RAY LOWRY: LONDON CALLING at the IDEA GENERATION GALLERY

The Clash’s London Calling is a classic case of an album being spoiled by carrying too much flab, excess baggage and a suffering from a puffed out sense of its own importance. Move “Train In Vain” to side one, drop “Jimmy Jazz”, bin sides 3 and 4 completely and hey presto – they’d have had a decent record.

The sleeve though can stay. Designed by Ray Lowry and using Pennie Smith’s blurry photo of Paul Simonon it’s as good an album artwork as you’ll find. Using that as a starting point, 30 artists, performers, writers and assorted odd bods have donated new works to be auctioned to raise money for the Ray Lowry Foundation which provides funding to aspiring art students.

John Squire goes for a numbered cube painting, Tracey Emin describes first hearing the album, Harry Hill displays a hitherto unseen artistic flair with a large oil painting of The Clash bedded in the earth, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon offer pieces, Clash road manager Johnny Green pens a personal tribute (see above), Ian Wright’s (not that one) torn paper collage is a highlight as is Lennie Payne’s version of the cover produced on – wait for it - twelve slices of toast.

Ray Lowry died in 2008 and many examples of his inky sketches for the NME and the others are exhibited and offered for sale (they don't do anything for me mind). You’ve until 1st July to bid for the others.

Ray Lowry: London Calling is at the Idea Generation Gallery, 11 Chance Street, Bethnal Green, London E2 until 4th July 2010, admission free.

MICK JONES: ROCK & ROLL PUBLIC LIBRARY

Less an exhibition and more like rummaging through a Camden Market stall from the early 90’s. Or my old bedroom.

A mass of music and pop-culture items scrunched into the tiny Chelsea Space. A Hank Williams poster and belt bucket, badges, videos, Sex Pistols flyers, Jones’s Clash stage clothes (okay, I never had any of those), gold discs (or those), weather-beaten LPs, figurines of monkeys playing instruments, homemade cassettes, music papers and fanzines, Stan Bowles painting, film stills, recording equipment, books and so it goes on.

Whereas I eventually ran out of space and stopped collecting (also began thinking “just what am I going to do with a Charlie’s Angels figure or another issue of Record Mirror just because it’s got Georgie Fame on the cover”?), Jones got himself a gigantic lock-up in Acton to store his treasure chest of goodies and now wants the public to have access to it. The Chelsea Space only has tiny fraction on display as a taster and the details of how Jones’s Rock & Roll Public Library will work are still sketchy but I can’t wait to say “I’d like to borrow Mod Grooving Part Two please”.

Mick Jones: The Rock and Roll Public Library, Chelsea Space, Chelsea College of Art and Design, 16 John Islip Street, London, SW1P 4JU. 18 March to 18 April 2009.