‘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. 

The article by Lin Sampson in the Sunday Times that detailed a limited perspective on Port St Johns was both widely read and endlessly talked about and debated.

The Lifestyle supplement in the Sunday Times is an award winning publication and rightly so, as it has, over many years maintained a balanced combination of insightful articles and content with well written, articulate and erudite delivery.

The piece on Port St Johns was well written, articulate and indeed erudite and flows inexorably on, something like our imposing Umzumvubu river here in PSJ which Sampson maligns for no reason at all.

It is difficult but not impossible to decipher the reason many people found the piece lazy, vindictive and not a little mendacious. It is an under researched and a highly specialised piece of sensationalism, an accusation the Sunday Times spent countless years trying to live down.

In short, it is an exquisitely written catalogue of negativity, a litany of missed opportunities to explore the Port St Johns that lurks just beneath that surface veneer of headline grabbing poverty, unemployment, lack of infrastructure, political opportunism and the plight of the average person simply trying to survive here in South Africa.

That surface veneer is not unique to Port St Johns as the entire country will throw up many examples that highlight the extremes of backlog that persist as the ANC government struggles to deliver on its promises to turn around decades of neglect by the old National party.

It almost reads like a script that was prepared before travelling to PSJ and all that was needed was sufficient negative facts to back it up with a facade of credibility, plausible to the majority that don’t know that another side exists in PSJ.

Something akin to what Carte Blanche did a couple of years ago when they came to town to investigate a supposed crime spree and found only isolated instances of opportunistic criminal activity against tourists and travellers. Yet they persisted in graphically depicting the idea of a Jozilike crime epidemic that they brought with them rather than reporting what they actually found on the ground.

The many travellers that venture into the Transkei, for the uninitiated an area wild and untamed and the subject of many legends and myths, and visit Port St Johns have many returnees and repeat offenders in their ranks, some that have returned again and again for years passing on the magic to children and grandchildren alike.

There are also many international travellers that arrive and discover a certain paradise that induces them to rearrange or even entirely cancel the rest of their travel. Of those that manage to leave, many return from as far as Finland, the Netherlands  and the United States to revisit Port St Johns.

There is a wild, natural beauty here, a vast area of rural villages with people whose lives have not changed measurably for decades, living off the land like their predecessors did. Volunteer projects with sustainable village communities and schools thrive and help people bring back a measure of self belief.

Backpackers that work hand in hand with the communities in building and sustaining work opportunities for the locals. Surf schools, village gardens, adult education and business ventures all find a place here.

Coastal hikes, both on foot and horseback provide South African and international visitors with an opportunity to explore the rugged coastline, littered with shipwrecks, in tandem with a local guide and sleep over in local communities.

The recent cultural festival in town provided examples of drama, poetry, dance and music to convince even the most cynical neo-colonial of the ample and deep culture that exists here amongst the Amampondo and other tribes.

It would be easy, anywhere in the world to descend on a small town complete with a list of all the possible negatives to track down in order to paint a dismal picture of a dysfunctional, cowboy town.

To go about this without any attempt to provide a balanced score card and highlight any positives at all is not only grossly biased but almost fits an agenda that would not have been out of place under an old colonial approach to talking about the disparity between different communities.

It goes far enough to help perpetuate the old ‘us and them’ mentality that is something most of us are trying to put behind the country and move forward.

The power of the media is an obvious given and this piece by Sampson in a publication not only widely purchased and read but also disseminated via word of mouth long after the date of publication without any positive counterpoint is grossly unfair to Sunday Times readers as well as Port St Johns residents.

There are many different facts and perspectives on Port St Johns that did not qualify for the rigorous catalogue of negativity and the need to provide a more complete and rounded picture of this small town by their inclusion remains an omission on the part of the editors and publishers of the Sunday Times.

 Even the people interviewed by Sampson are selectively portrayed in a manner that amplifies and reinforces her thesis that Port St Johns is nothing but a dead end town, peopled by drug addicts and dreamers perpetuating some sort of collective, coastal psychosis.

Ben Dekker was the original focus but he was not in town and could not paint a picture of his Port St Johns.

The one eyed and selectively biased nature of an Oliver Stone movie, constructed around his personal view of the world is the closest and most effective analogy this writer can find to the Port St Johns depicted in this myopic view.

For the record, this writer did indeed drop out to write a book and that book is on course for publication. Not all projects end in unfinished business.

Time does indeed move slowly out here, in fact days can drag while weeks fly by but that is no different to countless other small towns around the world with many long term residents that make a conscious and unencumbered decision to live that kind of life.

The seemingly deliberate perjuration by Sampson of the word dropout, almost making it synonymous with a wasted druggie, is a sensationalist technique worthy of a tabloid, an abject admission that she does not understand Port St Johns at all and has only one definition for the phrase dropping out.

The best quote illustrating the tabloid like sensationalism is the following.

“The hillsides are covered with small shacks, some painted pretty colours, but lack of infrastructure and no sanitation cause an avalanche of faecal material to run down the hillside and through the town.”

The agenda is not so much hidden as blatantly biased and one sided.

The latest offering from the wizards of early to mid 90’s rock cool shows that they might have over reached themselves and landed in between a concept album and an over elaborated mess.

For starters the guitar, good as it is, dominates to the extent where it sounds like a hunter killer on a seek and destroy mission. As a result the vocals are over extended and strained trying to compete.

There is a tendency here to try and include the entire guitar repertoire in each track that achieves nothing but complicated listening with just too much incoming aurally for any but the most obsessed and rabid CC nut.

The first track has an intro straight out of the Deep Purple songbook which is all very well, one could nick from other less valuable rock sources, but the track goes nowhere from that auspicious start.

Track two takes a riff direct from the deceased Kurt Cobain which raises serious questions about cross border communications and then does precisely what the first track did. Nothing.

Track three makes the attentive listener feel as if they are on a ‘match the riff’ competition for gummy bears with ABBA collections for those that participate through to the bitter end.

Track four is almost rescued by the best guitar work on the album but it’s a false dawn predicted by a false prophet. “You think that you can do without me,” is like a gauntlet laid down before the CC faithful.

Track 5 owes more than a credit or two to Queen but once again after a great kick start it goes nowhere and with prescient and insightful lyrics like, “I don’t wanna be insignificant,” it’s doomed before it’s out of the garage.

“I don’t know how to see the same things different now,” betrays a deep need to move on past August and everything after. It’s like a remake of Joseph Heller desperately trying to write another novel after ‘Catch 22’.

If the reader is getting the visual image of repetition and flogging of horses that died before the west was won than this review is serving a purpose. Track six entitled ‘Cowboys’ flatters to deceive and then rolls over and reverts to type following in the hoofsteps of its’ inauspicious predecessors.

‘Washington Square’ ends part one leaving the listener upbeat as the intensity has changed focus leaving a finely crafted tune, setting the stage for part two.

During the first half of this attempted magnum opus the guitar is not so much an intrusive fellow instrument as simply laying all to waste in scythe like manner. The benefit of listening up till halfway is that the second half comes as a life saver with some magical lyrics and shorter songs shorn of the excess that bloated the first seven tracks.

Track 8, ‘On almost any Sunday …’, has some harmonica and traces of Neil Young and for once the inspiration from another rock act is built upon by the Crows and the track works, promising some silver lining on those dark clouds that have gathered since the album first hit play.

‘When I dream of Michelangelo’ comes next and this is classic Counting Crows. Singalong lyrics with an easy to follow rhythm and melody, it beggars belief that these Crows don’t focus where they’re best, even if it is more commercialised than the attempted concept or progressive rock that tainted part one of this album in two parts.

‘Anyone but you’ has introspection and a bit of a philosophical take on life and once again does the business despite being a bit long. This obsession with making tracks longer than necessary is quite draining for the listener. Maybe it’s an attempt to disengage from the Google generation with all its attention deficit disorder problems.

‘You can’t count on me’ is quite refreshing with restrained guitar that meshes with the rest of the band and is probably hit material. The changes in tempo grab the listener and build some expectation that isn’t denied.

Track 13 is an awful tear jerker that brings to mind those minstrels that were paid by the chord, so they had to drag out the song endlessly.

This listener got a distinct feeling that there was an attempt with this album to make a quantum leap or simply shift paradigms, upping another level or two from August and …,  but the attempt got lost when complexity was mistaken for the profound.

Changing and evolving is good but throwing the baby out with the bathwater is no way to go about doing this as the strong points of CC sound are lost in the haze of gun smoke of part one but mostly regained in part two.  

This will either leave ‘August and everything after’ in the dust forever, ditching the monkey, or else bomb completely sinking terminally under obesity and over endowed guitar work.

As for the over abundance of post 4 minute tracks, composing mini symphonies just ain’t Counting Crows anymore.

Counting Crows is no longer August and everything after, just Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings which may just be enough for the tried and tested roving groups of killers, operated by remote control, that buy CC albums in quantities that sink stock markets.

For this humble listener, a little more time in mixing and producing would have found a way to tie parts one and two of this album closer together. But there’s always a next time.

The gallery district is a simple anomaly, it is a number of galleries seemingly arbitrarily placed, but in conjunction with each other. On the Eastern side the galleries are boundaried by a sex shop up North and a petrol garage down South.

There is also a monstrosity of a building with only 3 digits offering any kind of identification. 132 is like some sort of code but the architecture is one of total domination of the area and there seemed to be no particular thought involved in the design, simply a rush to get it finished and stake some sort of corporate claim to a part of Parkwood.

The block of flats above this strip of the gallery district dates back maybe to the 40’s and is a different architectural animal altogether, raising an important contrast against 132. On the corner there is an overload of advertising boards.

Neatly packaged across the road is the Goodman Gallery. One that has paid its dues and become quite an established part of the furniture. It also takes itself a little bit more seriously than its counterparts across the way, maybe a bit too seriously.

However, the recent exhibition by David Goldblatt held there was an “I was there” occasion. Resolution Gallery opposite has a welcoming air about it and they don’t mind animals and kids.

I also first saw the pic by Sally Shorkend taken of David Goldblatt and enlarged and highlighted and enlightened by Ricardo Fornoni. An amazing picture, the subject of the Odyssey of a portrait and one that I ventured back to look at many times, also snapping pics of it from the pavement outside complete with diverse reflections.

Artspace has a minimalist design and layout with exhibits placed cautiously so as not to impinge or abstract on each other. This is an extreme benefit for the avid gallery groupie as interference from neighbouring exhibits can cause serious anguish.

Warren Siebrets hasn’t always been open when I’ve been in the district but their layout is also uncluttered and very conducive to focusing on the exhibits themselves and not the gallery, which should simply a forum or a portal for viewing purposes. Great space for some naked reflections.

What strikes the observant loiterer about the area is its possibilities as a piece of art in its own right. The juxtaposition of sexshop and galleries, the crazy billboard sign, the traffic that never quite slows down and the general feel of being in a cosmopolitan environment with hawkers talking different languages and minibus taxis being stereotypically aggressive and fast, this moment in time is an evolving organism, a kaleidoscopic artwork that is never quite the same.

This is a blog I wrote approx. two years ago and the sentiments still resonate, maybe more so.

Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning or end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of the bed and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.
There is only one serious question and that is: Who knows how to make love stay?

These quotes from a book that I reread over the weekend will have enabled the more intrepid reader to identify the title but more of that later. Imagine a book that investigates, the question, in depth over history, philosophy, cosmology, mythology, symbology as well as female sexuality just exactly: Who knows how to make love stay?

There are some of the greatest one liners in English literature as well as a heroine of sorts and an anti-hero. There are allusions to all kinds of possible answers and even some possible solutions to the ultimate question but the book actually revolves around the images and imagination of one of the greatest writers of the last quarter of the twentieth century.

“Outlaws are not members of society. However, they may be important to society. Poets remember our dreams, outlaws act them out.”

“Those who shun the whimsy of things will experience rigor mortis before death.”

” …most lovers don’t work at it hard enough, or with enough imagination or generosity, ..”

“When you put the blame on society, then you end up turning to society for the solution.”

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honour and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words “make” and “stay” become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”

“Love lasts. It’s lust that moves out on us when we’re not looking, it’s lust that always skips town – and love without lust just isn’t enough.”

I haven’t told you yet about the Camel box or Choice, but enough for now. To end off, a quote before the prologue from Erica Jong herself. “Here should be a picture of my favourite apple. It is also a nude & bottle. It is also a landscape. There are no such things as still lifes.”

The author was described by a British critic as writing like Dolly Parton looks.

Of course it is Tom Robbins and STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER. It is a metaphysical ramble, joyride and bungee. Go out and buy it, now.

Peter Gabriel has released a self titled album with an interesting mix of the bizarre, the crazy and some mundane moments just to keep us all sane.

The tracks as per usual are littered with curious melodies and some echoing accompaniments.

The participants reads like a who’s who of current boundary shifting music. Phil Collins, Paul Weller, Robert Fripp, Dick Morrissey and Kate Bush all make an appearance or two.

Of the tracks, the stand out ones are ‘Games without Frontiers’ complete with thought provoking and thoughtless lyrics, great melody and sing song chorus, destined for singalongs the world over and maybe inclusion in some top 10’s.

But by far the most intriguing track is the last one entitled ‘BIKO’ after the anti apartheid activist who died violently while in police custody in South Africa.

BIKO

September ‘77

Port Elizabeth weather fine

It was business as usual

In Police Room 619

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja

  - the man is dead

When I try to sleep at night

I can only dream in red

The outside world is black and white

With only one colour dead

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja

-         the man is dead

You can blow out a candle

but you can’t blow out a fire

once the flame begins to catch

the wind will blow it higher

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Oh Biko, Biko, because Biko

Yihla Moja, Yihla Moja

-         the man is dead

and the eyes of the world are

watching now     watching now

The lyrics are haunting and the song is too, it would be fun to be able to see where it has moved to in a couple of decades time.

Peter Gabriel released by CHARISMA RECORDS LTD 1980.

‘I write what I like’, a recently published collection of the writings of Steve Biko, has an arrogant ring to it but the reader who perseveres through to the end will come out of the experience enriched with a deeper understanding of what the South African political landscape is made up of.

Steve Biko not only has the background and intimate knowledge of black culture and politics but also has a delightful way with the words of the English language, not his mother tongue.. 

It is especially relevant to the white reader intent on grasping where fellow citizens of South Africa come from and what their aims are as far as a possible future democratically elected government is concerned.

Biko stresses cultural differences in his justification for forming the South African Students Organisation (SASO) in 1969 which was seen by some as a breakaway from NUSAS (National Union of South African Students).

The idea of black people making decisions about their political strategy within or without the apartheid segregation monolith was anathema to many white liberals happy to make decisions on behalf of blacks who weren’t represented in official organisations.

The formation of SASO and other developments were a contributory factor in NUSAS moving towards the right in the 70’s and this went some way to vindicating the decision by Biko and his comrades to form SASO.

A theme running right through the book of short essays and articles is the silencing of effective protest by black people against apartheid through the National Party government defining the parameters within which they may debate. This occurred with colleges specifically limited to certain groupings with Fort Hare for the Xhosa and others for Zulu, Sotho and Indians.

Biko maintains that acquiescing and playing the game of limited debate within government demarcated parameters is one destined to embarrassment and failure.

The book focuses almost exclusively on student politics and may not be accessible to the non student reader. However, the deeper ramifications of what Biko has to say about Black Consciousness has relevance for anybody living in South Africa at this moment in time.

In speaking about African culture, Biko says, “Westerners have in many occasions been surprised at the capacity we have for talking to each other – not for the sake of arriving at a particular conclusion but merely to enjoy the communication for its own sake.”

“These are things never done in the westerner’s culture. A visitor to someone’s house, with the exception of friends, is always met with the question ‘what can I do for you’? This attitude to see people not as themselves but as agents for some particular function either to one’s disadvantage or advantage is foreign to us. We are not a suspicious race.”

This book raises deep issues and asks serious questions of the people of South Africa, both black and white. It would be interesting to be able to see what becomes of this book in thirty years time.

Published by the Bowerdean Press, London 1978.