Tuesday is the 60th birthday of Paul Simonon, the bass player for punk rock legends The Clash, and this week happens to be the 26th anniversary of their seminal album, London Calling. In order to celebrate his birthday, Simonon did what anybody would do, given the opportunity. That is to say, he put together a supergroup and played some songs.
The members of this supergroup? Outside of Simonon, there was shrinking violet Noel Gallagher of Oasis and Noel Gallagher’s Flying Birds, Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz, and the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde. That’s quite a group of musicians. Simonon had played with Albarn on the Gorillaz’s album Plastic Beach, which also featured fellow Clash member Mick Jones, and also on Albarn’s other project The Good, the Bad, and the Queen.
They played a mixture of songs from their different projects, including the Gorillaz’s “DARE,” as well as several Clash songs, mostly with Hynde handling the vocals, which sounds pretty awesome. You can watch little clips of it here and there on the ol’ internet, if you want to check out this summit of rock royalty. It’s a good thing for Simonon that Albarn and Gallagher have buried the hatchet, otherwise this couldn’t have happened, and Simonon may have had to settle for, like, a trip to Dave & Buster’s for his birthday.
(Via Stereogum)
