Today marks the 26th anniversary of what to me was the darkest hour in the history of The Clash. Only 7 years on from Jones and Simonon being meshed with Joe Strummer to form the band, it was Paul and Joe that then asked Mick Jones to leave the band – a cruel blow as essentially it was Mick’s band in the first place.

Desert Clash

September 1, 1983 therefore is a date that I remember well – initially I assumed it was a stunt or something that would quickly get resolved. The Clash would continue, perhaps Topper would be back in the fold and a sixth album would be worked on and released. As the weeks turned to months and the music press started releasing stories about The Clash bringing in reinforcements / replacements the realisation set in. Mick Jones wasn’t coming back. I remember being sad and annoyed at the same time, I knew a Clash without Topper was peculiar, but a Clash without Mick was pointless. Not to overstate the fact but I grew up in a household with the Beatles albums being in the collection, Lennon/McCartney was a living thing – and now Strummer/Jones meant the same thing to me. I wasn’t optimistic about The Clash finding suitable replacements nor did I think the band should have continued. That’s how I felt as a teenager and years later I think history has shown that to be correct. Apart from This Is England everything associated with The Clash had no real value from that date forward.

So much has been written about the 6-12 month period prior to Jones being sacked, so many fingers have been pointed. Who was responsible? It wasn’t a single person or event. Bernie Rhodes is usually accused, the self-destruction of Topper Headon often cited, and the ego of Jones is put on trial. I think there were probably another 10 or 15 other factors in play that led to the decision. Seven plus years of constant recording, touring, working is unprecedented these days. You just don’t see bands do that any more – it won’t ever happen again. The Clash were like a brush fire, very intense heat and flame, followed by nothing but smoke – they didn’t last long but they were so focused. It took me the better part of a year to accept they were finished and the intervening two decades to realise it ended when it was supposed to (somewhat). There’s little doubt that Strummer regretted the decision later although I think Paul has always been less obsessed about what was missed out on. His view was The Clash came to do a job and that the job was completed. I’ve avoided reading or quoting from other articles and interviews when writing this, that can all be done at another time. For now though today it’s a date that always reminds me of the end of The Clash and it makes me sad.

Tim