How to determine the best ever songs by The Clash? A tournament…and we’ve been going over a week now. It’s all random and your votes matter! I’ve got some new results back to see which songs we can say goodbye to.

Match 9 – Kingston Advice over Look Here 27-10

Match 10 - Jimmy Jazz over If Music Could Talk 29-10

No major shocks there as Sandinista! gets one song (from 3) through to the next round of voting. Jimmy Jazz will need to come up against something strong to be knocked out I think. So…more random number generating is in order for the next quartet of Clash songs under review:

I Never Did It vs       The Cool Out

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

Hitsville UK vs       Long Time Jerk

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

Again some oddities which is to be expected when we start with so many tracks but fair is fair. The only one there I can (perhaps) see creeping into the final 32 is Hitsville UK, but I only have one vote so prove me wrong (as Joe once sang). I’ve got some links and info that might help your decisions – or not.

I Never Did It – I included this early early track just because something from the summer of ’76 catalog that never got pressed deserved to be in the mix. It’s a really raw number and shows that even early on Mick was more than capable of some guitar ‘noodling’ there’s actually a nice solo. Can’t help you much with the lyrics, sorry but hear it for yourself by clicking the title.

The Cool Out - Compared with the song above it shows what changes took place in 4 1/2 years, not just to The Clash but to the music industry. This of course was the dance/remix of The Call Up, from 1980-1986 you simply had to remix songs as the 12″ single initially took off via clubs and then became the normal method for  releases. I’ve got far too many ‘dance edits’ of tracks I never needed, but this isn’t one of them as it’s a good remix.

Hitsville UK

Hitsville UK – An unlikely choice for a single, Hitsville UK was the first time The Clash felt the wrath of the UK music press. The review “Finally Mick and Joe have gone mad”. I think it’s a great song for being so atypical and includes lyrics that remain applicable to an industry that ate it’s own arms off.

Long Time Jerk - A Super Black Market Clash track with a hybrid rockabilly skiffle with some odd samples. All the same an enjoyable vocal performance by Joe, I can’t see this track progressing in the cup. Surely one of the most ‘heard’ Clash b-sides as it backed ‘Rock The Casbah’

Thanks for your continued voting….Tim

Continuing the series of looking at locations that were significant in the history of The Clash we move North to Sheffield.This was the site of the first ever live appearance by the band. July 4th is a date most obviously associated with US history but in 1976 The Clash, still a band that were only really at the rehearsing stage made their live debut. Sheffield is a long way from their home turf of West London but it was to be in South Yorkshire that the band would first face an audience.

I’ve always liked Sheffield, a city of 550,000 that sits between the M1 and the hills of the Peak district. The city is forever associated with steel and the industrial revolution but there is more to it than that. I used  to go there on business and studied there also. Over the years I met many residents and Sheffield certainly becomes part of who you are. Sheffield boasts a rich musical lineage of it’s own, in fact for a city of it’s size it is pretty remarkable. ABC, Arctic Monkeys, Cabaret Voltaire, Comsat Angels, Human League and Pulp to name the bigger acts. None of these bands had even formed when The Clash pulled up in a transit van to support the Sex Pistols in the summer of ’76.  So what of The Black Swan?

Black Swan now (2009)

Located right in the heart of the city centre the pub and the area around it have changed greatly over the years. Central Sheffield is a maze of narrow roads surround by 3-6 storey buildings that snake around Arundel Gate, Sheffield Cathedral, shopping and civic buildings. The area has been slowly rebuilt over the decades and now boasts a (light railway) Supertram system

Just North of the major shopping precincts lays Bank Street and Stig Hill and where these two roads meet is the location of The Black Swan. The Black Swan was also known as the ‘mucky duck’ and has hosted live music since the late 60′s and still does. It no longer goes under the name  The Black Swan however and is now The Boardwalk. Before The Clash acts such as Joe Cocker, Nick Lowe, Dr. Feelgood, Genesis, Mud, Sweet and more.

In part 2 I’ll look more at the history of the venue and the very short set that the Clash played 33 years ago. If anyone knows what year the building was added to (offices above as current) please let me know as I’m keen to know if it essentially looked as it does now in 1976. Beneath is an image of the pub in 1965.

Black Swan then (1965)

Incidentally to review other posts in the Clash Landmarks series click on the title of this post and then scroll to the bottom of the post where you will see most similar posts.

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