Boots Galore- The Mega List REVIVED!

[Dr. Medulla]

5. 11/82 Jamaica - unique reggae heavy setlist, GREAT sound, shitty drummer

I'd just like to say that this made me laugh. This place is going to be world famous when one of our own murders a chiropractor.

[Suzanne H.]

I still don't get why you guy's think Terry was such a bad drummer...

He was a heavy metal drummer as well, wasn't he? He must be pretty good then?

[Heston]

I still don't get why you guy's think Terry was such a bad drummer...

He was a heavy metal drummer as well, wasn't he? He must be pretty good then?

Terry's not bad, Topper being exceptional is the problem. It's known in the biz as Kenny Jones Syndrome.
There is no known cure.

[Flex]

Terry was basic, and he ruined some of the latter day Clash songs live.

Topper had some flair, which went a long way.

But we all know Rob Harper was the best Clash drummer.

[matedog]

Terry was basic, and he ruined some of the latter day Clash songs live.

Topper had some flair, which went a long way.

But we all know Rob Harper was the best Clash drummer.

This is basically true. Terry was good at hard rock, so POMB was fine and dandy but man did he suck up Armagideon Time, Straight to Hell, even Radio Clash. Topper was vastly inferior to the likes of Pete Howard, but I loved the fact that his fills did not seem overly thought out and his playing on records was absolutely perfect and tasteful. Oh and Terry played behind the beat and Tops played right on it which I think is the driving force The Clash needed.

Oh and the single Rob Harper show circulating proves Flexors point that Rob = GOD.

[BR16ADE_R055E]

Topper was vastly inferior to the likes of Pete Howard,

[Rat Patrol]

Topper was vastly inferior to the likes of Pete Howard,

Technical acumen, I would agree. Pete was a programmed killbot for the drums.

But that's got jack to do with fit for a group, so that needs to be taken into account on the Pete vs. Tops comparison (and Mate has made this point many times, being a drummer himself). There was no more perfect drummer on the face of the earth for The Clash than Topper, and Pete has said this over and over again in interviews despite never having met the guy he replaced. Topper could morph to any style on-the-fly, had an absolute 6th sense during a song for what all 3 of the others were thinking and be able to pull all their individual ad-libbing onto the same page, and could play to the mood of the song and raise and lower the temperature of the band and audience when things needed to be steered. When you consider how inherently chaotic that combustible mix is, he was pretty much the binding force that held it all together. And it was all on feel, no preparation. That's all unquantifiable, whereas you can quantify bpm, relative physical strength, and technical accuracy pretty well. So I'd use that as a caveat when we're comparing Topper to others on nuts-and-boltsy grounds (the majority of us, at least). Plus Topper was a damn, damn good writer, multi-instrumentalist, and arranger. Had he not fucked himself up he and the Blockheads + Barnacle Bros. would've surely been one of the most sought-after studio hired-gun rhythm sections and backing bands out there for other people's solo careers.


It's all sort of the same thing as Keith Moon is the only drummer there could ever be for The Who even though he was a total mess in the technical sense and sometimes took stuff off the table when he went on a distracting bender on the kit. Topper as glue-that-binds was a bit more subtle in influence, but I'd even argue more key to the whole shebang because Joe/Mick/Paul pulled much harder and more abrasively in separate directions than Townsend/Daltry/Entwistle ever did. As interesting as the '76-77 Terry/Rob gigs are band evolution-wise, it's kind of hard to ignore how sloppy and uncoordinated the frontline is. Just a mess of noise with little musicality. And then the second the White Riot tour opened with Topper installed (actually, even the 4/27 warm-up gig when they were still breaking him in) everything instantly snapped into focus. So, really, was 1982 even a surprise given that...it was crystal clear from Day 1 that he was the X-factor they couldn't live without.

And it goes without saying he was a DAMN good technical drummer, even if not a programmed killbot.


Anyway, back on topic...I listened to the 2/5/82 Auckland show last week and I'm convinced that was his last truly transcendently great performance in The Clash. Par night I think for the frontline, but Topper brought things into the stratosphere with the zone he was in that show. He was totally clean that tour until having a mini-relapse during the Sydney residency and it's amazing how amplified he was with a clearer-than-usual head.

[matedog]

[quote="Rat Patrol"][/quote]
Yeah what he said.

I've always described Topper as a "musician" instead of a "drummer". He has a phenomenal musical sense that Pete replaced with technical kilbot virtuosity. I don't think in a million years Pete could have come up with the brilliant Straight to Hell beat.

And I'd like to think that LC is one of the greatest drumming albums of all time.

[threecoffins]

Also agree with Rat. Yet another triumph! Killbot drummers are better suited for robotic post-punk bands, not raw and loose rock 'n' roll. It's like saying that Yngwie Malmsteen should have replaced Brian Jones in the Stones when he died because he can play faster than Mick Taylor! HAHAHA!

[Heston]

I don't like Pete Howard, his drumming is very stiff on Cut the Crap.

[Wolter]

I don't like Pete Howard, his drumming is very stiff on Cut the Crap.

Yeah. He sounds like a poorly programmed machine. Get it together, earring boy!

[forgoodforall]

I was pretty convinced that it was a drum machine on Cut The Crap... Definitely it doesn't sound like acoustic drums, and it is very robotic. (Notice, it doesn't actually say that anyone played anything in particular in the liner notes, so listing names doesn't make them dishonest.) Maybe there was a joke in the comment here on the board, and I just didn't read closely enough.

Anyway, the real reason I'm writing is that the 11-27-82 Jamaica (soundboard) recordings at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XY4Q42FL
have ID3 tags listing the show as "From London to Jamaica". Or at least that's what the folder is called... I changed the album name in Itunes. But it includes an mp3 of "I Fought the Law", which, according to If Music Could Talk, is not on the From London to Jamaica album, but is on the lesser quality recording called Jamaican Affair. So which is it? Did someone throw in the mp3 from the one recording with the other, or should someone get that relabeled before most of the people with these mp3s have ones with wrong information?

[Flex]

I was pretty convinced that it was a drum machine on Cut The Crap... Definitely it doesn't sound like acoustic drums, and it is very robotic. (Notice, it doesn't actually say that anyone played anything in particular in the liner notes, so listing names doesn't make them dishonest.) Maybe there was a joke in the comment here on the board, and I just didn't read closely enough.

It is a drum machine on the album. The above posts were a joke.

Anyway, the real reason I'm writing is that the 11-27-82 Jamaica (soundboard) recordings at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XY4Q42FL
have ID3 tags listing the show as "From London to Jamaica". Or at least that's what the folder is called... I changed the album name in Itunes. But it includes an mp3 of "I Fought the Law", which, according to If Music Could Talk, is not on the From London to Jamaica album, but is on the lesser quality recording called Jamaican Affair. So which is it? Did someone throw in the mp3 from the one recording with the other, or should someone get that relabeled before most of the people with these mp3s have ones with wrong information?

There is a really low gen sourced from sound board copy of the entire performance, even I Fought the Law. It doesn't have a particular boot name and was just released a year or two back. My guess is that this is the copy we have circulating and someone just named it the popular "From London to Jamaica" boot name.

[klam44]

*1984-04-17 Providence (soundboard) does not have White Man on is it supposed to be on as according to BMC or is that a mistake ?
Also 2-21-84 Belgium tracks 1-13 The file you are trying to access is temporarily unavailable and has been for soooo long can somone sort i9t out please ?

Thanks for the heads up.
I'm not sure about the Providence Show. CK posted it as a farewell gesture a little while ago. I was going through my backed up filed and realized that I have two copies of 82 shows in place of an 84 shows back up

As for the 1984-02-21 part 1, it is in the list of missing shows:
1981-10-06
1982-01-25 disc 1
1982-01-30 disc 1
1982-02-08
1982-07-23
1982-08-16
1984-02-21 Disc 1

I'll double-check what's missing in a couple days when I have time. There was lots of March-May '84 missing. That was far and away the biggest touring gap we had left to fill on the Megalist because we were shooting for 100% Clash I completion as first priority.

I also don't know what's surfaced since Graham's last BMC update in January. He wasn't on Snews during the hiatus so we haven't heard about any subsequent new finds yet.

Did you find out if 1984-04-17 Providence (soundboard) does or does not have White Man on ?

[daredevil]

I was pretty convinced that it was a drum machine on Cut The Crap... Definitely it doesn't sound like acoustic drums, and it is very robotic. (Notice, it doesn't actually say that anyone played anything in particular in the liner notes, so listing names doesn't make them dishonest.) Maybe there was a joke in the comment here on the board, and I just didn't read closely enough.

Anyway, the real reason I'm writing is that the 11-27-82 Jamaica (soundboard) recordings at http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XY4Q42FL
have ID3 tags listing the show as "From London to Jamaica". Or at least that's what the folder is called... I changed the album name in Itunes. But it includes an mp3 of "I Fought the Law", which, according to If Music Could Talk, is not on the From London to Jamaica album, but is on the lesser quality recording called Jamaican Affair. So which is it? Did someone throw in the mp3 from the one recording with the other, or should someone get that relabeled before most of the people with these mp3s have ones with wrong information?

The boot cd "Kingston Advice" of the 11-27-82 gig surfaced a few years back. It was the same source as the FLTJ cd, except
IFTL was included.