The Clash observations thread.

Clash clash clash. ¡VIVAN LOS NORTEAMERICANOS DEL IMCT Y LAS BRIGADAS DEL CADILLAC NUEVO!
101Walterton
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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by 101Walterton »

Heston wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 8:10pm
KCportland wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 7:57pm
Marky Dread wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 5:47pm
KCportland wrote:
21 Aug 2020, 5:07pm
If Devo made Cut the Crap in 85, it would have been hailed a miraculous return to form.

I love CTC as is. Garish, Guady, pop-art/Mad Max version of "punk". Only thing I'd change is axe North and South for Do it Now (which is how I have it sequenced on my version)

edit: here's Devo's 1985 single "Here To Go" for a contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6RwHjlqsx4
Maybe CtC sounds a bit like Devo with the synths but we really wanted it to sound like The Clash.
Totally. But what I guess I'm getting at is that is that there seems to be a rigidity about what the Clash is or isn't among fans, critics and members of the actual band that other bands and their fans don't have. There is a perception of this band as a sort of family unit in that members can't be legitimately replaced with others because they simply aren't blood related and thus never can be. This sort of thinking has been perpetuated most by the band themselves and their respective inner circles over the last 20 or so years, ever since the Clash were "declared" to be a member of the elite bands of all time. They've rewritten history with every official documentary or retrospective to the point where so much of it can be proven demonstrably false (depending on what day of the week it is, Paul and Mick will tell you they met Joe in a dole queue or at a 101ers gig or somewhere else entirely, and depending on temperature and humidity percentage, Keith Levene either does or does not exist).

But the fact that they cannot and will not acknowledge the existence of a sixth album is ultimately the most egregious. It's borderline insulting to long-time fan's intelligence. The Velvet Underground had a Nico era, a John Cale era and a Doug Yule era. These are acknowledged as canonical by fans, critics and band. Why can't the Clash do the same? What is oh-so-sacred?

Cut The Crap is an album released by the Clash in 1985, with all music and lyrics authored by frontman Joe Strummer. He and Bernie Rhodes, who lest we forget was affiliated with the Clash before Joe, along with Nick Sheppard and occasionally Vince and Pete, arranged the album together in London and Munich in the first half of 85. Ego's clashed, Bernie turned dictatorial, other's contributions were sidelined and no one walked away from the project satisfied. That sounds like a much more typical album making experience than we'd all like to believe.

I love the album ultimately because it's a Clash album with some good songs and great vocal performances by Joe. It is equally boneheaded and thrilling in varying ways, and there is legitimately nothing else like it out there.
I'm signing this off. Great post.
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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Marky Dread »

KCportland wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 7:57pm
Marky Dread wrote:
26 Aug 2020, 5:47pm
KCportland wrote:
21 Aug 2020, 5:07pm
If Devo made Cut the Crap in 85, it would have been hailed a miraculous return to form.

I love CTC as is. Garish, Guady, pop-art/Mad Max version of "punk". Only thing I'd change is axe North and South for Do it Now (which is how I have it sequenced on my version)

edit: here's Devo's 1985 single "Here To Go" for a contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6RwHjlqsx4
Maybe CtC sounds a bit like Devo with the synths but we really wanted it to sound like The Clash.
Totally. But what I guess I'm getting at is that is that there seems to be a rigidity about what the Clash is or isn't among fans, critics and members of the actual band that other bands and their fans don't have. There is a perception of this band as a sort of family unit in that members can't be legitimately replaced with others because they simply aren't blood related and thus never can be. This sort of thinking has been perpetuated most by the band themselves and their respective inner circles over the last 20 or so years, ever since the Clash were "declared" to be a member of the elite bands of all time. They've rewritten history with every official documentary or retrospective to the point where so much of it can be proven demonstrably false (depending on what day of the week it is, Paul and Mick will tell you they met Joe in a dole queue or at a 101ers gig or somewhere else entirely, and depending on temperature and humidity percentage, Keith Levene either does or does not exist).

But the fact that they cannot and will not acknowledge the existence of a sixth album is ultimately the most egregious. It's borderline insulting to long-time fan's intelligence. The Velvet Underground had a Nico era, a John Cale era and a Doug Yule era. These are acknowledged as canonical by fans, critics and band. Why can't the Clash do the same? What is oh-so-sacred?

Cut The Crap is an album released by the Clash in 1985, with all music and lyrics authored by frontman Joe Strummer. He and Bernie Rhodes, who lest we forget was affiliated with the Clash before Joe, along with Nick Sheppard and occasionally Vince and Pete, arranged the album together in London and Munich in the first half of 85. Ego's clashed, Bernie turned dictatorial, other's contributions were sidelined and no one walked away from the project satisfied. That sounds like a much more typical album making experience than we'd all like to believe.

I love the album ultimately because it's a Clash album with some good songs and great vocal performances by Joe. It is equally boneheaded and thrilling in varying ways, and there is legitimately nothing else like it out there.
This (above) is a fine post.

But I have to say not 100% correct in the denial of CtC as part of the catalogue. CtC has been re-released on CD not with much fanfare and after the other albums but still re-released. The Essential Clash included "This Is England" so it's not a complete denial. I know some fans really enjoy CtC and I like around half the songs and some of the unreleased demo and live recordings were good. It's always going to be an album of what could've been.

As to "The Clash" they were a rock n roll band that took musical risks with their music incorporating other musical styles.

There are plenty of synths on Combat Rock. But the sound of CtC is plain awful with the over production over bearing samples way too loud and the biggest crime of all being those synth drums. The Clash lost its two finest musicians in Topper and Mick no band ever could replace those two.

But the band given an understanding producer like Steve Lillywhite or even a Martin Rushent then CtC could've been a contender. The whole album was completely ruined by Bernie's ego. It's obvious he had seen the success his old pal Malcolm McLaren had achieved with "Buffal Gals" and The World's Supreme Team. He clearly felt he could compete and mould the band into his vision. Dumping Pete Howard from the recordings was the first of many huge mistakes. Those two twin Gibson's could've produced a great sound on record but the guitar sound on CtC is one of the worst I've ever heard.

The other point to all this is do you want "The Clash" to be remembered for those first 5 albums or CtC. When I saw The Clash play at Brixton in '84 it was great they played some new songs but ultimately I went there to hear the old songs. Songs that Howard/Sheppard/White had no hand in making. Not their fault they inherited the playing of those songs. But if they had only been playing stuff from Out of Control/Cut the Crap I don't see them getting much of an audience. In Truth Topper and Mick had as much right to go out and call themselves The Clash as Joe and Paul did.
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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Silent Majority »

Had Topper been well in the eighties, I would have loved to see him collaborate with Mick post-Clash.
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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Marky Dread »

Silent Majority wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 6:16am
Had Topper been well in the eighties, I would have loved to see him collaborate with Mick post-Clash.
Yeah just the T.R.A.C. stuff. But if he had kept himself together then who knows. I wonder how BAD would've sounded with Topper. Not to be any slight on Greg who is a great drummer of course.
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The end of liberty


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No fuchsias for you.

"Without the common people you're nothing"

Nos Sumus Una Familia

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by KCportland »

Marky Dread wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 4:45am

But the band given an understanding producer like Steve Lillywhite or even a Martin Rushent then CtC could've been a contender. The whole album was completely ruined by Bernie's ego. It's obvious he had seen the success his old pal Malcolm McLaren had achieved with "Buffal Gals" and The World's Supreme Team. He clearly felt he could compete and mould the band into his vision. Dumping Pete Howard from the recordings was the first of many huge mistakes. Those two twin Gibson's could've produced a great sound on record but the guitar sound on CtC is one of the worst I've ever heard.

The other point to all this is do you want "The Clash" to be remembered for those first 5 albums or CtC. When I saw The Clash play at Brixton in '84 it was great they played some new songs but ultimately I went there to hear the old songs. Songs that Howard/Sheppard/White had no hand in making. Not their fault they inherited the playing of those songs. But if they had only been playing stuff from Out of Control/Cut the Crap I don't see them getting much of an audience. In Truth Topper and Mick had as much right to go out and call themselves The Clash as Joe and Paul did.
One thing I think that is maybe unfairly dumped on Bernie is that he is the primary perpetrator of the decision to abandon the back-to-punk approach. The more we learn in interviews and in all of the demos circulating from 83/84, the more it seems Joe on a musical level wasn't really interested in making a rock or punk record, despite his insistence in interviews at the time that he was "stripping it down". I think Nick is a truly talented arranger (he singlehandedly arranged the definitive Spring of '84 version of Pouring Rain, after all. Joe's various arrangements never did his own tune justice, IMO) and was the one who punk-ed up those Joe songs from late '83-'85, and Joe probably felt that they made for appropriate live arrangements. But I don't know if Joe enjoyed punk that much beyond a performance setting.

This is all speculation of course, but I think Joe probably tossed songs like Glue Zombie and Ammunition in favor of Cool Under Heat and Movers And Shakers because they reflect his long held preferences for folk/world-music. Cool Under Heat on CtC is essentially arranged as a souped up edition of the Busking Tour version, hence the prominent acoustic guitar during the verses and the hand drumming percussion. I would bet my left arm that Movers was one of those songs from the demo he recorded in late '84 in LA with that mariachi band he hired, hence the very latin sounding synth trumpet sound in that song. I imagine Bernie did convince Joe, at least initially, that approaching these songs from an electronic angle was the way to go, the way to be "modern" as punk was modern in '77. But I think he realized he had to make some concession to the rock audience and thats where you get those heavy guitars and football chants. One thing Mick doesn't get enough credit for was how well versed he was in late 60s/early 70s rock music, not just Dolls/MC5/Stooges stuff but mod, freakbeat, psychedelic, metal, early prog, etc.. he has an encyclopedic knowledge of that stuff which defined how tasteful the guitar arrangements on the first five records are. Joe didn't have that asset when recording CtC, so he let others do the "rock" bits for him I think.

Joe was super sensitive to criticism and it didn't seem like he knew or believed how good his band sounded live in 84/85, and like most of us have a tendency to do, he seemed to focus on the negative reviews rather than the positive. But that long lost rock 'n' roll album that we all want(ed) was probably never in the cards in the first place because Joe never honestly wanted to make it.

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Heston »

Marky Dread wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 4:45am
When I saw The Clash play at Brixton in '84 it was great they played some new songs but ultimately I went there to hear the old songs. Songs that Howard/Sheppard/White had no hand in making. Not their fault they inherited the playing of those songs. But if they had only been playing stuff from Out of Control/Cut the Crap I don't see them getting much of an audience.
That's why they should have had an album out quicker. Then the fans could have gone to concerts hearing new songs, but at least they were songs they knew a bit. The length of time they took to release CtC was absurd, especially for that era.
There's a tiny, tiny hopeful part of me that says you guys are running a Kaufmanesque long con on the board

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Marky Dread »

KCportland wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 2:44pm
Marky Dread wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 4:45am

But the band given an understanding producer like Steve Lillywhite or even a Martin Rushent then CtC could've been a contender. The whole album was completely ruined by Bernie's ego. It's obvious he had seen the success his old pal Malcolm McLaren had achieved with "Buffal Gals" and The World's Supreme Team. He clearly felt he could compete and mould the band into his vision. Dumping Pete Howard from the recordings was the first of many huge mistakes. Those two twin Gibson's could've produced a great sound on record but the guitar sound on CtC is one of the worst I've ever heard.

The other point to all this is do you want "The Clash" to be remembered for those first 5 albums or CtC. When I saw The Clash play at Brixton in '84 it was great they played some new songs but ultimately I went there to hear the old songs. Songs that Howard/Sheppard/White had no hand in making. Not their fault they inherited the playing of those songs. But if they had only been playing stuff from Out of Control/Cut the Crap I don't see them getting much of an audience. In Truth Topper and Mick had as much right to go out and call themselves The Clash as Joe and Paul did.
One thing I think that is maybe unfairly dumped on Bernie is that he is the primary perpetrator of the decision to abandon the back-to-punk approach. The more we learn in interviews and in all of the demos circulating from 83/84, the more it seems Joe on a musical level wasn't really interested in making a rock or punk record, despite his insistence in interviews at the time that he was "stripping it down". I think Nick is a truly talented arranger (he singlehandedly arranged the definitive Spring of '84 version of Pouring Rain, after all. Joe's various arrangements never did his own tune justice, IMO) and was the one who punk-ed up those Joe songs from late '83-'85, and Joe probably felt that they made for appropriate live arrangements. But I don't know if Joe enjoyed punk that much beyond a performance setting.

This is all speculation of course, but I think Joe probably tossed songs like Glue Zombie and Ammunition in favor of Cool Under Heat and Movers And Shakers because they reflect his long held preferences for folk/world-music. Cool Under Heat on CtC is essentially arranged as a souped up edition of the Busking Tour version, hence the prominent acoustic guitar during the verses and the hand drumming percussion. I would bet my left arm that Movers was one of those songs from the demo he recorded in late '84 in LA with that mariachi band he hired, hence the very latin sounding synth trumpet sound in that song. I imagine Bernie did convince Joe, at least initially, that approaching these songs from an electronic angle was the way to go, the way to be "modern" as punk was modern in '77. But I think he realized he had to make some concession to the rock audience and thats where you get those heavy guitars and football chants. One thing Mick doesn't get enough credit for was how well versed he was in late 60s/early 70s rock music, not just Dolls/MC5/Stooges stuff but mod, freakbeat, psychedelic, metal, early prog, etc.. he has an encyclopedic knowledge of that stuff which defined how tasteful the guitar arrangements on the first five records are. Joe didn't have that asset when recording CtC, so he let others do the "rock" bits for him I think.

Joe was super sensitive to criticism and it didn't seem like he knew or believed how good his band sounded live in 84/85, and like most of us have a tendency to do, he seemed to focus on the negative reviews rather than the positive. But that long lost rock 'n' roll album that we all want(ed) was probably never in the cards in the first place because Joe never honestly wanted to make it.
That's an interesting take on things mate. I'm not so sure about Joe not wanting the punk thing anymore. It felt to me that Joe, Paul and possibly Bernie were reliving the past. Look at all those pictures taken around their old Camden stomping ground with Joe and Paul in their leather jackets and Joe's short cropped hair with quiff gone. Later he died his hair that carrot orange colour the same as he had way back in '76.

I think the truth is he (Joe) knew how much they were going to miss Mick in the studio with his arranging skills and his production ideas. If they had used a known producer on CtC there's no way they would have got away with half the Crap that went on that album.
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No fuchsias for you.

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Heston »

KCportland wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 2:44pm
Marky Dread wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 4:45am

But the band given an understanding producer like Steve Lillywhite or even a Martin Rushent then CtC could've been a contender. The whole album was completely ruined by Bernie's ego. It's obvious he had seen the success his old pal Malcolm McLaren had achieved with "Buffal Gals" and The World's Supreme Team. He clearly felt he could compete and mould the band into his vision. Dumping Pete Howard from the recordings was the first of many huge mistakes. Those two twin Gibson's could've produced a great sound on record but the guitar sound on CtC is one of the worst I've ever heard.

The other point to all this is do you want "The Clash" to be remembered for those first 5 albums or CtC. When I saw The Clash play at Brixton in '84 it was great they played some new songs but ultimately I went there to hear the old songs. Songs that Howard/Sheppard/White had no hand in making. Not their fault they inherited the playing of those songs. But if they had only been playing stuff from Out of Control/Cut the Crap I don't see them getting much of an audience. In Truth Topper and Mick had as much right to go out and call themselves The Clash as Joe and Paul did.
One thing I think that is maybe unfairly dumped on Bernie is that he is the primary perpetrator of the decision to abandon the back-to-punk approach. The more we learn in interviews and in all of the demos circulating from 83/84, the more it seems Joe on a musical level wasn't really interested in making a rock or punk record, despite his insistence in interviews at the time that he was "stripping it down". I think Nick is a truly talented arranger (he singlehandedly arranged the definitive Spring of '84 version of Pouring Rain, after all. Joe's various arrangements never did his own tune justice, IMO) and was the one who punk-ed up those Joe songs from late '83-'85, and Joe probably felt that they made for appropriate live arrangements. But I don't know if Joe enjoyed punk that much beyond a performance setting.

This is all speculation of course, but I think Joe probably tossed songs like Glue Zombie and Ammunition in favor of Cool Under Heat and Movers And Shakers because they reflect his long held preferences for folk/world-music. Cool Under Heat on CtC is essentially arranged as a souped up edition of the Busking Tour version, hence the prominent acoustic guitar during the verses and the hand drumming percussion. I would bet my left arm that Movers was one of those songs from the demo he recorded in late '84 in LA with that mariachi band he hired, hence the very latin sounding synth trumpet sound in that song. I imagine Bernie did convince Joe, at least initially, that approaching these songs from an electronic angle was the way to go, the way to be "modern" as punk was modern in '77. But I think he realized he had to make some concession to the rock audience and thats where you get those heavy guitars and football chants. One thing Mick doesn't get enough credit for was how well versed he was in late 60s/early 70s rock music, not just Dolls/MC5/Stooges stuff but mod, freakbeat, psychedelic, metal, early prog, etc.. he has an encyclopedic knowledge of that stuff which defined how tasteful the guitar arrangements on the first five records are. Joe didn't have that asset when recording CtC, so he let others do the "rock" bits for him I think.

Joe was super sensitive to criticism and it didn't seem like he knew or believed how good his band sounded live in 84/85, and like most of us have a tendency to do, he seemed to focus on the negative reviews rather than the positive. But that long lost rock 'n' roll album that we all want(ed) was probably never in the cards in the first place because Joe never honestly wanted to make it.
Yeah, I think Joe was a more than willing participant in the whole debacle until it was too late. Even then, he hung on until the reviews came in before he publicly denounced the record and left the band.
There's a tiny, tiny hopeful part of me that says you guys are running a Kaufmanesque long con on the board

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by KCportland »

Marky Dread wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 3:21pm

That's an interesting take on things mate. I'm not so sure about Joe not wanting the punk thing anymore. It felt to me that Joe, Paul and possibly Bernie were reliving the past. Look at all those pictures taken around their old Camden stomping ground with Joe and Paul in their leather jackets and Joe's short cropped hair with quiff gone. Later he died his hair that carrot orange colour the same as he had way back in '76.

I think the truth is he (Joe) knew how much they were going to miss Mick in the studio with his arranging skills and his production ideas. If they had used a known producer on CtC there's no way they would have got away with half the Crap that went on that album.
I could be 100% wrong about everything, so I appreciate you being generous here. You were there (can't describe how jealous I am you went to the Brixton shows in 84. Was it the Scargills Christmas Party show or the March dates?) and I wasn't, so I can't say any of these things with any degree of certainty. ButI I agree that Joe did love the look and the spirit of punk, which may have been what he was trying to recapture most, but I suspect musically he was no punk purist at any point in his career.

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Marky Dread »

KCportland wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 3:29pm
Marky Dread wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 3:21pm

That's an interesting take on things mate. I'm not so sure about Joe not wanting the punk thing anymore. It felt to me that Joe, Paul and possibly Bernie were reliving the past. Look at all those pictures taken around their old Camden stomping ground with Joe and Paul in their leather jackets and Joe's short cropped hair with quiff gone. Later he died his hair that carrot orange colour the same as he had way back in '76.

I think the truth is he (Joe) knew how much they were going to miss Mick in the studio with his arranging skills and his production ideas. If they had used a known producer on CtC there's no way they would have got away with half the Crap that went on that album.
I could be 100% wrong about everything, so I appreciate you being generous here. You were there (can't describe how jealous I am you went to the Brixton shows in 84. Was it the Scargills Christmas Party show or the March dates?) and I wasn't, so I can't say any of these things with any degree of certainty. ButI I agree that Joe did love the look and the spirit of punk, which may have been what he was trying to recapture most, but I suspect musically he was no punk purist at any point in his career.
Yep Scargills Xmas date. They started with 'One More Time" played a bit of the Bond theme. I thought they were great. The sound wasn't the greatest but I thought the new band showed promise.

My mate had seen them in March when they were supported by The Pogues. I was holiday and well pissed off that I missed those March dates so I wasn't going to miss the Xmas ones.
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Forces have been looting
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The end of liberty


We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.

"Without the common people you're nothing"

Nos Sumus Una Familia

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by IkarisOne »

KCportland wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 2:44pm
Marky Dread wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 4:45am

But the band given an understanding producer like Steve Lillywhite or even a Martin Rushent then CtC could've been a contender. The whole album was completely ruined by Bernie's ego. It's obvious he had seen the success his old pal Malcolm McLaren had achieved with "Buffal Gals" and The World's Supreme Team. He clearly felt he could compete and mould the band into his vision. Dumping Pete Howard from the recordings was the first of many huge mistakes. Those two twin Gibson's could've produced a great sound on record but the guitar sound on CtC is one of the worst I've ever heard.

The other point to all this is do you want "The Clash" to be remembered for those first 5 albums or CtC. When I saw The Clash play at Brixton in '84 it was great they played some new songs but ultimately I went there to hear the old songs. Songs that Howard/Sheppard/White had no hand in making. Not their fault they inherited the playing of those songs. But if they had only been playing stuff from Out of Control/Cut the Crap I don't see them getting much of an audience. In Truth Topper and Mick had as much right to go out and call themselves The Clash as Joe and Paul did.
One thing I think that is maybe unfairly dumped on Bernie is that he is the primary perpetrator of the decision to abandon the back-to-punk approach. The more we learn in interviews and in all of the demos circulating from 83/84, the more it seems Joe on a musical level wasn't really interested in making a rock or punk record, despite his insistence in interviews at the time that he was "stripping it down". I think Nick is a truly talented arranger (he singlehandedly arranged the definitive Spring of '84 version of Pouring Rain, after all. Joe's various arrangements never did his own tune justice, IMO) and was the one who punk-ed up those Joe songs from late '83-'85, and Joe probably felt that they made for appropriate live arrangements. But I don't know if Joe enjoyed punk that much beyond a performance setting.

This is all speculation of course, but I think Joe probably tossed songs like Glue Zombie and Ammunition in favor of Cool Under Heat and Movers And Shakers because they reflect his long held preferences for folk/world-music. Cool Under Heat on CtC is essentially arranged as a souped up edition of the Busking Tour version, hence the prominent acoustic guitar during the verses and the hand drumming percussion. I would bet my left arm that Movers was one of those songs from the demo he recorded in late '84 in LA with that mariachi band he hired, hence the very latin sounding synth trumpet sound in that song. I imagine Bernie did convince Joe, at least initially, that approaching these songs from an electronic angle was the way to go, the way to be "modern" as punk was modern in '77. But I think he realized he had to make some concession to the rock audience and thats where you get those heavy guitars and football chants. One thing Mick doesn't get enough credit for was how well versed he was in late 60s/early 70s rock music, not just Dolls/MC5/Stooges stuff but mod, freakbeat, psychedelic, metal, early prog, etc.. he has an encyclopedic knowledge of that stuff which defined how tasteful the guitar arrangements on the first five records are. Joe didn't have that asset when recording CtC, so he let others do the "rock" bits for him I think.

Joe was super sensitive to criticism and it didn't seem like he knew or believed how good his band sounded live in 84/85, and like most of us have a tendency to do, he seemed to focus on the negative reviews rather than the positive. But that long lost rock 'n' roll album that we all want(ed) was probably never in the cards in the first place because Joe never honestly wanted to make it.
You can pretty much find a Joe quote to bolster any side of an argument, KC, especially with this topic. Joe was a poet, not a philosopher. His opinions seemed to change with the passing breeze.

That being said, Joe clearly wanted to strip things down to the kind of sound you hear on Permanent Record and Earthquake Weather, Fenders plugged straight into gnarly old Twin Reverbs and some conga now and then for seasoning. That's pretty much was his thing all along-- spiced-up pub rock. There obviously was no market for that kind of thing, so Bernie threw in his kitchen-sink electro-punk thing, which was fine in concept but abominable in execution. The back to punk thing of the 84 tour was probably more for publicity's sake than anything Joe or Bernie were actually considering to put on record. Hence the Strummer-WattRoy-Glaggo-Howard sessions in the summertime. There was clearly a considerable amount of confusion and indecision in the camp.

Things run their natural courses. The original band was clearly running out of gas before Tops got sacked, they rallied one last time for the big 82 tour and then collapsed for good. Joe did his level best to keep the thing going, but it just wasn't gonna happen. The second lineup put on bomb-blast shows in the first half of 84 and then ran aground shortly after. That initial burst of adrenaline dissipated. It was like a whirlwind love affair that was doomed to fail.

The good news is that The Clash enjoyed the most remarkable afterlife I've seen of any band since The Beatles. The band died but the myth lived on.

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by Heston »

IkarisOne wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 3:53pm
The good news is that The Clash enjoyed the most remarkable afterlife I've seen of any band since The Beatles.
I still find the renaissance amazing.
There's a tiny, tiny hopeful part of me that says you guys are running a Kaufmanesque long con on the board

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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by IkarisOne »

Heston wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 4:03pm
IkarisOne wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 3:53pm
The good news is that The Clash enjoyed the most remarkable afterlife I've seen of any band since The Beatles.
I still find the renaissance amazing.
I know, right? Especially given how low their stock had gotten during the 80s. Remarkable.

BostonBeaneater
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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by BostonBeaneater »

IkarisOne wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 5:24pm
Heston wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 4:03pm
IkarisOne wrote:
27 Aug 2020, 3:53pm
The good news is that The Clash enjoyed the most remarkable afterlife I've seen of any band since The Beatles.
I still find the renaissance amazing.
I know, right? Especially given how low their stock had gotten during the 80s. Remarkable.
Throughout the late 90s there was a constant rumor about the classic Clash line-up reforming. It really seemed to be gaining momentum when Strummer died. I have to wonder what that would have looked like if it had happened. The first comparison I can think of is the Pixies. There is was a band I saw in it's original incarnation and remembered very fondly. I was psyched when they reformed and saw them on that tour (2004 I believe). Since then they've become the punk equivalent of the washed up metal bands that make their hay playing state fairs and their legacy is in the gutter. I think the fact that the Clash were never heard from again has been great for their reputation.
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Re: The Clash observations thread.

Post by KCportland »

I just got in this in the mail, something I ordered weeks ago. Nice coincidence it arrived today. This is the 12" 45rpm single version with both Do It Now and Sex Mad Roar on the b-side. I got one still sealed from '85 so I just put it on for it's first ever play.

The mixes here sound so much tighter than what I hear on the CD remasters or even the 33rpm LP versions. TIE has wayyy more bass in the drum machine and the big guitars are pulled back a good deal in the mix. Joe's vocal seems farther to the front as well and the synths & chanting blend better with the uptick in bass. I really like it.

The artwork absolutely POPS btw, very very vivid and bold. Maybe my fave single art they ever did?
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