to late January in west London, most likely at Inn On The Green which is very appropriately situated under the Westway. London based Shatter The Hotel contributors Dubcats and Creation Rockers are onboard to provide live sounds, hopefully along with Chomsky Allstars who may be able to make the trip down from Scotland to join us for the event. As well, it looks like we’ve got DJs Don Letts, Citizen Sound (from Canada) and Wrongtom on the decks in between all that! Proceeds from the event will go to Strummerville. More on this later as well as an event for Toronto. Oh yeah, Prince Blanco will be making the trip back over the pond as well, obviously!

And now to the ‘name change’ – something that’s been weighing a bit heavy on us recently.

The original intention of the Shatter The Hotel project has always been to pay a musical tribute to the late Joe Strummer, recognising among other things, his incredible lyrical contribution to great songs by The Clash and The Mescaleros while aptly benefiting the charity set up in his name, Strummerville.

We have recently come to the realisation that as this release is essentially supposed to be ‘in dub’ or more accurately, ‘dub-inspired’, it features a great number of tracks that are either partially or entirely stripped down to just instrumentation and/or basic melody. It is due to this that we feel we’d be doing Mick Jones a great disservice by continuing to subtitle this compilation as ‘The Songs Of Joe Strummer’. Mick after all is the man behind pretty much all of the great music that gave Joe’s amazing lyrics the melodic vehicle on which they were delivered. Adding to this is the fact that all contributors to the project have now submitted Clash songs as opposed to any of Joe’s post-Clash work gives me further reason to make a name change to Shatter The Hotel.

Moving forward, the project will be titled as follows:

SHATTER THE HOTEL: A Dub Inspired Tribute To Joe Strummer
(rewired & dubbed-up tracks from the Strummer/Jones catalogue!)

Good Afternoon….most days I like to try and actually compose a few thoughts on the blog but so far today time isn’t presenting itself. Things still keep ticking regardless so I wanted to just fire out some quick links and keep you all amused.

The Shatter The Hotel project has reconfigured their site on a much friendlier blog format. This worthy project benefiting Strummerville keeps gaining momentum so please bookmark it.

Strummerville are taking the magic bus out to Dorset this weekend for the Dorset Festival. So if Thomas Hardy is your thing or you just live on the South Coast do pop along.

I’ve become friends with the owner of this blog and wanted to steer you back to read her latest piece about The Clash. Stay a while too and read her other pieces about art, social issues and life itself. She’s a great writer with a real passion for her art(s).

Nobody guessed my latest L.A. Clash related photo from this post so I’d better try something a bit easier (see below).

What's this all about?

This is becoming a bit silly….I really like Blur but not this ‘hype it to the point of contunuing’ lark.

Two things I love to read – Jon Savage and The Quietus – come together in this great interview about his new book ‘The England Dreaming Tapes”. I find Savage to be the cream of writers who were on the scene during the early days of punk. The new book will be an extensive collection of audio transcripts with key players in the punk scene that he had remaining after the excellent book  England’s Dreaning. Anything associated with that first book is essential reading in my opinion. Enjoy him if you don’t already.

I’ve saved my favourite bit til the end courtesy of Craigslist!!!

Established tribute to The Clash needs Mick Jones (Hollywood)  The Clash City Rockers are looking for a new guitarist to play the part of Mick Jones. We have been playing for two years and have gigs waiting as soon as we fill the spot.

I wonder what age Mick they seek?   …shit I was in Los Angeles last week…

Cheers