Clash landmarks, I started last week with the Rainbow, but this is as good a place as any to continue and show you all about. Many Clash fans will have read that this is the location where Paul and Mick first layed eyes on Joe. The story has been recounted various times – and amusingly so by Strummer in Westway to The World.

The building where this meeting took place was heralded by British Pathe as if it rivaled St Paul’s Cathedral when it opened in 1960. The video clip is pure gold for lovers of the old ‘Everything’s jolly good old chap’ accent that I’ve never experienced in my life. It must have died out in the 60’s.

Marylebone Road, just south of the landmark

Labour Exchange indeed, it’s a rather decorous term for what I’d always called the dole office. For American readers it’s just an unemployment office, a uniquely grim place for the key members of The Clash to meet.

Strummer tells the story thus:

It was Paul and Mick and Viv, and they’d seen me, in the weeks that Bernie had pulled Mick and Paul out of London SS and put them together, and they’d seen me at gigs around the manor, and that’s why they’d been staring at me. I didn’t talk to them, if they’d have come up to me, I’d have probably swung at one of them. Get it in first, ‘cos when people stare at you that long, y’know, and Lisson Grove was the worst place on earth. I’d seen them but never met them, and it wasn’t until Bernie drove me round.

Paul’s version:

I remember seeing Joe in the dole queue and I think he caught us looking at him and was a bit worried, like he might get done over. He looked, for a moment, quite timid and in terror. We were just going, “it’s that bloke out of the 101′ers.”

A day or two later Bernie Rhodes took Strummer to officially meet the pair and from there The Clash were born.

As for the location, it’s just perhaps 500 hundred yards NW of my first ever London address, a shared flat just south of Baker Street tube. I always stayed East of Gloucester Place if I went North of Marylebone Road, nervy 16 year old that I was. Lisson Grove was the point where central London and it’s calm side streets and cash rich tourists gives way to inner city grime and urban struggles. Smaller homes, bedsits and light commercial zoning followed by housing estates and mid rise flats  just further North and West of the dole office had turned the area into a trap for high unemployment and a good place to have trouble find you by the 1970’s. The area does feature some lovely narrow passageways and side roads that are looking much nicer now than back when our story begins, everything changes and it’s now become (in parts) a very nice area again.

This is where we begin....

Your nearest tube is Marylebone and from the north exit just turn left (W) and then right (N) on Lisson Grove.The building is that lovely variety seen throughout England with 3 storeys and no attention to design whatsover. Part school, part office and 100% ugly. I took the current image from the magic of google maps (above) and you can do a virtual street stroll if you feel so inclined. Just type 26-46 LISSON GROVE NW1 6TZ LONDON, LONDON and off you go.

The yellow circle marks the door where most likely our subjects entered and departed back in ‘76. I love the fact the the dole office has been re-branded ‘jobcentreplus’ (see image red circle) in these modern times. It is rubbish Damon, you’re right.

I can hear it now:

“Ello Smithy what you doing? Fancy a quick pint down the Prince of Wales” -

“Sorry Tommo, ain’t gonna work for us, gotta be down the Job Centre Plus about ‘alf eleven”

A true destination in the list of Clash Landmarks.

Tim

1. Clash Landmarks, The Black Swan Sheffield (part 2)
2. Clash Landmarks, The Pontiac Silverdome
3. Clash Landmarks – The Roxy Club WC2 (part II)
4. Clash landmarks, The Rainbow (part one)
5. Bernie Rhodes (part 1)
6. Simonon and Jones on a Gorillaz track recorded near Ladbroke Grove is denser than a dying sun.
7. The Clash September 1st, 1983 – The end