Cut The Crap songs vs. This is Big Audio Dynamite songs (Album + B sides)

[Marky Dread]

Apparently in Munich whilst recording Cut the Crap.

So they recorded the album outside a bakery?
That explains everything.

The Bienenstich mix - Bernie Rhodes.

[KCportland]

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[KCportland]

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[KCportland]

That's also another technical issue on CTC, isn't it? I'm assuming that's what's meant by the "Pitch Corrected" versions of This Is England circulating on YouTube, right?

I remember the story about Ambition, and recall an interview with Godard -- right around the time of CTC's release, in fact -- where he talked about Bernie paying him 20 pounds per track to write songs for him.

So he'd knock five or so, take a cab to his place, and they'd go over them, which was usually the last he'd ever hear about them. "Even if he thought that a song was good, though, he wouldn't tell you," Vic claimed (I'm quoting from memory here, so I don't have go through my scrapbooks -- which are huge!). "The fact was, Bernie wouldn't know a good song if it hit him on the head."

So yeah, those BR fingerprints had made themselves felt with other artists, in unwelcome ways. I messaged Vic to ask whatever happened to those songs -- he thought that Lucinda might have them, but he wasn't sure. I don't expect him to send out a search party.

I also wonder, why did CBS sit on the record for 8 months before they released it? Was there additional mixing happening over the summer? I would have thought CBS would have been keen on getting the LP out asap.

[Marky Dread]

That's also another technical issue on CTC, isn't it? I'm assuming that's what's meant by the "Pitch Corrected" versions of This Is England circulating on YouTube, right?

I remember the story about Ambition, and recall an interview with Godard -- right around the time of CTC's release, in fact -- where he talked about Bernie paying him 20 pounds per track to write songs for him.

So he'd knock five or so, take a cab to his place, and they'd go over them, which was usually the last he'd ever hear about them. "Even if he thought that a song was good, though, he wouldn't tell you," Vic claimed (I'm quoting from memory here, so I don't have go through my scrapbooks -- which are huge!). "The fact was, Bernie wouldn't know a good song if it hit him on the head."

So yeah, those BR fingerprints had made themselves felt with other artists, in unwelcome ways. I messaged Vic to ask whatever happened to those songs -- he thought that Lucinda might have them, but he wasn't sure. I don't expect him to send out a search party.

I also wonder, why did CBS sit on the record for 8 months before they released it? Was there additional mixing happening over the summer? I would have thought CBS would have been keen on getting the LP out asap.

Maybe they heard it.

[KCportland]

That's also another technical issue on CTC, isn't it? I'm assuming that's what's meant by the "Pitch Corrected" versions of This Is England circulating on YouTube, right?

I remember the story about Ambition, and recall an interview with Godard -- right around the time of CTC's release, in fact -- where he talked about Bernie paying him 20 pounds per track to write songs for him.

So he'd knock five or so, take a cab to his place, and they'd go over them, which was usually the last he'd ever hear about them. "Even if he thought that a song was good, though, he wouldn't tell you," Vic claimed (I'm quoting from memory here, so I don't have go through my scrapbooks -- which are huge!). "The fact was, Bernie wouldn't know a good song if it hit him on the head."

So yeah, those BR fingerprints had made themselves felt with other artists, in unwelcome ways. I messaged Vic to ask whatever happened to those songs -- he thought that Lucinda might have them, but he wasn't sure. I don't expect him to send out a search party.

I also wonder, why did CBS sit on the record for 8 months before they released it? Was there additional mixing happening over the summer? I would have thought CBS would have been keen on getting the LP out asap.

Maybe they heard it.

I do wonder if CBS was weighing on rejecting the mix or just shelving it outright and seeing if some singles would chart before committing to a release date.

[Marky Dread]

That's also another technical issue on CTC, isn't it? I'm assuming that's what's meant by the "Pitch Corrected" versions of This Is England circulating on YouTube, right?

I remember the story about Ambition, and recall an interview with Godard -- right around the time of CTC's release, in fact -- where he talked about Bernie paying him 20 pounds per track to write songs for him.

So he'd knock five or so, take a cab to his place, and they'd go over them, which was usually the last he'd ever hear about them. "Even if he thought that a song was good, though, he wouldn't tell you," Vic claimed (I'm quoting from memory here, so I don't have go through my scrapbooks -- which are huge!). "The fact was, Bernie wouldn't know a good song if it hit him on the head."

So yeah, those BR fingerprints had made themselves felt with other artists, in unwelcome ways. I messaged Vic to ask whatever happened to those songs -- he thought that Lucinda might have them, but he wasn't sure. I don't expect him to send out a search party.

I also wonder, why did CBS sit on the record for 8 months before they released it? Was there additional mixing happening over the summer? I would have thought CBS would have been keen on getting the LP out asap.

Maybe they heard it.

I do wonder if CBS was weighing on rejecting the mix or just shelving it outright and seeing if some singles would chart before committing to a release date.

I wish they had rejected it. But it was the 80s and maybe they thought in the current pop/rock climate they might get away with it.
I can't imagine anyone at CBS thinking "Wow! what a great new sound".

Maybe they did it for a dare. Or maybe they were just pleased to get rid of The Clash. They had Big Audio Dynamite and the songsmith in Mick.

In the Short Sharp Shock punk documentary shown around the time Maurice Oberstein can be heard saying BAD are not a bad little band.

[Chairman Ralph]

I also wonder, why did CBS sit on the record for 8 months before they released it? Was there additional mixing happening over the summer? I would have thought CBS would have been keen on getting the LP out asap.

I do wonder if CBS was weighing on rejecting the mix or just shelving it outright and seeing if some singles would chart before committing to a release date.

I wish they had rejected it. But it was the 80s and maybe they thought in the current pop/rock climate they might get away with it.
I can't imagine anyone at CBS thinking "Wow! what a great new sound".

Maybe they did it for a dare. Or maybe they were just pleased to get rid of The Clash. They had Big Audio Dynamite and the songsmith in Mick.

In the Short Sharp Shock punk documentary shown around the time Maurice Oberstein can be heard saying BAD are not a bad little band.

Now you guys have really done it -- you've made me dig out one of my main Clash scrapbooks from out of the cabinet! One of a dozen or so, that I kept over the years, in an 11" x 17" sketchbook. Because you jogged my memory of something else, to help address the above questions.

Mark and I didn't fully get to the bottom of the matter, but we both assumed that more work on the album was being done -- Nick said as much, that there were additional sessions when they came back from Munich (before or after the busking tour, take your pick).

Any additional recording would certainly have required further remixing and/or post-production, to fully assimilate the results into what had already been completed.

According to Nick, there wasn't a lot of contact with CBS for most of this period. But he doesn't recall any alarms going off, or pressure not to tour, or do any of the things that a normal rock group does. His feeling was that CBS were just waiting to see what happened, once the Clash got up and running. They didn't underwrite the American tour, either, so in that sense, "it was no skin off their nose," he said.

To answer your other questions, I am turning to a notable piece in one of my main Clash scrapbooks -- a promotional one-sheet, as they call them, outlining what kind of plans CBS entertained for Cut The Crap, once Bernie finally delivered it to them.

What's most striking is that whoever wrote it clearly had no idea of what the band had been doing lately -- notably, all the US and UK touring -- but the overall tone is hardly non-committal nor dismissive, as the opening paragraphs make clear:

"It's been three long years since the phenomenal platinum success of of the CLASH's Combat Rock, but three years is never too long to wait for the return of the most significant and enduring musical group of our generation -- THE CLASH.

"Make no mistake about it -- Joe Strummer and Company are back in a blaze of glory with the release of CUT THE CRAP, the raunchiest, most musically aggressive record of their long career.

"Written by Joe Strummer and produced by the group, the twelve songs on CUT THE CRAP find THE CLASH returning to their early roots with a fiery combination of buzzsaw guitars and anthem-like vocals."

And we also get this choice observation:

"In light of the band's three-year absence from recording and performing, it is certainly no understatement to say that radio, retail, and most important of all -- the legions of dedicated CLASH fans and fanatics who buy the records and concert tickets -- are all literally dying for this record.

"And don't forget that because it's been a long time coming, there will be enormous press interest and demand for THE CLASH and CUT THE CRAP."

Dying for this record? Well, they did get the first part of that right. But not in the way that they imagined.

At any rate, if you go by the one-sheet, the inactivity -- or relative lack thereof -- was going to be a key part of the marketing push, apparently. If anybody in high places seemed bothered, the copy doesn't give that particular game away, does it?

I have attached my original page, and boosted it slightly, for easier reading. Plus a shot of Yer Humble Narrator, with the front cover of the scrapbook from whence it came, as well.

But you'll find numerous points of interest -- including the bullets items about "additional dance and club mixes of selected tracks from the LP" -- which supports your comments, KC, that the pop direction seemed like the logical next phase in the Clash's evolution -- plus the teases of a video for "This Is England" ("Plans are underway for additional videos"), and "an extensive trade and consumer print campaign to announce the release of the LP."

There's also a reference to an American tour for January 1986, though I'd question the date -- Nick has said that tours of Australia, Japan and the Far East had been booked for that time period.

I have seen some news items in various mags suggesting that the band were returning to the US that summer, which seems a bit more logical, in light of the former chronology that Nick has outlined -- and I trust his memory more than a lot of the other players from this era, so I'd assume that's how the touring timeline would have unfolded.

One other point of interest not mentioned here is that according to Nick, "Dirty Punk" was tentatively planned as the next single after "This Is England." I have seen the projected album artwork for it, which -- if memory serves correctly -- focused around the British V sign (for middle finger).

Eddie King also did various bits and pieces for this stuff, which I've seen, as well. (Unfortunately, I can't post any of it, without his OK, since it's his artwork -- since that issue became a major bone of contention of him at the time, so I definitely understand.)

To sum up, whatever was going on internally, plans were afoot, and assumptions were being made. Both Nick and Vince stated, during our various interviews, that nobody felt unduly concerned about Joe's latest disappearing act, before "This Is England" came out -- since if it was a success, they figured he would turn up to do his part, promotion-wise. After all, he was the spokesman and focal point during this era, so it seems logical that he wouldn't want to miss his day in the sun.

And Bernie was surely crossing his fingers, that the popular buzz and response would be enough to overcome the bad reviews the album was getting, and Joe would return to his "day job," so to speak. Bernie certainly needed his biggest act to succeed, if he was ever going to realize his mega-mogul/artistic aspirations. The road to doing that depended on a big return from the album he'd spent so much time working up. I'm sure he felt the pressure, as much as anyone else did.

And, as you can see for yourselves, CBS expected big returns from the new album, as well. None of the proposals in the one-sheet strike me as a label giving up on one of its flagship acts. Far from it -- they were going all in, one way or another, and let the chips fall where they may.

Of course, it never got there, in the end. But from a distance, it seemed like business as usual, in Clashworld. Little did they know...

[Marky Dread]

Thanks for posting that Ralph.

Seems whoever wrote that was seriously trying to build up the release. That's more hype than any of the previous albums got. I think they may have been trying the big sell because they knew it wasn't very good and would flop.

Those other mixes "Fingerpoppin' AOR" mix and maybe the dutch release of "This Is England" ?
Were the only alternate mixes that escaped.

I think once people like Johnny Green told Joe that the band were not very good then Joe knew the game was up. I can't imagine Joe trying to defend to sound of that record in the press. "This Is England" was played on the BBC radio show called Round Table where various guests would discuss that weeks single releases. Roger Daltrey was one of the guests and said "that's not the Clash!".

[IkarisOne]

I think it's interesting that no one really talks about BAD anymore but lots of people still talk about CTC. Is it the power of the brand name or is just a more interesting story (or soap opera)? Or maybe CTC is an Eighties nostalgia thing in a more recognizable way? BAD is extremely Eighties but in the kind of way that a lot of other typical 80s stuff is, stuff that's now kind of forgotten like Cactus World News, Vitamin Z or Gene Loves Jezebel. Like, it's ridiculously 80s yet somehow not 80s enough, paradoxically. Or maybe it's the Jim Morrison syndrome with Joe. Or maybe CTC has that trainwreck appeal, I don't know.

BAD had some great songs but Mick was no frontman. He just didn't have the presence, same way with his idol Keef.

[KCportland]

I also wonder, why did CBS sit on the record for 8 months before they released it? Was there additional mixing happening over the summer? I would have thought CBS would have been keen on getting the LP out asap.

I do wonder if CBS was weighing on rejecting the mix or just shelving it outright and seeing if some singles would chart before committing to a release date.

I wish they had rejected it. But it was the 80s and maybe they thought in the current pop/rock climate they might get away with it.
I can't imagine anyone at CBS thinking "Wow! what a great new sound".

Maybe they did it for a dare. Or maybe they were just pleased to get rid of The Clash. They had Big Audio Dynamite and the songsmith in Mick.

In the Short Sharp Shock punk documentary shown around the time Maurice Oberstein can be heard saying BAD are not a bad little band.

Now you guys have really done it -- you've made me dig out one of my main Clash scrapbooks from out of the cabinet! One of a dozen or so, that I kept over the years, in an 11" x 17" sketchbook. Because you jogged my memory of something else, to help address the above questions.

Mark and I didn't fully get to the bottom of the matter, but we both assumed that more work on the album was being done -- Nick said as much, that there were additional sessions when they came back from Munich (before or after the busking tour, take your pick).

Any additional recording would certainly have required further remixing and/or post-production, to fully assimilate the results into what had already been completed.

According to Nick, there wasn't a lot of contact with CBS for most of this period. But he doesn't recall any alarms going off, or pressure not to tour, or do any of the things that a normal rock group does. His feeling was that CBS were just waiting to see what happened, once the Clash got up and running. They didn't underwrite the American tour, either, so in that sense, "it was no skin off their nose," he said.

To answer your other questions, I am turning to a notable piece in one of my main Clash scrapbooks -- a promotional one-sheet, as they call them, outlining what kind of plans CBS entertained for Cut The Crap, once Bernie finally delivered it to them.

What's most striking is that whoever wrote it clearly had no idea of what the band had been doing lately -- notably, all the US and UK touring -- but the overall tone is hardly non-committal nor dismissive, as the opening paragraphs make clear:

"It's been three long years since the phenomenal platinum success of of the CLASH's Combat Rock, but three years is never too long to wait for the return of the most significant and enduring musical group of our generation -- THE CLASH.

"Make no mistake about it -- Joe Strummer and Company are back in a blaze of glory with the release of CUT THE CRAP, the raunchiest, most musically aggressive record of their long career.

"Written by Joe Strummer and produced by the group, the twelve songs on CUT THE CRAP find THE CLASH returning to their early roots with a fiery combination of buzzsaw guitars and anthem-like vocals."

And we also get this choice observation:

"In light of the band's three-year absence from recording and performing, it is certainly no understatement to say that radio, retail, and most important of all -- the legions of dedicated CLASH fans and fanatics who buy the records and concert tickets -- are all literally dying for this record.

"And don't forget that because it's been a long time coming, there will be enormous press interest and demand for THE CLASH and CUT THE CRAP."

Dying for this record? Well, they did get the first part of that right. But not in the way that they imagined.

At any rate, if you go by the one-sheet, the inactivity -- or relative lack thereof -- was going to be a key part of the marketing push, apparently. If anybody in high places seemed bothered, the copy doesn't give that particular game away, does it?

I have attached my original page, and boosted it slightly, for easier reading. Plus a shot of Yer Humble Narrator, with the front cover of the scrapbook from whence it came, as well.

But you'll find numerous points of interest -- including the bullets items about "additional dance and club mixes of selected tracks from the LP" -- which supports your comments, KC, that the pop direction seemed like the logical next phase in the Clash's evolution -- plus the teases of a video for "This Is England" ("Plans are underway for additional videos"), and "an extensive trade and consumer print campaign to announce the release of the LP."

There's also a reference to an American tour for January 1986, though I'd question the date -- Nick has said that tours of Australia, Japan and the Far East had been booked for that time period.

I have seen some news items in various mags suggesting that the band were returning to the US that summer, which seems a bit more logical, in light of the former chronology that Nick has outlined -- and I trust his memory more than a lot of the other players from this era, so I'd assume that's how the touring timeline would have unfolded.

One other point of interest not mentioned here is that according to Nick, "Dirty Punk" was tentatively planned as the next single after "This Is England." I have seen the projected album artwork for it, which -- if memory serves correctly -- focused around the British V sign (for middle finger).

Eddie King also did various bits and pieces for this stuff, which I've seen, as well. (Unfortunately, I can't post any of it, without his OK, since it's his artwork -- since that issue became a major bone of contention of him at the time, so I definitely understand.)

To sum up, whatever was going on internally, plans were afoot, and assumptions were being made. Both Nick and Vince stated, during our various interviews, that nobody felt unduly concerned about Joe's latest disappearing act, before "This Is England" came out -- since if it was a success, they figured he would turn up to do his part, promotion-wise. After all, he was the spokesman and focal point during this era, so it seems logical that he wouldn't want to miss his day in the sun.

And Bernie was surely crossing his fingers, that the popular buzz and response would be enough to overcome the bad reviews the album was getting, and Joe would return to his "day job," so to speak. Bernie certainly needed his biggest act to succeed, if he was ever going to realize his mega-mogul/artistic aspirations. The road to doing that depended on a big return from the album he'd spent so much time working up. I'm sure he felt the pressure, as much as anyone else did.

And, as you can see for yourselves, CBS expected big returns from the new album, as well. None of the proposals in the one-sheet strike me as a label giving up on one of its flagship acts. Far from it -- they were going all in, one way or another, and let the chips fall where they may.

Of course, it never got there, in the end. But from a distance, it seemed like business as usual, in Clashworld. Little did they know...

Wow! That is an amazing document, that is so much for sharing this.

It seems to confirm there was some kind of acknowledgement that they had to re-sell this band to the public in a sense. They had gone from headlining night one of the then biggest American music festival ever to playing to half empty college auditoriums in less than a year, so you can sense a bit of desperation in that one sheet.

I know Bernie had been a big part of the dance mixes after Sandinista had come out, and there was some attempt at getting the tapes back out and getting something out of it. But Fingerpoppin' AOR mix and This Is England dub were the only products of that effort to see the light of day. I'd wager thag there are/were some others prepped but left in a rough mix state and never finished.

I also assume Columbia were probably happy to wait until Mick had finished B.A.D. (which I believe was completed after CTC) so they could play up the rivalry upon release. A cynical but smart strategy although they really weren't able to utilize it because Joe refused to participate in any promo.

[Chairman Ralph]

I think it's interesting that no one really talks about BAD anymore but lots of people still talk about CTC. Is it the power of the brand name or is just a more interesting story (or soap opera)? Or maybe CTC is an Eighties nostalgia thing in a more recognizable way? BAD is extremely Eighties but in the kind of way that a lot of other typical 80s stuff is, stuff that's now kind of forgotten like Cactus World News, Vitamin Z or Gene Loves Jezebel. Like, it's ridiculously 80s yet somehow not 80s enough, paradoxically. Or maybe it's the Jim Morrison syndrome with Joe. Or maybe CTC has that trainwreck appeal, I don't know.

BAD had some great songs but Mick was no frontman. He just didn't have the presence, same way with his idol Keef.

What's the appeal, you ask? Oh, definitely the soap opera aspect! That's what draws folks in, and that's what motivated me, in part, to start writing about these guys.

I wanted to find out what really happened, as much as anybody else, because a lot of hints were being dropped, but nobody seemed to want to say. For me, the CTC era seemed like the logical entry point, as it was the last major stone that anyone had yet to turn over. Nor did anyone seem interested, which struck me as unusual.

And the CTC story has all the classic soap ingredients -- the tormented hero (Joe) and his jilted partner (Mick), the villain of the piece (Bernie), the Greek chorus (Vince, Nick, and Pete), and the up and down story arcs (the buzz of the busking tour, followed by the crash of the breakup) -- to hold people's attention. It's all there, if you want to view it that way.

In contrast, BAD always carried a more straightforward vibe -- as a forward-looking, modern-thinking, futuristic sort of acting rock band, going about its daily business. A bit lower there, in terms of drama potential, aside from Mick's near-miss with the Grim Reaper in 1988. I think that had a big negative impact on his subsequent career, for sure. Another case of what might have been.

As far as who talks about them, or doesn't, I think it's mostly been a cult thing, in BAD's case, since they were bigger overseas than they ever were here -- aside from that brief early '90s period with the BAD II lineup, when anything that just came off the boat was bound to stir up interest, until the chill of a post-Nirvana world blew in, and swept that all away). Though even in the UK, that success died down, once the initial success of those early singles (E=MC2, Medicine Show, V13) wore off, and with some exceptions (Contact, Rush), another wave didn't come along to replace it.

By the time I made it to London in 1989, I got a sense for how things had tapered off, because I saw them several different times, and they were playing small clubs and theaters -- to a cult of diehards. I knew they weren't winning many new converts, because I tended to see the same faces at the gigs. That said, certain territories remained solid for them, notably Japan and Australia, where a compilation (Lost Treasures Of BAD) wound up being released to tie in with their run of touring there.

[Marky Dread]

I think it's interesting that no one really talks about BAD anymore but lots of people still talk about CTC. Is it the power of the brand name or is just a more interesting story (or soap opera)? Or maybe CTC is an Eighties nostalgia thing in a more recognizable way? BAD is extremely Eighties but in the kind of way that a lot of other typical 80s stuff is, stuff that's now kind of forgotten like Cactus World News, Vitamin Z or Gene Loves Jezebel. Like, it's ridiculously 80s yet somehow not 80s enough, paradoxically. Or maybe it's the Jim Morrison syndrome with Joe. Or maybe CTC has that trainwreck appeal, I don't know.

BAD had some great songs but Mick was no frontman. He just didn't have the presence, same way with his idol Keef.

Depends on who you are referring to when you say no one. Do you mean folk here or wider in general. Because other than here I don't here much chat about CTC unless it's to say how bad an album it is.