Hello again, how is it then? Just time for the quickest of updates as I wanted to get this written before it became irrelevant (no jokes about much of my content being that way regardless of when it is posted please).

Joe Strummer in New York, image courtesy Bob Gruen

If you happen to be in the UK and have access to Sky Arts 1 on your satellite (or in Europe I think most countries can get it also?) please read on. If like me you’re elsewhere perhaps hope some good soul is kind enough to upload this to YouTube or Vimeo in the weeks ahead as usually eventually happens. If you’re a regular on the blog you’ll know I think that some of the great photography we still have to enjoy of The Clash is perhaps at times as great a gift as the music – even if you think that might be a bit of a stretch than the the pleasure to witness the overall work of photographer Bob Gruen is something I’d gladly swap out a few CDs for. You’re probably aware of Gruen who befriended the band early in their career and as far as I know took more photos over a longer period of time than any other rock photographer of the era, nor did his career begin or end with his association with The Clash. His New York location provided him access and friendship with a genuine who’s who of that city’s musical high table from Patti Smith or Blondie to The Ramones and Talking Heads to John Lennon after he relocated there (the pair struck up a great friendship). Bob also remained a very near and dear friend to Joe Strummer and never failed to spend time with Joe whenever possible and many of those advebtures provide wonderful colour to Bob’s stories about Joe. It was probably his friendship with The Clash that allowed him to capture so many great images, just so a search online for his work and you’ll see what I mean – or you could just as easily visit his official site. I’m sure you’ll find him in the audience when B.A.D. play New York next month, so keep your eyes peeled. Apart from his remarkable career he has always struck me as a complete gent as well.

Anyway, tomorrow (Mar 24) on Sky Arts 1 @ 11pm GMT there is a special programme about rock photography called ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Exposed’ which will feature a lot of the work of Gruen, I hope there might be an interview in there also so let me know if you see it. As for that ‘n’ in Rock and Roll its a bit like the one in Fish ‘n’ Chips isn’t it? We really must come up with a more 2011 way of expressing it…. R+R? Who knows… I’ve also written a related piece which features another famed Gruen/Clash photo which is linked here on my other blog.

Gruen must be on a press trip to the UK at present so also please check out this interview with him via The Guardian. Enjoy the broadcast if you can, I’ll be back later. Tim  — also — if you’d like to help the blog please use the social media icons to Facebook share the blog, twitter (tweet) or use LinkedIn/Wikio, all the tools for that are located below. Thanks!

Thursday afternoon then and now is your week going so far? I trust well but if not don’t worry you’ve only got one more day to navigate through. Cold and windy here today but atypically also very noisy as the next door neighbour is having a new roof put on his abode which means there have been four or five blokes bashing away at roof tiles and loudly chucking them down to the ground all day long. Don’t they realise that some people work from home and don’t want to put up with such a racket all day, come back on Saturday when you can piss off the entire street please.

I’m going to go a little bit off topic today if that’s alright but it still ties into our particular gang of Londoners anyway. I really do have a bit of an obsession with music and especially the way things evolve, splinter, fragment and then as often as not repeat themselves all over again. I’ve done a lot of reading lately and so much has been written about punk in the last 10 years, probably far more than was written when it was actually happening. If I try and define that period let’s just say 1975 to 1979 so we can include the New York scene in that definition. I think too many writers and observers get hung up on who was musically influenced by the early punk bands but I think the lasting influence or legacy of punk was an attitude of DIY when it came to making music, younger bands playing louder and faster than they had for many years and perhaps most importantly some major changes within the whole recording industry. The changes mind you were really good ones; the rise and rise of independent labels and the resultant indie or post punk music (now boringly labeled alternative) all came about because of punk, I don’t think that influence needs to ever stop in real terms. What I am always fascinated about however is what happened after the original implosion of that first generation of punk, the trajectories of music were very different but suddenly far more diverse than they had been five years earlier in 1974/5. While the UK fostered post punk, ska, goth, new romantics and synthpop in the immediate years afterward in the US the initial punk scene lasted a bit longer and stretched deeper and became more regional. Much of that of course was due to the sheer size of the US, a self supporting scene in Southern California for example didn’t rely on or even cross over to what was happening in New York or Chicago. Nor did it need to. One type of music that doubtlessly owes its roots to punk actually lasted far longer than the vintage variety I speak of but was for the most part a very North American trend.

I refer to hardcore which quickly gained a footing on both coasts and some of the acts developed a bigger following in the US than the early punk bands had ever experienced. When I look back at my record collection from 1980 onwards there are a number of things I’m not terribly proud of (Fiat Lux, The Lotus Eaters?) but I also realize that after punk and ska the floodgates were open to almost anything partly because of punk and I bought records from all over the spectrum. Hardcore grew in the US as an energetic diversion from what was still clogging up the charts in America in the early eighties, it didn’t suddenly go indie just look back and see. So tonight I thought I would touch upon the five bands that I consider to be the best of this bunch just in case you missed them first time round, I’d probably change my list in a few months!

Black Flag: Depending on where you draw the line historically, Black Flag were to hardcore what The Ramones were to punk, one of the very first and still one of the better of the genre. Furious Henry Rollins as a front man was ably assisted by Greg Ginn who also went on to form the SST record label which was one of the best of that era. The banner number of personnel changes while not remaining locked into any given style beyond the first of DIY punk, the origins can be traced back to 76 changing their name to Black Flag in 1978. Larger success and their first album did not follow until the arrival of Rollins in 1980. Inner wranglings and politics saw the band at their most creative spell rapidly followed by eventual breakup, few fans stayed with them for the whole journey as their sound has changed so much over the course of eight years leading up their conclusion in 1986. Some similarities with The Clash but a higher turnover of personnel. Best album – Damaged, 1981

Black Flag – Rise Above

Minutemen: Of all the US hardcore bands to emerge during that time the one I’m most likely to still go back and listen to is Minutemen, for many of the same reasons I can still find a lot of freshness in Sandinista! 30 years afterwards. Much of that is probably due to the variety of their songs which was less formulated than many of their contemporaries. Their songs were often a bit of a thrash but with lyrics and angles that make them stand out from the fray. The early death in a vehicle accident of singer guitarist D Boon (one day after Joe Strummer’s date of passing on December 23) in 1985 brought the band to a premature conclusion, while Mike Watt went on to form fIREHOSE as well as play with a list longer than your arm of other acts. Best Album – Double Nickels on the Dime, 1984

Minutemen – Corona (acoustic) I can always picture Joe Strummer doing this one

Bad Brains: Sadly my awareness of Bad Brains only came about just around the time they initially broke up in 1984 but before that they’d been amongst the very best hardcore acts in the states. The Washington DC group were originally a jazz band who reinvented themselves with the arrival of punk to become one of the fastest and most intense attacks on stage in that era. The fact that all the members were black made them even more revolutionary as a punk act. Best Album - Rock for Light, 1983

Minor Threat: Few bands apart from The Sex Pistols and The Stone Roses had a bigger impact in a short period of time than Minor Threat. Although they failed to last three entire years their sound was the benchmark for many of the bands that played with them and after them. Always at risk of self-destructing and causing difficulties with their lyrics the band were quick to disown the scene that they had helped to create. Best Album – Minor Threat, 1981

Husker Du: Along with Henry Rollins of Black Flag, Bob Mould of Husker Du went on to become the two definitive figures of second-generation US punk in the 1990′s (I’m putting The Ramones on a different shelf). For nearly a decade Minneapolis’ Husker Du routinely turned out the most creative music from the scene which progressed greatly from its hardcore origins to something that was far more accessible for the masses. Which is not to say they started making junk, in fact they were (due to their growing maturity and success) perhaps the missing link between punk and alternative before the nineties began and what was to become an alternative/college rock scene ever had it’s own label. Best Album – Zen Arcade, 1984 (or any of a number of others)

Husker Du – Don’t Want to Know if You Are Lonely

Even as I write this I realise I’ve excluded Dead Kennedys, Flipper, Naked Raygun (brilliant) Agnostic Front and Misfits to name just a few. I’d suggest you experiment with some of the bands mentioned above and then branch out if it appeals to you. You’ll find that different cities had their own local scenes that were equally strong. One of these days I’ll invest the time and money into my collection of earlier US punk from the West Coast and East to cover the time period before hardcore arrived, but hopefully you’ll find the above interesting. Cheers – Tim

Good day and thanks for dropping in to the blog for some Tuesday refreshments. Apologies for the scarcity of posts the last couple of days but a snowball of different events have limited my time to blog but I’ll get back on track starting tonight – which is good as there have been a number of events in Clash City that we need to have a look at. For now though I’ll rewind a few days and see what I remember from Phoenix’s own 8th annual Joe Strummer memorial night.

Turned out to be an extremely late night Sunday night as I went along to annual Joe Strummer memorial in Phoenix – late for me anyway, I must be getting older. Phoenix is the capital of DUI arrests *and idiot drunk drivers so I elected to skip having more than a pair of drinks rather than face taxi costs and stayed until the very end hence the very nocturnal drive home. The George and Dragon pub in Phoenix isn’t designed for concerts but they do their best with a configuration more suitable for a pub/restaurant (hence that’s what it is) than a live punk rock show. When I arrived I was encouraged by the number of people outside the pubs and cars parked outside on a pleasant January evening. I met up with a handful of friends a few doors down and we wandered over during what I think was the interval between the first and second acts. Attendance was decent if perhaps down from previous years partially due to the transfer to January from the normal December schedule. The stage was in the restaurant area of the G&D which made for some disproportionate crowding around the stage, but it did leave a bit more room for the actual stage itself as opposed to previous years.

The merchandise table and Joe Strummer posters were all present and correct the mixed crowd seemed to be putting back the lagers and mixing well. The group of five (no we’re not a band) that I was with was made up of smokers so in keeping with draconian anti-smoking laws we acquired seating outside the pub. Joe Strummer would not approve of the way cigarette smokers are treated in 2011, if you recall he felt that smokers should have their own barrios or districts in cities where they should be free to do as they pleased and non-smokers could elect to enter or not based on their preference. Based on the audience for the Strummer memorial we were in a smoking barrio – at times between bands there were more people using the patio area than inside the pub. We were in a good location however as we could both hear all the music going on inside or stick our heads up and see what was happening on stage.

I had time to chat with Keith from Glass Heroes and also spent a long time talking about the old days of California punk with the original drummer from Jody Foster’s Army – Bam. Remarkably he was just 14 years old when the band started playing back in (I think) 1981 so although we had experiences of buying many of the same records and listening to the same bands (being of the same age) he’d actually been on tour supporting many of those bands back in the early eighties. Surreal – but a nice chap and pretty funny with it.

Each support band played about 30 minutes and all covered different Clash songs during the night. Like an idiot I’d forgotten to bring along a

Glass Heroes at the Joe Strummer Memorial (picture courtesy Phoenix New Times)

camera and just to reiterate that live reporting is not my strongest suit, if I had worked for a newspaper back in the day I think I would’ve been editor-in-chief rather than a hack looking to speak to ambulance chasers. I think my two favourite aspects of attending Strummer memorials by the diversity of the crowd (both in age and ‘type’) plus the between band DJ mixing together some of the best moments of Joe’s career. I’d be quite happy to attend any pub that devoted more time to playing The Clash specifically but good music in general, it certainly brings a better atmosphere to proceedings. Somehow it got to be midnight or maybe 12:30 when Glass Heroes made their way on stage bringing us their usual dosage of high powered punk rock with none of the filtered pretensions that arrived in the 1990′s and since. They’ve been playing together for years now and their  tight sound and performance reflects that, even though I’ve seen them many times before I’d forgotten just how much energy they spend blistering through their own numbers and the covers we were treated to on the night. Of particular note was the powerful drumming that if Topper was leaning at the bar he surely would’ve been grinning during their solid interpretations of What’s My Name, Janie Jones, Tommy Gun plus the brilliant choice of closing with The Saints ‘Stranded’. I still maintain that the Saints debut was the first proper punk album (if we agree to pretend that punk began in 1975).. I know many will vote for The Ramones but what was to come from London certainly had closer lineage to the Australian band.

I want to give my thanks and full credit to Keith Jackson for once again tirelessly putting together the event I feel purely based on his passion for Joe – Joe the person he was lucky enough to spend some time with. From an old Clash fan like me and the others in attendance it’s about as close to Ladbroke Grove as we ever get in the desert.

Cheers for now and thanks for visiting, I’ll be back soon with more. Tim