Tag Archives: Mick Jones

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Trash City Radio Show: Mick Jones tribute Feb 7, 2012

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I’m really excited to share this week’s show with you. Really excited. Can I emphasize that any more? Joe Rebel once again has put together a two hour show that simply made my day. It’s chock full o’ Mick Jones—the best of, but the best of through rarities, live tracks and other gems. For anyone that is a fan, new or old, or even anyone out there in the younger set that is curious as to who this illustrious Mick Jones character is…dig in and dive deep! Trash City Radio Show archive –


As I listened to the show something occurred to me about just how the music of The Clash, Mick Jones, Joe Strummer has always affected and still affects me. This is something that I’ve never stopped to actually put into a single cohesive thought before the other day when I was listening to the show. As each track unfolded, I was confronted with Mick Jones as the Clash. Then again as BAD, Carbon Silicon, with Joe Strummer and without, and so on. What hit me was this. When I hear Mick Jones/The Clash and along side Joe Strummer, I feel a sense of invincibility, empowerment: fist up! You can do anything! When I hear Joe Strummer on his own, I feel this total sense of love and compassion, even for this crazy and sometimes downright cruel and depressing world around me. When Mick Jones as BAD emerges, I feel this overwhelming sense of happiness. Maybe it is because of the age I was when I first stumbled upon BAD and first heard “V. Thirteen.” Total joy and an inescapable urge to dance. But then again, after all these years of the music and finally seeing him perform live (not once, not twice, but four times in the past year and a half, if you can believe…I can’t), that feeling has never gone away.  So back to the Trash City special and my two million-word essay/point. Listening to this show on Tuesday, I was not a passive listener. My emotions ran the gamut and my body moved with joy. In the end, the only way I can put it is that I was dying of the happy! Yes, happy is the new disease, and it’s a good one and it’s contagious.

Enough of me, time for us to say thanks Joe R and congratulate him on his 200th installment of Trash City Radio Show! And keep on, there a lot of us out here tuning in every week that rely on you!

And now…here it is. Play it loud! And get up and dance already!

Trash City Radio Show archive –


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All photos taken by myself or my sister Ady via our live music/travel site Sisters Dissonance.

Big Audio Dynamite Live at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia

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Today’s Song of the Day is another Two Sisters and a Show clip, but this time around it was one sister, one brother-in-law, one nephew, and one brother-in-law’s brother and a show, three long time fans, and one born and raised on BAD (nephew). I was hard pressed to stop and take photos or video because that meant standing still (tall order), but I did manage to do it for this one, at encore #1. An incredible show, and seeing Mick Jones live again for the second time in just under a year is something I never thought would happen, ever. Mick Jones: king of kings. Photos from this show are forthcoming in a future post.

I asked my nephew to give me five words to describe how he felt about the show. His reply, “amazing, cool, awesome, and surprising, and…loud.”

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ReGWpvQ8hs

Free Music Alert! Rotten Hill Gang mp3

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Click the above image to be taken to their site where you can download an mp3 version of “Clockwork”

Here’s the brilliant “City of Cold Steel” to give you a taste of what they’re all about. Look for a familiar face or two while you’re at it . . .

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_rrrWY6F-U&feature=youtu.be

From the Rotten Hill Gang website:

Look out! Who’s that behind you? Watch your pockets..!

You are entering the Dickensian hip-hop world of the Rotten Hill Gang, with tales of old and new London – stories as putrid as decaying vegetables at the end of a day in Portobello Road market and as uplifting and elevating as the sun rising over the Westway.

It all began with Dirty White’s project, the “Rotten Hill Sound System”……Dirty White on the decks and local badman street poet, Reds on the mic. The several musicians involved in this labour of love had first come together when George Vjestica of Groove Armada had presented a weekly night at Ladbroke Grove’s Pelican pub.With their crazy beats, they created an atmosphere like no other and caught the attention of Keyboard player/producer, André Shapps. The Rotten Hill Gang was born!

Putting together – among other sources – snatches of such movie soundtracks and dialogue as Scarface and Once Upon A Time in America, mixed together with classic rock ‘n’ roll guitar-riffs, this crew of like-minded musical souls understood they were creating a sound that was utterly original, hugely compelling, and definitely addictive. With the sultry tones of Hollie Cook of the Slits and Hayley Smith, and with Mallet on the drums, the sound was complete.

The creativity of the musicians caught the attention of Mick Jones, Charlene Spitteri and Hugh Morgan to name but a few. Going with the theme of “anything is possible”, Dirty White approached celebrity jeweller, Stephen Webster to manage the band. He thought it was a joke……it wasn’t.

The Rotten Hill Gang debuted at the first Carbon Casino night. Even though on that occasion they only played a pair of songs – “Pick a pocket” and “Fed Up” – their unique sound was enhanced by a glamorous image of late 1890′s loucheness, an element of which featured André Shapps as king of moustache waxing. That night at the first Carbon Casino, Andre played on a borrowed set of keyboards; unable to obtain them, he moved over to guitar for the subsequent six Carbon Casino shows. Very quickly, the Rotten Hill Gang had become one of the great live road-shows, comparable with soul outfits of the 1960s, or – more appositely – George Clinton’s Funkadelic/Parliament. Their material dealt with the dubside of life in Notting Hill, reality with rhythm.

Fast forward to a plethora of gigs including Stephen Webster’s 50th birthday, Wilton Hall, supporting N.E.R.D for Levi’s, the Notting Hill Carnival, performing to 10,000 people at “Love Music Hate Racism” at Stoke City’s Britannia Stadium, Standon Calling and the Chelsea Arts Club Summer Ball. A turning point for the gang was the 2009 Glastonbury Festival, where the group played in Gaz Mayall’s tent: outside the tarpaulin-covered area, as many people strained to watch the set as had managed to get inside.

The gang’s three-part video shoot took place over the summer of 2010 ending on Sunday August 15th at their first pop-up festival, “Rotten Hill Bar & Grill”. Crowds of people from the age of eight to eighty joined the gang in Tavistock Park. With 15 local bands and DJ’s performing with them on the day, the gang started a new tradition in W11. Who needs Woodstock when you’ve got Tavistock?!