Clash Week: In Their Own Words

I'LL LET this wee audio package to speak for itself. Topper, Joe, Mick and Paul as they saw it. From the great Rockers Galore CD sampler.
Right click on the DivShare logo on the listening bar and download the package to listen to again on your iPods, mp3 players or wherever.

Guns of Brixton: Paul Simonon the beating heart of The Clash

GUNS OF Brixton could be the very zenith of the kind of 'wiggerism' many Clash critics point to in their criticisms of the band, and perhaps rightly so.
Bass player Paul Simonon gets a chance to live his roots reggae dreams of outlawism in a cod Jamaican accent while telling a story of police lifting a bandito in the far off flung climes of Brixton.
Well, it may be flawed, but 'Guns of Brixton' has an awe inspiring bass line, some great guitar fills from Jonesy and the vocal is spot on from Simonon.
And the composer is the heart of this debate: there really hasn't been a cooler wielder of the four string rhythm section axe in history than Simonon (right).
I reviewed him in the overblown and overhyped Albarn-helmed four piece The Good, The Bad and The Queen and even 30 years on the man was the essence of rock and roll cool.
And this song has haunting harmonies, is underrated and wsn't even spoiled by the fey shit sandwich that is the Nouvelle Vague cover.

Turning rebellion into money: White Man in Hammersmith Palais

OF ALL the nonsense that is often thrown at The Clash, the most common criticism is that they were opportunist arrivistes always flying to Belfast for photo ops and using DM shod, biker jacketed revolutionary chic to sex up their meat-and-two veg rockism.
But that kind of cynical critique doesn't allow for the likes of myself who will be forever in their debt for opening my eyes to a legion of great music that I wouldn't ordinarily have heard of. They were a music library waiting to be explored, because unlike many, they always wore their influences on their sleeves - sometimes literally.
Guitarist Mick Jones once described their fabulously eclectic album fourth album Sandinista as 'music for people who work on oil rigs,  a bit of everything,' but I have always seen The Clash as a practical equivalent of those long lists of artists you got in the credits of Def Jam rap records: after listening to The Clash, I had to search out Prince Far I or Culture or Ken Booth or Vince Taylor.
It was more than just music. Through The Clash, I went and read about movie star Montomery Clift (from The Right Profile from London Calling) and photojournalist Sean Flynn (from Combat Rock). (He worked with John Steinbeck's son).    
On Thursday last, I was struggling with a mountain of work and fired on Under Heavy Manners by Prince Far I, you think I would have known about that 20 years ago living in a new town of roundabouts and little else without The Clash? Possibly, but it was thanks to interviews with them that I did.
The Clash back catalogue is like the big revolving racks of tapes that were in Craigavon library when I was an awkward, mostly friendless teenager stuck in his room. I got The Clash from those racks and those racks contained a lot of the music The Clash lionised and covered and I also listened to that.
The Clash, unlike a lot of commercially successful bands had the ability to make other worldly sounding music, stuff a band in their position would usually not make and 'White Man in Hammersmith Palais' is perhaps the best example. A reggae tinged story of being an outsider in a black venue, not the stuff of  zeitgeisty, successful figureheads of British punk in 1978.
And that's the point: it is Joe Strummer's story of being an outsider during an evening of the black culture they so loved. It's about people and love and enthusiasm before turning to pointing a finger at the cynical pricks who make life bad.
It also has the best 'Oooh A hooo A oooh' harmonies ever committed to tape. That might be the best thng about it, too.
Listen to the interviews below from Joe and Mick to tell the story.
(I'll hypertext this up soon)

Clash Week: Let's take humanity back into the centre of the ring

THIS WEEK I will be posting pieces inspired by interviews recorded by members of  The Clash during the production of the wonderful Don Letts' documentary 'From Westway to the World'.
I've been lucky enough to get an audio CD sent out to US radio stations for promotional use after the re-release of the box set 'The Clash on Broadway' near the end  of the 1990s. Much thanks has to be given to my Widnesian mate Tony Dagnall who snaffled said CD in Ed McKay's, the record and book shop he works for in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
The CD looks like it has been sold by someone attached to college radio station of Wake Forest University in Winston Salem.
At the end of the day, humanity is what The Clash, and particularly Joe Strummer, means to me.
Ed Hamell, the one man acoustic guitar wielding colossus, got it right many years ago in his Uncut magazine column when he said anyone who attacks the Clash for posturing or selling out misses the essential humanity at the heart of the majority of their greatest songs.
Joe's spiel here says it all for me, I'll be posting my thoughts and some more interviews for the next seven days.

What have you heard/ read/ seen this month?

AGAIN, stolen shamelessly from The Word magazine's Blogger Takeover strand, I'm asking fellow gobshites to tell me what they have read/ seen/ heard this month. Here are mine for March 2010.

Books

City of Lies by Alafair Burke – while it has a couple of nicely drawn characters, a nicely convoluted plot which makes you think almost to the end, Burke’s New York-set police whodunit doesn’t sit in the top league of modern crime thrillers. The absurdly strong and wilful detective Ellie Hatcher has the potential to be a great character and the backdrop of Manhattan and NYC is lovingly painted, but it lacks a the stylistic oomph of New York crime scribe Lawrence Block (skip annoying intro to site) and the moral overtones of either Burke’s father – the great James Lee or the holy trinity of modern East Coast American Noir: Lehane, Pelecanos and Price (see tags on the left).

It’s one for those of us who can happily fly through Jonathan Kellerman or Robert Crais.

Mediated Politics edited by W. Lance Bennett & Robert M. Entman

This book is 10 years old this year and still is as relevant to the modern communications student/ researcher. Amid all the middle class fortune telling of those predicting the future with absolute confidence on the welter of blogs established by self appointed experts, this is a valuable reminder that we have as yet to do extensive research into the power of the blogosphere beyond a couple of books and peer reviewed journal articles.  

We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People by Dan Gillmor

Six years old and a similar story to Entman and Bennett’s collection – a book which charts the first wave of impact on corporate or big media by the internet and blogs and which shows we have yet to write the key text on the second wave. Perhaps only Charlie Beckett’s work is leading the way, in Britain at least. 

Films

Precious little at the cinema but a splurge on Amazon for stuff that I wanted to see again.

First up was Matteo Garrone’s wonderful Gomorrah (2008) which shows the brutal and all pervasive depths to which the mafia permeate life in Southern Italy. From nonsensical drug turf wars which needlessly cost lives, to the all too often seen ‘innocent boy to drug mule’ motif (known to lovers of The Wire) to the white collar political criminals in the pay of the mob, it is the best film on mafia ever made. Award winning writer Roberto Saviano, on whose book the film is based, is now in hiding and his exposure of the true nature of Italian society should be potentially explosive. It also has a breathtaking opening sequence which sets the scene for the rest of the movie. To call it the best film since City of God, does neither film any justice. Gomorrah is really compelling. The final lines of this Amazon review should tell you all you need to know about why this is a vital piece of film making and journalism.

Next up the two part French crime double Mesrine which I saw at FACT in Liverpool. Directed by Jean-Francois Richet and featuring (and I use this phrase with the respect it deserves) a career defining performance from Vincent Cassel, it is the real life story of 60s/70s French gangster Jacques Mesrine. It has to be said that Cassel, a man good looking enough to test my Kelner-like 36 year unblemished record of heterosexuality, gives the performance of a lifetime. Breathtaking violence, glamour, daring escapes, heists, gambling, shagging and media manipulation - it is the perfect example of an intoxicatingly true story told well by a fine director and a leading man with huge charisma.

Tomorrow night, I’m going to go with a 1974 paranoia-fest double bill with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation and Alan J. Pakula’s The Parallax View because I think both movies say so much more today than they even did in their own times.

Music

Man alive, I have gone mad with all manner of genres in the last few weeks of frenzied PhD  catch-up writing. Amadou and Mariam for the last couple of days – anything with such a noticeable influence of the producer Manu Chao has to be a good thing.

Reggae star George Faith, particularly his work with Lee Scratch Perry, turned up during a Word magazine instigated randomiser session as did the Nigerian-born ‘calypso’ star Ambrose Campbell whose work features on the now several years old ‘London is the Place for Me’ compilation I found thanks to Du Noyer and The Word. Campbell's very interesting obit from the Guardian is available here.

On top this, while writing I have found my inner classicist and have again been top skanking to Daniel Barenboim’s conducting the Berlin Philharmonic doing Bruckner.

At times of minor crisis, I always turn to (among others) Lightning Hopkins, Trojan Rocksteady, The Pogues and The Clash and this period has been no different. Enough hypertext already, if you need to know - google people.

Let me know what you have watched/ read/ heard this month, below the fold.

Podcast No 1: Trestles table a motion for change

THE Al O'Hare fronted Liverpool four piece The Trestles are pretty unusual for a modern Scouse band.
Eschewing nearly three generations' commitment to the faux mystical by the permanently stoned, the Trestles are dedicated to an old fashioned rock and politics manifesto which kind of sets them apart on the local scene.
Instead of looking at a mix of Beefheart and the Beatles for their inspiration, they look to the spiritual twilight of Celtic soul-era Van Morrison and raw early period Springsteen for their key influence. A hefty dose of Oasis-style working class pride also seeps through - it's no surprise given how O'Hare delights in declaring his love for the Gallagher's peerless first record, Definitely Maybe.

The key to understanding The Trestles is their fearsome live reputation and it's clear that the work ethic of Spingsteen underpins the whole shooting match.Theirs is classic, sincere, emotional, human rock and the lack of skinny jeaned/ floppy fringed cool is somewhat refreshing in the era of identikit Scallydellic rock. The Clash (particularly Joe Strummer), Neil Young and Christy Moore all leave their mark on either O'Hare's lyrics or the overall sound of the band.

You can see them on Saturday night, January 30th, at Liverpool's wonderful Zanzibar Club on Seel Street and for £3 on the door it's an absolute steal. 

They play the hipster hangout Korova in early February and as soon as their album is complete a raft of dates are promised and we'll do a review when it appears.

Scouser O'Hare (above right), a music journalist in his day job, joined forces with North Wales guitarist Tom Carroll (left) two years ago and the partnership is bearing fruit, first in the form of last year's Hard Faced Town EP and with the forthcoming 10 track long player we chat about in their interview.
The first single with the songs 'The Civilised' and 'Drink of Water' are available over on their mySpace page. I'll pop them up here tomorrow as a sneak preview of the gig.

I went along to Al's gaff, appropriately enough in the Penny Lane area of Liverpool, and we chatted for nearly two hours - 40 minutes of which have become the inaugural some might say premier GM podcast.

Al's going to join GM for a regular music podcast over coming months so let us know about what you think and we'll have a chat about it.

Joe Strummer RIP

JOE Strummer is seven years dead today, and we are much worse for it.
No one pop star ever touched me more than Strummage and never a week goes by without listening to The Clash or his four 'solo' albums.
I wrote this interview a month prior to his death for the Liverpool ECHO.
It's a rubbish interview because I was overawed speaking to a hero, I hope I did him justice. He even phoned me a day later to make sure I had got the pictures his wife was sending for it. I was feeding our daughter Ella her brekkie when I took the call, I dropped Weetabix all over the floor.
All the best, Joe.

Liverpool ECHO, November 22, 2002
THE voice is as enthusiastic and passionate as it ever was, the beliefs as idealistic as they ever were.
Joe Strummer's back in town and he ain't changed a bit.
Leader of punk deities the Clash, musical pioneer, political idealist and doting father, Strummer remains undimmed by the slings and arrows of 25 years outrageous fortune in the music industry.
And, excited punk rock pop pickers, he's heading our way.
On the phone from his West Country home, the man born John Mellor in Turkey 50 years ago is looking forward to coming back to Liverpool, a city which took the Clash to its bosom like no other.
But more of the nostalgia later. This time he's bringing his band, the Mescaleros, back to town next Friday at Liverpool University's small but perfectly formed Stanley theatre.
This is the story so far.
Strummer and his young band have recorded a couple of critically acclaimed albums (Pop Art And The X-Ray Style from 1999 and last year's Global A Go-Go) and won rave live reviews since the great man came back from nearly a decade of self-imposed showbiz exile three years ago.
They rip through a handful of Clash classics every night and augment these punk favourites with the best tracks from the two albums, as well as throwing in the odd new song or reggae cover.
And how would you describe the new songs?
Well, deep breath now, it's an interesting mixture of pop, blues, reggae, dance dub and African jive.
It's infectious and irresistible for anyone with a passing interest in quality sounds.
This time around they are hitting the university with the intention of honing a set ready for recording a new album early in the New Year.
Cue Joe, rapping quickly and enthusiastically about the vibe in the band.
He says: "We were out in Japan and America and we were really rocking, blowing crowds away with the new songs. So I wanted to get it back out on the road again and bash the songs out and make them stronger before we get in to the studio.
"The new songs are mutating, and becoming more human because we are banging them out without fussing.
"Playing live is a part of the process; we aren't interested in making something pristine, we want to bash the songs out before we get into the studio.
"But what I have learned is that when you are on a roll like this and the vibe is right you have to keep riding it; the only time we ever managed to do it before was with (legendary Clash triple album) Sandinista."
Clang! That there, folks, is the sound of the Clash name being dropped, and it's a musical legacy you can't ignore when interviewing the great one.
Liverpool loves him and he loves us. Heck, Liverpool is practically home territory for Strummer, who made his long-awaited return to the stage at a legendary show at the now closed Cumberland Street venue the Lomax in 1999.
But for many an ex-punk about town, a Clash show at Eric's in 1978 was the high water mark for both the band and the movement.
Joe adds: "We had some great shows in Eric's where it really went off, they were brilliant nights where we really rocked the house.
"We loved Eric's and loved playing Liverpool."
In fact Eric's in 1978 can claim to be the most packed show of all time - the club only held a couple of hundred people, but up to 10,000 claim to have been present.
Despite these nostalgic waxings there was no place for the Clash on the cheap TV celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the birth of British punk.
As middle-aged men and women rehashed a quarter of a century-old anecdotes, Strummer and his band mates Mick Jones, Topper Headon and Paul Simenon kept a dignified silence.
Strummer simply says: "That's all false memory syndrome. I don't want to look back, I want to keep going forward, I still have something to say to people.
"I don't want to be seen as one of the Searchers, doing the same things over and over again.
But until then, I'll just keep going."
There is no chance of a potentially multi-million dollar reunion of the Clash, but they are still the band most revered by the current crop of garage groups.
On top this of their 1979 classic London Calling has been voted one of the top 10 singles of all time by music bible NME.
Joe says: "That's better than money or anything else in this job - that's respect, the fact that these great bands acknowledge a debt to us. That's fantastic."
So that's Joe , punk rock Godfather and a man of the people.
* Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, Stanley Theatre, Liverpool University, Friday, November 22.

Mick Jones, Rachid Taha, Casbah: Brilliant, just brilliant

FOUND this reading my own post.
The Clash and Rachid on one stage.
Literally can't describe how happy I am. Watched it five times in a row.
Got a Diet Pepsi headache staying up.
Jonesy even shouts 'Says it's not kosher'.
Just, just, ...unutterably brilliant.
Joe would've approved and would also have been there.
(Dabs eyes, manfully, and points to non-existent onion while grabbing coat).

FOLLOW FRIDAY: Rachid Taha, the French Algerian Joe Strummer

RACHID TAHA, an Algerian-born, Lyon-raised 'French' singer songwriter has written (and rewritten) some of the most vital songs of the last 30 years.
As the leader of the band Carte de Séjour in the 1980s he helped pave the way for a new conception of French music, breaking down the barriers between rock music and those of the immigrant French and traditional music of France. The band's name referenced the residency card most immigrants were required to have in France.
The band, which eventually split in 1989/1990, was best known for its ironic reworking of the Charles Trenet chanson/ song Douce France a version which raised questions about the status of the North African immigrant French and their status in a France that was witnessing the rise of the Le Pen-led Front Nationale.
But it was after the split with Carte de Séjour that Taha would go on to become the great star of what is rather patronisingly called 'world' music. He comes out of the tradition of Rai singing and his fusing of the North African and arabic world with everything from punk to dance, to rock to techno has seen him become a hero in his adoptive home and throughout the Arabic disapora.
Through the 1990's his relationship with British producer Steve Hillage saw him produce some excellent music, the albums Olé Olé, Barbès, Rachid Taha, Made in Medina and the single Voilà, Voilà which appears on the brilliant 1997 album Carte Blanche on the cover of which he looks uncannily like Joe Strummer cira-London Calling.
The Clash link is important to the understanding of Taha because much of his music treads the punky esoteric line of the British band's Sandinista album. Taha met the Clash before a 1981 show in the Paris theatre, the Mogador which has become legendary in the country - French music's equivalent of the Pistols at the Free Trade Hall.
Taha is an awkward, radical punk at heart, a champion of the underdog and a natural heir to his great hero Strummer. This Socialist Worker interview sums it up.
Taha and Strummer never met again, but there were plans afoot for them to get together at the time of Strummer's untimely death nearly seven years ago. Taha's real overground breakthrough would be his Arabic cover Rock El Casbah (from Tékitoi) which appeared in the Strummer documentary The Future is Unwritten.
Taha's real breakthrough album in the English speaking world came with 1998's 'Diwan' which featured a trio of his calling card songs, Ya Rayah, Habina and Menfi.

He has gone on to make great albums in the 2000s, Tékitoi, Diwan 2 which is perhaps the greatest example of Rai music committed to vinyl/ CD/ digital format. He also released the tremendous best of Rachid Taha: The Definitive Collection which contains a bonus disc beautiful 30 minute documentary following Taha back to Algeria produced and presented by Andy Kershaw - his strongest advocate in the British music media.
His new album Bonjour was reviewed today in the posh papers, we'll reserve judgement before we review it at GM.
FOLLOW FRIDAY 10 on Spotify

The Clash lose out to Bowie. WTF dude?

Mrmgrid2009 - Christie's Picks

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Puzzles & Games puzzles

This US radio station's battle of the bands is highly contentious in Miscellany Towers. Whaddya reckon, cobbers? What no Wah Heat? No Proper, No Rain, No Real People or Smaller. Merseysidist bastards?

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What are your favourite 'bits' or 'segments' of songs?

THERE are great albums, great songs and great opening lyrics (‘Bless my cotton socks, I’m in the news’ The Teardrop Explodes), but what are the great ‘bits’ of songs?
By that I mean, what are the wee parts of songs you love?
The grunts, the oohs, the two note guitar solos and the spoken intros which make you want to join in.
The saxophone solos, the count ins, improvised skatting or unusual pronunciations of words you cherish and make you reach up to the headphones and press them that bit closer to the ear drum.

My starter for 10 (in no particular order and to be added to)

“Have you forgotten, that once we were brought here, we were robbed of our name, robbed of our language, we lost our religion, our culture, our gods... and many of us by the way we act, we even lost our minds...”
Farrakhan sample at the start of Night of the Living Baseheads by Public Enemy. Hip hop’s finest moment quickly followed by the almost as brilliant sample ‘We goin’ to get on down now’ soon after. Pure Bomb Squad alchemy. Perfect in every way, just as the album It Takes Million... is. I honestly believe this is pop music’s highest moment. Period.

The ‘1,2,3,4’ preceding the final verse of Springsteen’s Born to Run, usually accompanied by a delirious punch of the fist followed by a deep tinge of regret that you are bladdered at 1am in your Merseyside front room and not in a bar on the Jersey Shore circa 1978.

Strummer's lupine 'Ow Ow Ow Ow' in London Calling by The Clash

'Fuckin' long, ain't it' Magnificent Seven by The Clash

The ropey saxophone solo in This Old Heart of Mine by the Isley Brothers

Everything in either the four minute or near nine minute versions of Movin' On Up by Curtis Mayfield, especially the bongos

The opening John Byrne-penned riff to - and the very final G chord of - There She Goes by The La’s

All the horns on the later segments of Otis Redding’s Try a Little Tenderness

‘Let’s hear it now for Otis Redding’ and all the subsequent ‘fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa’s’ on Arthur Conley’s Sweet Soul Music

How Weller’s voice raises up on the word society in the line before the chorus in the Jam’s Going Underground. ‘And I want nothing of what soc-IERTY wants, I’m goin...’

The ‘Put Yer Fur boots on’ exclamation by Van Morrison on the intro of the Bang Sessions version of Madame George

The guitar lick on The Needle and Damage Done by Neil Young

The opening to Where the Streets Have No Name by U2

The opening riff to Streets of Your Town by the Go-Betweens

the 'la la la' bit of Waterloo Sunset by the Kinks