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Catching Up With The Jones

Clash legend Mick Jones discusses his imminent visits to Dublin and Belfast for a gig with a difference...

Stuart Clark, 02 Apr 2012

“I don’t necessarily sing all the Clash songs and they don’t necessarily sing theirs – we mix it up every night, which gives it a real edge and an energy.”

The justice being sought is for the 96 Liverpool fans who were crushed to death in 1989 whilst watching their team play Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough in an FA Cup Semi-Final.

“Some more government documents were released the other day, but the victims’ families still don’t have a clear picture of what happened or who’s to blame for the investigation being so flawed,” Jones resumes. “I’d love to know what Margaret Thatcher’s thought process was. Was less done to unearth the truth because during the ‘80s, Liverpool stood up to the Tories? Would more have been done if it was Chelsea or Arsenal or another London team?”

The answer to that, I suspect, being a resounding “Yes!”

“What I love about Liverpool is it doesn’t forget. 23 years after they wrongly blamed the deaths on ‘drunken Liverpool fans’, people there still refuse to buy the Sun. You’ll only find it in the very odd shop, which must have cost Murdoch a lot of money.”

Mick met his Justice co-conspirator and ardent Liverpool fan Pete Wylie during the height of the punk wars.

“The Clash used to go to Liverpool a lot and play in this place called Eric’s where we’d do a matinee and then an evening gig, which all the people who subsequently had groups of their own turned up to,” he reminisces. “Pete stood out because 1) He was so loud and funny and 2) He was really talented. People think of him as being more of an ‘80s and ‘90s artist but we do a new song of Pete’s called ‘The Day That Margaret Thatcher Died’, which is genius.”

With a title like that how could it be anything else? The last time Mick trod Irish soil was as a member of Gorillaz.

“The best thing about the Gorillaz?” he deadpans. “The hats! We had great stylists. It was nice being the hired hand for a change, and have other people carry the show. I was like a kid at Christmas getting to play with Bobby Womack every night. He was really kind and lovely.”



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