Westway Traffic Volume 7
Have you ever looked at the clock, see that its only 6pm and yet you feel like you’ve been awake over 24 hours already? That would be me today though if I give it some thought I realise its mostly due to having about 4 hours of sleep last night. I’m definitely getting cabin fever in the late summer here and urgently need to feel chilly if just for a few hours, alas the temperature has dropped below 80f for a total of perhaps 6 hours in the last 6 weeks. That leaves me with a short fuse! On the plus side huge thanks to Wayne for shipping me the new copy of the NME from England with the Clash feature inside, I’ll be chewing through that over the next couple of days. The Clash Blog cat is seemingly much better than last week, her cocktail of medication seems to be having the desired impact, can I get some of that. My Clash license plate has still not arrived and I’m beyond being annoyed about that. As for tonight I’ve going to listen to Sandinista! and run through an edition of Westway Traffic as the menu seems to be full of smaller Clash stories. Right, lets stoke up the traffic: (links to stories at the header of each piece)
Gorillaz audio from concert in Syria: I know I wrote about the concert in Damascus on a prior post and some of the semi-hysterical reaction from some ports about the band playing in a nation that should be ‘avoided and punished’ (not my words). I think that in the mini-furor that the gig caused I neglected to post this link that NPR put online which offers online streaming of the entire gig in Syria – 1hr and 26min worth. The ticket prices for the Gorillaz tour caused some whiplash amongst those of us who rarely go to the high-end shows, although my ire laid chiefly with the ‘convenience fees’ and ‘booking fees’ of over $18 that were associated to each individual ticket. Another post for another day but as some have pointed out – will this kill live music at a time when artists need those revenue streams more than at any time in the past.
Mick Jones playing with Hi-Fi at 2008 NME Awards: Sometimes you’re going to get older stories on Westway but I had not seen this before so wondered if you had. Mick performed Should I Stay or Should I go at the 2008 NME awards with Hi-Fi and also appeared on one their tracks. Mick was at the ’03 awards for a godlike genius award for The Clash and also in ’04 I believe with The Libertines as their producer. The clip linked is a nice raucous version of SISoSIG but you might need to turn your audio down just a little first.
Rankopedia lists best Clash album covers: I won’t spoil the results for you so go and have a look, but we”ll do our own official version of this on the blog at some point. Also for singles and post-Clash type things. I don’t know that The Clash had a bad album cover really although some of the collection stuff has been a bit hit and miss.
Most unlikely list with a Clash song – Top 50 Conservative songs: This entire list is pretty insane, especially when you see The Kinks and The Who bashing 
shoulders with The Clash and The Pretenders. You can probably guess which Clash song has made the list as its one that was probably most liberally (pun intended) misunderstood for the sentiment for the lyrics. In addition I know the association that the song later had with military was a source of constant frustration for Joe Strummer. The list is written up as serious and meant to be that way but its simply full of glaring holes and misrepresentation.
Album (bootleg) Review – The 101′ers December 1975: This is a great blog and features hours of reading, this review is something you definitely need to check out. Well written and a curious comparison between the 101′ers and the 1962 era Beatles. I can’t comment as I’ve not heard the bootleg but the review makes we want to track it down. The blog is “Musoscribe” take some time leaping around the pages – lots of good stuff.
Another day, another Clash song on a list: This list is from GiantMag.com and feature the ’12 most underrated Punk songs of all time’. Obviously their definition of punk is very different to mine but a decent list of songs nonetheless. Curious to see how many you’d consider punk though? Incidentally I own 3,4,5,7,9,11 – I did have number 8 at some point in my youth…I confess!
Alright then we crested at 800+ words, happy clicking and reading and we’ll chat again tomorrow yes?
Tim
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The National Review song list is beyond asinine….I couldn’t even finish reading it.
Of course I never saw the 101′ers, but I did hear Elgin Avenue Breakdown when it came out…..only a few weeks ago I found the cassette (younger readers please Google ‘compact cassette’) which I’d recorded it onto from the vinyl album (younger readers please Google ‘vinyl album 33 rpm’)….for my ghetto blaster (younger readers…..f**k it, you get the picture…..!!
Suffice to say that the live recordings of the 101′ers convey a real energy that when seen/heard by a young Mick Jones or Bernie Rhodes must’ve had a profound effect in the grey and dismal winter of ’75/76 in London. The biggest pub rock band of the time was Dr Feelgood and if you’ve not seen the recently released and brilliant Julian Temple documentary ‘Oil City Confidential’ on the Feelgoods please BUY, BEG or STEAL it !! The 101′ers were very much in the same mould, inspired by the brilliant Lee Brilleuax and Wilko Johnson of Dr Feelgood. Damn it, Strummer bought his Telecaster after seeing Wilko Johnson*…
For the 101′ers and The Clash there’s a very valid comparison with the Beatles c.1962 in my opinion, who at the time were also a really tight, energetic R&B combo. Other 101′ers/Clash comparisons would be with the Rolling Stones c.1965/66 and The Who of the same period…Blimey Mick recycled the riff from ‘I Can’t Explain’ quite a few times.
The main point is that yeah it’s easy to dismissive of a line of lyrics on a 45 B-side (Google it kids) but from there The Clash did what all truly great bands do and move forward. Pick up the ball and run with it…
‘Sympathy for The Devil’ sounds nothing like ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’…
‘Strawberry Fields’ sounds nothing like ‘Roll Over Beethoven’….
and
‘(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais’ or ‘London Calling’ sounds nothing like ‘Route 66′
’1977′ wasn’t about dismissing the past, but about creating a blank canvas and a new space to work in. It was the whole spirit of punk. Year Zero. Do your own thing….take the good stuff and CUT THE CRAP. Personally, I wasn’t a great songwriter or guitarist (still practising so take my word for it) but I did develop (pun intended) a vague talent for photography…
Many of these articles are written by those who perhaps have an axe to grind for some reason or enjoy poking petty jibes. This one isn’t particularly vituperative though. The Clash were always about rescuing rock ‘n’ roll rather than destroying it, a nice counterpoint to the Sex Pistols (supposed) nihilism. Glen and Steve couldn’t have written those incredible songs for the Pistols without a knowledge and love for the great stuff that’d gone before and Lennon/McCartney, Townshend, Jaggers/Richards and therefore Strummer/Jones likewise.
The most boring debate for the last 30 years has been the ‘validity’ of ‘PUNK’. Last weekend I saw a couple of youngish mohicans posing for photographs with tourists at Piccadilly Circus in London. That certainly isn’t ‘punk’. It’s a sub-culture of marketable fashion history for gullible American tourists. Fashion prostitution.
Don Letts has a tremendous saying….”A good idea attempted, is far better than a bad idea perfected”
Punk is about doing your own thing, not stagnating, but moving forwards !!!
As I said, take the ball and f**kin RUN WITH IT !!!
*He had a red scratchplate on his black Telecaster so it wouldn’t show the blood !
Kara, After a very lengthy previous post and realising that ‘Rock The Casbah’ made the list for the ‘conservative’ songs, I’d just like to remind everyone that Joe was in tears after hearing that the song was so grievously misunderstood/mis-used during the first Gulf War in 1990…Can people really be so ignorant ?
carbon Silicon are playing in the Olympia Duublin on the 23th of September. They are also playing a secret gig in a pub the same night.I have a problem I have my ticket for the Olympia but as of now I cannot find out which pub they are playing in so if anyone has any contacts in Guinness who are organising the gigs let us know. I have tried and it doesnt seem to be working. There is a bar next door to the Olympia called Brogans the owner Benny is a Clash fan. If anyone is going to the Olympia pehaps a pint in Brogans before hand and after that to the pub gig.I assume the Carbon Silicon website is not working as there is no posts about their gig.
all the best
cha
Cha….Keep an eye on the official and particularly the ‘unofficial’ Carbon/Silicon websites. Shep’s, the unofficial site, will probably be one of the first to know !! Tony (James) may well Twitter the venue details before anything’s officially announced.
http://carbonsilicon.info/forum/
I’m gonna be in Dublin a whole month too early ! Hope you enjoy the gig !!
Excellent stuff Pete, very informative indeed – worthy of it’s own post.
Charlie – I’ll keep an ear/eye out for the Dublin information. The official site updates are a little erratic of late.
Thanks!
Thanks Tim. The Mick Jones SISOSIG YouTube link above was shot at the Inn On The Green….immediately recognisable for me because of all the hours spent there for the Carbon Casino gigs. Alison of Taurus Trakker is on drums. This is the same performance, but with much better audio…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfyFZv2wB20&feature=related
[...] but also delves into the lasting legacy of The Clash and even just what punk was about. Go to the comments section of this post to read his notes in full. Since starting the blog I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know [...]
Charlie – keep us posted and we’ll do a reminder post mid September. How big is the venue?