-
Episode 9: The Reluctant Bandmate
This week’s episode is a Paul Simonon appreciation episode. Inspired in part by Paul’s new project and upcoming album with Galen Ayers called Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day?, I talk about Paul’s background as an artist, his unlikely meeting with Mick Jones in the mid-1970s, his unlikelier transformation from visual artist to punk rock bass player, and how he both christened the band “The Clash” and provided the band’s signature, albeit evolving, look. I also talk about Paul’s post-Clash artwork and a recent exhibition in London that featured at least one painting that is reminiscent of a 1937 Clyfford Still painting featured on Antiques Roadshow in 2012. By the way, the Still painting appraised for … a half a million dollars.
For more on Paul and his artwork, see:
Galen and Paul’s Instagram page.
“Paul Simonon: The Clash’s Ace of Bass,” by James Medd on The Rake.
“The Clash Interviews: Paul Simonon, Part I,” by Howie Klein on Down With Tyranny.
And here is the video for the new Galen and Paul song, “Lonely Town.”
I also came across this quote on the Joe Strummer Instagram page that got me thinking about voting with your dollars for — and against — things that you support and things you don’t:
“This is my new philosophy. Use your vote, your dollar bill is your vote. It’s time we stopped giving it in the bucket-loads to these giant corporations. They’re not to be trusted with that amount of money. They’re only gonna bland us out, robot us out. They’re gonna crush us and pulverize us. All they want is our money.”
Finally, on this week’s Great Artist, Good People segment, I feature Jake Clemons, nephew of E Street Band legend Clarence Clemons and a great artist in his own right. Check out Jake’s website and his latest album, Eyes on the Horizon, which is fantastic.
So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Episode 8: Back to the Music
Circling back briefly to last week’s discussion on Joe Strummer’s support for trans rights, I mention Joyce Carol Oates’ recent tweets on the subject, including her observations that (a) privacy concerns about spaces like restrooms and locker rooms have nothing whatsoever to do with the presence or absence of trans or nonbinary people, and (b) those who vilify trans and nonbinary people engage in the same sleight-of-hand that prejudiced people have always engaged in — they take a small number of random acts or (alleged) crimes and use them to slander an entire marginalized group. Well done, Joyce Carol Oates.
But then, because this is supposed to be a Clash-inspired podcast, it’s back to the music. I talk about a couple of other podcasts on the subject, including a 2021 episode of Tom Morello’s Maximum Firepower in which he and Antonino D’Ambrosio discuss the commonality between Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer and the Cash-Strummer cover of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song.” From there, I talk about a 2019 episode of Consequence’s The Opus podcast titled “London Calling: Radio Clash’s Timeless Transmissions,” which provides an in-depth look at the album and the Clash’s greatness as a rock band, not just as activists who use the music as a vehicle for the message.
Finally, on the Great Artist, Good People segment, I take a listen to Ivan Julian’s new album, Swing Your Lanterns. Julian, a fixture in New York’s punk and post-punk scene, was a founding member of Richard Hell and the Voidoids and played with a number of great artists over the years, including one of my favorites, Garland Jeffreys (but Garland is a subject for an entirely separate episode). If you’re not familiar with Ivan Julian’s music, get the new album (it’s great!) and take a listen to the Voidoids’ Blank Generation LP.
So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
New Ivan Julian LP
Just downloaded and gave a listen to Ivan Julian’s new album, Swing Your Lanterns. I will definitely talk about this on the next podcast episode, but … spoiler alert: I like it a lot.
-
Episode 7: Joe Strummer Was Ahead of His Time, Part Infinity
One of those top nights of the year
And I see everyone’s here
Oh, took me a long time to get it
But when its taken time
Think and don’t forget it
“Diggin’ the New,” from Rock Art and the X-Ray Style (1999)Following up on last week’s discussion about Billy Bragg’s evolving views on LGBTQ+ rights, I relate a disturbing interaction I had on Twitter after posting last week’s show in which a random stranger reacted to my defending the rights of trans and nonbinary people in a particularly offensive way. That interaction got me thinking about how Joe Strummer was never afraid to evolve and grow and challenge his own understanding of the world. The song “Diggin’ the New” really embraces this — not only Joe’s drive to understand the world around him, but his embrace of trans rights long before most artists did.
Joe was always ahead of his time. He was ahead of where a good many people are today, even twenty years after his untimely death.
And because America experienced yet another school shooting this past week, this time at Michigan State University, I reflect on the Clash’s, and particularly Joe Strummer’s, running commentary on guns and violence. Although “The Guns of Brixton” may seem to express pro-gun sentiment, Joe’s and the band’s views on guns and violence were in reality quite different. From their cover of “Police and Thieves” to “Tommy Gun,” an explicitly anti-violence anthem, to Joe’s “Burning Streets”/“London is Burning” track first recorded with the Mescaleros and later reworked and re-released on Joe Strummer 001, their position on gun violence was far more humane and nuanced than the folks who seemingly don’t care if mass shootings continue apace. Meantime, I can’t get over the prophetic words from “Burning Streets”/“London is Burning”:
Too many guns in this damn town
At the supermarket, you gotta duck down
Baby flak jackets on the merry-go-round
(London is burnin’)
There’s too many guns in this damn town
(London is burnin’)
Baby flak jackets on the merry-go-round …
So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Episode 6: Happy International Clash Day
On this week’s podcast, I talk about International Clash Day, an annual celebration of the Only Band that Matters that takes place on February 7 each year. Seattle radio station KEXP began International Clash Day in an impromptu fashion ten years ago when a listener asked, in response to a deejay playing a Clash song, why the station didn’t play more Clash (always a good question!), and the deejay obliged. Since then, the celebration has grown around the world, from the US to Europe to Latin America and beyond.
International Clash Day seems to sneak up on me every year (maybe next year I’ll remember that it’s coming), but it’s always a good time to break out the guitar and give a few Clash tunes a test drive. Don’t worry; I do not torment you with my guitar playing on this episode … except for a few seconds. But those few seconds come from my favorite Clash song of all time, “Spanish Bombs” from London Calling. “Spanish Bombs” recalls the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, the world’s first fight against fascism and in many ways a precursor to World War II. The song focuses on the writers, artists, and musicians who joined the cause to defend the government against Franco’s fascists, which is quite appropriate given the Clash’s own anti-fascist activism. It’s worth remembering, too, that American novelist Ernest Hemingway and British novelist/journalist George Orwell went to Spain to defend the republic against the fascists. Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is an amazing memoir of his time there.
From International Clash Day I turn to the Grammys, noting that the Clash won exactly one award — the 2003 Grammy for Best Long Form Video for the documentary film, Westway to the World. I also weigh in on Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ performance of and Grammy win for the song “Unholy,” which caused a right-wing meltdown on social media. Petras made history as the first openly transgender woman to win a Grammy, but she was not the first trans Grammy winner of all time. That was Wendy Carlos, the classical artist who won three Grammys under her former name in 1970 for her pioneering Moog synthesizer works.
I also discuss the Grammys tribute to the 50th anniversary of hip hop, featuring some of the legends of the game (Busta Rhymes, De La Soul, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Missy Elliott, Grandmaster Flash, Ice-T, Method Man, Public Enemy, Queen Latifah, and RUN-D.M.C., among others) and the Clash’s connection to the genre.
Finally, in this week’s Great Artists, Good People segment, I talk about British punk icon Billy Bragg, a close friend of Joe Strummer and an excellent songwriter in his own right. Among many fantastic songs, Bragg’s 1991 hit “Sexuality” was a celebration of gay rights at a time when that was still controversial. But, not to be outdone, Bragg updated the lyrics in 2021 to embrace and celebrate trans and nonbinary people as well, showing tremendous growth as a person and giving a well-deserved middle finger to the haters in the UK. We should all grow old like this.
So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Episode 5: Tom Verlaine, Television, CBGB, Joe Strummer and the Pogues, and Jimmy Cliff
On this week’s rambling podcast, I start, somewhat unintentionally, with where I left off last week, talking about yet another artist we lost too soon: Tom Verlaine of Television, who died on January 28, 2023. Though I was aware of Television back in the day, I first gave them a serious listen after seeing the 2013 film CBGB, about the legendary music venue in the Bowery that launched the careers of the Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads, among others. (Here is the NPR review of CBGB I mention on the show.)
Verlaine was the pivotal figure in one of the most influential, if lesser known, punk bands to come out of New York in the 1970s. He was an excellent guitar player in a band that was quintessentially punk, but not in an overtly self-conscious way. If you’re not familiar with Television or Verlaine’s artistry, the 1977 LP Marquee Moon is an excellent place to start, and check out Patti Smith’s beautifully written obituary/memorial called “He Was Tom Verlaine” in The New Yorker.
From there, I pause for a moment to recognize James Joyce’s 141st birthday and segue into a discussion of Joe Strummer’s days with the Pogues, including the iconic 1991 Pogues/Strummer show in London when Joe was filling in for Shane MacGowan (note: I mistakenly said the show took place in 1988). Rhino Records released a recording of that show, aptly named The Pogues with Joe Strummer — Live in London, in 2014. And speaking of MacGowan, his Wikipedia page has one of the greatest ear-related punk rock stories of all time.
Finally, in this week’s Great Artists, Good People segment, I talk about the legendary Jimmy Cliff, a guy who introduced a generation of suburban Chicago kids to reggae with the soundtrack to his 1972 film, The Harder They Come. It’s not just that Jimmy is a great artist, but he also has a strong connection to the Clash and Joe Strummer. So much so that the Clash mention both The Harder They Come and Jimmy Cliff’s character, Ivan, in “The Guns of Brixton” from London Calling:
You see, he feels like Ivan
Born under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin’
At the end of The Harder They Come
To bring it full circle, it turns out that Jimmy recorded his own version of “The Guns of Brixton” with Tim Armstrong of Rancid, which is totally excellent. And here’s Jimmy’s song “Over the Border,” featuring Joe Strummer. The Clash connections are everywhere!
So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Episode 4: The Music They Left Behind
I took a different, more somber approach to this week’s show, inspired in part by the track “Silver and Gold” from the final Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros album, Streetcore, which was posthumously released in 2003, and from the untimely passing of a Chicago legend, deejay and former program director Lin Brehmer of 93XRT.
On “Silver and Gold” (poignantly, the last song on the last album he recorded), Joe repeatedly sings, “I’ve got to hurry up before I grow too old.” And boy, ain’t that the truth … a truth brought even more sharply into focus by the death of Lin Brehmer, a guy who called himself our Best Friend in the Whole World and was an all but ubiquitous and omnipresent figure in Chicago for nearly four decades.
Apropos of this Clash-themed podcast, WXRT, and Brehmer in particular, were longtime supporters of the Clash and Joe Strummer. Like most Chicago area Clash fans of a certain age, I first heard the band on XRT, and Lin and many other XRT folks kept the memory of the Clash and Joe alive long after they were gone. And when Joe himself died unexpectedly at the unreasonably cruel age of 50 in 2002, I turned to Brehmer, out of the blue, for a little moral support, blindly emailing him with the day’s most pressing question: What’re we gonna do now??
I ask myself that question a lot lately, especially having reached the age where so many of my music heroes are aging and passing away. The answer, I think is: Keep listening to the music. The music is the thing that keeps them alive, and keeps alive our connection to them. And this isn’t just true for the artists we lose. It’s true for folks like Brehmer, and for friends and family members who’ve gone before. The music we shared is the connection. Don’t let go of it.
Finally, in this week’s Great Artists, Good People segment, I talk about a guy who always fit the bill: the great Tom Petty. Not only was Tom Petty one of my favorite artists of all time, but my late brother Tom loved him, too, and Petty’s music will always remind me of brother Tom.
I first saw Tom Petty live in 1982 at what was then (and will always be!) the Assembly Hall on the campus of the University of Illinois in Champaign. My wife and I were lucky enough to see him there again in May 2017, just about 35 years later. Little did we know that it would be the last time we saw him. He died on October 2, 2017. I will be forever grateful for getting to see him that one last time, to hear him play the music that keeps him alive for us forever.
So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Episode 3: The Clash Fight Racism
Because we recently celebrated the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday in the US, it seems like a good time to highlight the Clash’s commitment to fight racism in the UK and around the world. But first, some thoughts on the current campaign in the US against teaching the truth about America’s history in our schools, my own recollections of Dr. King’s assassination, and the tendency of some white Americans to cherry pick and misquote Dr. King this time of year. I conclude this segment with these lines from Maya Angelou’s poem for Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, “On the Pulse of the Morning”:
History, despite its wrenching pain
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.Moving on to the main discussion in this week’s episode, I talk about the Clash’s fight against racism from the very start of their career, inspired in large part by Joe’s and Paul’s experiences during the Notting Hill Carnival riot in August 1976. That led Joe to write the lyrics to “White Riot” and to the band’s brilliant cover of Junior Murvin’s “Police and Thieves,” both of which appeared on the band’s debut album, The Clash. This also led, in part, to the band’s historic performance at the Rock Against Racism concert in London’s Victoria Park in April 1978. (For more on Eric Clapton’s embrace of Enoch Powell and his racist meltdown in 1976, see When Eric Clapton’s Bigoted 1976 Rant Sparked Rock Against Racism.)
On a related note, I also discuss Chuck D’s essay in Antonino D’Ambrosio’s Let Fury Have the Hour, titled “Strange Bedfellows: How the Clash Inspired Public Enemy.” And since we’re on the topic of the MLK holiday, check out Public Enemy’s epic track,“By the Time I Get to Arizona”.
Finally, in this week’s Great Artists, Good People segment, I talk about one of the greatest hard rock bands of all time, Living Colour. Be sure to follow them on social media (@LivingColour on Twitter) and definitely follow guitarist extraordinaire Vernon Reid (@vurnt22), a living encyclopedia of art, music, and culture. (One correction: I mistakenly said Living Colour’s cover of “Should I Stay or Should I Go” is on Shade. In fact, it’s on the extended release of Vivid).
So please give it a listen and share your thoughts in the comments. And like Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Episode 2: The Band Went in and Knocked ’Em Dead
On this week’s episode, I talk about the origin of the name Two Minutes Fifty-Nine, a lyric from the song “Hitsville UK” from the Sandinista! album:
They say true talent will always emerge in time
When lightning hits, small wonder
It’s fast rough factory trade
No expense accounts, or lunch discounts,
Or hyping up the charts
The band went in and knocked ’em dead
In two minutes fifty-nine …
“Hitsville UK” pays homage to Motown records and the spirit of innovation and determination embodied in all artists who forge their own path despite the resistance they face. The choice of this song as an inspiration for the podcast also is a nod to a brother who was a huge Clash fan and who sadly passed away nearly 22 years ago.
I also talk about a book of essays that writer/filmmaker Antonino D’Ambrosio (@antonino44 on Twitter) edited and curated — and contributed essays to — called Let Fury Have the Hour: Joe Strummer, Punk, and the Movement that Shook the World. The book, like the film of the same name, is a mediation on the Clash’s and Joe Strummer’s social consciousness and how their music at once confronted the harsh realities of the world and gave us hope.
Finally, I introduce a new segment I call Great Artist, Good People, focusing on artists who are both supremely talented and genuinely decent, great artists who embrace humanitarian values. This episode’s selection is zydeco legend Terrance Simien from Bayou Mallet, Louisiana (@ZydecoRocks on Twitter). I’ve been a fan of Terrance Simien’s music for a good 30 years or more, having seen him multiple times at local music venues around Chicago. He’s not only an outstanding artist, he’s a kind-hearted, positive person who supports the fundamental rights and human dignity of all people.
Please give it a listen and share your thoughts in the comment section. And like Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.” Enjoy!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
-
Clash “London Calling” Scrapbook
An awesome belated Christmas gift arrived today, all the way from the UK. I will definitely be diving into this soon.
Meanwhile, I’m busy working on Episode 2, which should be posted by the end of the week. Cheers!