‘Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.’ Georg Wilhelm Freidrick Hegel
This almost obligatory quote kicks off this superb journey through the adrenaline rush that was The Clash. Pat Gilbert taps into the energy that The Clash used in order to write a book that grabs the reader and never lets go. He writes with an intensity that mirrors The Clash capturing the downtimes in the immortal, “It could be worse, we could be The Jam”.
Bernie Rhodes as initial start up manager and later member of the band at the demise of a legend is at the epicentre of the story. Gilbert says of him that he favoured people with edge, passion, swagger and conviction.
Another quote from the biography of Marc Bolan by Mark Paytress captures the crazed and multifaceted reinvention that was Joe Strummer even when he was still just Woody. “Tinkering with the facade to… transcend the reality of the conformist standardised life patterns of those around you”.
“The Clash came from the word clash being mentioned several times in the Evening Standard, they were creating a clash of personalities, a clash against reactionary values, a clashing dissonant sound.”
Resorting to quotes is an easy cop out for the reviewer but it’s just so easy in relating the reason for reading this book to the people who haven’t yet committed it to memory.
Malcolm Mclaren, the creator of the Sex Pistols and long time friend and competitor of Bernie Rhodes is described, “You get the impression he was never really an aficionado of anything. For him the ideas were always more exciting than the form, and causing a disturbance was always more attractive than creating anything of substance”.
A sobriquet that could quite easily be applied to Rhodes himself although as a self styled and continually revised Marxist he maintained that he always had a vision, the bigger picture solidly in mind with a destination point of substance that changed once reached.
In a modern mimicry of Andrew Loog Oldham locking Keith and Mick in the john until they wrote Satisfaction, Rhodes said to Joe, “Oh, don’t come complaining, write a song about it”.
The band themselves made plenty of immortal quotes. Mick Jones in answer to the question why he never supported Paul and Joe when they jumped into the crowd when Sid Vicious got into a fight retorted with the following multifaceted, philosophical chirp, “Well someone’s got to stay in tune”.
Joe Strummer also had a moment from the stage when he said, “All of you who think violence is tough, why don’t you go home and collect stamps? That’s much tougher”.
The Clash manifesto, “I think people ought to know we’re anti-fascist, we’re anti-violence, we’re anti-racist and we’re pro-creative. We’re anti ignorance”.
All through this story Gilbert maintains a writing style that is fast, omnivorous, catchy and quirky with zero pretensions. The subject matter is almost incidental as the fast paced, staccato driven, pulse rate turns what could be a sterile, conventional recipe book into a journey through combustible material constantly within tactile reach.
Most reviews of books dealing with non-fiction deal with the subject matter and never give the writer more than a passing glance and besides being easy to do and justify is quite a war crime against the writer.
The much publicised clashes between Joe and Paul on one side against Mick on the other which eventually resulted in Mick being fired and the inevitable band demise have had much airing but this description of Mick by long term band confidant Johnny Green deserves to be read and reread.
‘I tend to go down the George Best school of thought,’ says Johnny Green. ‘Whatever Mick’s foibles were as a young man – and remember he was a young man, twenty-two or twenty-three – were part of the bigger picture. The point is that nicely rounded, well balanced human beings don’t have the hunger and drive that someone like Mick had. He was a consummate prima donna at times. He always wanted to sit in the front seat of the car. Joe and Paul would say, “Oh, you sat there yesterday”, but he’d never budge. But with that stubbornness came a single-minded purpose and energy.’
Gilbert compares the double album ‘London Calling’ with the Stones’ ‘Exile on Main Street’ and ‘Blonde on Blonde’ from Bob Dylan but I would go further and add ‘Physical Graffiti’ by Led Zeppelin, however classhible that might be in a story about the ultimate punk rockers anti rock star excess, as seminal doubles.
Paul Simonon couldn’t play bass when he joined the Clash, he still wanted to be a guitarist like Pete Townshend but Joe patiently and at times impatiently taught him bass until he created ‘Guns of Brixton’ from scratch himself .
“The mystery of writing songs had become a bit clearer, I penned my first tune so that was a big moment for me.”
Another pithy comment from Strummer sums up his often detached mood and method of solving problems. “The only way you can fight aggro in the audience is to play a real, boring song.”
The Clash played support to The Who at Shea stadium in 1982. A gig that challenged the very ethos of what they were about as a band, shook the foundations of their anti-capitalism and intimacy at all times with the fans. The invite came at the behest of Pete Townshend, a self confessed fan of The Clash and their approach which he saw growing directly from The Who and their angst.
There were rumours of Topper Headon replacing Kenney Jones which raised images of the Clash watching their recently fired, for out of control drug abuse, drummer headlining with The Who.
It didn’t materialise and The Clash crew managed to smuggle 50 fans passed high voltage security in a ‘punk’ gesture. The Who refused The Clash full rights to volume control, Townshend and company being no strangers to being upstaged and upstaging others once on stage and out of reach.
The Rolling Stones had previously invited The Clash but baulked at the request for equal billing, a contest between the champs and the contenders for greatest rock band status.
The story of The Clash is spine tingling and soapie all in one, a saga with plenty of adrenaline, testosterone and aggression although not without a certain kind of honour as roadies were not subject to gender discrimination and at least one person testifies to the fact that there were never teenage girls in tears the day after like at Led Zep shootouts.
Mikey Dread on The Clash, “If you see what a hurricane does to an island in the Caribbean, than that’s what the theatres looked like after The Clash played”.
Producer Sandy Pearlman, Blue Oyster Cult, on Topper Headon and his drumming, “Topper was an unbelievable drummer, after we’d finished ‘Tommy Gun”, I said, ‘Let’s try play the snare drum part backwards. I knew we were getting this sucking sound from the leading edge. There was a lot of space in the arrangement and I thought this would make it amazing. So he did it in two takes. It was inconceivable! Nobody else has ever been able to do that since. It’s something that I can only do now with technology”.
Streetcore, the Mescaleros album that Joe Strummer and the band were working on when died includes a cover of ‘Redemption songs’ by Bob, if a white guy is gonna do it then who else, and ‘Long Shadow’ for Jonny Cash, a hero whom Joe met in the last year of his life while Cash was recording in LA.
When Strummer presented the lyrics to ‘Long Shadow’ they were written on a pizza box, with extra verses on a paper towel and a roll of insulation tape.
