As The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ single began its inexorable rise up the British singles charts in December 1979, Joe was invited to appear on Radio 1’s Round Table, a weekly radio show on which invited guests discussed the ‘hit’ or ‘miss’ potential of that particular week’s releases. Everyone on the panel apart from an amused…

If the maxim ‘you never forget your first love’ can also be extended to include bands, then for the co-authors of this painstakingly researched and satisfyingly exhaustive tome, then that band was The Clash. Tony Beesley’s Days Like Tomorrow literary imprimatur usually concerns itself with all-things ‘mod’-related, but it has recently set its sights on…

After the appropriately chaotic ‘Anarchy in the UK Tour’ of December 1976 on which the Clash were billed as ‘special guests’ of the trailblazing Sex Pistols, The Clash made their way back to London’s Ladbroke Grove. Joe has commented that after he was dropped off the tour bus he walked for miles alone, totally depressed…

As an avid reader of Chris Salewicz’s fiery op-eds and spikey reviews in the mid-seventies to early eighties for the New Musical Express, I suspected that before I’d read a word of his 2006 book Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer, that the late, great Clash and Mescalero’s frontman’s reputation was in ‘safe…

With the Clash’s towering ‘London Calling’ now just a year shy of its fortieth anniversary, any reappraisal of that substantial and nuanced album would understandably use its lead-off single ‘London Calling’ (07/12/79) as it’s starting point. However, if one were to wind the clock back to ‘day one hour one’ at London’s Wessex studios in…

Sunday 11th November 2018 will live long in the memory for two reasons: it was not only the 100th anniversary of the cessation of hostilities in World War One, but it was the night that Wayne Kramer generously celebrated the 50th anniversary of the recording of the MC5’s seminal album Kick Out the Jams with…

Drummers, as a rule, get a raw deal. They are unfairly accused of being ‘non-musical’ and of having little subtlety. The mighty Killing Joke’s stentorian drummer ‘Big Paul’ Ferguson, and in this respect he is the same as the group’s other three founding remembers, not only confounds these clichés- he eviscerates them. Big Paul has…

The UK’s premier Clash tribute act ‘London Calling Band’ are bringing the Clash’s second album ‘Give ‘em Enough Rope’ to live venues this year, in lieu of the fact that the album will be fully four decades old in December. This is a rare chance to hear the album played in its entirety, from the…

After another dismal British Summer, the hearts of the Damned’s legions of loyal fans were gladdened in September by the news that not only was the band’s finest ever bass player, Mr Paul Gray, re-joining the band for the imminent *‘Evil Spirits’ tour, but that they were also set to record an album of new…

In a seductive and perfectly executed manoeuvre, the snake unfurled its unctuous coils and enticed the Woman to partake of the sweetest and most delicious fruit from the loftiest and most magnificent tree in the Garden. After she had eaten she encouraged the man to do the same. The malodorous and partially hidden salamander looked…

An innocent child saw suns in the trees, Angels and fields bathed in light, Eternity’s sunrise, a burnished penumbra, Concerned conversations, endless night.   A parochial school was no place for this child, Full of wonder and an artist’s insight, An original thinker, a visionar seer, A prophet for all ages bathed in God’s light….

‘Sol y sombre?’ is the burning question, the poor and the monied come, The spectacle, the snorts, the sand, the viscous blood & sun, Conchita Cintrón: a golden goddess, not just a mother & wife, Ordóñez: a hero to the poor, for ‘la corrida’ and them he gave his life.   A tri-cornered hat, a…