Hello and a very good evening to you from the heart of bummed out city better known as Clash Blog Towers. That’s Monday out the way then and I just got back from a bike ride pedaling away to Global-A-Go-Go by Joe Strummer plus Sound Effects by The Jam, the music was good even if the heat and humidity leaves me feeling a bit shit.

A few early warnings are due on the blog as I make a pre-Bastille Day vow to get on top of the Clash Blog calendar for once and for all, so remember if you have any Clash related events you want to make sure everyone knows about please contact me so I can get it added to the events page. Free advertising and a very nice audience for you as well.

Just under two weeks from now should be a good night out in London for Clash nuts. On Saturday July 23rd at 8pm Bloomsbury Lanes is a special Kill Your Idols night dedicated to The Clash. Rebel Truce will be covering Clash songs, Clash songs will be spun by the DJ all night plus Westway to the World and The Future is unwritten will be playing in the cinema. Rather than listen to me here is the official blurb:

Bloomsbury Lanes is pleased to welcome back Kill Your Idols club night with a special celebrating one of the greatest bands ever; The Clash.

Widely referred to as “The Only Band That Matters” The Clash were pioneers of the punk scene that swept the world cementing their status as one of the most important artists in history. With a raucous sound, politically driven lyrical content, rebellious attitude and experimental nature spanning a range of musical styles The Clash have influenced an enormous amount of artists and their legacy will never be forgotten.

To pay tribute to these musical legends we looked far and wide for a cover band that captures the energy and spirit of The Clash. Though not a “look alike” band in the fullest sense, Rebel Truce have the visual style and excitement of the Clash, and the same explosive, all action stage presence, with front man Jerry in particular delivering an adrenaline fuelled, foot stomping performance that has won over even the most sceptical Clash fans. With a repertoire of some 50 songs ranging from the incendiary blast of “1977” to the assured swagger of “London Calling” to the pop sensibilities of “Should I stay or should I go” Rebel Truce is a must see, not only for fans of the Clash, but for all lovers of live rock ‘n roll. Check out http://www.rebeltruce.com/ for mp3s, photos and more!

Supporting the live acts we will have some of our favourite DJ’s playing sets that delve deep into the record bag to showcase not only The Clash and late 70’s punk but also, a plethora of Clash-inspired artists across a range of musical styles. Every track will have a little trace of Clash DNA..

As well as the musical tribute we will also be showing ‘Westway to The World’ and ‘The Future is Unwritten’ in the cinema. Both of these award winning documentaries provide a fascinating insight into the world of Joe Strummer and The Clash.

Limited early bird advanced tickets just £3 in advanced or £5 on the door. Advanced tickets are available from http://www.wegottickets.co​m/event/122893

They also have a Facebook page if you want to check it out, a good night out and the price is certainly right. Bloomsbury Lanes is located on Bedford Way, London WC1. .

As you’re all aware we’re getting a bit closer to August which not only begins with the birthday of your Clash Blogger but also marks Joe Strummer’s birthday. Year after year one of the best nights out to honour Joe’s birthday takes place in San Francisco, I can say/promise that based on the footage I saw from last summer this is one of the best Joe Strummer tribute nights that takes place. Happily some of the same acts will be there again this year. It takes place on Saturday August 13th at The Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, which if I’m not mistaken is the night after B.A.D. play at the Outside Lands festival in the same city. Are you thinking what I’m thinking? I think Mick Jones has to be on the guestlist right? This years event promises to be excellent again and in addition to supporting Strummerville is also helping raise funds for KUSF. KUSF was shut down this year and is (was) the city’s only college/community focused FM radio station, learn more about KUSF here – as you know I’ll always champion great radio versus what we are stuck with in the States. Here’s the official blurb about the tribute and I really hope many of you are able to attend. There’s a Facebook page with extra details too.

Every year since Joe’s untimely death, the Bay Area has come together to celebrate the spirit and music of Joe Strummer. This year is no exception.

“My hero is Bo Diddley. Because…he was playing on the street corner and knew that he needed something else. He wasn’t the greatest fretsman in the world, so he went to a junkyard and got some ball cocks out of abandoned lavatory cisterns. Then he filled them with dried peas and gave them to his upstairs neighbour who became his maracas man. That’s the sort of thing I idolise Bo for. The spirit wherein you have to do something. To me, it’s an inspiration because I’m not the world’s greatest fretsman either… people get caught thinking it’s all about technique when it’s not, it’s about something even more exciting and unidentifiable. That’s why I go for him.”: Joe Strummer in MOJO Classic Volume 1 Issue 8.

It’s in this spirit that we honor Joe this year. The Hooks, Eastern Span, Interchords and The Clash City Sirens will gather to pay tribute to Joe and raise some funds. This year, we will raise funds not only for Strummerville, but for SaveKUSF in San Francisco. There will be a raffle again this year. One of the items is an autographed home made comic book and cd by Angelo Moore of Fishbone. Visit Strummerville.com and SaveKUSF.org for more info. on the great work they do:

So there you have it two excellent Clash related nights out over the next month on opposite sides of the globe and I think we’ve got the big one in Sydney coming up also. Please do all you can to make it if you live nearby or happen to be visiting either city. I know that the support for these gigs is greatly appreciated. Both will be on the events page and if you have more for me please scribe me a note. Cheers, more tomorrow – Tim

Good evening planet Clash, and how are things in your corner of the world then? I’m hoping your day was a little more normal than here at Clash Blog towers which after a session that began before the birds were fully awake has now ended and HQ now has a brand new roof. Perfect for blogging beneath. Nothing special in that as virtually every house on the street has had the same after a large hailstorm wreaked havoc on the town. We all needed new (Guns on the) roofs. I’ve never seen people work so hard in my life in bloody warm temperatures, Arsenal should watch a video of that team effort for inspiration. Anyway I filled the day with blogging from a remote undisclosed location (like Dick Cheney when things are dicey) before returning home to a newly shingled abode. As a result I’ve little left in the tank to write with but I did want to make sure you caught the new Paul Simonon video that has been making the rounds since around the same time when they started hammering this morning.

The video (beneath) is brought to you by Fender who are celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Precision bass and features a really enjoyable 5 minute interview with Paul obviously put together during last years stint with Gorillaz. It’s especially good as we’re left with just Paul talking skipping the questions from the other end as Simonon discusses his original desire to be a guitarist, how he views his instrument and his changed playing style. As you’d expect the circumstances behind a particular album cover also are touched on. Nice video though and as it was only uploaded yesterday I hope it will be new to some of you. As for those in the comments comparing Paul with Hugh Laurie….shut up. Thanks to the many people who emailed me about the video today.

Paul Simonon talks bass guitars with Fender

Oh before I forget, voting on the Clash Cup remains open for another day or so. While the vote is a bit lopsided at present there is still time to change the course of history.

Glastonbury flags under a sunny early evening sky

Suddenly we’re sitting in the middle of June which means B.A.D. appearances in Bournemouth and at Glastonbury are just around the corner, if you happen to be attending either concert and would like to submit a post for the blog retelling your point of view please get in touch. In fact I’ll say it again, if you’d like to contribute a guest post to the blog about The Clash or related matters please don’t hesitate as I’m keen to share other stories and points of view beyond my daily rambles.

Speaking of Glastonbury be sure and stop by the Strummerville site where they have set the stage for the Strummerville campfire, if you’ve never been before make sure you wander over and spend some time. Happily every time I’ve been to Glastonbury Joe was still around (and perhaps even there?) with Pulp being a highlight whenever that was. Sadly I’ve not been back since, one of these days I’ll have the cash to do so again just as soon as the fucking money pit house stops needing repairs.

There’s certainly more to write about and for those that have emailed ideas recently I promise to catch up as soon as I can (and thank you), but I’ll need to drop the old laptop for a few hours kip now. Thanks for visiting and don’t forget to say hello in the comments or on Facebook and Twitter. You can also have a daily blog fix mailed direct to enjoy with a nice bottle of Old Peculiar by subscribing to my RSS Feed here. Cheers – Tim

Good morning it’s Saturday at last I believe? Must be otherwise the usual detritus of life would never have afforded me the eleven hours sleep I’ve just had, either way I needed it and feel refreshed for a weekend of football, music, watching Walker again and garage converting tactics. It did mean I didn’t get a new post out last night but we’ve been inundated with fair weather Les Paul fans the last 48 hours anyway.

Tomorrow I’ve got some guest input from the recent Joe Strummer exhibition at the frankly wonderful Subway Gallery in London and news of a forthcoming Clash exhibition on the other side of the Atlantic too. Tonight should see the long overdue return of The Clash Cup to the blog as firstly its proven to be rather enjoyable and secondly I really want to get the idea progressed to round 3 and 4 when the decisions get harder. In fact now that the football season is over I should have more time to blog both here and elsewhere seeing as I’m not getting up at 5am at the weekends to watch Arsenal lose another match.

I’ve a few quick things this morning which will go nicely with your coffee although its probably siesta time already wherever you’re reading this.

Endless Strummer Tour: I don’t mind a slice of plagiarism if its coming from the right place and in this case it is so it would be worthy of a mention. The Surreal McCoys are back on America’s stages for the first time in years with a tour they’ve deemed ‘Endless Strummer’. The band tag themselves quite accurately as Johnny Cash meets The Clash and having listened I’m on board with that definition and also agreeable to the resultant sound. Check out this review of their gig in Los Angeles last week which featured a cover of the cover ‘I Fought The Law’ and see if they are playing in a barn on pub near you soon.

Clash bootlegs without the downloading: If I had enough time in my life I’d probably already have a giant collection of Clash live bootlegs and I admire those who have amassed such collections over the years from tapes and bootleg vinyl back in the 80′s, burned CDRs in the 90′s and of course downloads since then. I’ve never been a fan of downloading music and at Camden Market I was always saving my cash for vinyl rather than tapes of recorded concerts. As a result my music collection of studio work by lots of artists has grown and grown but I’ve few Clash live recordings. Black Market Clash is the place to go for downloads with a remarkable collection gathered over years. If you’re like me and don’t want to fill your hard drive(s) with downloads YouTube is becoming increasingly more reliable as a place to find live versions from these same recordings. Of course you’re going to need to weed through duplicates but one of the primary sources on YouTube is TheDudeStrummer’s YouTube site (Nicola from Italy) who has recently added Clash concerts in Tucson, Jamaica and San Antonio. Check out the link below with a typically electric version of Magnificent Seven from San Antonio on May 22, 1983. Make sure and comment if you can as these people spend a lot of time adding these clips online and helping spread the availability of the music.

Ted at the Controls: From the Daily Mail (sorry) comes a rather cool tale about a 12 year old boy (below) named Ted Lavender (dilly dilly) who is a DJ with a growing pedigree. He recently manned the deck at a Strummerville event organised by Lucinda Strummer and today will be the DJ at the wedding of Joe Strummer’s god-daughter Lily Allen today. You can read the whole story via this link and then of course clear your browser cache so nobody can accuse you of reading the Daily Mail – fascist!

Ted at the Controls (image courtesy Solent News)

Books to get: In addition to trying to see more concerts this year I’ve been also trying to make sure I read more books and drag myself away from the computer more often (also a success, 15 books read since September). I’ve been trying to brush up on my music history especially 1975-1990 and I’ve found another that sounds like it would be worth the time called ‘Retromania’ by Simon Reynolds. Much of the focus looks to be pre-punk but I’d like to read more about his ideas based on this review in the Telegraph. It may help answer why music seems to many to have stalled in its progress. If you get to it before me let me know.

Finally a small favour to ask, as you know I want to make sure as many people as possible know about the blog and help keep it growing. You’re already aware of the help you can give it via facebook, twitter and the other icons at the top of each post. I’ve just added another one called Google+1 which is google’s answer to ‘facebook likes’ but will also appear in search engines. So if you have a google/gmail account I’d appreciate if you can click on the +1 button if you like the post you read. If you don’t like the post you read…comment and tell me why. Thanks.

Enjoy the weekend, do something out of character. You can catch up with the blog in the comments, on Facebook and Twitter. You can also daily blog fix mailed direct with a nice cup of cocoa by subscribing to my RSS Feed here.