The Clash Studio Logs/Sessionography

[matedog]

The sessionography at the beginning of this thread is a damn fine record of all we know at this point. But basically the rule of thumb is, if it's one of the more complicated songs, it's probably not Paul.

What are assumed/confirmed to be NWR? Wikipedia has a specific list: Mag 7, Call Up, Lose This Skin, and Lightning Strikes. Those all seem likely, but I don't know where that comes from. Anything else we suspect is NWR? Other than CDS.

Something is nagging in the back of my mind that I've read he plays on Something About England as well. Where I've read this - again - I'm not sure. First edition of LGiT?

Just reread Passion is a Fashion excerpt I cited and it corroborates "half a dozen tracks" in the April Electric Lady sessions:
The Call Up
The Magnificent Seven
Lightning Strikes
Every Little Bit Hurts
Lose This Skin
Stop the World

The assumption is they didn't play the Wessex sessions later that summer.

I think it's highly likely NWR is on Hitsville, Look Here, and One More Time. I might be convinced on SAE, but I have a pet theory that Mick just played bass on all the songs he had vocals on, to save studio time if nothing else.

Oh yeah, Hitsville and Look Here have to be NWR. Especially with how stylistically different Look Here is from anything else Paul was familiar with.

[Kory]

What are assumed/confirmed to be NWR? Wikipedia has a specific list: Mag 7, Call Up, Lose This Skin, and Lightning Strikes. Those all seem likely, but I don't know where that comes from. Anything else we suspect is NWR? Other than CDS.

Something is nagging in the back of my mind that I've read he plays on Something About England as well. Where I've read this - again - I'm not sure. First edition of LGiT?

Just reread Passion is a Fashion excerpt I cited and it corroborates "half a dozen tracks" in the April Electric Lady sessions:
The Call Up
The Magnificent Seven
Lightning Strikes
Every Little Bit Hurts
Lose This Skin
Stop the World

The assumption is they didn't play the Wessex sessions later that summer.

I think it's highly likely NWR is on Hitsville, Look Here, and One More Time. I might be convinced on SAE, but I have a pet theory that Mick just played bass on all the songs he had vocals on, to save studio time if nothing else.

Oh yeah, Hitsville and Look Here have to be NWR. Especially with how stylistically different Look Here is from anything else Paul was familiar with.

The closest he got to it was Jimmy Jazz, but they're both cod walking lines.

[matedog]

The closest he got to it was Jimmy Jazz, but they're both cod walking lines.

"cod"?

[Kory]

The closest he got to it was Jimmy Jazz, but they're both cod walking lines.

"cod"?

Inauthentic.

[matedog]

I emailed Pat Gilbert asking him because why not? He responded about the Style Scott info, so maybe he'll know something.

Hey Pat replied! Not terribly helpful though:

Aah... Who plays what on Sandinista may never be settled!

Remember the MOJO piece from last year? The guy 'J.P. Nicholson' was fairly sure he played on The Call Up and others... I kinda downplayed his role because I didn't want to throw Norman's exact contributions into any more confusion.

The problem is that you only need to play four bars of anything in tune and in time and it can looped and copied. I think there's a hell of a lot of editing and studio craft on Clash records. Bill Price was a genius at that kind of thing.

Charlie Don't Surf could be Norman, or J.P., or even Mick, who played bass on stuff before Norman arrived - maybe a combination of all three. Maybe Paul overdubbed it when he came back from Canada, though if you've already got a good take in the bag you probably wouldn't mess with it. Paul would have done all the reggae stuff and more, definitely.

That probably doesn't help, but without access to the original master tapes (which are apparently damaged anyway), it's hard to tell...

Also, there's was an awful lot of weed on that session, making things even more obscure.

[Marky Dread]

I emailed Pat Gilbert asking him because why not? He responded about the Style Scott info, so maybe he'll know something.

Hey Pat replied! Not terribly helpful though:

Aah... Who plays what on Sandinista may never be settled!

Remember the MOJO piece from last year? The guy 'J.P. Nicholson' was fairly sure he played on The Call Up and others... I kinda downplayed his role because I didn't want to throw Norman's exact contributions into any more confusion.

The problem is that you only need to play four bars of anything in tune and in time and it can looped and copied. I think there's a hell of a lot of editing and studio craft on Clash records. Bill Price was a genius at that kind of thing.

Charlie Don't Surf could be Norman, or J.P., or even Mick, who played bass on stuff before Norman arrived - maybe a combination of all three. Maybe Paul overdubbed it when he came back from Canada, though if you've already got a good take in the bag you probably wouldn't mess with it. Paul would have done all the reggae stuff and more, definitely.

That probably doesn't help, but without access to the original master tapes (which are apparently damaged anyway), it's hard to tell...

Also, there's was an awful lot of weed on that session, making things even more obscure.

So the weed played bass on Sandinista!

[gkbill]

I emailed Pat Gilbert asking him because why not? He responded about the Style Scott info, so maybe he'll know something.

Hey Pat replied! Not terribly helpful though:

Aah... Who plays what on Sandinista may never be settled!

Remember the MOJO piece from last year? The guy 'J.P. Nicholson' was fairly sure he played on The Call Up and others... I kinda downplayed his role because I didn't want to throw Norman's exact contributions into any more confusion.

The problem is that you only need to play four bars of anything in tune and in time and it can looped and copied. I think there's a hell of a lot of editing and studio craft on Clash records. Bill Price was a genius at that kind of thing.

Charlie Don't Surf could be Norman, or J.P., or even Mick, who played bass on stuff before Norman arrived - maybe a combination of all three. Maybe Paul overdubbed it when he came back from Canada, though if you've already got a good take in the bag you probably wouldn't mess with it. Paul would have done all the reggae stuff and more, definitely.

That probably doesn't help, but without access to the original master tapes (which are apparently damaged anyway), it's hard to tell...

Also, there's was an awful lot of weed on that session, making things even more obscure.

So the weed played bass on Sandinista!

Hello,

I know Weed played a large role in a lot of Grateful Dead recordings. That guy got around.

[Kory]

I emailed Pat Gilbert asking him because why not? He responded about the Style Scott info, so maybe he'll know something.

Hey Pat replied! Not terribly helpful though:

Aah... Who plays what on Sandinista may never be settled!

Remember the MOJO piece from last year? The guy 'J.P. Nicholson' was fairly sure he played on The Call Up and others... I kinda downplayed his role because I didn't want to throw Norman's exact contributions into any more confusion.

The problem is that you only need to play four bars of anything in tune and in time and it can looped and copied. I think there's a hell of a lot of editing and studio craft on Clash records. Bill Price was a genius at that kind of thing.

Charlie Don't Surf could be Norman, or J.P., or even Mick, who played bass on stuff before Norman arrived - maybe a combination of all three. Maybe Paul overdubbed it when he came back from Canada, though if you've already got a good take in the bag you probably wouldn't mess with it. Paul would have done all the reggae stuff and more, definitely.

That probably doesn't help, but without access to the original master tapes (which are apparently damaged anyway), it's hard to tell...

Also, there's was an awful lot of weed on that session, making things even more obscure.

Thanks for reaching out on that, this is interesting to read even though it doesn't provide any actual info. Who is this JP Nicholson guy?

[Marky Dread]

I emailed Pat Gilbert asking him because why not? He responded about the Style Scott info, so maybe he'll know something.

Hey Pat replied! Not terribly helpful though:

Aah... Who plays what on Sandinista may never be settled!

Remember the MOJO piece from last year? The guy 'J.P. Nicholson' was fairly sure he played on The Call Up and others... I kinda downplayed his role because I didn't want to throw Norman's exact contributions into any more confusion.

The problem is that you only need to play four bars of anything in tune and in time and it can looped and copied. I think there's a hell of a lot of editing and studio craft on Clash records. Bill Price was a genius at that kind of thing.

Charlie Don't Surf could be Norman, or J.P., or even Mick, who played bass on stuff before Norman arrived - maybe a combination of all three. Maybe Paul overdubbed it when he came back from Canada, though if you've already got a good take in the bag you probably wouldn't mess with it. Paul would have done all the reggae stuff and more, definitely.

That probably doesn't help, but without access to the original master tapes (which are apparently damaged anyway), it's hard to tell...

Also, there's was an awful lot of weed on that session, making things even more obscure.

Thanks for reaching out on that, this is interesting to read even though it doesn't provide any actual info. Who is this JP Nicholson guy?

Studio engineer on Sandinista! Also known as J P. Nichols.