Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Turning Webellion Into Money


Mr Mellor ("Joe Strummer" to his fans) at home in Somerset


From the Court and Social pages :

Mr John Graham Mellor, who died at his farmhouse at Broomfield, Somerset, in December, left an estate of £986,229 gross, £945,132 net. A further £127,429 of narcotics is buried in the five-acre field and remains to be retrieved. His wife Lucinda (nee Plymply-Thynne, daughter of the 7th Earl Ferrers and Strathmore, and mother to Tryphosia, Missaluba and Tahini) inherits.

The public school educated son of a diplomat, after service in the Blues and Royals he rose to fame in the 1970s under an assumed name as a guitarist in the popular 'beat' combo "The Clash". But he remained true to his roots, encouraging other members of the band to take up pigeon shooting as a hobby and insisting that they target the racing pigeons of elderly working-class Londoners. In later years he gave up hunting after a serious fall and devoted himself to conservation work.

2 comments:

AntiCitizenOne said...

Perhaps not a tune to be played at the funeral...

‘If you wanna get down, down on the ground, cocaine.’

Anonymous said...

I'd've thought he'd have had a lot more money than that.

One thing I really did like about that guy (aside from the records) was when he pimped out the rights to "London Calling" or one of their songs for a TV commercial ("advert" to y'all Albionians isn't it?), and all the lefties threw shrieking fits about it, the explanation he gave was OK: A) The guys in the band who hadn't gotten fat on songwriting royalties needed the money; B) Commercials with good songs are cool. What's wrong with that?

On second thought, it wasn't very each-according-to-his-need of him to keep the royalties all for himself and Jones, eh?

And who's that clown with the mohawk playing a bass?