The Clash’s Mick Jones shares his Rock & Roll collection for the ages

70s punk band The Clash chose W10 as the grounds from which they rose, documented in Joe Strummer’s little-seen short film Hell W10, which saw its members tied up in a crime underworld soundtracked by back-to-back Clash tracks. Placehood, film, music, and literature are the foundations of each member’s origin story, including that of co-founder and lead guitarist Mick Jones. Serving West London to the world, the Rock & Roll Public Library (RRPL) is the nomadic exhibition, collection, and publication made up of Mick Jones’ material life and times; a physical autobiography, curated by Mick himself, with Lauren Estelle Jones, Kirk Lake, Matt Jones, Alex Collishaw, and Brian Russel.

On RRPL’s core idea, Kirk Lake describes it as “the narrative idea of a young person gradually becoming more involved in the culture that surrounds them until they are making their own art, their own fanzines, their own music, then going on tour and being inspired by the people they meet and the places they go.” The collection is vast and thematically whittled down for each viewing experience. This time, RRPL took up residence in Mile End’s The Art Pavilion to celebrate the launch of its second issue. Both this issue and the accompanying exhibition lend towards an immersion into all the things that led to Mick’s experiences and achievements.

From the exhibition to the pages of its magazine, RRPL maintains a strong thematic structure. “Mick’s thinking is that the magazine is like a record and that each article is a track,” Kirk says, “So we work on the ordering of the pages, how they flow, in the same way he would’ve worked on the track listing for an album.” Cohesion and narrative are RRPL’s foundational elements. The room was carved into a dead tech section playing old clips, a theatrical rendition of a traditional British living room, a dedication to The Clash’s love for New York’s burgeoning hip-hop scene, songwriting artefacts, news clippings, a record library, and more.

In 2009, it was Mick’s old friend Jane Ashley that encouraged him to bring his personal collection to the public. This led to his first show at Chelsea Art School’s Chelsea Space, co-curated by Jane with Donald Smith, Crispin Chetwynd, Gordon McHarg III and Leo Williams. The follow-up featured a recording studio where Mick produced the band’s early tracks. After a few more iterations, Rock & Roll Public Library was officially born in 2015 with the efforts of Mick’s daughter Lauren Estelle Jones and curator James Putnam, marked by the 56th Biennale de Venezia and, later, 2019’s showing at Museo Jumex in México City. Mick’s collection then moved from West London to St. Leonards-On-Sea, which subsequently set the new archival system in motion.

Though the collection spans decades, RRPL chooses anemoia over nostalgia. “What we hope to do by mixing objects from different eras and juxtaposing items that may not immediately seem to connect is to show that there is an ongoing continuum of influence and inspiration,” Kirk shares. Page 35 of the magazine reads, “Scarcity wields potency in its authenticity.” These items are snapshots and windows into fleeting moments. The exhibition held up ripped pages of lyric notations and album ideations – on a particular page Mick writes, “This new album we’ve made – at the moment (unmixed) it sounds pretty good to me…” Number one on the list stands Grammy Hall of Fame track ‘London Calling’, described as pretty good.