Hello once more Clash fans and others, cheers for dropping in. I’ve got quite a few odds and sods to get to so lets just leap right in shall we? There are some official breaking things surrounding Sandinista!

Uncut Magazine features The Clash – If you’re in the UK you already know about this (and thanks for your emails) – the new edition of Uncut has an in-depth interview with Mick, Paul and Topper about the making of Sandinista! thus I find it quite funny that the cover promises ‘the untold story’ of the making of the album, as opposed to what exactly? 1980 was such a hectic year in Clash history that the making of the 4th Clash album has never been reviewed properly by the band with most commentary to date referring to the fact that it had too many songs / would have been better as a single or double album etc. I wouldn’t change a thing as it happens, its perhaps the album that I’ve grown up with and returned to more in the last decade than the others. Incidentally the bonus CD with the latest issue features fifteen tracks that Joe featured during his London Calling BBC broadcasts, my favourite of which is this by Cornershop and I think the lyrics sound like something Strummer himself might have written.

Leave Chattanooga
Walk in to New York City
Aeroplane down to Nippon ground
Meets some friends in Tokio-town
Across to West Maluva
Showboat to West Malay
Leave my foes to their woes
Sometimes “that’s how it goes”
It’s good to be on the road back home again

Speaking of Sandinista! its as good as official that a special 30th anniversary edition of the album will be released this year with requisite bonus tracks and some demos and remixes (plus I would expect remastering of some sort). I had to purchase another copy of the double CD recently to replace my worn out CDs just a few years ago so in addition to the vinyl and cassettes it looks like a 5th version will he heading to the household in time for Christmas. I think we’ll make the month the reissue comes out Sandinista! month on the blog. I’d love for the reissue to feature a live concert from late ‘80 or early ‘81 but I haven’t read anything that indicates this might be the case (grumpy return to my keyboard).

Returning to Uncut (I’m not in the UK so please don’t spoil my anticipation in reading the article when I get an imported copy in a week or two!) I hope the interview addresses the oft-circulated rumour that the album was essentially the work of Topper and Mick with session musicians and a well known Blockhead taking up much of the remaining slack during the recording process. I don’t buy that suggestion and I never really have and while its likely that the group cohesion during the recording of London Calling was no longer in full evidence as it had been in the summer of 1979 I don’t think the triple album was Mick Jones and Topper simply working with hired hands for the most part. Yes there were guest musicians but it is certainly a Clash album as a finished product. Others have said the evidence is that live versions of songs from this era bare little resemblance to the studio equivalents but once more I think that is the sound of a band expanding their limits and looking to break the confines of simply recreating a song in a live setting. Naturally I could be 100% wrong on both my assumptions so I’d be happy to hear what you think. Don’t however spill the beans on the magazine interview just yet – I’ll cover that when I get my copy!

Worth a mention and a link to a story is the fact that this summer did mark the 31st anniversary of the Sandinista uprising in Nicaragua which The Clash brought to a new audience. On July 21 1979 the first events associated with the uprising took place which eventually led to the overthrow of the existing dictatorship. This revolution this was one of the youngest and most independent rebel situations in recent history as most of the key people involved were little more than teens who didn’t have a plan B so much as they knew plan A had to be evicted. As you can predict the story didn’t end in ecstasy but it did mark a significant positive change in the history of that central American republic.

What else….today is September 1st – the least glorious day in Clash history as it marks the date in 1983 when the official word of Mick Jones being sacked from his own band was made public. Apparently so Paul and Joe could get The Clash back on track towards the original goals of the band…we know how that ended. I’ve written about that at length in the past and will do again I’m sure but its burned on my calendar as the darkest day during the time the band were a going concern. With that said let’s talk again September 2nd yes? Thanks for dropping in…

Let’s end on a happier note – check out this chap’s memory of meeting Joe Strummer many years ago.

Nice stormy night heading here and a double rainbow just before sunset, not sure what signifies but it looked pretty special to me. I noticed the delay between bouts of the Clash Cup was a bit longer than planned so lets get one of those in before the weekend arrives in earnest. Before the next pairing are pulled (these are all 100% random) we’ve got the results from the last match up to announce. Regular readers will know we are now in round 2 and the best runners up still might have a chance to make the final 64 Clash songs up for voting. That might be the case from this as it was really close:

Lightning Strikes defeated 48 Hours      27-24

This was a close run thing from the very beginning of the voting and the overall support for 48 hours should see it still perhaps remain though we won’t know until the end of Round 2 of course. Now for the next two, and if you’re new to this its just as easy as it sounds. No need to register just give both songs your serious consideration and cast one vote. This is the round that will sort out most of the legitimate contenders because when we’re done with this round we’ll be down to the some of the best Clash songs recorded. The two picked tonight aren’t too shabby either:

Round 2 Match 9

Radio Clash versus Ghetto Defendant

Not a bad pairing but like a horse at the starting line I can clearly spot an immediate favourite amongst these two. Both songs of course came late in the career of the band with Radio Clash filling in the time just post Sandinista! (and becoming a legitimate club hit) and Ghetto Defendant signaling the new twists the band would make on Combat Rock. Both feature a good amount of Joe while the former tacks on horns and a track that’s really showing Mick’s ability to take the sounds he’s hearing and mesh them into the sound of The Clash. I’ll never forget rushing out to get This is Radio Clash on 12″ single when it came out and thinking the future had just landed on my turntable.

Form book:

Round 1 – Radio Clash defeated Midnight to Stevens                  83% of the vote

Round 1 – Ghetto Defendant lost to Brand New Cadillac            (35% of the vote) but remained in the Cup due to high runner up vote total

Odds:

I don’t often feel a song is essentially a shoe-in for the next round but when I really line these two up against one another I can only see one winner. Radio Clash will make round 3 – it’s a stronger and more adventurous song and a key link between the last two Clash albums. Just my prediction mind you, it has no impact on the voting.

8 D batteries to power this beauty

Stuff:

I’m in the camp that says This is Radio Clash was a really important single, not just in terms of where The Clash were heading but also in the crossover between rap/funk and rock. I don’t know how it sounded if the first time you heard it was 1998 for example and not having the perspective of where music was in 1981/2 on your shoulders and in your ears. It’s a bit like when you now hear Run DMC or Schooly D and it might sound a bit boxed in by the production and sound but once again its looking at what was going on all around at that time. In the US Talking Heads were ahead of the curve in incorporating other styles of music and in England The Clash were picking up as much New York energy as anybody else. For historic benchmarking – 1981 was the year of Antmusic in the UK as Adam and The Ants dominated the charts, Radio Clash is far more lasting (to these ears). In addition the lyrics are a call to action rather than the banality that was order of the day in the charts of 1981. To refresh you, check out the clip on the Tom Snyder show in the States recorded in the summer of ‘81 some 5 months before the single got released. Then there is Ghetto Defendant, not for the first time I’ve got more affection for the longer version on the Mick Jones Combat Rock sessions (Rat Patrol). Oh…and for those who say Gorillaz have no correlation to The Clash with the numerous guests on their albums, what do you think of The Clash recruiting radical poet Allen Ginsberg from the shadows in the 1980’s when his forte was poetry that shook society in the 50’s and 60’s. Another testament to the ability of The Clash to not follow the path of the expected. Before you vote here’s the longer version that I mentioned.

Please take time to consider your vote…and don’t give up on a song that’s trailing…that’s how Bush ‘won’ Florida….. Talk to you soon…..(if you get a chance to tweet or facebook the post I’ll be chuffed)

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Mick Jones image courtesy Tony Wolliscroft

Hello again and my appreciation for your visit. Not much going on here today,the summer continues to drain the life from everything not air-conditioned and shaded. People seem tense and edgy from the heat, the news is getting people down and it’s not quite July as I type these words. To counteract that I’ve a link to one of the best things I’ve read in months.

For all the exciting things that have bounced around The Clash in the last 12 months, one thing that has been sadly lacking is a really good and well thought out interview. Snippets and quotes are usually as much as we get and its been just over a year since Topper Headon gave a pretty lengthy interview with The Independent. We covered that interview here in case you missed it and I recommend you take a look if you did. I’m more than a bit excited about what I have to share this evening though.

Crawdaddy had time to sit down with Mick Jones recently for a very lengthy chat. This isn’t one of those pointless page fillers but an honest to goodness (fairly) well researched discussion with Jones. Mick covers a huge breadth of topics and I guarantee you’ll read a lot of things you didn’t know about. Mick talks about the R+R public library and some of his thoughts about art, exhibiting and collecting. Really funny stuff concerning the lack of good storage space in London.

“They put their stuff into storage places off the A40, and it’s quite sad because they go and visit their stuff instead of their parents at the weekend”

After discussing what he’s been up to recently and some of his hobbies he reflects on growing up as a obsessive pre-teen captivated by film, football and music probably in that order. Conversation then turns to The Clash and how the desire to offer value for money often outweighed covering the bills the band ran up. He also confirms a rumour that we’ve been wondering about.

“So, when Sandinista! comes out again at the end of this year, it might be the first time we get any royalties from it. It’s taken a long time to pay that off, but I’m glad we did that”

Jones also talks about the many changes he’s seen in West London, reflects on his time working with The Libertines and explains why he took the invitation to play with Gorillaz and just how much its meant to him in general but how much he has learned as a result. On playing with Gorillaz:

“I think I can learn a lot from it. I already have learned a lot from it, just in terms of my own self-improvement. It’s been very good for me”

He also is asked questions about being a fan when he was younger, learning the guitar and the evolution of Carbon Silicon. Its a great sincere interview and Mick seems happy to delve into topics from all corners and you’ll leave it wishing it was even longer than the sizable interaction it was. All quotes above courtesy of Crawdaddy – the link to the interviews itself is here, I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. It’s 3 online pages long so don’t forget to cycle through.

Much more soon ~ thanks for coming by. Perhaps tomorrow the internet, cable, and wordpress will all work in unison and I can do things at normal speed again!