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Michael Geoffrey Jones plays "Train in Vain" in a public library

Mark Frauenfelder at 2:33 pm Sun, Aug 12, 2012

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Here's some random old dude at the library playing The Clash's "Train in Vain."

(Via Open Culture)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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  • gellfex

    Crap, that makes me feel old.  Saw him late Clash and early B.A.D., fantastic shows. Wish I hadn’t seen that. Shouldn’t he at least have played it on an acoustic and worn a beret like other old balding rockers?

    • flappy

      Shouldn’t he be a girl with a ukelele?

      • Ambiguity

         You’re mistaking Mic Jones for Joe Strummer, who started as a busker with a ukelele (true story).

    • wrybread

      Personally I wish we could get past the insistence that music should only be made by people under 30. 

    • Ambiguity

      Crap, that makes me feel old.

      If you saw them (like I did), then you are old. He’s old. It happens.

      But he’s still cool. Cool changes with age.

  • ROSSINDETROIT

    Funny, he looks like a much older, balder Mick Jones in a drab suit.  Kinda.

    • http://www.facebook.com/pucspifo Josh Johnston

      Oh please let this be subtle sarcasm. Please

      • ROSSINDETROIT

        I had London Calling on the turntable this morning.

        • Mark_Frauenfelder

          Pescovitz has been re-buying The Clash on vinyl lately and loving it. I am going to pull out my old 101ers albums soon and give it a listen.

          • ROSSINDETROIT

            Go for it, Mark.  I’m 99% vinyl lately and it’s great.  Fixing up turntables for family members who have orphan records, too.  Some things need the hiss and crackle that we’re familiar with.

          • gellfex

             If you haven’t, check out both “West Way of the World” & “The future is Unwritten” Clash documentaries.  In the former, Mick says in a interview shortly before Joe died that he wished he had been mature enough to keep the band going. Give you the sniffles.

            I’ll argue London Calling is the best double album ever released, and they wrote and recorded it in a few weeks. 

  • Gutterpuke

    A “random old dude?”

    Dont forget, all of us original Clash fans are “old dudes” as are the remaining band members.

    Show some respect for your elders, ya punk.

    • Mark_Frauenfelder

      I’ll bet you $5 I’m older than you are.

    • voiceinthedistance

      Obviously no “random old dude”.

      Duh!  It’s jolly old St. Mick.

    • Halloween_Jack

       I believe that, in aeronautical terms, when something goes that far over your head, it’s technically in orbit.

  • http://twitter.com/mcmikedermott Mike McDermott

    That’s not just some public library – that’s HIS Rock and Roll Public Library:

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/5015062/The-Rock-and-Roll-Public-Library-Mick-Jones-of-The-Clashs-memorabilia.html

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=590866003 Andy Ward Innit

    I saw BAD play their return tour last year at The Academy, still definitely got it.

    • tomdarch

      I forget where I saw video of a recent performance (Coachella?) – BAD is still killing it live.  I don’t know if they are currently touring, but if you get a chance to see them live, do it!

  • http://twitter.com/Noddy93 Noddy Ninetythree

    thank you. completely changed where my head has been all day. now off to drive my cheesy german car with the only band that matters blaring ridiculously loud out the windows. (and yes mark, you are older than me… but not by much and I had an older sister who took me to see the clash in austin ’82)

    • Sparg

       Saw them the same tour just down the road in San Antonio.

  • http://twitter.com/AwesomeRobot AwesomeRobot

    Is he drinking beer in a library?

  • deathisastar

    It’s striking that Mick Jones looks genuinely happy, not just in this video.

    And what kind of idiot keeps shouting when goddamn Mick Jones is singing?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_2X6OHAN7GLVLAIP4QLECKD3NY4 morgane

    man, he’s better than EVERYTHING (except Elbow and The Who and Ray Davies – even if his singing was way off) at that horrible Olympics closing show. As good as the Opening Ceromony was, tonite was bloody fucking awful.

    • tomdarch

      Wait!  Ray Davies played at the Closing ceremonies? #NBCFail  Also, wasn’t Muse doing something as part of it?  Not from what I saw on US coverage.  (I’m not fond of Muse, but if they played, I’d like to have seen it.)

      Crap – those bastards went from Madness to the cover of Parklife to The Pet Shop Boys (West End Girls – a waaay complicated choice for this show – kudos) to the boy band to Stomp, then to commercials. When they came back from commercials, the athletes were entering.

      Apparently, we didn’t get the Muse or (to quote the Wikipedia article), “Ray Davies, Elbow, Kaiser Chiefs, Ed Sheeran (with Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Mike Rutherford of Genesis and Richard Jones of The Feeling)” Nada, zip, zilch.

      Bastards.

      • McGreens

        If you also didn’t get George Michael performing his *new single* (!?) and Beady Eye murdering ‘Wonderwall’ I’d say NBC did you a favour.

      • Chuk

         Holy crap NBC sucks. We watched the CTV one (what with being Canadian and all) and from lists I’ve seen online, the only thing we missed was the second George Michael song. (I guess that ‘missed’ should be in quotation marks…)

  • doniphon

    Didn’t  someone once say:

    “Weddings, parties, anything…  And bongo-jazz a speciality!”

    • filebunch

      Perfect!

      I miss Joe.

  • dirktanzarian

    Ummmm…Morgane….Did you not see Eric Idle singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”?

  • http://voidstar.com/ jbond

    That’s not “some random old dude”, that’s yet another “balding old git”! As one to another.

    Everyone has there favourite but my ear worm is still “Lost in the Supermarket”. I seem to hear it every time I go to Tescos.

  • filebunch

    Huge Clash/B.A.D. fan and had that “they are too old” mentality until I bit the bullet and saw B.A.D. live at Brooklyn Bowl.  They were better than 99% of the “kids” playing out there now.

    I miss Strummer.  Could you imagine the Clash closing the Olympics with London Calling?  I would have dismissed that only a couple of years ago but after what I saw last night it would have rocked.

    Check this out. http://youtu.be/hp8v__sDemQ

    • alfanovember

       I dunno,  London Calling is a pretty bleak song.    It would be like Americans celebrating with “Born In The USA”.

      …Oh wait,  we do that all the time.

  • politeruin

    Love this version myself…

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rERR0am8HS0

    With a cold as well!