More Bands In Places They Shouldn't Be

Following my two previous posts in this series, the first here and the second here, today I offer you some more television appearances from bands whose pluggers and record labels booked them onto tv programmes that may in retrospect have been a little ill advised. The mid 80s was a golden period for this sort of thing with bands miming on lunchtime television, early evening chat shows and children's tv in order to shift more singles.  

In October 1985 Prefab Sprout appeared on Hold Tight, filmed and broadcast by one of Scotland's regional independent broadcasters. The actual appearance was at Alton Towers, the Staffordshire theme park. Prefab Sprout are playing their classic 80s single When Love Breaks Down. It doesn't look especially warm. The crowd are seated in temporary seating, swaying on demand and largely out of time. Paddy McAloon attempts to hide his embarrassment behind a pair of aviators. The band spend much of their time concentrating on remaining steady on the swaying, springy platforms. 

On 5th January 1980 The Clash, who famously refused to do Top Of The Pops because they wouldn't mime, appeared on TISWAS, ITV's Saturday morning kids tv show.  The four members are interviewed by Sally James and offer a copy of London Calling as a prize for a lucky viewer. Sally keeps talking, presumably in an attempt to make sure no one swears. Topper is clearly stoned. At two minutes thirty nine seconds Paul leans over to spit on the floor in front of a group of small children. It's all over fairly quickly, probably to everyone's relief. 

In 1990 Ice T appeared on BBC2's art programme The Late Show. Nothing that incongruous in some ways- it was an arts programme after all- but somehow Ice T, at that point the leading exponent of gangsta rap, guns, chains and women in tiny bikinis, appearing on a fairly staid and stiff arts programme more used to hosting panel discussions of the writings of Salman Rushdie, is all kinds of dissonance. In this section, closing the programme, Ice T does Lethal Weapon. His rapping, done live, is flawless and the sense of LA menace is palpable in front of a completely, sterile empty BBC studio. 

The show was already a music lover's dream, if not for the right reasons. In November 1989 The Stone Roses were riding the crest of a very large wave and pitched up on The Late Show midweek, an accident waiting to happen. The programme went out live, Tracey MacLeod introducing the fourpiece playing Made Of Stone live, the band looking impossibly cool and sounding on it as well. As they hit the first chorus John Squire's guitar hits the BBC's noise limiters and the sound cuts out suddenly. Drummer Reni begins giggling. Ian begins to ask questions. Tracey returns to the camera and apologises, moving on to the next item (about photographer Martin Parr). 'They ask you to come and then they mess you about', Ian complains behind her. 'We're wasting our time lads', he goes on, and then louder, 'Amateurs, amateurs'. It is brilliant TV, and let's be honest, much better and more memorable than if they'd just played Made Of Stone. 

Forty Minutes Of Covers Of The Clash

To follow last week's post of The Clash sampled, edited and remixed, this week has a a forty minute set of covers of Clash songs by other artists. When I started to put a shortlist together I realised there's enough material for two or three editions. I thought of theming it- a dub mix, rock mix and so on but then in the spirit of Sandinista! decided to sling different styles together, so we go from dub to rockabilly and back again with several other points visited in between. The Clash's songs stand up well to being covered- the sheer variety is testament to their songs and the distance they travelled between White Riot in 1977 and Death Is A Star in 1983. 

Forty Minutes Of Covers Of The Clash

• Terry Edwards And The Scapegoats: Version City
• Megative: Ghetto Defendant
• Infantry Rockers: Rebel Waltz
• The Afghan Whigs: Lost In The Supermarket
• Citizen Sound ft. Prince Blanco and Ammoye: One More Time
• Hinds: Spanish Bombs
• Jimmy Cliff: Guns Of Brixton
• Lily Allen and Mick Jones: Straight To Hell
• The Pistoleers: Bank Robber
• Dub Spencer and Trance Hill: Train In Vain

Punk trumpeter Terry Edwards recorded covers of the Mary Chain, Bowie and The Fall with his Scapegoats as well as being a member of Gallon Drunk. It is typically punk of him to decide to cover Version City, a Sandinista! side 6 song and hence unlikely to have been heard by many but the most committed. 

Megative are from New York City. Their cover of Ghetto Defendant (a Combat Rock highlight, rocking dub with Allen Ginsburg on board) came as a bonus song on their 2018 album No Fear. 

The Afghan Whigs use Topper's Train In Vain drumbeat for their cover of one of Mick's greatest London Calling era songs, a single that never was. Greg Dulli et al recorded it for a tribute album that came out in 1999. 

Shatter The Hotel came out in 2009, a reggae/ dub album of Clash covers with Don Letts doing London Calling and Creation Rockers, Dub Antenna and Chomsky Allstars all feature. It's a really good album, good versions from start to finish. For this mix I included Infantry Rockers doing Rebel Waltz (a real lesser known Clash gem) and Citizen Sound's One More Time. Infantry Rockers are from Wisconsin with members from Venezuela, Sierra Leone, Costa Rica and Jamaica, which couldn't be more Clash if it tried. I can't find much info about Citizen Sound. Prince Blanco featured in last week's mix with 22 Davis Road

Hinds are four young women from Spain. In 2020 they kicked the living daylights out of one of London Calling's best songs, Joe conflating 70s mass tourism, the Spanish Civil War of 1936- 1939 and the terror campaign by ETA. If you're going to cover The Clash, do it properly. As Hinds do. 

Jimmy Cliff's cover of Guns Of Brixton came out on his Sacred Fire EP in 2011. Paul Simonon's lyrics refer to Ivan, the lead character in the Harder They Come. Ivan was of course played by Jimmy Cliff. 

Lily Allen and Mick recorded Straight To Hell for a War Child album in 2009. Lily's Dad Keith was a friend of Joe's and he was a regular visitor to their home. 

The Pistoleers covered Bank Robber in rockabilly style for a 2003 tribute album, This Is Rockabilly Clash- I'm fairly sure the first time I heard this was when it was played by Andrew Weatherall. 

Dub Spencer and Trance Hill are a Swiss dub outfit who released an entire album of dub versions of Clash songs back in 2011. It's quality stuff from top to tail not least when they tackle the less- dub oriented songs, like Train In Vain. 

Half An Hour Of The Clash Edited, Sampled And Remixed

The Clash, remixed, edited and sampled for a thirty three minute blast of Strummer/ Jones energy and invention for your Sunday morning delectation. Best played loud. 

Half An Hour Of The Clash Edited, Sampled And Remixed 

• Return To Brixton (SW2 Dub)
• Dancing (Not Fighting)
• Rock The Spectre (Peza Edit)
• Magnificent Dub (Leo Zero Edit)
• I'm Not Down (Hold Your Head Up)
• Davis Road Blues (Don Letts Culture Clash Radio Version)

In 1990 The Clash had a number one single eight years after they split up (for the purposes of this we'll take Mick being sacked from the band as the actual moment they split up even though the five man Clash rumbled on for two years with a largely unloved album and a busking tour that those involved seemed to enjoy). Should I Stay Or Should I Go went to number one and saw a surge in Clash related activity, one of which was the record company CBS reissuing Paul's 1979 song Guns Of Brixton in remixed form as Return To Brixton. The remixes of Return To Brixton, three of them on the 12", were done by DJ Jeremy Healy.

Edit: it occurs to me now that the re- issue/ remixes of Guns Of Brixton were in response to the bassline being sampled for Norman Cook's chart topping single Dub Be Good To Me as Beats International, number one in January 1990. 

Dancing Not Fighting came out last year, a thumping, beat driven, high octane Jezebell release that  samples Mick Jones screaming at bouncers in the film Rude Boy, trying to get them to stop beating up Clash fans. The band disowned the film by the time it came out but the live footage of the band is among the finest committed to tape by anyone, anywhere. Here they are in July 1978 doing (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais at the Glasgow Apollo. 

This seven minute clip has them powering through Complete Control, Safe European Home and What's My Name at the Music Machine in Camden a few weeks later. 

Rock The Spectre is a Peza edit, what happens when the Strummer and Jones vocals from Rock The Casbah are played over Mystic Thug's Brocken Spectre (Mystic Thug is Tici Taci's Duncan Gray). What happens is you get the song completely recast in a new light, reborn, Mick and Joe's voices over a throbbing piece of slinky 2023 chug. Joe's vocal particularly shows he gave absolutely everything in the studio. 

Magnificent Dub is a Leo Zero edit, the Magnificent Dance (a B-side to the Magnificent 7 single, released in 1981, inspired by the band's time in New York and Mick especially being taken with the brand new hip hop culture). Some of the vocals Leo throws into this edit are from the band playing live at Bonds, Times Square and various people having a go at the bassline ((played originally by Norman Watt- Roy when Simonon was out of town filming The Fabulous Stains). Leo also inserts some sections from the unreleased, unofficial Larry Levan version of Mag 7. 

In 2005 when mash up culture was the big new thing a whole host of artists/ bedroom bootleggers threw everything they had at a completely remixed, re- edited and mashed up version of the album London Calling. The Clash found themselves (unofficially) rubbing shoulders with The Streets, Peaches, Vanilla Ice, Chuck D, Outkast and host of others sampled artists. It was massive fun. E-jitz took Mick's 1979 album track I'm Not Down and spliced it with the vocal from Boris Dlugosch's speed house track from 1997, Hold Your Head Up (vocal courtesy of Inaya Davis).

Davis Road Blues is a dub track by Prince Blanco with Mick's guitar from B.A.D.'s The Bottom Line and Joe's voice from a radio interview describing his first meeting with Mick and Paul that led to the formation of The Clash, a meeting that took place at 22 Davis Road, Shepherd's Bush (in a squat Paul shared with Sid Vicious and Viv Albertine).

Edit: the squat at 22 Davis Road has appreciated in value since the 1970s, as you'd expect. According to Rightmove 23 Davis Road was sold in 2018 for £480, 000 (that was just half the property, a ground floor two bedroom flat). Full houses on Davis Road, number 43 for example, go for around £840, 000 (2022 price). The 2020s version of Paul, Viv and Sidney must be living elsewhere.  

Forty Five Minutes Of Sandinista!

I think I've said before that while Sandinista! may not be the greatest Clash album, it is their most adventurous, their most inventive and where the spirit of the band truly lies. Once they realised that they couldn't play 1977 and Garageland forever, they had to move on and that led them backwards into their record collections (rockabilly, blues, reggae, ska, dub) and forwards into the future (rap, hip hop, funk). They went from White Riot to Death Is A Star in six years, exploring everything they could along the way. Joe said in Westway To The World, that they went out to engage with the world in all its infinite variety (or something similar). They were never going to be stuck playing Borstal Breakout for the rest of their lives.

London Calling was the purest distillation of this, nineteen perfectly pitched slices of Clash. Sandinista! was The Clash doing whatever they wanted across the course of a year- 1980- starting with the recording of Bankrobber in Pluto Studio, Manchester and leading them back to London, to Jamaica and to New York. The idea that Sandinista! could have been a superb single disc album or double vinyl opus or a killer EP misses the point. Sandinista! is complete Clash. The roots of all of Joe's solo career, from his soundtracks to Earthquake Weather to the three albums with The Mescaleros are in Sandinista! as are the origins of Big Audio Dynamite. Fast forward to the 21st century and Mick and Paul turn up in Damon Albarn's touring version of Gorillaz, a band playing a hybrid, pick 'n' mix version of dub, pop, hip hop, funk, and whatever else- that's Sandinista! 

Forty Five Minutes Of Sandinista!

This is not an attempt to produce a perfect version of the album, a reduced version or a best of. It's some of Sandinista! mixed together, some of the lesser known songs and the ones where the spirit of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Topper Headon and the rest of the cast that contributed to the sessions can be found, a cast that takes in Mickey Gallagher and Norman Watt- Roy (The Blockheads), Tymon Dogg, Mikey Dread, Ellen Foley, Don Hegarty (Darts), Gary Barnacle, Ivan Julian (Voidoids), Style Scott, Pennie Smith and cartoonist Steve Bell. There's something about the songs too which lend themselves to being sequenced together, seguing from one to another.

• Mensforth Hill
• The Crooked Beat
• Broadway
• Rebel Waltz
• One More Time
• One More Dub
• The Street Parade
• Something About England
• Up In Heaven (Not Only Here)
• If Music Could Talk
• Washington Bullets

Mensforth Hill is Something About England played backwards, the tapes reversed and with bits of Joe's studio chatter from New York's Electric Ladyland dropped in, the whooshing and rushing effects fading in and out. On the album it sits between Charlie Don't Surf and Junkie Slip. Here it is a slow, experimental entry to forty five minutes of deep Clash.

The Crooked Beat is Paul Simonon's tribute to South London blues parties with a lovely wandering dub bassline. Recorded in September 1980 it was one of the last songs recorded for the album, produced by Mikey Dread who drops in some additional vocals at the end. 

Broadway is a Strummer masterpiece, a mellow, late night, jazz inflected song for the bars of NYC. Joe's lyrics concern a meeting with a homeless man and former boxer in New York, Joe riffing on the sights and sounds of the city at night, a Scorcese film set to music. 

Rebel Waltz is a true hidden gem in the group's back catalogue and the album's tracklist. The lyrics are pure Strummer, a dream of armies and the losses of war. The music is Mick experimenting with playing a waltz crossed with dub, recorded at Wessex in London. The Clash as a folk band, in the truest sense of the word.

One More Time and One More Dub have to be taken together, the superb Clash- reggae of the first half dubbed out by Mikey Dread for the second. Joe sings of the poverty of the ghettoes, the civil rights movement and the Watts riots of 1965.

The Street Parade is another lesser known gem, hidden away at the end of side five on vinyl. On release some listeners may have taken ages to get to side five. The Street Parade is about losing oneself in the crowd, Strummer disappearing into the mass. The music is gorgeous, Topper and Mick showing by this point they could turn their hand to anything and do it well, with horns and marimbas carrying a Latin feel.

Something About England is a key Strummer- Jones song, marrying English music hall with lyrics spanning the 20th century, the wars, the Depression, the rebuilding of the cities and the British class system, Joe and Mick trading verses in character. 'They say the immigrants steal the hubcaps/ Of respected gentlemen/ They say it would be wine and roses/ If England were for Englishmen again', Mick sings at the start, the racism of Farage and Braverman rooted in the late 70s. 

Up In Heaven (Not Only Here) is one of Sandinista!'s few out and out rock songs, a Mick Jones guitar song with ringing lead lines and crunching riffs. Mick sings of the tower blocks he grew up in and the lives of the people that live in them. 'The wives hate their husbands/ The husbands don't care'.

If Music Could Talk is a New York song that began in Manchester, jazz blues of late night bars and not one but two Joe vocals. The backing track was recorded at Pluto with Mikey Dread and then added to later, sax wailing and floating on top. Joe's words take in Bo Diddley, Errol Flynn, Isaac Newton and Samson. 

Washington Bullets seemed the perfect place to close (though I was tempted to put one of side six's dubs last) if only because it finishes with Joe singing the album's title over the organ as it fades out. Lyrically Joe casts his eye over the USA's foreign policy in the 20th century, Chile, Cuba and Nicaragua (and the USSR's too in Afghanistan and Tibet) with a mention for Victor Jara, the Chilean singer, poet, writer and activist murdered by the CIA backed coup in 1973. Musically it started as many songs did, Topper arriving in the studio first and messing around while engineer Bill Price pressed the record button. The others would turn up one by one and start overdubbing and soon, as Bill Price says, 'we had thirty- five songs'. 

Saturday Live

The Clash live at Le Palace in Paris, 27th February 1980, a one off gig specially arranged for French TV, a programme produced by  the legendary Antoine de Caunes- from The Clash to Eurotrash. The opening sequence and titles for the French TV programme Chorus are worth watching in themselves, rapid fire animation, scratching and cut and paste snatches of punk and reggae songs, all so 1980 it's like the last forty three years haven't happened. Then blamm! Joe and the boys power into Koka Kola, Joe in fine voice and Mick's guitar squealing over the heavyweight rumble of bass and drums, with Mickey Gallagher's keyboards, stage right behind Paul.Without a pause they steam into I Fought The Law and they sound great, thrillingly alive and on it. London Calling was at this point a new release, it came out just two months previously and the songs were new and fresh. 

Joe's pidgeon French patter between songs, a brief bit of respite from playing at one thousand miles an hour, is fun- 'maintenant, woaghaghwoa' he says, introducing Spanish Bombs, and then, 'very good, tres bien mes amis, fuckin' tres bien... maintenant Wrong 'Em Boyo mate'. The French crowd are understandably enthusiastic, crammed right up against the lip of the stage, no barriers or photographer's pit in 1980. 

It goes without saying that a band is only as good as it's drummer. Topper here is, as Sandy Pearlman said, a human drum machine. The front three, the Best, Law and Charlton of punk, step back and forth from the mics, instinctively doing vox and backing vox, switching places, Mick going centre stage for Stay Free, Paul leather trousers and splayed legs, Fender Precision bass worn low. They knew exactly when to gather together and when to step apart.

Janie Jones takes everyone back to 1977 and is followed by Topper's drum intro to a white hot Complete Control, then Garageland and Tommy Gun. The set here, half an hour long for French TV, is a truncated version of the full gig. It's been released on DVD in Australia and New Zealand but not here (as far as I know). There were four songs played that night that precede the ones played above- Jimmy Jazz, London Calling, Protex Blue and Train In Vain, but they don't seem to be Youtube at the moment. It doesn't really matter, the nine we have here are the real thing (and in many ways better than the official Clash live recordings available over the years. The Shea Stadium CD was OK but was post- Topper and Westway To The World was a live compilation recorded at various gigs between 1977 and 1983 with some great performances and recordings but not one single night with the band). Watch this for half an hour today and marvel- this band once existed in real time, playing these gigs in real life to paying customers for a couple of quid (or the 20 francs it cost get into the Le Palace that night).

Skyscraper...

Back to Monday's postees Underworld. Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You is a standout track on dubnobasswithmyheadman, the second track in riding in on thumping tom toms, the sounds pulling you in as if descending from the clouds and then Karl takes the vocal reins with his found fragments of conversation, 'thirty thousand feet above the earth/ It's a beautiful thing'. The track goes on, rolling and tumbling, thirteen minutes of progressive dance music with stream of consciousness poetry, Elvis, porn dogs sniffing the wind, Jesus, Chris on crutches, whipped cream and God on the phone. Epic is a word often used with Underworld and it is entirely appropriate- but there's a darkness coupled with a beautiful melodicism in their epic sound constructions, all welded to the dancefloor by Darren Emerson's rhythms. 

The 12" of Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You came with two different versions. Jam Scraper has fewer vocals, and is more acid house, with a bleepy intro, long synth chords, and some of Karl's guitar lines further forward. One of those Underworld tracks where everything happens slowly but at pace. It was originally intended to be the one on dubnobasswithmyheadman and it's clear to see why they reverted to the original version, it's more song oriented, more of an album track, but Jam Scraper is a fine version, a flight in of its own right and a track to lose yourself in. 

Mmm... Skyscraper I Love You (Jam Scraper)

The enigmatic song title it turns out was staring us in the face for years. A while back a friend pointed it out to me. In 1981 Pennie Smith published a book of photographs she took while on tour with The Clash, The Clash: Before And After. It is the stuff rock 'n' roll dreams are made of. And on the wall in the photo of Mick Jones below, bequiffed and smoking while tuning his Les Paul, is some graffiti... 

Taking Cover In The Bunker Tonight

I've said it before here and I'll probably end up saying it again, Sandinista! may not be the best Clash album but it could well be their greatest achievement- thirty six tracks over six sides of vinyl, covering every conceivable style of music they could think of, self produced at various locations from Pluto Studio in Manchester to The Power Station in New York and Channel One in Kingston, Jamaica, with a range of guests and extra players (including but not only Ellen Foley, Norman Watt Roy, Mickey Gallagher, Tymon Dogg, Mikey Dread, Ivan Julian, Den Hegarty, Gary Barnacle, Lew Lewis and Style Scott) and the band believing they were getting one over on CBS by putting out six sides of vinyl at a pay no more than £5.99 price. 

Every side (well, almost every side, side six is admittedly an opinion splitter) has stone cold classic or genuine lost/ hidden gems and even a conservative estimate would say the following songs were essential Clash- The Magnificent Seven, Something About England, Rebel Waltz, The Crooked Beat, Somebody Got Murdered, One More Time and One More Dub, Up In Heaven (Not Only Here), Police On My Back, The Call Up, Washington Bullets, Broadway, Charlie Don't Surf, Kingston Advice and The Street Parade. Tucked away on side five is possible the most Sandinista!- esque of all the songs on Sandinista!

If Music Could Talk

The music is from recoding session done with Mikey Dread at Pluto in February 1980, an instrumental backing track called Shepherd's Delight (which re- appears in dub form at the very end of side six), clearly derived from juices flowing while they recorded Bankrobber in Manchester in the snow. Now moved to New York and inspired by the city, it's nightlife and the people that live there, Joe Strummer lays down an astonishing stream of consciousness talking blues, reeling in a cast including Bo Diddley, Errol Flynn, Joe Ely, Sir Isaac Newton, the sale of London Bridge to a town in Arizona, Buddy Holly and Elvis, a voodoo shaman and Samson, Fender guitars and Mexican suits, the drummer man, wall Street and Electric Ladyland. 'Let's hear what the drunk man's got to say', he exclaims at one point. Later on, Strummer ad libs into a conversation with a girl he bumps into in a bar and asks if she needs 'a cowboy in bus depot jeans'. 

Strummer, Jones and engineer Bill price split the vocals into the left and right channel, two Strummers at once. Sax comes from Clash friend Gary Barnacle, overdubbed in Wessex back in London later on and as the horn wails away and the dub backing thunders on, Joe's voice comes in from left and right, the sound of New York at night captured and of music talking. 

Half An Hour Of Kids

A bit of a diversion from my Sunday mix series of (roughly) thirty minute mixes of tracks and songs by a single artist- today's mix is themed around the sound of children's voices/ children's choirs. Do not fear though, there are no St Winifred's School Choirs here, no Primary School end of year shows. This is I hope a bit further left of there. Sometimes the use of children's voices in songs can be quite unsettling, that combination of sweetly sung innocence and the feeling of something being lost. Sometimes they provide a higher register counterpoint. Sometimes they add to a sense of trippiness and dislocation. Sometimes they just sound good, a contrast to adult voices and instruments. Sometimes, as The Clash and Mickey Gallagher's kids prove, they're a joke to ensure that Sandinista! had six songs on each side, making thirty six songs in total. 

Thirty Minute Kids Mix

• Family Of God: Family Of God
• Frank Ocean, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon: Hero
• The Children Of Sunshine: It's A Long Way To Heaven
• The Avalanches Ft Jamie Xx, Neneh Cherry and Calypso: Wherever You Go
• Gorillaz: Dirty Harry
• Soul II Soul: Get A Life
• Poly High: Midnight Cowboy
• The Clash: Career Opportunities

It's only right I should give a nod of the head to David Holmes whose crate digging inspired some of this mix. He played the Poly High song on his Desert Island Disco on Lauren Laverne's 6 Mix show earlier this year, included the Family Of God track on a free CD that was given away with the NME in 2000 and put the Children Of Sunshine song on his superb Late Night Tales compilation from 2016. The Frank Ocean, Paul Simonon and Mick Jones song was a one off done with/ for Converse in 2014, produced by Diplo, with the West Los Angeles Children's Choir providing backup. The Avalanches song also has Mick Jones playing on it but this time piano not guitar, and samples The Voyager, NASA's tape for aliens, currently somewhere out there way further than any of us have ever been. The album We Will Always Love You came out in 2020. Gorillaz, Damon with Dangermouse, was released in 2005.  Soul II Soul's Get A Life was a huge hit in 1989 and includes Jazzy B's still excellent advice- 'Be selective, be objective, be an asset to the collective/ As you know, you got to get a life'. Something in that for all of us perhaps. 

This Is Joe Public Speaking

In September 1977 The Clash released their third single, the adrenaline rush, punk high watermark and righteous fury that is Complete Control. Written and recorded in a fit of disgust at CBS who had put out Remote Control as a single, a song that was already available to fans on the band's debut album (the single came with a B-side that was a live version of London's Burning to add to the sense that fans were being ripped off). In the hyper- consumerist days of late stage capitalism that is 2022 you could be forgiven for thinking that there are worse things a record company could do than release an already available song as a single but that's to underestimate things. For The Clash this was a sure sign that their record company were the enemy. 

Complete Control

Complete Control is The Clash's single most exhilarating moment in a career full of them, a high octane rush of guitars, Topper's drums (his first recording since joining), Joe's voice and a lyrical state of the punk rock nation address. It starts out with their disgust at CBS releasing Remote Control...

'They said 'release Remote Control'/ But we didn't want it on the label' 

...and then goes elsewhere, record company press jaunts next in the firing line...

'They said 'fly to Amsterdam'/ the people laughed/ the press went mad'

For a band as obsessed with smoking weed as The Clash you'd think they'd be happy to go to Amsterdam but they won't be told to go. The song's title, referenced in the next line, comes from a meeting with the group's manager Bernie Rhodes at The Ship on Wardour Street, who kept saying he wanted complete control. Strummer and Simonon had to leave the pub, collapsing through laughing so much. Again, the state of punk in 1977- Rhodes (and Pistols manager McLaren) demanded control of their bands. The bands didn't want to be controlled by anyone. Or at least, seen to be. The group's run ins with the law and habit of letting ticketless fans in to gigs by pushing open fire exits get a verse too, punk credentials further established. Joe and Mick are still furious though, ramping up the lyrical content to match the adrenaline rush of the guitars with lines about being 'artistically free' and 'bits of paper' and record companies who want to 'make a lot of money and worry about it later'. Joe's so angry that during the guitar solo he takes the Mick down snarling 'you're my guitar hero'. Mick must have been happy to leave this in. Mick was happy to be a guitar hero, even in the No Beatles, Elvis or Rolling Stones frenzy of 1977. 

The second half of the song breaks down, a brief pause from Mick's wall of treble, with Joe adopting the point of view of tabloid press and TV news and their view of punk as 'dirty, filthy... ain't gonna last'. The call and response vocals between Joe and Mick are incredible, a weapon lots of the other punk bands didn't have- 'Control/ C- O- N/ Control'. Everything about Complete Control, all three minutes and ten seconds of it, is as good as punk rock guitar music can be.

Lee 'Scratch' Perry produced Complete Control. He heard their cover of Police And Thieves, was in London with Bob Marley and The Wailers and invited to come to Sarm East studios in Whitechapel to produce. Legend has it that the group, Mick especially, took Lee's production and re- produced it somewhat, bringing the guitars further forward, dialing the dub echo down. In the punk rock cauldron of autumn 1977 you can understand why- a weirded out dub version of the song would have been confusing and at odds. Jon Savage, so disappointed with the band by the time of Give 'Em Enough Rope that he penned the line 'so do they squander their greatness' in a review of that album, said in England's Dreaming that Complete Control was not a 'piece of cynicism [but] a hymn to Punk autonomy at its moment of eclipse'. 

In 1999, promoting The Clash's posthumous live album From Here To Eternity a live version of Complete Control was released by CBS. The album jumps about, live versions from different venues and different years and despite this holds up well. Complete Control is from The Clash's lengthy residency at Bond's Casino, Times Square, New York, in 1981 (13th June to be exact). The fire that fuelled them writing it and recording it in 1977 is still burning brightly- it's an incendiary and hair raising version, Mick's guitars firing on all cylinders, Joe at his very best, and Topper's drumming is ' incredible- his kick drum at the start, the snare drum during the 'all over the news spread fast' section and his fills as the song rushes towards its conclusion- especially. This version has popped up on my mp3 player during my drive to work three times this week, every time sounding as exciting as it possibly could. 

Complete Control (Live at Bond's)

Meanwhile, In Frestonia

The Clash's re- issue programme continues with a forthcoming special edition of Combat Rock released for the album's fortieth anniversary. Combat Rock, the last album by Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon, is the definition of uneven. Mick was holding out for another double, a sixteen song whopper/ double album. Everyone else wanted something more concise that might push them to another level in the USA. They tried mixing it while on tour in Australia and the Far East and eventually Glyn Johns was brought in to mix it, shorten some of the songs and cut the number of songs. This did nothing to repair the fracturing relationship of Mick and Joe. Mick was already smarting from the return of Bernie Rhodes. Topper was sacked by the time they took Combat Rock on tour. The end.

Combat Rock is still full of golden moments though wildly uneven as I said above- two enormous singles (one written by the soon to be ex- drummer), some funk and rap, some agit- prop, some spoken word stuff, a few killer album songs, Allen Ginsberg, Sean Flynn and the weird, stunning modern jazz/ soundtrack finale of Death Is A Star. It's all along way from Janie Jones and White Riot. The re- issue is coupled with a bonus disc (two CDs, three vinyl although only five sides of the vinyl contain music) called The People's Hall, an attempt to entice the collector with extra/ new material. The bonus material is pulled together from a variety of sources, much released elsewhere in previous re- issue campaigns. It's named after the venue the group rehearsed in Frestonia, a heavily squatted part of West London that tried to secede from the UK in the late 70s and form a breakaway republic. It's a strange collection of songs, some that aren't even from that period (Outside Bonds and Radio Clash date from prior to the Combat Rock sessions when The Clash took over New York, played Bonds and recorded Sandinista!), some from B-sides from Combat Rock singles (First Night Back In London, Long Time Jerk- both intended for Mick's double that never happened that he wanted to call Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg), previously unreleased alternative versions of Sean Flynn and Know Your Rights, an unreleased instrumental called He Who Dares or Is Tired, The Fulham Connection (which seems to be The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too outtake renamed), Midnight To Stevens (a tribute to Guy Stevens which was first released on the Clash On Broadway box set) and Radio One with Mickey Dread (B-side, previously released). There is a booklet and a poster. The CD is fourteen quid. The vinyl is just shy of fifty. 

*shrugs*

Two pieces of Clash related music for you today. The first is an edit of The Magnificent Seven (The Magnificent Dub actually) by Leo Zero, dating back to either 2012 or 1981 depending on how you look at it. Leo has cut the song up in fine style, looping Norman Watt Roy's bass riff, adding some sound from a gig along with sections of Joe's vocal and new drum loops. Nine minutes of fun. 

The Magnificent Dub (Leo Zero Edit)

Much more recently, Jezebell (rapidly becoming a weekly fixture at these pages) released a new EP called Dancing (Not Fighting), built around a sample of Mick Jones berating the bouncers at a gig, it's a riot of drums and bass and horns, acid punk funk, with remixes from Matt Gunn and Markus Cooper. All proceeds to assist the victims of Putin's war in Ukraine. get it at Bandcamp. 

Without People You're Nothing

Most years since I started this blog I've marked the anniversary of Joe Strummer's death and this year more than ever I think I'll do that. A few weeks ago I began thinking about a post about Sandinista! and how rather than being the outlier in The Clash's back catalogue it is actually the record that contains the absolute essence of The Clash and how it is an album that makes more and more sense as each year passes. That post never got written and I don't have the space to do it right now but we'll do Joe anyway. 

In 1983 The Clash released Combat Rock and one of the songs was Sean Flynn, a seven minute lament (before it got cut down for the final record) for Sean Flynn, the photographer son of the actor Errol who went to Vietnam and was never seen again, murdered in 1971 either by Vietcong or Khmer Rouge. Topper plays south- east Asian drums and percussion, Gary Barnacle adds sax and Mick Jones creates texture and mood with guitar and echo box. Meanwhile Joe sings of the missing photographer, the son of a Hollywood legend, lost in the jungles of a war that consumed the USA for over a decade and that achieved nothing.

Sean Flynn (Extended Marcus Music Version)

A few years later in 1990, his band split and gone and Joe struggling to find his place in the world he recorded a song for the film I Hired A Contract Killer. Burning Lights is in the film and came out on 7", backed on the B-side by The Pogues. On the A- side it's just Joe and that chugging guitar sound and some hard won wisdom/ poetry. 

'And I've been a long haul driver

Moving things but the cops don't know

Now I can see the writing

You are the last of the buffalo

Burning lights in the desert

Such a sign only you would know

Your running tires, they're out of pressure

Such a sign only you would know.

Now I've been to California

And I've been to New South Wales

Sometimes, I pull over

When I realize I've left no trace'

Burning Lights

Joe came back in the late 90s after a decade in the wilderness, rebuilding his life and his music. Moving to Somerset seemed to fix him. He became a regular at Glastonbury, his campfire a home for like minded souls. His famous quote, 'without people you're nothing', came from a radio interview which you can find here. 

Songs For Isaac 4

As well as a 7" of North Country Boy by The Charlatans my friend Neil bought Isaac a copy of Train In Vain by The Clash (Dutch import release if you're interested). Mick's 1979 love song, famously attached to the end of London Calling after the sleeves had gone to print, has become a Clash classic even if at the time some people thought it was a bit corny. These songs outlive their birth though and the subject of song, Viv Albertine, has since said it's one of her favourite Clash songs. When their relationship was on the rocks Mick would get the train over from his flat to Viv's and she'd refuse to let him in. Hence, he was getting the train in vain. 

Train In Vain

Isaac loved trains and trams. He was quite happy to get the Metrolink or the train for the sole purpose of getting on and enjoying the ride, so the song is appropriate for that reason. The song rides in on Topper's chugging drums and when Lou was pregnant and people asked us if we'd thought of any names, I'd often say (only half jokingly) that he or she was going to be called Topper. I used to have a t-shirt with the cover of the first album on it, the photo Joe, Mick and Paul standing on the steps by Camden Roundhouse, and after a while I taught him to point to the members of the band and say 'Mick, Joe, Paul'. 

Three Card Trick

At the tail end of 1985 a band calling themselves The Clash released their sixth and final album, Cut The Crap. This version of the band, Clash Mk. II to some, was a post- Topper, post- Mick Jones version- Mick snarked that it took two guitarists to replace him following his unceremonious sacking by Joe and Paul. The two guitarists were Vince White and Nick Sheppard (Vince was actually Greg but re- christened by Paul Simonon who said Greg wasn't a rock 'n' roll enough name and threatened to quit). Drummer Pete Howard was the third unknown (replacing Terry Chimes who'd stepped in to replace Topper when they toured the States supporting Combat Rock and had chart hits, exposure and stadium gigs with The Who). The new version of The Clash had toured the west coast of the USA and were well received. Members of California punk bands have said the five man Clash were as good live as the original line up- but we can possibly take that with a small pinch of salt. If Paul had quit the group would have been over and maybe that would have been a neater ending, leaving Joe to lick his wounds and pour the songs he was writing into a solo album which is what Cut The Crap should have been. Defensive and angry Joe insisted the Clash Mk. II were going back to punk rock basics, cutting out the reggae and experimentation of Sandinista! and Combat Rock. Joe insisted anyone could write punk songs- despite the fact that almost all the music previously had been written by Mick. Joe, proving  a point to Mick who had frozen the band's assets legally,  wrote a song called We Are The Clash. 

In early 1985 the new Clah went into the recoding studio with abut twenty songs written, ready to record. Bernie Rhodes was back in the manager's chair and had been instrumental in Mick Jones' sacking for 'rock star posturing'. With little money to play with Bernie booked a studio in West Germany and an engineer (Michael Fayne) with affordability in mind and also because he had experience using drum machines. Either Joe or Bernie (or both) had decided they'd employ drum machines in response to and compete with Mick's experimental drum machines and sampling in the early stages of Big Audio Dynamite. Strummer's new songs and the demos of them (This Is England, Three Card Trick, Sex Mad Roar) were promising and Joe wanted them recorded quickly and with the new group, guitars to the fore. Rhodes became convinced he was no the band's producer and was on the cusp of a new genre combining cut ups and samples, drum machines, electro and Joe's voice on top. Paul rapidly lost interest. Bernie bullied drummer Pete Howard in the studio. Bernie wanted football crowds and massed chants on backing vocals, a nod to the busking tour the five men did the year before. Joe and Bernie clashed and apart from This Is England, which everyone agreed was a keeper, and the only song in the studio that all five members really contributed to. Bernie took over and Joe let him. Bernie filled all twenty four tracks on each song, cluttering the album and muddying the sound, the two guitarists contributing twin Les Paul guitar parts, drum machines clattering away and chanting choruses competing with samples and dialogue from the TV. Paul doesn't appear on it at all except in the inner sleeve photo. The cover is awful, a picture postcard punk/ collage. The press pulled it to pieces, the fans agreed on the whole, the band didn't like it- in 1986 Joe said he hated it. 

This Is England survived Cut The Crap, eventually re- admitted into a recent Clash compilation and Strummer himself claiming it as 'the last great Clash song'. But mainly what The Clash Mk. II proved was that Bernie had been a disaster and that Mick Jones was a/ the significant musical and song writing talent- Mick demonstrated this fully a month before the release of Cut The Crap with the debut B.A.D. album, a superb and easy sounding album full of drum machines, samples from films and catchy, relevant songs. 

Earlier this year Gerald Manns took Cut The Crap to pieces and rebooted it. Many of the songs from the album were available on bootlegs in a form more as Joe intended, from gigs and demos and Gerald and other fans claimed a decent Clash album existed inside Cut The Crap. Gerald has taken whatever versions he can get hold of as inspiration painstakingly, ripped Joe's vocals from Cut The Crap, cleaned them up and then reconstructed the songs. De- Berniated them, as he puts it. The reconstruction involved recreating Pete Howard's drum tracks using a drum machine/ programme that sounds like a real drummer and then rebuilding the guitars himself, playing along to what he can glean from the album. Gerald has since put his versions of the songs from Cut The Crap on Youtube, a reimagined version of the album along the lines of what could have been released if the Strummer/ Simonon, White/ Shepperd/ Howard group had recorded them as a band. They're worth a listen if nothing else and show what could have been if Joe had held his nerve and kept Bernie out of the studio (or if Paul had left as he threatened to and surely wanted to given his lack of involvement in the album, his loyalty to Joe the only thing keeping him in the band. If that had happened Joe and The Clash had ended there and then, Joe might have recorded these as his solo debut. The whole album is on Youtube but I'll offer a few highlights. 

Three Card Trick (Rebooted) rumbles nicely, Joe in good voice and the guitars slashing and burning, the sound of the 1985 five man Clash recreated at home. 

The Dictator (Rebooted) is another winner retrieved from the original album, Joe's voice audibly from an inferior source but sunk into a two guitar, straight ahead, heads down, retro punk sound. 

Ironically, This Is England (Rebooted) is the one that for me sounds least good, maybe because the version released in 1985 actually works and works well. This sounds smaller somehow and shows that drum machines and samples weren't necessarily the problem with Cut The Crap. I'll happily keep the original.  

The rest of the album is out there, you can find it all on Youtube if you're interested and I accept this is a very niche subject matter. You could argue that this entire enterprise is against the spirit of The Clash, who were always pressing forward and progressing in different directions, often many at the same time. But in the spirit of what things could have been like, it's worth giving the songs a go.

Joe and Paul went on to patch things up with Mick quickly and Joe produced and co- wrote the second B.A.D. album, No. 10 Upping Street, with Mick having tracked him down and apologising for sacking him. That album contained this, a song as good as anything either man wrote or recorded in the 1980s. 

V Thirteen (Extended)

This Is England, This Is How We Feel

The last few days have shown the worst of this country and the best too- the sadly predictable response by knuckle dragging racists to three young men missing penalties for England at Wembley on Sunday night, not to mention the behaviour of some of the fans in and around the stadium and central London, is profoundly depressing and enraging. 

The response by people in Withington, the part of South Manchester where I grew up, has been moving and uplifting, with heartfelt messages of thanks and inspiration left on the mural of Marcus Rashford which had been defaced by scumbags at some point on Sunday night. Marcus Rashford spent some of his childhood in Withington living close to Copson Street where the mural is (the picture below shows our visit last year). 

Marcus Rashford's own statement in response to events was powerful and moving, a statement of apology for missing a penalty (as if that were needed) and a defiant note against racism and intolerance. Teammate Tyrone Mings responded to Pritti Patel's shamelessness (denouncing racism this week, condemning the players for taking a stance against racism three weeks earlier), calling out her hypocrisy. It's easy to find events and the state of modern England dispiriting but the eloquence and defiance of the youth, both professional footballers and ordinary people interviewed on the news in Withington and elsewhere, is enough to make me hope for better in the future. One day the likes of Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and Pritti Patel will be gone and the upcoming generation will I think make a better job of things than ours is. 

Back in 1985 as The Clash spluttered to a conclusion Joe Strummer wrote a state of the nation address, the last great Clash song, This Is England. Joe looks around and sees the collapse of industry and loss of jobs, war in the South Atlantic, jingoism, police brutality, violence and racism. 'This is England/  This is how we feel', he laments.  

This Is England

Kirsty MacColl and Billy Bragg both claimed not to be looking for a new England, just another girl. But I think we all know they wanted both. Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? Nope, whatever it takes I reckon.

A New England (Extended Version)

Spanish Songs In Andalucia

Hinds, a four piece, all female guitar band from Madrid released a cover of Spanish Bombs last year- a frenetic, breakneck, shouty, exhilarating race through one of The Clash's finest moments. This is a lo- fi, energetic and wonderfully chaotic recording of the song that definitely captures the spirit of the band. I'm sure Joe would have loved it. 

Spanish Bombs

Futura Music

I've been feeling a bit out of inspiration this week. In Pennie Smith's book of photos of her time touring with The Clash in 1979 the band members provided captions- in one Joe Strummer wrote 'to have output, you gotta have input' and maybe that's the problem, not enough input recently. Tying that and some of this week's posts together (Unkle, David Axelrod, DJ Shadow) brings me to Futura 2000, the New York graffiti artist who provided words and artwork for The Clash. On their 1981 European tour he would paint the band's stage backdrop live behind them. Coincidentally I found this magical clip recently, Mick Jones playing guitar while Futura raps with Fab Five Freddie at the Bataclan in Paris, Mick looking every inch the hip hop/ punk rock star. 

Futura did the lyric sheet on Combat Rock and the sleeve for This Is Radio Clash and was instrumental in kicking off the French graffiti and urban art scene. In the 1990s he hooked up with James Lavelle and alongside Ben Drury worked on the sleeve art for Mo' Wax and Unkle- his distinctive graffiti aliens adorned the front cover of Psyence Fiction and established a strong visual identity for the label. Mick has largely retired from music. Ten years ago he resurrected Big Audio Dynamite for a tour of the UK. I missed it due to being on holiday, something I still regret. Last year Mick came out of his retirement and appeared on The Avalanches multi- guest star album We Will Always Love You. The song We Go On was one of the highlights, a bouncy, optimistic piece of cosmic pop built around a Karen Carpenter sample and a rap from Cola Boyy- 'we go on/ hurting each other' Mick and Karen sing. 

Mick's friend and Clash bandmate Joe Strummer died nearly two decades ago but previously unreleased recordings still surface. A solo best of called Assembly has just been released, remastered versions of the pick of his post- Clash work and featuring a 'new' solo acoustic recording of Joe singing Junco Partner, a song he sung throughout his adult life from The 101ers to The Clash, from Latino Rockabilly War to The Mescaleros. Junco Partner, a 50s New Orleans blues written by James Waynes for and about users and dealers, appears on Sandinista! in both reggae and dub versions and it's one of the handful of Clash songs that I'm a bit ambivalent about, I can take it or leave it.

Junco Partner

This version though, just Joe, a guitar and some echo, shows the man in fine voice.  

More Mores

Three more mores. The High came out of Manchester in 1990, four men with their backgrounds in various previous groups (not least drummer Chris Goodwin who was in an early version of Inspiral Carpets and guitarist Andy Couzens who left The Stone Roses when manager Gareth Evans convinced Squire and Brown that the song writing should be credited to them alone). The High's debut album Somewhere Soon and the singles that surrounded it were all fine fare, Byrdsian guitars, swirling 1990 rhythms and the clear voice of singer John Matthews. A year later they released More..., the lead song from a four track EP that should have taken them to the next level, it's chiming guitars and sweet singing were ready made for the charts and some music press front covers in 1991 but it all fell apart. 

More...

From a decade earlier, The Clash and the unmistakeable voice and influence of Mikey Dread on Sandinista! One More Dub is the second half of the righteous rock- reggae song One More Time with the rhythm section of Simonon and Headon proving they've mastered the dub swing. One More Dub closed side two of the six sides of Sandinista!, a perfectly paced, pitched and sequenced side of vinyl- Rebel Waltz is one of the group's lesser known gems. Look Here is a bizarro world cover of Mose Allison' modern jazz. Then comes Paul Simonon's The Crooked Beat, his writing contribution to the album, a superb bassline and spoken/ sung vocals about South London blues parties. After that we're into the screeching tyres and sweeping, breathless, sleek rock of Somebody Got Murdered and then the One More Time/ One More Dub double bill. 

One More Dub

On their 1994 single Sour Times, one of the stand outs from their debut album Dummy, Portishead presented three new versions of the song. Lot More opens with some scratching and a vocal sample, one phrase borrowed from a Black Sheep record, before the bassline from Lalo Schifrin's Danube Incident kicks in and Beth Gibbons pours her heart out. There was a point in 1994 when everyone was listening to Portishead. 

Lot More

Ring Ring Seven A.M.

Sandinista! was released forty years ago yesterday. This video of The Magnificent 7 appeared online, previously unseen footage of  Joe, Mick, Paul and Topper in New York in 1980, the fans and police in the streets around Bonds Casino, the band playing on US television and at a press conference all smoking like it's going out of fashion, some brilliant fan level scenes from the floor of the venue, security man Ray Jordan in among the crowd, and superb footage of the stage invasion at the end, Mick's hand and guitar disappearing into the throng- all put together by Don Letts. The video is here in case you're reading this on a phone and the embedded video isn't working. 

Sandinista! is a an album that grows and grows as the years go by. On it's release in 1980 it mystified fans and press alike, thirty six songs over six sides of vinyl. Only three years on from their debut, recorded in the white heat of 1977, Sandinista! is the band's sprawling soup of influences and experimental spirit writ large, from the pioneering rap/ funk rock of The Magnificent 7 to the dub soundscapes that make up side six. In between they play rockabilly, blues, a waltz, reggae, fiddle led- folk, plenty of dub, gospel, Mickey Gallagher's kids singing Guns Of Brixton, majestic late 70s rock (Somebody Got Murdered, Up In Heaven and Police On My Back), a backwards track, a Motown song celebrating the UK independent scene, one of the hidden gems of their career in the shape of the calypso- rock- reggae groove of The Street Parade, a disco tribute to Studio 54 and the Cold War sung by the drummer and two songs that are so far from White Riot that they could be the work of a different group- Broadway and Something About England. Sandinista! is the mixtape, the playlist, the shuffle function, the rarities/ outtakes box set, decades before these things happened. Sandinista! is a work of madness and a work of genius, a beautiful mess, an album that still has the capacity to surprise, songs that suddenly reveal themselves in a new way. It demonstrates the breadth of their vision and ambition, a Clash radio station playing song after song after song. One song sounds especially relevant to life in the UK at the fag end of 2020, more and more prescient as this country has lurched from 1980 to 2020 in the blink of an eye...

The rise of the far right in the 1970s is well documented, marches by the NF in areas of London largely inhabited by immigrant communities, as much a reason for the formation of Rock Against Racism as Eric Clapton's racist claptrap on stage where he celebrated the words of Enoch Powell. Since the Brexit vote in 2016 English exceptionalism has taken centre stage, the idea that there is something that sets England apart from every other country is the driving force behind the current bunch of chancers and idiots in the cabinet and seem to be Johnson's main negotiating tactic in the last minute Brexit trade deal talks taking place right now. They genuinely believe that once England is free from Europe and has 'freedom' and 'sovereignty' the nation will rise unshackled, back to the glory years of Churchill, the war and Spitfires flying over the white cliffs of Dover. The Brexit vote was partly fuelled by anti- immigrant rhetoric, the same feelings that fired up the far right in the 1970s. The factors involved- EU freedom of movement, Tory austerity policies after the banking crash of 2008, the view that immigrants from Eastern Europe have stolen jobs from British workers, Gordon Brown and his encounter with 'that bigoted woman' in Rochdale in 2010- aren't very far away from National Front campaign leaflets in the 70s. 

Something About England nails all this in its title and then depicts this racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric and English 20th century history in a three minute forty- four seconds long song. As the music hall brass band parps into earshot, Mick opens the song with these lines-

'They say immigrants steal the hubcaps
Of the respected gentlemen
They say it would be wine and roses
If England were for Englishmen again'

The song then lurches into a different area, an out of tune guitar chord and some crashing rimshots and Mick continues with his tale...

'Well I saw a dirty overcoat
At the foot of the pillar of the road
Propped inside was an old man
Whom time would not erode'

Mick carries on describing the homeless man, blue lights and sirens going off as it's kicking out time at the dancehall, and he hopes the old man will be able to 'explain the gloom'. At one minute Joe interjects, the voice of the old man. It goes back to Mick for a line and then at one minute fourteen there's a crashing run down the piano keyboard and Joe takes over, singing verses that describe the old man's life in the first half of the 20th century- 'the fourteen- eighteen war... the sorrow afterward', the poverty in northern England (as described by George Orwell, an author Joe must surely have read), the Jarrow hunger marchers, the rich with their garden parties and mouths full of cake, the Second World War (portrayed here not as the great patriotic pinnacle of English exceptionalism but as 'five long years of bullets and shells/ we left ten million dead'). The survivors return not to cheering crowds and flags or the sunlit uplands of post- war Britain but instead...

'The few returned to old Piccadilly
We limped around Leicester Square
The world was busy rebuilding itself
The architects could not care'

The music is vaudeville music, a sort of punk/ Edwardian music hall hybrid and a choir of ghostly backing voices make an appearance, the dead of the wars and those dispossessed by government social policies as Mick plays a vicious guitar line. Joe's last verse dissects the English class system, something never far away for a man who hated boarding school with a passion and what it did/ does to generations of British youth.

'There was masters and servants and servants and dogs
They taught you how to touch your cap
But through strikes and famine and war and peace
England never closed this gap'

All that strife, war, death, destruction and unrest and the English class system remained cast in stone. The forelock tugging, cap doffing deference Joe describes is as true now as it was in 1980, the generations of English voters who go to the polling station and place their X next to the name of anyone with a posh accent and Eton education, saddling us with Johnson and his ilk. Joe's role as the old man, spitting his lines out at Mick in the song and the listener through the speakers, comes to a conclusion as the music stutters to a halt, the old man worn out by his memories- 

'So leave me now the moon is up
But remember all the tales I tell
The memories that you have dredged up
Are on letters forwarded from hell'

The reprise sees the band come back in softer and more mournful, Mick's voice returning, the streets deserted and the lights going out, before the kiss off final line...

'Old England was alone'

And that's where we are right now, shunned by Europe and estranged from our neighbours, a country with little self- awareness that has become a laughing stock, looking at itself in a mirror and seeing what it wants to see, not what the reflection really shows us.

Something About England

Toots

Another legend gone, Toots Hibbert died yesterday aged 77 in hospital in Kingston, Jamaica, another musical figure taken this year and another lost to Covid. Toots And The Maytals have a back catalogue filled with great songs and top skanks- Pressure Drop, Monkey Man, 54- 46 (That's My Number), Sweet And Dandy, Funky Kingston and this one...

Reggae Got Soul

Toots And The Maytals were central to the dispersal of music from Jamaica to the world, the first to use the word reggae on record (1968's Do The Reggay), and Toots was regularly touring and performing  until recent years. Toots' music is upbeat, party music, tailor made for festival crowds and youth clubs, ska tribute bands in the car parks of pubs and jukeboxes. His voice and music have in lots of ways, always been there.

R.I.P. Toots Hibbert.

Pressure Drop was on the soundtrack of The Harder They Come, a record that did so much to popularise reggae, rocksteady and ska in the UK in the 1970s. The Clash were huge fans and their cover of Pressure Drop, the B-side to their 1978 English Civil War single, is one of their great rock- reggae moments. Joe sometimes called their covers trash reggae but this is an exhilarating, heartfelt rush through the song and more than stands up.

Pressure Drop

Version City Version

Punk trumpeter Terry Edwards and his band The Scapegoats have done countless brilliant jazz- punk cover versions. A pair of 12" singles with covers of The Jesus And Mary Chain and The Fall are both essential. He has done Sex Machine, a Napalm Death medley and a wordless version of Five Years that is as moving as Bowie's original. The Punk Tributes had versions of Bodies (Sex Pistols), New Rose (The Damned) and Version City (The Clash).

Version City

Version City isn't necessarily the obvious choice for a Clash cover, especially when taken alongside Bodies and New Rose, both loud, fast blasts of 1977. It opens side six of Sandinista!, surely the least listened to side of any Clash record. That's some people's loss because side six definitely has its merits even if it could be mistaken for stoned, studio filler. Version City is a dubby rockabilly number, starting with slowed down and speeding up weirdness, plummy radio presenter voices and FX before Joe and the band come in (there is also some guest harmonica from Lew Lewis, an exile from Eddie And The Hot Rods). It concludes in a similar way. Terry Edwards takes the main melody and funks it up on his trumpet, riffing through the song, finding all sorts of edge and bite in it. In many ways Terry's cover is as much the spirit of Sandinista! as the songs on The Clash's own triple disc 1980 magnificence.