London Recalling
Talk about a supergroup: The Clash’s Mick Jones has joined forces with former Generation X guitarist Tony James to form Carbon/Silicon.
Stuart Clark, 17 Dec 2007
The last time I was in the same building as Mick Jones was on December 27 1978 when The Clash shock and awed the London Lyceum on their Give ‘Em Enough Rope tour.
He’s lost a bit of hair since then, but otherwise Jones remains the whippet-thin bundle of energy whose sparking off of Joe Strummer is what made the Westway warriors great.
Also the same is the fire in his belly as he gets ready to go on the road with his new band, Carbon/Silicon. Joe Strummer’s no longer around of course, but Jones has a new foil in the shape of former Generation X and Sigue Sigue Sputnik man Tony James. Actually, ‘new’ isn’t entirely accurate.
“Before punk hit we were in a band together called London SS who never really got beyond the rehearsing and changing members every week stage,” the now 52-year-old Mick reminisces. “A couple of the line-ups weren’t bad, but really it was a learning process for what was to come.”
Despite going off in different musical directions at the start of 1976, Jones and James remained close pals.
“The first time I met Mick was at a Heavy Metal Kids gig in the Fulham Greyhound,” Tony, 53, picks up. “Our paths crossed again when I met this singer who invited me to come and see his band rehearsing in Southwark. When I got there he said, ‘We’re firing our rhythm guitarist because he’s no good’... and that was Mick! That night the two of us went back to the famous Maida Vale tower block where he lived and started the friendship, which has endured to this day.
“We shared flats all the way through the punk days; I was the best man at his first marriage; he was the best man at mine; and I’m the Godfather of his children. The only thing we didn’t do for 27 years was make music together!”
One of the catalysts for Carbon/Silicon forming was Jones’s involvement with the then fresh-faced Libertines.
“It was like meeting Morecambe & Wise or Chas & Dave,” he laughs. “Carl and Pete were a classic English double-act who dazzled with their charm and their enthusiasm. They made me realise how much I missed the camaraderie of being in a band that was obsessed with making music.”
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