Know Your Rights rare video from early sessions (Rat Patrol)
Hello all – welcome to the weekend and a new season for Arsenal. A lack of activity in the transfer market leaves Arsenal supporters.…..ahhh….no, wrong blog, you really don’t want to hear all that do you? I will boldly predict the premier league table this weekend if you want to chime in…but for now The Clash!
I had something on tap for this evening until the video beneath came to my attention (thanks Simon & Brenda). There is a part one to the video but its essentially 6 minutes of very little to watch although Joe is funny towards the end, part two is what is of interest. This has been on youtube for quite some time so apologies if you have already seen it – it isn’t tagged in an obvious fashion so hopefully I’m not the last Clash fan in the world to have seen this. Thanks to Brenda again who can shed extra light on the specifics – the film was captured in Dec 1981 at Electric Lady Studios in New York. The video captures some conversation with Mick and Joe as they’ve been working on mixing Know Your Rights from the last Clash album (well..next to last) which wasn’t to see a release for another six months or so. Joe is really funny if not entirely convinced by the unfinished track but seems to loosen up when the playback starts, Mick explains ‘it hasn’t been mixed yet’ . The video captures a full version with fairly decent audio of the playback of the song with the original rough mix, a very different sounding song in tone and lyrics from what eventually found its way onto Combat Rock after Mick was removed from production duties. A lot has been written about ‘Rat Patrol’ mixes of the album when Mick headed production which not only featured at times radically different versions of songs that remained on the album but also a number of tracks that were then scrapped at a fairly advanced stage. Production was handed over to Glyn Johns who shortened tracks in length and ‘polished’ (I wouldn’t use that adjective) the songs to something that was more palatable to CBS or other members of the band depending on whose account is correct. Sadly while CBS saw fit to release one greatest hits album after another we’ve yet to have a full version of the Rat Patrol mixes from The earlier sessions so they can be compared side by side. Perhaps for the 30th anniversary?
The video is interesting for a number of reasons, the energy in the studio, the demeanour of Joe who seems gradually satisfied with the track and the focus of Mick. The reaction to the song being played back is priceless in itself and leaves me wondering if Mick’s removal from production duties had far more to do with the label or management than Joe (or Paul/Topper).
I actually debated whether this video is even a good fit for the blog as due to the circumstances a lot might be read into what you see. Its really worth remembering everyone is very aware of it being filmed (not a daily event when cutting an album) and react in accordance to some extent. I don’t know more than most of you – and some of you know a lot more than I about the later days of The Clash. As I’ve expressed numerous times I think about 50 things went wrong over those last 18 months and you can argue that pulling Mick off of production was yet another one. It’s so simplistic to put it down to a single event, simplistic and almost certainly wrong. As a fan of the band and especially the music I’d like to have heard the original mixes of that album but not as bootlegs as they seemed to be pushing sounds into far bolder shapes than what was to then become Combat Rock. Regardless its on youtube anyway so I thought you’d find it worth a few minutes of your time.
Still – hope you enjoy it…..it made my evening a level more challenging (yes I argue with myself about the blog….how normal is that?). Back soon ~
Mixing ‘Know Your Rights’, New York Dec ‘81
PS – My thanks to our friend Alan Miles who posted this video to our facebook page, please have a look at this splendid cover version of ‘Straight To Hell’
PPS – Keep an eye on the EVENTS page (top tool bar) as I’ll keep adding reminders for upcoming stuff !!




