Blogs

Ray's exhibition at Salford is continuing to go well with lots of positive feedback

Channel M produced a short piece about the exhibition

View the footage on youtube

The Royal Mail has released a collectors edition of twelve stamps of classic covers, from The Clash to Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.

Sam Lowry , Ray's son was interviewed and gave his comments on the stamps, see the attached links

I have never been a well-read lady and this comes with much regret, I found reading difficult at school always preferring to look at the pictures. Now as I get older the world of books interests me more and more and I wish I had the time to indulge myself. I felt in the shadow of a man like Ray, well read and thoughtful about the literary world. He spoke at length about his reading matter from Dickens to Newspaper’s. My dear lady he would say why does a man need to use so many words to describe a simple thing. He hated “bullshitting” and was prepared to say so.

In 1978, Joe Strummer famously beefed about the new wave of punk groups who were “turning rebellion into money”. In the end, perhaps The Clash became guilty of that crime too, but in fairness they put more energy into staying poor and idealistic than pretty much anyone else from that era. So it was genuinely touching on 15 September 2009 to witness an event that stood Joe’s lyric on its head and, for once, celebrated a bunch of musicians turning their money into rebellion. Or at least rehabilitation.