Bernie Rhodes' on a CTC retrospective

[JohnSimonBeverly]

Fascinating:

"I suggested to Rhodes (who has all the master CtC tapes and more - a LOT more) that he do a "Another Self Portrait" approach and release a big set that includes the cleaned up Nov. 83 demos, choice live cuts of the songs, the mountain of demos and, perhaps, more importantly, but sensitively, the original album remixed with the synths and drum machines removed or toned down to bring out the raw Strummer songs beneath.

Rhodes said the main problem (apart from "Does anyone WANT that?" - which, presented right, I would say, yes, the same Clash fan-equivalent people who wanted "Another Self Portrait") is the other Clash members would have to agree and that is almost 100% not going to happen, which is a shame.

(...)

Recontextualized, I believe a wider-angle view of this period of Strummer's work would be fascinating, valuable and also rehabilitate his reputation that took such a hit during this period due to a wide variety of circumstantial events."

https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/ ... 954/page-8


I sure would like to know more about all those tapes that Bernie (sorry, BernARD) is sitting on...

[Low Down Low]

Interesting stuff. Struggling with notion of other clash members "definitely" not agreeing. What objection might they have to it?

[Kory]

Interesting stuff. Struggling with notion of other clash members "definitely" not agreeing. What objection might they have to it?

They all hate it?

[Inder]

Nice find!

Some other cool bits from that thread:

I've told this story in another thread but I worked a lot of shows for the University of Waterloo from 1981-1984. We only did two in the Athletic Centre - Joe Jackson and The Clash. I worked a lot of gigs with prominent, mostly British bands - Echo & The Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs, Gang Of Four to name a few but none had fans wanting to get to the band like The Clash. Helped get Joe Strummer from the Student Union to the venue and they all crawled out of the woodwork for that. Witnessed the sound check. They played "This Is Radio Clash" for twenty minutes. But the highlight was watching Joe and Paul teach the rest of the band "The Street Parade" which they did not play that night nor am I aware of that version of the band playing live ever though I could be wrong.

Street Parade sounds a bit too way out, might have been Broadway, which popped up later in the tour?

I saw them in Worcester, MA in April 1984. The only thing I remember is surprisingly they allowed people to stage dive. At one point a bunch of people got on stage and surrounded Strummer. All I remember is hearing this through the speakers:

"Janie! Janie! I made it!"

Was hugely underwhelmed by the album because I'd seen The Clash in March '84 in Belfast (my only ever Clash gig) and REALLY liked the new songs.

The PA announcer (was it Bernie?) opened the gig with a spoken intro which was actually the first verse of We Are The Clash. They opened with London Calling and Safe European Home, ran through about 15-16 songs before doing a long encore (about 8-9 songs) ending with a great 'Police on my back' (sung by Nick Sheppard - Joe did all the rest of the lead vocals apart from 'Guns of Brixton') and 'Garageland' . With two new guitarists in the band, Joe didn't play much guitar himself.

The new songs I remember (we didn't know the titles at the time) included We Are The Clash, Sex Mad Roar, This is England, Three Card Trick, Dictator (I think) and Are you Ready For War (which I thought was brilliant). There may have been another one that never got released (It definitely wasnt 'In the Pouring Rain' though). They used these TV screens above the stage which was pretty innovative for the time (someone mentioned it being like ZooTV earlier in the thread which isn't wrong - I recall seeing of the more graphic footage from A Clockwork Orange during it). Before 'Armagideon Time' Joe had a meltdown with some idiot who gobbed at him and jumped into the crowd to remonstrate

Was looking forward to hearing these new songs on a record and it looked for a long time like we never would. When it came out, I was bewildered. Would love to believe theres an album of those songs somewhere that doesn't sound like a bunch of football hooligans locked in an amusement arcade playing pinball machines.

This is England however was better on record than it was in concert. One of their greatest ever songs.

Despite what Bernie did to them, I still do like We are the Clash, Are You Red...Y, Cool under Heat, Life and Wild. Three Card Trick and North and South.

Wasted opportunity though - but anyway, Happy Birthday Joe. We miss you.

[Heston]

If Bernie owns the tapes surely he can do what he likes with them? It's pretty mad that Sony aren't in possession of the multitracks, I can't think why the manager would end up with the tapes. It's not like he has the s/t or GEER masters.

Didn't some company recently buy up Joe's catalogue outside of his work with Mick?

[Low Down Low]

Interesting stuff. Struggling with notion of other clash members "definitely" not agreeing. What objection might they have to it?

They all hate it?

Actually hate it or just what bernie did to it. I'd have thought the idea of presenting the songs in some way close to how they were originally intended would be favourable to them, but i could be wrong.

[101Walterton]

Interesting stuff. Struggling with notion of other clash members "definitely" not agreeing. What objection might they have to it?

They all hate it?

Actually hate it or just what bernie did to it. I'd have thought the idea of presenting the songs in some way close to how they were originally intended would be favourable to them, but i could be wrong.

Who would have to agree?
Having said that Paul probably wouldn’t.

[TeddyB Not Logged In]

Bernie is right. This will never happen. He has possession of the tapes, but the Clash organization and Sony own the performances.

[Kory]

Bernie is right. This will never happen. He has possession of the tapes, but the Clash organization and Sony own the performances.

Meaning, I assume, that Mick would also have to sign off. Which would never happen, never mind Paul!

[Spiff]

Bernie is right. This will never happen. He has possession of the tapes, but the Clash organization and Sony own the performances.

Call up Wikileaks to crack into Bernie's computer!

[matedog]

Bernie is right. This will never happen. He has possession of the tapes, but the Clash organization and Sony own the performances.

Considering how CTC has been purged from the official Clash timeline and how touchy Paul is about this time, I don't expect this in my lifetime. Bernie could leak them, I guess, but I wouldn't expect that either.

[Dr. Medulla]

Bernie is right. This will never happen. He has possession of the tapes, but the Clash organization and Sony own the performances.

Considering how CTC has been purged from the official Clash timeline and how touchy Paul is about this time, I don't expect this in my lifetime. Bernie could leak them, I guess, but I wouldn't expect that either.

Given how subversive Bernie likes to consider himself, leaking them would be his own way of asserting their value to his conception of the band, against that of the band themselves, the music press, and music industry. McLaren would have pulling all kinds shady games to muddle the story.

[JohnSimonBeverly]

Given how subversive Bernie likes to consider himself, leaking them would be his own way of asserting their value to his conception of the band, against that of the band themselves, the music press, and music industry. McLaren would have pulling all kinds shady games to muddle the story.

He could release it just like McLaren released "Spunk".

[JohnSimonBeverly]

Judging by what he's been saying in interviews more recently, Paul might not necessarily be opposed to revisiting the CTC material:

"OK, worst Clash record.

PS: Cut The Crap. It had the potential to be quite a good record but Bernie got too involved. If I had known that was going to happen, I would have stayed and seen it through. I thought I was doing the honourable thing by staying away, telling Joe to see his vision through."

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/t ... -interview

and

"The final Clash album – 1985's Cut the Crap, with no Jones or Headon – has been expunged from history. Why?

PS: There were a lot of good songs on it, but what's disappointing is that 'cos me and Mick used to bicker in the studio …

MJ: That was a good thing!

PS: It was a good thing. And when we came to doing Cut the Crap, I said to Joe: "D'you know what? I'm going to step back and let you make the record, so I'm not this bickering voice." And I stood back and let him take control. What I didn't know, and found out later, is that Bernie took control and Joe walked away from it as well. So in the end it became Bernie's record. There are some great songs on it, but they're smothered in unnecessaries that made it really cloudy. It could have been a great record."

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/ ... ul-simonon

[Kory]

Judging by what he's been saying in interviews more recently, Paul might not necessarily be opposed to revisiting the CTC material:

"OK, worst Clash record.

PS: Cut The Crap. It had the potential to be quite a good record but Bernie got too involved. If I had known that was going to happen, I would have stayed and seen it through. I thought I was doing the honourable thing by staying away, telling Joe to see his vision through."

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/t ... -interview

and

"The final Clash album – 1985's Cut the Crap, with no Jones or Headon – has been expunged from history. Why?

PS: There were a lot of good songs on it, but what's disappointing is that 'cos me and Mick used to bicker in the studio …

MJ: That was a good thing!

PS: It was a good thing. And when we came to doing Cut the Crap, I said to Joe: "D'you know what? I'm going to step back and let you make the record, so I'm not this bickering voice." And I stood back and let him take control. What I didn't know, and found out later, is that Bernie took control and Joe walked away from it as well. So in the end it became Bernie's record. There are some great songs on it, but they're smothered in unnecessaries that made it really cloudy. It could have been a great record."

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/ ... ul-simonon

Just read both these interviews and they were really damn good and somewhat revelatory. Nice to see them not getting the same old questions and having to tell the same old stories over and over again. Really dug them, thanks for posting!