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Today we are wishing a very Happy Birthday to Senor Mick Jones, a founding member and stalwart of The Only Band That Mattered, The Clash.

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Michael Geoffrey “Mick” Jones was born 56 years ago today, June 26, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. As a teenager he attended the Stand School in Tulse Hill, Lambeth, before going to art college to find himself a band.

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When Mick was 21 he and Paul Simonon were introduced to one Joe Strummer and the rest, as they say, is history.

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Happy birthday Mick, we salute you!

NC

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Just found this gem recorded on Ireland’s The Late, Late Show featuring two legends of Irish music, Christy Moore and Shane McGowan, performing a duet of ‘Spancil Hill’.

In 2007, Moore was named as Ireland’s greatest living musician in RTE’s (Ireland’s equivalent of the BBC) People of the Year Awards, and is still releasing records and touring to great acclaim.  

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William Harrison “Bill” Withers always sounds fantastic on his studio releases, but his live performances are sublime.

Two movies have been released that show off his skills to the full. 2008’s Soul Power tells the story of the Zaire74 festival, when the cream of the US and African music worlds came together to play at a festival originally organized to coincide with Muhammad Ali’s Rumble In The Jungle with George Foreman. The fight was delayed, but the festival went ahead anyway, and featured Bill Wither’s performing live, as well as performances by James Brown and BB King amongst others. Then, in 2009 a film of his life, Still Bill, was given its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival.

Here is Bill performing ‘Ain’t No Sunshine When She’s Gone’ on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test, enjoy.

NC

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Rock? Check. Superstars? Check. Glastonbury has both in abundance!

In part 2 of our Glatso special we have those West Coast Latino lovers of the ‘erb, Cypress Hill, performing ‘Rock Superstar’ for the Pyramid Stage posse back in 2000. Man, they had the place bouncing! 

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Next up is country music’s legendary singer-songwriter, author, poet, actor, and activist, Willie Nelson, performing the Fred Rose penned Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain to a sunshine bathed Pyramid crowd in 2010. Delightful.

According to Wikipedia, (also says citation needed next to it) this was the last song Elvis Presley sang before he died on August 16, 1977, sang at the piano in the rest area of his Racquetball Court located to the rear of Graceland. 

NC

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The keen festival goers out there might know that in most years this weekend would see nearly 200, 000 punters packing up their ponchos, suncream and wellies, and heading to Pilton in Somerset for the one and only Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts AKA Glastonbury AKA Glasto. Unfortunately, mainly due to a shortage of available portaloos, this year’s event was cancelled.

To remind you what you are missing here is Primal Scream performing ‘Kill All Hippies’ on the Pyramid Stage in 2003. Considering the festival’s roots and general vibe you think they could have been more considerate in their song choice, but what a baseline!

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Looking outside it looks like it would have been a seriously wet one again this year so year so maybe the cancellation was a blessing in disguise. But roll on Glastonbury 2013; if it’s a sunny one we’ll all be quoting the legendary Leonard Cohen, who graced the Pyramid Stage with a sublime performance in 2008, “Hallelujah”!

(All the versions I found of his performance at Glastonbury were filmed on camera phones so here is the great man performing ‘Hallelujah’ @ at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Enjoy.)

NC

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You’ve probably heard Newton Faulkner do his guitar-tappy thing before, but you should definitely watch this. Legend has it he only had half an hour or so before the show to work out how to play it. 

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My favourite part:

“Yeah I’ve got like a kind of bass drummy thing there, and a thing there, and a thing there. I’ve got like a scratchy thing as well, so err what can you do?”

…*plays like a genius*

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In case your knowledge of mid 80s - mid 90s Australian comedy isn’t quite up to scratch, you might be interested to know what Good News Week host, Paul McDermott used to do. Here is your answer:

Love it.

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KS

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This week Tom Petty plays his first UK shows in 13 years (and I’m totally going, squeeee!) so it feels fitting for today’s choice to be this cover of Petty-classic, ‘Free Fallin”. 

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I’ve wittered on before about how underrated John Mayer is as a musician (as everyone seems to pre-occupied by him as a celebrity), but again, it’s worth pointing out, this is a really good version of the song, and he certainly does it justice.

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And in the spirit of celebrating Tom Petty’s music, here’s another cover version from the catalogue. Here’s Johnny Cash covering ‘I Won’t Back Down’ from his American III: Solitary Man album in 2000 (this was actually Cash’s 85th!!! album).

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KS

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‘Bed of Roses’ is taken from Screaming Trees’ major label debut on Epic back in 1991. As one of the original bunch of Seattle grunge bands, the Trees formed back in 1985, but Epic debut, Uncle Anesthesia, was actually their 5th album. It was co-produced by Soundgarden’s singer, Chris Cornell (an absolute legend in his own right. That voice!) and metal specialist Terry Date. My favourite thing about Screaming Trees, is they feature the trademark, Mark Lanegan growl.

Here’s a brilliant live video from 1997 of the band playing ‘Bed of Roses’ with Josh Homme (of Queens of the Stone Age) on guitar.

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The artwork from Uncle Anesthesia is pretty awesome:

It was created by Mark Ryden, a pop-surrealist painter, whose work you’ve probably seen before. He also created album covers for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael Jackson and Aerosmith.

(Red Hot Chili Peppers - One Hot Minute)

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(Michael Jackson - Dangerous  (of which there is a particularly mad discussion about occult symbolism here))

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(Aerosmith - Love In An Elevator)

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As good as Uncle Anesthesia is, it was to be Screaming Trees’ next album, Sweet Oblivion, that was their breakthrough, thanks to the single ‘Nearly Lost You’ which featured on the Singles soundtrack. The album sold over 300,000 copies on the strength of the song, and led to the band’s TV debut on Late Night with David Letterman.

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And with that amazing piece of Lanegan-groooowl, I’ll leave you to go explore the albums. 

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KS