I’ve been listening to Big Audio Dynamite today on this rainy Friday afternoon in San Francisco. BAD is the group formed in 1984 by The Clash lead guitarist and co-singer Mick Jones after The Clash broke up.
My favorite song by them is “E=MC2″, from their 1986 album “This Is Big Audio Dynamite”. BAD co-founder Don Letts directed the great music video for the song which was inspired by the Nicholas Roeg film “Insignificance”. Clips from that film as well as other films by Nicholas Roeg were used in the video.
Here’s an excellent live performance of “E=MC2″ from the UK Freedom show on January, 5th, 1988, almost exactly 20 years ago.
If you like the music of Mick Jones, check out his latest project Carbon/Silicon, where he has teamed up with Tony James from Generation X and Sigue Sigue Sputnik.
Mick was recently interviewed by Mike Spinella for Spinner, where he talks about how he finds musical inspiration in technology.
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In 1985 I bought the import 12″ of their first single, “The Bottom Line.” A few weeks later some friends and I performed it in front of most of our Melbourne Florida high school, at the annual air band contest. The crowd was very into it, clapping and echoing some of the lyrics. Pretty cool for not having ever heard it before.
We won, but were disqualified because we stole the perfectly jigsaw-cut instruments the cheerleader-infused tribute to Berlin’s parents had made for them.
Thanks for the great memory. I remember a show around 1985 south of market that was an absolutely mob scene. I think I’ll check them out again. – Jeff
This clip and album also features great movie soundtrack samples from the seminal Mick Jagger film “Performance” well worth checking out
The lyrics also make several references to my favorite Roeg film, “Walkabout “(Australia 1971). But the video includes no footage, of course, because “Walkabout” was mired in legal limbo, at the time, and was ‘lost’ to screen and video. Fortunately, it’s available now on DVD. Well worth checking out.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067959/