Hello there, thanks for visiting the blog again or indeed for finding it for the first time. I’m glad you found it if that’s the case. A story from Clash Blog towers this morning with a direct connection back to 1980/81. Those of you of similar vintage will remember and perhaps agree that 80/81 was nearly the bookend (at the end of) one of the best five year spells for music we’ve ever seen either before or since. Whilst punk seemed to fold in on itself almost as quickly as it began the resulting rise of independent labels and post punk artists created a vast assortment of great music. The more versatile punk bands including The Clash, XTC or John Lydon via Public Image reinvented their sounds almost completely to move with the times. At the same time as The Clash changed direction to the dismay of some they also seemed to find their most prolific groove releasing the 19 tracks of London Calling at the end of 1979 only to confound everyone by then releasing a triple album just a year later.

Sandinista! is many things to many people but above all else its the sound of a band finding out what they were capable of. That path that was begun with London Calling splintered even more ambitiously with Sandinista! though many were heard to say it was over ambitious. Whether the ultimate reason for the band’s 1980 release becoming festooned with 36 songs over six sides of vinyl was a hopeful move to exit the contract from CBS Records has long been suggested, but we were left with the most diverse, experimental and at times brilliant Clash album to date. Guest musicians, guest vocalists and dub versions all featured for the first time as did a chance for Topper and small children to take lead vocals. Songs like Magnificent Seven remain amongst my favourites ever while shards of jazz, gospel, reggae and calypso are shattered across the terrain. The album was called too long and overblown by many and even when reissued on CD required 2 discs to take on it’s full roster. I also had the cassette, which was two tapes in a cardboard sleeve which I still possess.

Overall, though it was often suggested Sandinista! would have made an excellent double album and a stunning single one (in my opinion if you took the 11 best tracks on it you’d have the best Clash album by a nose) we were given and learned to cherish the polar ice station/oil rig version as Mick Jones one put it. At the time I was too young to appreciate Sandinista! in full, as the sounds were too expansive, the changes in direction too confusing to my then 13 year old tastes. All these years later it has become the album I perhaps play the most frequently and certainly the one that I think is the most rewarding and resistant to time.

So it was an exciting day some two years ago that we learned the Sony Music would be reissuing a special 30th anniversary edition of Sandinista! as a Legacy edition. Initially it seemed far fetched, when a band throws three dozen songs on an album how much could be left in the vault. Demo versions and out takes of songs that at times felt gloriously unfinished anyway perhaps? Alternate versions and more covers to warm the band up? The rumours took off for over a year as the promise of live tracks being offered, perhaps an entire concert from that era. A DVD with extras, footage that hadn’t been seen before also made the gossip rounds. Amazon even loaded a listing for a Japanese version of the reissue for an outrageous price which seemed to be further proof. An interview or two alluded to the 30th anniversary edition and it was confirmed to be forthcoming. Then the autumn of 2010 turned to winter and no release date was offered, discussion began to dry up. As the calendar changed to a new year I had serious doubts about the reissue as I didn’t think it would be easy to market a 31st Anniversary edition of anything, unless you were a Tottenham fan looking to honour each passing year (40 n0w) since you last won the league.

This week I learned from a very reliable source at Sony Music that the Sandinista! Legacy edition plans have officially been scrapped, indeed it won’t be happening according to the label and that was a global decision. I suppose there is a chance we might see a reprise of the idea later but the speculation can at least now end. I’ll assume the contact I had was 100% correct, it does make sense as the window to get the release out as an anniversary has now closed.

I wonder if perhaps that is for the best. Sandinista! may be best left exactly as it is, full of brave lyrics and fantastic compositions it doesn’t quite achieve perfection but always is powerful and inspiring opening your minds and ears to sounds and concerns that may otherwise have passed you by. From the call to arms of the title itself to the brilliance of Charlie Don’t Surf and The Call Up asking why we keep fighting in the wrong places for the wrong things.

If the album was slightly flawed and too ambitious I don’t care, as it reflects exactly what The Clash were and hopefully what many of us still remain.

Perhaps leave it as it is. What do you think? Tim

Rudie Rudie Rudie Rudie Rudie… Rudie can’t fail. Just had to get that out of my system, it’s traditionally been my comeback song or ‘get me revved up a bit’ Clash tune and after a few days feeling far less than adequate I was just listening to it with my very tasty chicken caesar salad for lunch. Exciting stuff eh? Welcome back to the blog on this very warm and sunny afternoon, the coffee is hot so pull up a chair and stay for a little while. I’ll have another Clash Cup for you tomorrow I think and also wanted to provide advance warning that next week marks the 2nd birthday of The Clash Blog. If you’ve been with me since the beginning I thank you and if you’re newer then welcome aboard there is a lot of reading to catch up with – about 500,000 words worth by my best guess.  Start at the beginning, it’s funny to read some of it now.

I don’t know what has come over the fine people at Dangerous Minds this week but they’ve obviously got their Clash hats on which is fine with me. It’s led to another fine feature on the band focusing on the anniversary of their legendary run by The Clash at Bonds International Casino back in 1981. Perhaps the most glamorous name ever given to a former department store in the history or renamed venues. Sadly there’s nothing left of the venue now but the memories and as many I’ve spoken to over the years have told me that run of gigs was simply life changing. I’ve always loved the idea of a band taking up a residency for a week at a venue but you don’t see it much these days, I guess if a band were to play six consecutive nights now in Chicago for example you’d be left with a collection of pissed off fans in Minneapolis, Detroit, Indianapolis and St Louis as a result. Although the Bonds run by The Clash famously was overbooked (or the NY Fire Department were having a laugh) so the band were running on fumes halfway through the extended run of 17 (!!) appearances in New York, the concept of having a fully refreshed band not facing night after night of 7 hour bus rides is a good one. Anyway, read the post – tis good. I had planned an anniversary feature but my planning was once again similar to David Cameron…rather shit.

It’s Paul McCartney’s birthday today and while that should fill me with glee and reverence it really doesn’t. Perhaps if he didn’t give interviews it would.

I’m not really good at looking after my very small collection of autographs of ‘famous people’ that I’ve met. This dawned on me when I was cleaning out the boot of my car the other day

image courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/recklesscountrysoul/

and came across two items I had signed by different musicians that had been sitting in there for quite some time instead of in a frame or something. Don’t worry it wasn’t Mick Jones and Paul Simonon, I did put that somewhere safe. I appreciate that some people take autograph collecting quite seriously indeed so I’d like to offer mine I’d like to link you to this website that has a number of reasonably priced Mick Jones’ autographs plus one from Paul. Each are sold in a mounted display with an appropriate Clash photograph. If you happen to know of a better resource with perhaps some Joe, Topper and Terry signatures be sure and let us all know.

If you fancy a laugh these comments and the poll asking who is the better guitarist Mick Jones or The Edge will make you grin I hope. Apart from the obvious ‘Which Mick Jones?’ comments some of it is good reading. I’ve never really forgiven The Edge for this ridiculous name (did you know during early sessions he was known The Circumference?) but any lasting malice towards him was removed in 2002 when he had this to say about The Clash.

Right then, I need to get my act together as I’ve got some football to play this afternoon. Thanks for reading and please say hello in the comments or on Facebook and Twitter. You can also have a daily blog fix mailed direct to enjoy with a nice pint of Lucozade by subscribing to my RSS Feed here. Cheers – Tim

Hello…..anyone there? I just thought I’d briefly check in from my cold syrup induced stupour and get a quick post composed. How on earth I catch a stinking cold when it was 105f outside this week I’ll never know. Hope your week is going better than mine and unless you’re in jail or surrounded by members of Coldplay (or both!!) chances are it is.

I’m going to make this a very short post but ideally will be back to something more substantial shortly. (lie…I continued it the next day) You know that video clip of the interview with The Clash where Bernie Rhodes is asleep? That’s how I feel this evening. Speaking of Bernie Rhodes please drop in soon for a chance to get your hands on a very special bit of Bernie related Clash memorabilia, I don’t quite know what the owner is asking for it but I think it will create quite a bit of interest.

In the meantime I’ve a few good things to share. Put your hand up (with me) if you are old enough to remember fanzines? Before the dawn of the internet and blogging back in my youth fanzines were the journals of the youth when it came to punk music for a while, into the 80′s some bands even had their own (very good) fanzines full of typically 32 pages of xeroxed content stapled together. The content was often good especially for the obsessive fan, special interviews, gig reviews, rumours and opinions. In the same decade fanzines became really popular in the world of football (soccer for some) with loads of excellent choices full of funny and insightful writing. I can remember a time when Arsenal had no fewer than 10 different fanzines being published and sold around the ground or down at Sportspages on Charing Cross Road (is that still there?). Fanzines had a wonderful DIY mentality and still contained lots of excellent writing the like of which wasn’t available elsewhere. When starting this blog creating something akin to a fanzine was always a goal – opinions, ideas and some strange stuff mixed in but essentially focused on a specific topic to be shared with like minded people. How important were fanzines to punk? Hard for me to say because of my age but I think if you look at the idea behind the music that anyone could do it, you didn’t need to be connected and versed to start a band then the fanzines were the written equivalent. I’ve been drawn into that long diatribe by a cool feature currently in The Guardian that looks at the ’50 key events in the history of indie music’ there’s been a number of good features but do go and check this one out which looks at Mark Perry’s (and Danny Baker’s) important contribution to the punk/indie landscape by starting up ‘Sniffin’ Glue’ back in 1977. Worth remembering The Clash were treated like lepers for signing to CBS at the time in the oracle, also worth remembering there was no Rough Trade or Factory Records in 1977 the only proper independent options were Chiswick Records (who signed The Damned), Stiff and arguably Island or Virgin but if memory serves me they were already associated with EMI by that time. I wondered if any of you still have any of those old fanzines? I bet they fetch a tidy sum on eBay now, I’ve got some old Echo and The Bunnymen and Wedding Present ones and a pile of football ones but nothing that predates about 1985. Check out the entire feature ‘A History of Modern Music’ on the Guardian, it will keep you occupied for ages.

The other link which is definitely worth your time is over at Dangerous Minds.net who look back at The Clash performance at The Elizabethan in Manchester in November, 1977. This makes many lists of great earlier concerts although it helped that Granada TV had cameras there to capture some of the best quality footage of the band that year for ‘So It Goes’. I recommend the article as it’s some of my favourite footage of the band, as if you shook up a bottle of Koka Kola and twisted the lid off….explosive, amazing. A couple of clips are on that page. Thank goodness for Tony Wilson.

I’ll have more soon, perhaps too soon to make up for the gap. I also will probably be adding a forum to the blog next week so you can make friends with each other and play nicely.  Thanks for stopping in and don’t forget to say stop by the comments section or on Facebook and Twitter. You can also have a daily blog fix mailed direct to enjoy with a nice spoonful of cough syrup by subscribing to my RSS Feed here. Cheers – Tim