Off we go again then and thanks for visiting the site/welcome back. One last round of summer here with temperatures about 24 degrees (f) higher than they are meant to be. I genuinely think that The Clash had loftier topics to write about 30 odd years ago than we do today but at least the weather was a bit more normal, except the abnormally hot English summer of 1976, which helped fuel the punk scene, which totally contradicts climate change. Glad I brought that up in the first place.

Bernie Rhodes will be a happy man this morning in his secret west London volcano hideaway as he made a list. He did you know. Seems that Bernard made a list of ‘The craziest managers in music’ and while there are dozens of adjectives I can associate with Rhodes crazy wouldn’t be one of them. Perhaps he should never have come back to manage The Clash but it is more than fair to say that without his initial guidance we may well not be discussing them today. I’d also be inclined to still wonder how things may have turned out it he had never returned to manage the band for a second go round. Even during that time when most will cite Rhodes as a key cause of the famous lineup disintegrating it was also preceded by the band having their most successful album. I think that Bernie felt the only way for the band to progress when he returned was to get them back to following his lead as they had done in 1976/7 but it was a different time by then and all four members had their own thoughts about how things should be.

Would Topper and Mick have been ousted from The Clash if Rhodes had never come back into the fold? We can never say for certain but I’m sure most will say things would have been very different. Another factor that can’t be ignored is that Rhodes also went on to manage both The Specials and the far less celebrated JoBoxers, even managing different bands simultaneously. Here’s a link to the article which just posted on Australia’s ToneDeaf website.

I could write at length about Rhodes and probably riddle myself into such circles that I’d bore a hole into the ground. I’ve tried and failed to sum it up before. I’m positive that he put The Clash on the map by having them write and sing about the topics that he recommended, it is the period of time towards the end that I’m less certain about. I think that Joe Strummer felt he needed Bernie to take some of the weighty decisions from Joe’s shoulders. Strummer not only invariably became the band’s mouthpiece on stage but was increasingly (wrongly?) perceived in the same way by the music press who wanted Joe to solve everything. I also think that many of the bigger decisions about the band and how they were making marketing decisions seemed to fall on Joe and I believe Joe felt he needed an ally to help him with Mick who became more difficult as their fame grew.

At the core of all that is something I’ve written about a few times before; as the oldest member of the band Joe felt added responsibility in making important decisions for the band and I wonder how often the others looked to him for guidance? Did he perhaps contrast 1979-81 with the earlier years in the band and felt the return of Bernie would allow him to focus on being Joe and provide a consistent ally? Idle speculation from me of course but my only experience of Bernie was the exchange of a number of emails a few years ago. They were as open and undemanding as possible from me, wondering if he’d care to write something for the blog about his own views on music, society etc and not limit the topic to The Clash. He said he would write something ‘later’ but nothing came of it. I might just ask again.  Perhaps one day he’ll get a book written or we may never get to hear his point of view, I think his importance in both the beginning and the end of the band are both probably understated and still overtly cloudy and we may never get nearer than that which would be a shame really but I won’t hold my breath.

Some pair of lawyers are arguing on telly right now, I guess I should watch that. Back soon and until then don’t forget you can stay current or interact via our growing Facebook gang or yap at me via Twitter and if you don’t want the hassle of visiting the site it can be mailed direct to you each day via the RSS feed.

Friday again, I’ll have some of that. Welcome back to the blog and the extra good news is that you don’t have to read me prattling on at length but instead I’ve got part two of our very special guest editorial from a key member of The Clash camp – The Baker.

If you somehow missed part one go back and read that immediately so that what follows make sense. I’d also encourage you to read the comments on the first post even if you have read it as The Baker was kind enough to answer some of the questions posed so far. He also wanted me to share that he’d welcome other questions relating to his editorial and hasn’t ruled out future articles or Q&A sessions although we’ll have to wait and see, please pose questions in the comments section – or email me. As you’ll appreciate if you are of similar vintage to myself or him, it takes a lot of work to recall all of the details of events from 30 years (and more) ago but if he can address specific moments and questions he might do so at a later date.

This is an exclusive one time article published here for the first time, please join me in thanking The Baker for writing for us, he stressed to me that it is the nature of the readers of the blog that encouraged him to write; so be on your best behaviour. Over to The Baker:

Echoes of a lifeless arena (part two):

Once the band strode out onto the stage, another jolt of adrenaline heightened the senses and awareness. The gigs themselves were a total blur of color, sweat, light, and sound; it was chaos most times, turned up white hot with noise to match. Time sped-up like a street-fight, and we reacted to each second instinctively. A string would break; a skin would split; a mike-stand would fall; there was no time to consider, you just leapt and responded. Coded nods were given; messages sent out – panic, exhilaration, brilliance and fuck-ups, for both band and crew. We lived right behind our eyes, performing as one and desperately trying to cover each other’s backs. Joe loved the fuck-ups and would purposely collide with equipment, knocking things over. The three of them would run back and forth throughout the show, purposely tangling the guitar leads as badly as possible and delighting in watching us scrambling to untangle the growing ball of spaghetti. Stage invasions, fights on and off stage, unconscious fans, bottles, cans, and gob all rained down on us. Looking back, it was uncontrolled mayhem on a dangerous scale.

The Baker with Topper (image the exclusive copyright of Pennie Smith)

And then after the last glorious encore, it was suddenly over. Pressure released, the adrenaline drained away, and reality seeped back into consciousness. You might suddenly realize you were drenched in sweat (or gob), or you’d been cut by flying broken glass. No time to rest though, only time to get a second wind, tear down, and put it all away. Every night, with ears ringing, we packed up the gear amidst the thrown beer cans, crunching through the smashed glass and debris of another battlefield. By the time the truck doors closed, the band left, and the last few fans drifted away, the hall would become quiet and empty. It’s hard to describe how utterly surreal it was to stride the empty stage, where just hours before such passion, emotion and frightening intensity had played out. The dreams and lifelong memories that had been created were now just ghostly echoes in a lifeless arena.

If we were in town for the night, there was time to re-live the highlights of the day with the band back at the hotel and much riotous behavior would inevitably take place. Mostly though, we climbed back on the crew bus and hit the road hard, fueled by Heinekens and high spirits (despite our tiredness), only to wake-up in a new town the next morning and do it all over again.

By the second tour, I had thankfully become numbed to the rigours and trauma that the lifestyle inflicted. Both band and crew became battle-hardened along the way and even today we all bear the physical and mental wounds of that improbable fiction – Paul’s hip, Topper’s back, and of course, Joe’s mortality – no one escaped without injury of some sort.

The music stopped long ago and after the intervening 30 years, just haphazard scenes and random images remain in my memory – the individual minutiae of each gig is now the property of not only the journalists and photographers who chronicled the events, but more importantly, of the fans who were there each night, who made such memories possible, and who remember it incident-by-incident. Every one of them also had a part to play in the journey.

Of course, there were another two thirds of the journey which were spent rehearsing, recording, and playing football – but that’s a story for another day….

The Baker

 

Back to me readers (sorry) and that simply leaves me wanting more, I’d be happy to hear more about those semi-famous football games that The Clash were so keen on and about four hundred other things. My sincere thanks goes to The Baker once more for writing, so please join me in that appreciation and by all means ask him whatever you’d like and we’ll see if he can help. I’ll even transcribe to save him time if he wants! Enjoy your weekend, I’ll be back soon. Tim

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the blog. A very special post tonight marks the first of a two part guest post from someone I’m really thrilled to have writing an editorial on the blog for the first time, in fact this is the first time he has written anything about The Clash since he worked so closely with the band which makes him writing for the blog a very unique event. This is an exclusive one time article published here for the first time but more could perhaps follow at a later time.

Not much from my fingers tonight so we can get into the good stuff. If like me you always viewed The Clash as a traveling gang, touring from town to town and changing our lives night after night with a ferocious combination of looking (still) like the coolest band to ever pick up a guitar plus music, words and noise to match then you really weren’t far from the truth. The Clash spent the better part of seven years feeling and therefore living like they were on a mission. It was to everyone involved an important one that took teamwork, camaraderie and spirit to see them through when the chips were down as they so often were. We typically just think of the four musicians that took to the stage but the touring party of The Clash was a slightly bigger and reasonably well oiled machine that saw those tours as an assault of sorts, fiercely loyal to one another and usually numbering between 8 and 12 strong some came and went. During over seven years of gigging the band played hundreds of shows, almost constantly touring to new and existing fans and needing to play to earn enough to keep the wolves from the door and the message recharged. One constant during those seven years beyond Mick, Paul and Joe was someone many of you will know just a little bit about; The Baker. Let me hand the reins over to him and remember part two of his editorial will follow soon.

“After arriving at Rehearsal Rehearsals with his schoolfriends, the Subway Sect in early August 1976, The Baker quickly became backline roadie for The Clash and drum-tech for Topper Headon. He was with them every step of the journey until September 1983. On the day that Mick Jones was unceremoniously fired, he walked away from the state of affairs and has since refused all comments and requests for interviews.”

Echoes of a lifeless arena (part one)

“When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”      – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Had we but known: it was the stuff of legend – every nerve-wrenching night of angry passion; every frenzied, riotous stage invasion; every sweat-dripping, gob-covered drum beat and guitar riff  – each fragment no less important then the other, as night after night, the essential ingredients wove strand upon strand to form the intricate fable that has become the legacy of The Clash, and their seven year convulsion of raw intensity and outrageous audaciousness. The victors get to rewrite history, which in this case has been the authors and journalists.

Had anyone else but known: there was no script, no master plan – it was sheer bluster and guts at each turn. Every gig was a street-fight, every tour was a war, and we played the hand we were dealt at every show, like a tightrope walker with a death-wish, unwilling and incapable of looking down. It all amounted to the most chaotic roller-coaster ride of mayhem and intensity imaginable. The Clash’s journey from English high street clubs to American sports stadiums was a visceral story of adrenaline-fueled bravado – rare in their sensitivity, rash in their violence, but ultimately dazzling in the reactive chemistry with which they seared the music landscape.

For my part, I took the whole seven-year mission, and when it was over, I never sought another gig, or looked back over my shoulder (until now, maybe.) And there were so many others who also traveled portions of that voyage with them…..unsung heroes and shameless villains alike. Some were just hired hands, others – fully committed – had their lives changed irrevocably, but all were touched by that special quality and character of the band and the extraordinary events that inevitably erupted around them. If you worked for them in any capacity, you inexorably became swept up in the tide of fervor and adulation that surrounded and reflected off them. For better or worse, you became part of the insanity of those times, and therefore tainted by mere association.

Nothing was ever orderly or mundane within ‘Clashworld’ and the most innocent everyday events could turn into a nightmare, unbidden. The truth was; there were no everyday events in the history of the Clash. And for those of us on the crew, touring was no less a daily descent into hell – a ‘Kafkaesque’ rush of reality-distorting highs and lows, blurring the lines between fact and fiction. We flipped the switch between combat-stance and neutral several times each day – adrenaline on/adrenaline off! There were no weekdays or weekends, no bank holidays or Easters, and for both crew and band existing in our insulated time-capsule, the calendar became irrelevant, seasons sliding past unnoticed, marked only by changing temperatures.

Each day would start out innocently enough, staggering bleary-eyed from the crewbus onto yet another cold empty stage, in some nameless city. Several hours would be spent repairing the damage from the previous night’s carnage – drum skins would be changed, jack-plugs re-soldered, amplifier valves replaced, broken flightcase wheels repaired. Cleaning the dried gob off everything was a constant ritual and unless removed daily would accumulate like green alien goo. Daily music store runs were a necessity too – like hit-and-run missions we snagged parts, supplies and especially gaffa tape (it was the currency of the day) – if we hit lucky, we bought the store’s entire stock.

The Clash touring party including The Baker crossing the border to play for the first time in the US - February 1979 (image the exclusive copyright of Bob Gruen)

As the backline was setup, tuned, and taped, the anticipation of the approaching night ahead rose. We only had a short time to get it right because once the band bounded into the hall, with all manner of ‘friends’, journalists and photographers in tow, all hell broke loose! If the day’s interviews and photo sessions had gone well; if the hall had good, dry acoustics; and if the electric supply was well grounded, we had a chance of a decent sound check. If not, feedback likely rang-out unchecked, buzzing leads would annoy and frustrate everyone, and already inflamed tempers inevitably led to blowups. If the mood was good, there was ample time for wind-ups between the band and crew at sound-check and most turned into impromptu rehearsal sessions – more often than not, we literally had to drag the band offstage.

With the sound-check over, we had a chance to ease-down, straighten out problems and tape and tighten everything. The support bands would sound-check, then the doors would open and the hall would fill up. The enthusiasm and excitement of the audience gradually built, eventually becoming a palpable, living, breathing entity. Once the band returned and began their pre-gig rituals, the adrenaline would ramp-up to defcon-4. Like warrior tribesmen from ancient history, each band member had their own talismanic customs. Mick liked to talk (unusual), Joe was quiet (unusual), Paul tried to relax. The task of preparing Topper for the show fell to me and it resembled prepping a boxer for a fight – tape, band-aids, gloves, wristbands, ice-spray, glucose tablets, and neck massages to loosen him up. If any of the crew or band needed external stimulus to get them through it, that was the time they took them.

After triple checking everything onstage, I would send the all-ready signal out, the lights went down, and the crowd would roar. Those were the minutes we would hunker down in the dark, like troops in the trenches, butterflies in the stomach, waiting to go over the top….

The Baker.

End of part one, part two to follow soon….The Baker will do his best to answer questions about the article and perhaps other questions at a later time so I hope to see you in the comments. More on that with the next post also and I want to extend my deepest thanks to him for sharing this with us, please join me in that, Tim.