Two Minutes Fifty-Nine

I’m back after a short break with a new episode, this time focusing on September observations in the US, from Labor Day to the anniversary of 9/11 to Constitution Day. Apropos of those events, I talk about the two Clash songs I’ve practiced on guitar over the past couple of weeks: “Clampdown” from London Calling… More

Fifty-five years ago this week, Chicago hosted the Democratic National Convention, which resulted in a police riot and split the party between old guard populists and a new, pro-civil rights/anti-war faction that would come to dominate it. On this episode, I talk about memories from that time and how the Vietnam war influenced Joe Strummer’s lyrics and the Clash’s music, from “I’m So Bored With th...

This week I celebrate the 71st birthday of John Graham Mellor, better known as Clash frontman Joe Strummer. Though all of Joe’s music was fantastic, especially, of course, his music with the Clash, on this episode I focus more on his outstanding post-Clash solo career. And, on that subject, it just so happens that my… More

As promised, this week’s episode is a deep dive into the Clash’s 1979 release, The Cost of Living EP, which consists of four tracks:  The EP combines outstanding musicianship with sarcasm and wit in a way only the Clash could pull off. From hard-driving rockabilly to gloom and doom realism to New York-inspired hope for… More

I planned to get back to talking Clash after a brief time off. Specifically, to dive into the band’s Cost of Living EP, released in May 1979 to coincide with the UK general election that brought Margaret Thatcher to power.  Instead, I was blindsided by the untimely death of Sinéad O’Connor the day before I… More

Returning to normal after last week’s special episode on Garland Jeffreys (and thanks to Garland for the shout-out on social media), we turn to a long overdue subject: Clash founder Mick Jones! While I’ve talked a lot about Joe Strummer (of course!) and Paul Simonon (especially in light of the great new Galen & Paul… More

On this special joint episode of our two podcasts, In the Shadow of the Evening Trees and Two Minutes Fifty-Nine, Jennifer and I celebrate one of our favorite artists, Garland Jeffreys , who turned 80 on June 29. To those who don’t know, Garland Jeffreys is a singer-songwriter from New York who wrote and performed some of the most influential, if not necessarily widely-known, music over a 50-year...

Pride Month is rapidly passing and this weekend it’s Chicago’s turn to celebrate, so I thought I’d ponder the connections between punk rock and the LGBTQIA+ community. First, I talk about Joe Strummer and the band’s support for the community, starting with “The Right Profile” from London Calling. “The Right Profile” is a song about… More

Father’s Day is coming up and that can be a mixed bag for some folks. On this week’s episode, I talk about how Garland Jeffreys’ song “Collide the Generations” and the website dedicated to it helped me find the thread running through an old photograph, an old guitar, my dad, my brother, Joe Strummer, and… More

The good news is, I do not talk about Ireland or Bruce Springsteen this week, other than to point out that you can listen to my wife and I on Jesse Jackson’s Set Lusting Bruce podcast here. (You should really listen in. We had a lot of fun.) The bad news is, do talk about… More

On this week’s episode, I return to the roots of the podcast and my obsession with the Clash … but not without first mentioning that my wife and I have our own podcast, In the Shadow of the Evening Trees , and on our latest episode we go into some detail about the Springsteen concert we saw in Dublin in May (the subject of a good part of last week’s Two Minutes Fifty-Nine show ). I also mention th...

I’m back after a few weeks off, a good part of which I spent in Ireland, traveling from Dublin to Sligo, my mother’s ancestral home, and back to Dublin to see Bruce Springsteen in concert . Needless to say, it was quite a trip. On this week’s episode, I talk about Joe’s and the Clash’s connections to Ireland (that is, in addition to Joe’s filling in for Shane MacGowan from time to time, which I’ve...

Inspired by the president’s announcement that he’s running for reelection, I recall Joe Strummer’s performance of “Bankrobber” at Bizarre Festival in Cologne, Germany, in 1999, in which he urged people not to vote. As much as I love Joe, and as much as I agree with him that people should “make trouble,” voting is still the key to preserving democracy. Which leads me to wonder aloud whether “making...

After briefly recapping last weekend’s outstanding Mavericks show at the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, I go on a bit of an extended digression on the importance of local music venues and how they capture the spirit of the Clash and independent music. Now, more than ever, it’s important to help local independent music clubs stay alive and prosper after having suffered so much during COVID, so I thoug...

This episode was supposed to be all about country music, inspired by going to see Latin-influenced alt-country legends the Mavericks , but, as often happens … I got a little distracted along the way. Researching the possible connections between London Calling, Bruce Springsteen’s The River, and Sandinista! (and not finding much, no disrespect to Martin Popoff’s book, The Clash: All the Albums, All...

I lied to you, dear listener, when I said I would not delve into the issues surrounding the indictment of a former president, because, you see, I couldn’t help myself. The lawyer in me got the better of me, so I took some time to share my thoughts on Ford pardoning Nixon, holding presidents accountable for their crimes (of course, the song I meant to refer to here is “Clampdown,” not “London Calli...

After a few episodes of wandering off course and talking about things that were, at best, tangentially related to the Only Band That Matters, this week I return to my core subject. In particular, at the recommendation of my friends Dan and Tammy Domike, retired booksellers from Seattle, I picked up a copy of Martin Popoff’s book, The Clash: All the Albums, All the Songs , which, as the title sugge...

I’m back after a week off and I’m ready to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Better late than never, right? And, no, the gravelly voice you hear is not a byproduct of Jameson; it’s the byproduct of 6:30 on a Friday morning and not enough coffee. Anyway, on this week’s show I spend some time talking about two of my favorite Irish groups, Thin Lizzy and, of course, the Pogues , giving a nod to the statue...

In honor of Women’s History Month, this episode is dedicated to the great women in punk rock, many of whom have been overlooked and not given their due in what often seems like a traditionally “male” musical genre.  But first, I revisit a discussion from last week about Joe Strummer’s “your dollar bill is your vote” philosophy and the fact that making and listening to music is a give-and-take prop...

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” an...

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...

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 st...

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 deeja...

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 career...

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 recor...