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POP MUSIC
Santana, onstage in Australia, effortlessly crossed decades and styles at Merriweather.
(By Paul Kane -- Getty Images)
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-- Sarah Godfrey
Carbon/Silicon
The crowd wanted so badly to hear a Clash cover Sunday night at the 9:30 club.
You could feel a surge of expectation each time Carbon/Silicon -- featuring Mick Jones (the Clash, B.A.D.) and Tony James (Generation X, Sigue Sigue Sputnik) -- launched into another hummable, mid-tempo rocker -- which is to say, every single song.
But the only time Jones dipped directly into his past was when he incorporated "Police on My Back" into the long, set-closing "Why Do Men Fight." (And sadly, there were no Big Audio Dynamite, Sputnik or Gen-X covers, either.)
Still, the rest of Carbon/Silicon's songs hewed close to the Clash's pub-punk-pop, so the old-school fans in the crowd could still shake their 50-something bodies as if "Should I Stay or Should I Go" were blasting from the speakers.
Jones and James were dressed in smart suits -- which seems to be the preferred the look for aging punkers -- but they smiled and danced like kids getting their first big break. Jones's between-song banter was filled with silly jokes, self-deprecating asides and a congenial goofiness -- all of which his old pal James appreciated with a bemused grin.
Dominic Greensmith (drums) and former B.A.D. member Leo Williams (bass) rounded out the quartet, but Carbon/Silicon is definitely the Jones & James show. With Jones as the lead singer and guitarist -- James stepped out front only for a cover of Tim Hardin's "Reason to Believe" -- the group bounced through 10 songs in 70 minutes, including "The News," "War on Culture" and "The Magic Suitcase."
Maybe Carbon/Silicon isn't the Clash, but it's a comforting cyborg.
-- Christopher Porter
