presents... Interesting Motherfucker: (noun)
An individual exhibiting such uniqueness or individuality that he or she will cause a roomful of bar cronies to exclaim, "That's one interesting motherfucker!" Actual sexual relations with one's mother are not required.

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By John Saleeby

Hey, I ain't nothing but a Fan when it comes to Mick Jones. I just love the guy, play any record he sings on and I'll dig it just because it's Mick Jones."Jail Guitar Doors", "Train In Vain", "I'm Not Down", "The Bottom Line" - Just making up a list of his song titles is enough to take a nothing day and certainly make it all seem worthwhile. Even "Somebody Got Murdered" brings a smile to my face!

Mick Jones is best known as a member of The Clash. I doubt there are enough Baby Boomers reading this to start preaching at us about The Beatles, so Let's Go Crazy and say that The Clash are quite possibly The Greatest Band In The History Of Rock And Roll. Except for Starz, of course. Joe Strummer could never have written anything as cool as "Piss Party". I don't have time to really get into The Clash here which is a shame because I'd love to tell some funny Valarie Bertinelli stories. I'm sorry, it's all a blur to me after all these years.

Mick was born in 1955 - The same year Rock And Roll was born! I was born in 1961 - The same year Napalm was born. Mick's Father was Welsh, his Mother was Jewish, and I've just pitched a sit com based on his Childhood to ABC. Little Jonesy was largely raised by his Grandmother. Hey, I was largely raised by my Grandmother, too! Lemme tell ya, Guys, if you're gonna get married, find a woman who's Mother is available to take care of the kids while you and the Wife are running around like maniacs. Better yet, just marry her Mom and to Hell with having kids.

Mick never wanted to do anything but play guitar in a band and spent his teenage years following his favorite band Mott The Hoople all over England. Ever heard of them? Their lead singer Ian Hunter always wore shades, which I thought was Cool until I found out he only wore em cause he's CROSS EYED. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but why the cover up? A Cross Eyed Glitter Rock Star? Let's see Bowie top THAT! Hunter later had a solo hit with "Cleveland Rocks". Well, it was the theme song to "The Drew Carey Show" so it least Drew Carey had a hit. Ian Hunter - Even Alex Chilton feels sorry for that guy!

Mick first came to prominance as one of the founding members of the seminal British Punk Band London SS. You think The Velvet Underground was influential? London SS was so cool they kicked off British Punk without playing a single gig or releasing a single record! All they seemed to do was listen to The New York Dolls and audition people. And you thought The Ramones were Minimalist? Practically everybody who was anybody in UK Punk auditioned for London SS and was told to hit the bricks. Paul Simenon who eventually played bass in The Clash, Topper Headon who eventually played drums in The Clash, Chrissie Hynde who eventually formed The Pretenders, and a whole bunch of other characters auditioned for London SS and didn't make the cut. I don't know, maybe they made too much noise while Jones was trying to learn the guitar parts on those Dolls records. Yeah, once he finally got a handle on Johnny Thunder's solo on "Chatterbox" he could finally put up with Simenon and Headon flappin' their gums all the time and let em into The Clash. But Chrissie Hynde had started her own band by then so they had to settle on that Joe Strummer guy for a singer - SHUCKS!

And some gratitude The Clash showed Mick - They FIRED him! But it was all his fault. Mick got this Puffed Up Pothead vision of himself as a Genius Record Producer and, when he wasn't in the studio, went into this Phil Spector recluse trip where he wouldn't answer his door no matter how hard Joe Strummer knocked on it. That would have been a good Clash production right there - BANG BANG! "Jonesy! Jonesy!" BANG BANG BANG! "Come see, man!" BANG BANG! "I thought I saw Lauren Bacall!" BANG BANG! "I thought I saw Lauren Bacall!!" BANG BANG BANG!! "Lauren Bacall!"* Not that Mick wasn't doing good work - In addition to the "Sandanista!" triple disc set (I still think it's too short), he produced an excellent Ian Hunter album that George Lopez or Jim Belushi apparently never heard and a fascinating little item entitled "Spirit Of St. Louis" by Ellen Foley, whom Mick was dating at the time. You might remember Ellen Foley as the Chick DA on "Night Court" who wasn't Markie Post. Before "Spirit Of St. Louis" Foley had an album which was produced by - Of all people! - Ian Hunter but "Spirit Of St. Louis" is the one that says "Produced By My Boyfriend" on the cover so SUCKS TO YOU, IAN HUNTER! That guy can't get a break! But Mick was becoming increasingly difficult and the Final Straw seems to have been when he insisted on mixing "Combat Rock" all by himself and did such a lame job this Old Fart who'd worked with The Who and The Stones had to be brought in to clean up the mess. "You can't mix a record as good as MY BOYFRIEND!!" "Get that young woman out of here before I erase all of her background vocals!" (Headon makes some crack about something being "an improvement" to Simenon, they break out giggling, and Jones spends three days in a closet while Strummer wonders where his weed went).

From there Mick went on to start Big Audio Dynamite. Well, it's a better name for a band than Mott The Hoople! Fortunately for Mick Jones, this isn't an article about Big Audio Dynamite, it's an article about Mick Jones. Maybe Joe Strummer had a better solo career (Although, if you ask me, going on tour with The Pogues as lead singer has a distinctly Sammy Hagar smell to it) but at least Mick hasn't died of a heart attack after taking his dog out for a walk. Nothing like Staying Alive to make you look like a Real Winner, as Paul McCartney will tell you. But Mick is only human - Big Audio Dynamite came to an end when Mick caught the Chicken Pox and bearly DIED! I had the Chicken Pox when I was four. All I remember is the cats looking at me like they were ready to go outside and build a funeral pyre. And it's even worse when an adult gets Chicken Pox. If they call em the Chicken Pox when a little kid gets em they should call em the Buzzard Pox when an adult gets em. And it's probably even worse when the grown man is an anorexic British rock star who's been drinking and smoking nonstop since the age of three. I started to imagine what Mick must have looked like long enough to write a little joke about it and came up with the script for a Direct To DVD Horror Movie starring Ian Hunter's Prostate.


In recent years Mick has been busily producing all the Libertines and Babyshambles albums featuring Internationally Notorious Crackhead And Heroin Addict Pete Doherty. No one in America but John Saleeby has heard these records but everybody has seen the hidden camera video of Doherty's Supermodel Girlfriend Kate Moss breaking out a huge bag of cocaine so everybody in the studio, including Acid Logic Interesting Motherfucker Mick Jones, can take turns snorting up a few lines. If Digital Video had been around twenty years ago we all would have seen Slash try to chug a bottle of Jack and throw up all over Duff's New Cowboy Boots but no one would have heard "Paradise City". Which is a drag because Doherty is really talented. But don't feel sorry for him, he got to fuck Kate Moss.

Yes, Years Have Past And Things Have Changed but if you like The Clash quit the cheap ass Big Audio Dynamite-Chicken Pox-Pete Doherty gags and check out Mick's new band Carbon/Silicon which demonstrates once again that Mick Jones is A Man Of The Future. Just as he was an innovator with London SS, The Clash, and Big Audio Dynamite, Mick is now pioneering online music distribution by giving Carbon/Silicon music away for free over the internet. It's all too much for me. I never heard Carbon/Silicon until their totally fuckin' awesome "The Last Post" CD came out. I finally get used to buying CDs instead of records and now people are getting music over the net? What about the poor kids who work in the CD store and fall down laughing when I come in looking for "Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy"? I'm so ignorant about computers I still don't know how these Acid Logic articles make it from my notebook to your display screen. Maybe the little people who live inside my TV set do it while I'm asleep.

Oh, and no - Mick Jones did not produce the first Van Halen album without David Lee Roth. That was the OTHER Mick Jones, the one who was in Foreigner. People always get those two mixed up. Shit, maybe I should write a few jokes about that?

Nah.

*Inspired by an old Mel Brooks routine about Al Jolson trying to get Irving Berlin on the phone.

What do you think America? Leave your comments on the Guestbook!

John Saleeby wrote for The National Lampoon while he was in high school, was a stand up comic in New York, and has contributed to the net humor zines Schmuck.com, Campaign Central, and the legendary American Jerk. He's on medication now so he's probably a little nicer now than he was when you met him earlier. Email - jacksaleeby1@hotmail.com

View John Saleeby's crazy web log!

Meet some other Interesting Motherfuckers:

Ray Walston by John Saleeby
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Mitch Hedberg
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The last of the comedy greats!
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Bernie Casey by John Saleeby
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Peruse the critical overview and interview with the fiction superstar.
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Louis CK by Sean C Tarry
Marvel at this stand up's ability to phrase the opposite of every song.
Sho Kosugi by Wil Forbis
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The mind expanding comedian gets his due.
Warren Zevon by Xander Horlyk
A literary look at "a moralist in cynic's clothing."
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Sweet Christmas! It's the queen of blaxploitation, Foxy Brown herself!
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When he created the elite police unit of "Dragnet," Jack Webb laid the first blow against the scourge of America: Hippies!
Doris Wishman by Wil Forbis
The prolific adult film maker, whose work includes the classic Chesty Morgan movies, is probed and prodded.
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Read up on the life of the British comedy scribe.
Toshiro Mifune by Wil Forbis
The Japanese actor who slashed his way through a thousand samurai movies.
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Bob and Tommy Stinson by John Saleeby
Get to know the real talents of eighties punk sensations, The Replacements.

Tom Savini by John Saleeby
The king of latex gore.

And there's even more on our main page!



Additional Mick Jones stuff:
Wiki on Micki:
From Wikipedia, the name you've come to trust in celebrity profiles.

Carbon Silicon The website for Mick's new band.

A Riot of Our Own
Mick reflects on his past glories at Spin magazine.

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