Elvis Ate Dynamite

Cover of the Clash’s London Calling LP featuring Pennie Smith’s legendary photo of Paul Simonon smashing his bass.

After two major losses in the span of a week — Raul Malo of the Mavericks and Joe Ely, the Texas troubadour — I almost overlooked a happy occasion: the 70th birthday of Paul Simonon, bass player for the Clash and Gorillaz.

Paul’s story is a wild one. He was not a musician when first he met Mick Jones in the mid-1970s. He was an art student whose girlfriend dragged him to see Mick play at a club against his will. But when they met, Mick saw something in Paul, and it wasn’t long before Mick started telling people, “This is my bass player but he can’t play.”

Paul Simonon did, in fact, learn to play bass, using one that Mick borrowed from another musician, and, by the time the Clash recorded their self-titled debut album in 1977, he was quite good at it. But perhaps just as importantly, Paul came up with the band’s name and its signature look.

And I’m not sure how I missed this bit of synchronicity until just this week: Paul Simonon was born in 1955, the same year as my brother John, who first turned me on to the Clash decades ago.

Here’s another little quirk about Paul: he did not like to play bass and sing at the same time, so when the Clash played “Guns of Brixton” live, he played rhythm guitar and Joe Strummer played bass. Still, not bad for a bass player who couldn’t play.

If you’re interested in his recent work, he and Galen Ayers put out a great album in 2023 called “Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day?” It’s not just an excellent title, it’s an excellent record.

One more thing: I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like to because I’ve been spending a lot of time navigating between our two cats, Gordy and Waffle, and the three feral cats I mentioned a couple of weeks back. As I predicted at the time, the temperatures got significantly colder and, being the sucker for cats and dogs that I am, I let them in the house. Of course, it was far more complicated than that — it took several attempts and a lot of coaxing to get them inside. Well, to get the kittens inside; the mom was eager to escape the cold.

But, anyway, now their all safe and warm inside — Boots, the mom, Pankcake, and his or her sibling, Fluffy. (We can’t get close enough to the kittens to tell their sex just yet.)

They spend most of their time in the basement, but they’re slowly adjusting to indoor life. 

Next step: the veterinarian for all three.

In any event, we’re making progress with the new and old cats, so I should be able to get back to posting more regularly. We shall see.