Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 386] The Clash: Triumph or Tragedy? - The Real Story Behind the Band with Pat Gilbert

Transcript

[EP 386] The Clash: Triumph or Tragedy? - The Real Story Behind the Band with Pat Gilbert · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: Nobody explained to Jo's trauma that smoking weed in Jamaica
0:03
Speaker 1: was actually illegal. There was a lot of political violence
0:07
Speaker 1: in Jamaica at that time. A bunch of gunmen were
0:09
Speaker 1: going to come down the studio. Joe's trumer was playing
0:12
Speaker 1: the old out Chune piano in the studio. He got
0:14
Speaker 1: a tap on the shoulder and they said, look, you've
0:16
Speaker 1: got to get out here, otherwise it could get really nasty.
0:20
Speaker 2: And we're totally bombed rock and roll.
0:24
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll leave you. You're reading little Hands. Since
0:26
Speaker 1: it's time to rock.
0:27
Speaker 2: And roll, Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome back to
0:36
Speaker 2: Book on Rock, the podcast for those about to read
0:38
Speaker 2: and rock Americ Sanach. If you'd like to support the
0:41
Speaker 2: podcast and get episodes commercial free, sign up for the
0:44
Speaker 2: backstage Pass from Patreons just five dollars a month. Episodes
0:48
Speaker 2: absolutely commercial free on the audio versions the link in
0:51
Speaker 2: the show notes, or go to bookdo on rock dot
0:53
Speaker 2: com now. Our guest, Pat Gilbert is a former editor
0:58
Speaker 2: of Mojo, the Best and internationally acclaimed music magazine, whose
1:03
Speaker 2: monthly special editions he still oversees. He also has contributed
1:07
Speaker 2: to the Late Q magazine, The Guardian, The Times and
1:09
Speaker 2: The Sunday Times, and has produced radio programs for the BBC.
1:13
Speaker 2: He's just released the new expanded fiftieth anniversary edition of
1:17
Speaker 2: Passion is a Fashion The Real Story of the Clash.
1:20
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for being here.
1:21
Speaker 1: Pat, You're welcome, Eric, Yes, thank you for inviting me on.
1:24
Speaker 1: And I love your Jewels T shirt by the way.
1:26
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, I figured i'd where it. We're in summertime, right, yeah,
1:30
Speaker 2: time to wear it. Thank you so much.
1:32
Speaker 1: Great Phil.
1:33
Speaker 2: The original version of this book came out in two
1:36
Speaker 2: thousand and four, if I have a correct and it
1:38
Speaker 2: was revising on nine.
1:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, it had a light kind of spring clean in
1:43
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, but because it was really to
1:48
Speaker 1: fix anything that was seriously wrong with the first edition.
1:52
Speaker 1: So this one has had a lot more work done
1:57
Speaker 1: on it, actually, and probably about another ten thousand words
2:01
Speaker 1: of extra material, I reckon.
2:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to ask, the
2:05
Speaker 2: ten thousand new words. What are the biggest additions or
2:07
Speaker 2: revelations that fans will discover in this new version, the
2:10
Speaker 2: expanded version.
2:11
Speaker 1: Well, I got to talk to the first time round.
2:15
Speaker 1: I kind of got to talk to everybody involved with
2:18
Speaker 1: the band, and most of the people who'd ever been
2:21
Speaker 1: in the Clash, you know, all its different iterations, and
2:25
Speaker 1: a few people kind of eluded me, and one of
2:27
Speaker 1: them was the Baker. And the Baker was top of
2:30
Speaker 1: Headen the drummer's drum tech, but he was their kind
2:34
Speaker 1: of roadie, and the Clash were very very tightly knit unit,
2:39
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe seven or eight people to the
2:41
Speaker 1: core of it, including the band. Johnny Green was their
2:46
Speaker 1: road manager and Cosmo Vinyl. He was also somebody who
2:51
Speaker 1: was around the band as an aide to them. And
2:55
Speaker 1: Baker was the one that I didn't get to. So
2:58
Speaker 1: I've got plenty of Baker who just he just tells
3:02
Speaker 1: quite amusing stories. So there's stuff, and there's the stuff
3:06
Speaker 1: about when they went to Jamaica, for example, and nobody
3:11
Speaker 1: explained to Joe Drummer that smoking weed in Jamaica was
3:15
Speaker 1: actually illegal, so he gave a few more extraordinary insights
3:20
Speaker 1: into They recorded in Jamaica in nineteen eighty with Mikey Dread,
3:25
Speaker 1: the Jamaican producer, and everyone said, don't go to Jamaica,
3:28
Speaker 1: it's too dangerous. But kind of being the Clash, they
3:32
Speaker 1: thought that, you know, they didn't heed that advice. And
3:36
Speaker 1: they were in Channel one studio, the famous reggae studio,
3:42
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of political violence in Jamaica
3:46
Speaker 1: at that time, and a yeah, yeah, a bunch of
3:50
Speaker 1: gunmen were going to come down the studio and see
3:53
Speaker 1: what's going on. So they were, they were they had
3:58
Speaker 1: attacked Joe Strummer was playing that the old ouching piano
4:01
Speaker 1: in the studio. He got a tap on the shoulder
4:04
Speaker 1: and they said, look, you've got you've got to get
4:06
Speaker 1: out here otherwise, you know, it could get really nasty.
4:10
Speaker 1: So so they did. They managed to escape the studio
4:15
Speaker 1: and they went to Montego Bay on the other side
4:18
Speaker 1: of the island, which is where the resorts are and
4:20
Speaker 1: the beaches are. And so Joe had a big bag
4:24
Speaker 1: of weed with him they put on the table as
4:26
Speaker 1: he was immediately arrested. So and I think they had
4:31
Speaker 1: to bribe the police officer to to let them off
4:34
Speaker 1: the hook. So there's there's lots of sort of baker
4:38
Speaker 1: stories like that, little extra kind of a little seasoning
4:44
Speaker 1: on the story.
4:46
Speaker 2: And you interviewed all four members, Joe Strummer, Nick Jones,
4:49
Speaker 2: Paul Simonon and Tapperheaton. Did each member remember the clash
4:52
Speaker 2: in different ways.
4:53
Speaker 1: That's a good question, That's a really good question. I think, yeah,
4:59
Speaker 1: they they did. They all took it all very seriously.
5:05
Speaker 1: That the story is quite quite there's a lot of
5:10
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fun and adventures and kind of
5:13
Speaker 1: getting up to all kinds of mischief as a group.
5:17
Speaker 1: I think they all held it dear, and they all
5:20
Speaker 1: held the message that it came out. I mean, they
5:23
Speaker 1: were like a protest band and a political band, and
5:27
Speaker 1: they all kind of realized that what they did was very,
5:30
Speaker 1: very very special. And I guess Toppa was quite regretful
5:35
Speaker 1: in the fact that he developed a drug habit, which
5:39
Speaker 1: meant that he was chucked out of the band. Mick,
5:44
Speaker 1: I suppose there's an element of towards the end business
5:49
Speaker 1: because he got thrown out and he was a guy
5:51
Speaker 1: who essentially started the group. You know, Paul, very very
5:56
Speaker 1: pragmatic kind of guy, very keen to set straight some
6:02
Speaker 1: you know, bits in the story. But yeah, they all
6:07
Speaker 1: kind of have they have very good memory about what's happened,
6:11
Speaker 1: and they can Yeah, they had good stories and could
6:16
Speaker 1: see the funny side of stuff too.
6:18
Speaker 2: The road manager Johnny Green crucial in helping this book happen.
6:21
Speaker 2: What role did he play in earning the trust of
6:24
Speaker 2: the Clash inner circle.
6:26
Speaker 1: That's good. Another really good question he in when the
6:32
Speaker 1: When the Flash came through in the UK in nineteen
6:36
Speaker 1: seventy seven, it was a very very violent time in
6:41
Speaker 1: terms of the subcultures people in it. In Britain, you
6:47
Speaker 1: are either teddy boy and you listen to the old
6:49
Speaker 1: rock and roll stuff. There were there were skinheads who
6:52
Speaker 1: were into the reggae stuff. By the night the late
6:56
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, they were they'd become quite right wing, or
7:02
Speaker 1: factions of them had become very very right wing, and
7:05
Speaker 1: you had like Nazi skinheads and so on and so forth. Yeah,
7:09
Speaker 1: the mod movement coming through, so Clash Gates could kind
7:13
Speaker 1: of sometimes be a meeting for gangs or a lot
7:17
Speaker 1: of violence, and Johnny was a guy who kind of
7:20
Speaker 1: would put his life on the line to make sure
7:23
Speaker 1: they they didn't come to any harm and would if
7:31
Speaker 1: the band were involved any in violence, he would kind
7:34
Speaker 1: of leap in and he was a big guy and
7:39
Speaker 1: help them out. And they grew to love him because
7:42
Speaker 1: I think he had you know, to the end of
7:45
Speaker 1: his life, he absolutely he sadly died last year. He
7:48
Speaker 1: absolutely adored the Class and he adores his role of
7:53
Speaker 1: being their road manager and getting them out of mischief
7:58
Speaker 1: and bother.
7:59
Speaker 2: You describe the Class is having detonated onto the London
8:01
Speaker 2: scene in nineteen seventy six. What was so explosive and
8:04
Speaker 2: different about them compared to everyone else at the time.
8:07
Speaker 1: I think the Clash were in a tradition of kind
8:12
Speaker 1: of rebel profits, I would sort of say, so they
8:15
Speaker 1: were kind of a bit like Lenin in the early
8:20
Speaker 1: seventies on Lenin and Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Bob Marley,
8:26
Speaker 1: of course. So I think they saw themselves in a
8:29
Speaker 1: slightly different role to the Sex Pistols, who were a
8:32
Speaker 1: bit more kind of anarchic, a bit more you know,
8:39
Speaker 1: badly badly behaved, and it sort of the Clash had
8:45
Speaker 1: more of a vision and a purpose and it struck
8:47
Speaker 1: a chord and it it's quite strange when a band
8:51
Speaker 1: has that dimension to them, that extra political edge, and
8:55
Speaker 1: you saw it later with people like Public Enemy, I
8:59
Speaker 1: guess and Raising into Machine again in that kind of tradition.
9:04
Speaker 1: It gave them a real kind of edge and people
9:07
Speaker 1: just people just really latched onto it. They latched onto
9:11
Speaker 1: the edgyeness of it. The Clash in nineteen seventy seven
9:15
Speaker 1: began making their own clothes which were very kind of
9:19
Speaker 1: styled along military kind of lines, with epaulets and zips
9:23
Speaker 1: and d rings and so on. So they did look
9:28
Speaker 1: like a kind of a gorilla outfit. But the war
9:33
Speaker 1: that they were waging was one of kind of truth
9:35
Speaker 1: against power, and it just it just sort of just
9:42
Speaker 1: became really alluring and really really exciting, and I think
9:47
Speaker 1: it defined a lot of people's lives over here definitely,
9:51
Speaker 1: I mean. And then when they went to America.
9:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, you've triggered my memory because my older brother
9:57
Speaker 2: Marty was a huge fan and when I was a kid,
9:59
Speaker 2: I remember he used to wear the camouflage. Is because
10:02
Speaker 2: he loved the clash. His friend wore a camouflage. Yeah,
10:05
Speaker 2: that was the big thing. But it felt authentic. That's
10:07
Speaker 2: the thing too, I mean, a compared to many politically
10:09
Speaker 2: minded bands the class, their message felt authentic. It's it
10:13
Speaker 2: didn't feel performative.
10:15
Speaker 1: It didn't and there were several reasons for that. One
10:18
Speaker 1: of them with that, Mick and Paul were they were
10:22
Speaker 1: kids from London, and you know the backstreets of London
10:27
Speaker 1: and they grew up in areas where there was a
10:31
Speaker 1: lot of the West Indian immigrants that had settled in
10:34
Speaker 1: London in the nineteen fifties and the nineteen sixties, and
10:38
Speaker 1: so they were out on the street at an early age.
10:42
Speaker 1: They were They came from essentially inner city areas and yeah,
10:51
Speaker 1: that that gave them so they were they were the
10:53
Speaker 1: real deal. I mean they were. They were hard men,
10:56
Speaker 1: They were tough men, but they had that kind of
10:58
Speaker 1: they had a street by attitude. Yeah, they had a
11:03
Speaker 1: really good street wise attitude. And then he had Joe's strummer,
11:07
Speaker 1: who was his He had been brought up all around
11:10
Speaker 1: the world. His father was in the diplomatic service, so
11:13
Speaker 1: he used to he used to get a tremendous amount
11:16
Speaker 1: of stick from the press in the UK and that
11:19
Speaker 1: he was a fraud because because he wasn't from the
11:22
Speaker 1: back streets of London that he had had he'd been
11:26
Speaker 1: privately educators and I don't think he even lived in
11:31
Speaker 1: England till he was nine years old. So Joe gone
11:35
Speaker 1: into a bit of a stick. But he was also
11:37
Speaker 1: had that I don't know, he had that kind of
11:41
Speaker 1: leadership quality and that that kind of charisma. Who was
11:45
Speaker 1: able to kind of drive drive the whole thing forward
11:49
Speaker 1: as a as a front man. So they did get
11:52
Speaker 1: some stick about not being authentic, especially from some of
11:56
Speaker 1: the the the tougher, more working class punk bands, but
12:04
Speaker 1: the way they estimilated reggae and the whole Jamaican thing
12:09
Speaker 1: was yeah, very true.
12:11
Speaker 2: London Calling you describe as a quantum leap musically. Why
12:16
Speaker 2: was that album such a turning point.
12:18
Speaker 1: Because they've gone to America? I think that was the
12:22
Speaker 1: big thing. Punk had burnt itself out in the UK
12:27
Speaker 1: and people were like, where does music go? A lot
12:33
Speaker 1: of punk bands just split up because they were thinking, well,
12:35
Speaker 1: we've said everything we wanted to do. Moviing is getting
12:38
Speaker 1: more music is getting more sophisticated, and the Clash had
12:43
Speaker 1: that same kind of crisis of confidence. But they've been
12:47
Speaker 1: to America and you know it. It kind of reignited
12:54
Speaker 1: their pre punk love for R and B and soul music,
13:01
Speaker 1: basic rock and roll as well, and they could see,
13:05
Speaker 1: you know, disco, it was something to happen. There's a
13:07
Speaker 1: tiny little bit of disco influence in London Calling, and
13:11
Speaker 1: they put it all into this big cooking pot and
13:14
Speaker 1: they kind of mixed it all up in that summer
13:17
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy nine and recorded London Calling, so it
13:22
Speaker 1: didn't There aren't many loud guitars on that album at all.
13:26
Speaker 1: It's more music, I mean musically, it's very interesting because
13:33
Speaker 1: there are so many influences, and particularly the reggae thing
13:37
Speaker 1: and the scar thing was coming in too, so a
13:42
Speaker 1: lot of people actually over here got put off by that.
13:46
Speaker 1: They lost quite a lot of fans, but they also
13:48
Speaker 1: gained a big international audience because starting to become feel
13:54
Speaker 1: more like a band with the kind of musical depth
13:58
Speaker 1: of Springsteen or someone.
14:02
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14:05
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14:08
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14:11
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14:13
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14:22
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14:25
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14:28
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14:30
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14:35
Speaker 2: Chapter eleven starts in chapter eleven is titled hell Sucks
14:38
Speaker 2: Starts with Quote. It still irks many British class fans
14:42
Speaker 2: that perhaps the group's finest hour after escaping punk rock,
14:45
Speaker 2: happened over there. Their residency at Bonds International Casino over
14:50
Speaker 2: the first two weeks of June nineteen eighty one is
14:51
Speaker 2: still remembered as one of the most exciting and influential
14:54
Speaker 2: events in New York during the early nineteen eighties. It
14:57
Speaker 2: was also the key to transform the Clash from a
15:00
Speaker 2: alternative group in the States into a million selling top
15:03
Speaker 2: ten act. Why did that residency there at Bond's International
15:07
Speaker 2: Casino become sole legendary when.
15:09
Speaker 1: The Clash went in America the first that they recorded
15:12
Speaker 1: their second album, finished their second album with Sandy Perman
15:16
Speaker 1: in America, and then they went there in the beginning
15:22
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy nine and at the end of seventy nine,
15:25
Speaker 1: and what they found was a kind of hero worship
15:28
Speaker 1: in a way that they didn't really know what to
15:30
Speaker 1: expect from American audiences. And they I think they arrived
15:35
Speaker 1: in America without all the baggage that they had from
15:39
Speaker 1: being a punk band in London, and they were kind
15:44
Speaker 1: of viewed in a more more kind of pure and
15:49
Speaker 1: an unallied kind of way, and so they were ready
15:56
Speaker 1: to get beer. They were starting to everything was starting
15:58
Speaker 1: to brew in America. And when they got to Bonds
16:03
Speaker 1: in this summer, early summer of nineteen eighty one, they
16:08
Speaker 1: were going to they were going to do a large
16:10
Speaker 1: or maybe sixty date tour of the States, and their
16:15
Speaker 1: promoters found the fact that Sandinista, their fourth album, was
16:21
Speaker 1: named after the Nicaraguan rebel army which was fighting against
16:29
Speaker 1: the CIA funded government at that time. It was all
16:33
Speaker 1: part of that whole business going on in Central America.
16:37
Speaker 1: And they were worried actually that booking agents wouldn't touch them.
16:43
Speaker 1: So they decided instead or there'd be a lot of
16:47
Speaker 1: problems around them playing off the beaten track in America,
16:53
Speaker 1: and so they decided to do a residency instead. Just
16:57
Speaker 1: concentrate on New York. Just do it, do a whole
17:01
Speaker 1: week's worth of gigs in New York and just see
17:04
Speaker 1: what happened. And I think that was the point where
17:07
Speaker 1: they just realized that they'd touched a nerve in America
17:13
Speaker 1: and it became it became a quite big thing. They
17:17
Speaker 1: were musically more sophisticated. Then they looked absolutely amazing. They
17:21
Speaker 1: still had top ahead and in the band amazing drama.
17:26
Speaker 1: And each of the Bonds shows became a kind of
17:31
Speaker 1: cultural event because as their support acts, they were having
17:35
Speaker 1: people like Grandmaster Flash, so they were having the kind
17:38
Speaker 1: of hip hop guys which bringing so bringing the hip
17:43
Speaker 1: hop stuff and the rock audiences together, and they had
17:49
Speaker 1: lots of other different bands, and the Beastie Boys before
17:53
Speaker 1: they were the Beasty Boys sort of came along and
17:55
Speaker 1: saw those shows and it kind of moved them towards,
17:59
Speaker 1: you know, making more rapid hip hop influence records. So,
18:06
Speaker 1: I mean, I wasn't there. I wasn't there. Unfortunately I
18:08
Speaker 1: wish I had been. But Yeah, they ended up doing
18:13
Speaker 1: seventeen dates and then because the authorities decided that the
18:20
Speaker 1: venue wasn't big enough to hold as many people as
18:22
Speaker 1: tickets were being sold, so they had to do double
18:25
Speaker 1: the number.
18:26
Speaker 2: Of gigs seventeen. Yeah, seventeen in a row, opening for
18:31
Speaker 2: The Who in nineteen eighty two. That was another huge
18:33
Speaker 2: moment for the Clash, the band. They once positioned themselves
18:36
Speaker 2: against the old guard of rock. That's presented huge ideological
18:40
Speaker 2: difficulties for the Clash were their internal disagreements within the
18:43
Speaker 2: band about taking that tour.
18:45
Speaker 1: I think so I would have guessed that Joe Strummer
18:49
Speaker 1: and Paul simonon Paul the bass player, were were kind
18:57
Speaker 1: of less keen than Mick Jones the guitarist, because I
19:02
Speaker 1: think Mick always wanted the band to be as big
19:06
Speaker 1: as possible. I think with other members in the Clash camp,
19:12
Speaker 1: they thought, well, is this making us the kind of
19:17
Speaker 1: band that we set out to destroy in the punk
19:21
Speaker 1: days five years earlier? You know, stadium gig, you know,
19:27
Speaker 1: the tickets are generally overpriced, and the food is awful
19:31
Speaker 1: and expensive, and they're trying to sell you, sell you
19:34
Speaker 1: beer inflated prices. So they did. But I think Cosmo Vinyl,
19:42
Speaker 1: who you know, he was there their aid in the
19:47
Speaker 1: second half of their career. He said something in the
19:50
Speaker 1: book that they realized what went down in England and
19:53
Speaker 1: the rules that applied in England didn't now apply when
19:57
Speaker 1: they were going to the States. So the States is
19:59
Speaker 1: so much bigger, so much more compartmentalized. You can't It's
20:03
Speaker 1: not like England. You part just do one tour and
20:06
Speaker 1: suddenly you become famous. It's just just too big and
20:09
Speaker 1: too diverse. So they thought, well, if we're going to
20:13
Speaker 1: play to like fifty or sixty thousand who fans every
20:17
Speaker 1: night that we're with with with what we're doing is
20:20
Speaker 1: making our job easier. And and Pete Townsend said that
20:25
Speaker 1: as a support band, they were great. He said they
20:27
Speaker 1: were really they were really good. And there was always
20:30
Speaker 1: there were always parallels between The Who and The Clash anyway,
20:35
Speaker 1: in a way in a way that Who and they
20:36
Speaker 1: started off. They're quite punky in their own fashion, and
20:41
Speaker 1: and and the Clash loved the Who so and you know,
20:46
Speaker 1: they both both bands were from London, so I kind
20:51
Speaker 1: of it worked. It was kind of the last second
20:55
Speaker 1: to last big thing they ever did.
20:57
Speaker 2: Joe Strummer, he's born John.
20:59
Speaker 1: Mellow, John Meller.
21:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, you explore that complicated relationship between Joe Strummer of
21:05
Speaker 2: The Clash quote unquote and John Meller did researching his
21:09
Speaker 2: upbringing change how you viewed him, Oh.
21:12
Speaker 1: Because it was it was always in the in the
21:14
Speaker 1: in the music press at the time that Joe I mean,
21:17
Speaker 1: as I mentioned before that he came from a different
21:19
Speaker 1: background to the other people in the band. And rock
21:23
Speaker 1: and roll is about reinvention. Rock and roll is about you,
21:26
Speaker 1: you know, you're you're a normal guy or gal, and
21:30
Speaker 1: you you know, you put on a set of clothes,
21:33
Speaker 1: you develop an attitude, you might you maybe take on
21:36
Speaker 1: a different name, and and you transform yourself and and
21:41
Speaker 1: in doing so you might end up transforming other people
21:43
Speaker 1: how they behave, how they think, and so on. So
21:47
Speaker 1: I didn't. I always knew Joe would be a sort
21:54
Speaker 1: of complicated person to me, but when you did actually
21:59
Speaker 1: meet him, he was. He was absolutely fine. He was
22:01
Speaker 1: full of mischief, he was full of fun. He had that,
22:05
Speaker 1: you know, I never really felt he was putting on
22:10
Speaker 1: too much of an act, you know, especially towards the
22:13
Speaker 1: end of his life. You know, in a clash, he
22:16
Speaker 1: was just this became this kind of demon. It was.
22:19
Speaker 1: It was a performance when he was on stage, definitely,
22:23
Speaker 1: But I think he kind of resolved those issues. Or
22:28
Speaker 1: maybe it's such just that that whole thing about about
22:31
Speaker 1: he was always driven to escape his upbringing. You know,
22:36
Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I don't
22:38
Speaker 1: think there's if you're born into a world that you're
22:42
Speaker 1: not comfortable with sort of transcending that. I don't think,
22:47
Speaker 1: by whatever means possible, I don't think there's anything wrong
22:50
Speaker 1: with that.
22:51
Speaker 2: Do you think Joe died still wrestling with the legacy
22:54
Speaker 2: of the Clash.
22:55
Speaker 1: I think he did. And I think there's Chris Salovich,
23:01
Speaker 1: another British journalist who was hung out with the Clash
23:05
Speaker 1: and wrote about them a lot at the time. He
23:08
Speaker 1: was always saying that Joe always wanted to reform the Clash.
23:11
Speaker 1: I think the Clash were Joe's big legacy, and he
23:16
Speaker 1: was always keen on the idea of, you know, getting them,
23:23
Speaker 1: getting them back on the road and getting them out there,
23:26
Speaker 1: because he maybe within that context was the context that
23:30
Speaker 1: he made most sense as a human being and to himself,
23:35
Speaker 1: he was Joe's drummer of the Clash. And you have
23:40
Speaker 1: to wind back. So if you wind back to like
23:42
Speaker 1: the late nineties and the very early two thousands, and
23:46
Speaker 1: Joe died in two thousand and two, the Clashes stopped.
23:51
Speaker 1: Was quite low at that point in Britain. In the
23:54
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties. We've had we've had we had the big
23:56
Speaker 1: cool Britannia thing with Oasis and Blur, and you know,
24:01
Speaker 1: music moved on a generation and nobody was talking about
24:06
Speaker 1: the Clash much at all. And when Joe formed his
24:09
Speaker 1: band the Mescaleros, and after like an almost a ten
24:12
Speaker 1: year break, went back on the road with the Mescaleros.
24:16
Speaker 1: He was planning to relatively small audiences. I saw the
24:19
Speaker 1: first Google Vision one of the very first gigs he
24:22
Speaker 1: did when he came back in ninety nine, and it
24:25
Speaker 1: was to maybe three or four hundred people. If it
24:29
Speaker 1: would be the Clash, it would have been four thousand people.
24:34
Speaker 1: And I think he found that he found that quite difficult,
24:36
Speaker 1: And I think the music he made then was some
24:42
Speaker 1: of the best music that he ever made. It really
24:45
Speaker 1: was good, but it was never going to go anywhere
24:48
Speaker 1: commercially or even possibly even pay for itself. So I
24:54
Speaker 1: think I think there was definitely a Clash reunion brewing
25:00
Speaker 1: the time in Joe's head, around the time he died.
25:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, you think that would have happened pretty soon.
25:06
Speaker 1: Well, they were in the last months of his life.
25:11
Speaker 1: They were it was announced the band The Class were
25:13
Speaker 1: going to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall
25:15
Speaker 1: of Fame, So there was a lot of talk about
25:18
Speaker 1: whether they should get together to play around the induction.
25:24
Speaker 1: But as far as I can, I mean, the Class
25:27
Speaker 1: it was very complicated entity. But I think again it
25:31
Speaker 1: was Paul Simonon, who was the most trench in not
25:37
Speaker 1: wanting to play because he viewed it as a kind
25:41
Speaker 1: of corporate event or driven by corporate corporate energy and forces.
25:49
Speaker 1: So he was against it. But whether they would have
25:53
Speaker 1: done I don't know. I reckon it's fifty to fifty.
25:56
Speaker 2: Pat Gilbert is the author of the new expanded fiftieth
25:58
Speaker 2: anniversary edition of Is a Fashion The Real Story of
26:02
Speaker 2: the Clash. Mick Jones from a musical standpoint, let's talk
26:06
Speaker 2: about that. Was he the musical architect of the clash?
26:09
Speaker 2: Because he incorporated a lot of that. Did you talk
26:12
Speaker 2: about he was going out to the dance clubs, I think,
26:14
Speaker 2: listening to some of the new stuff that was out
26:16
Speaker 2: at the time, and that really plays a huge role
26:20
Speaker 2: in the music of the class.
26:21
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, absolutely, And even on the first album in
26:26
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven, you know, the really punky one, it's
26:31
Speaker 1: musically quite sophisticated. Mick had a kind of musical bro
26:35
Speaker 1: I mean, he wasn't musically trained in any way. I
26:37
Speaker 1: mean in so much as trained by listening to lots
26:41
Speaker 1: of great records when he was growing up, But he
26:45
Speaker 1: had the musical brain and that first album was quite
26:48
Speaker 1: sort of. You know, there's a lot going on. There's
26:50
Speaker 1: key changes. You might notice it, you might you may
26:53
Speaker 1: or may not notice the little key changes in there.
26:56
Speaker 1: There's lots of little bridges, and you know, the bass
27:00
Speaker 1: runs are quite kind of clever, and and the and
27:05
Speaker 1: the way the guitar, the two guitars kind of uh
27:11
Speaker 1: bounce off each other rhythmically. It was it was very
27:17
Speaker 1: he was he was a very very clever guy and
27:20
Speaker 1: that and that group. So and I think by London
27:25
Speaker 1: calling the third album, he was essentially the de facto
27:29
Speaker 1: producer and you know, he'd be the one suggesting all
27:34
Speaker 1: the overdubs. He'd be suggesting some of the studio techniques
27:37
Speaker 1: they could do to make the record, give it a
27:40
Speaker 1: bit more depth. And then, as you say, he was
27:42
Speaker 1: always looking for the news. So he was very much
27:46
Speaker 1: into the post punk thing when it happened in the UK. Uh.
27:50
Speaker 1: And then he was gone into the hip hop thing,
27:54
Speaker 1: which he carried on after the Clash, finished with Big Audio.
27:56
Speaker 2: Dynamite and had success with that, great success with that.
28:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. So with Big Audio Dynamite after the Clash, he
28:04
Speaker 1: carried on that vision of wanting to mix guitar. You know,
28:10
Speaker 1: rock guitar with a dance beak and yeah makes great records.
28:15
Speaker 2: Was his firing the moment that the class effectively ceased
28:18
Speaker 2: being the Clash.
28:19
Speaker 1: Okay. So there's two moments you can choose from okay.
28:23
Speaker 1: Moment one was when Topaheaden was slung out in May
28:31
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two because of his drug problems. The Clash
28:35
Speaker 1: were very very brutal and tough unit, and they'd given
28:42
Speaker 1: him a chance to sort himself out and he didn't,
28:45
Speaker 1: so he was out. And top of was not only
28:49
Speaker 1: was he a superb drummer, he was also musically quite
28:54
Speaker 1: gifted and he'd written the music to essentially all the
28:57
Speaker 1: music to rock the Kasbar, so his musical input was very,
29:05
Speaker 1: very very important. So once he'd gone, but they stopped
29:09
Speaker 1: being you know, they're always Joe, Paul, Mick and Toppler.
29:14
Speaker 1: It was all that was the band. So when it
29:17
Speaker 1: wasn't Topper anymore, is I okay? Is a Clash? And
29:20
Speaker 1: then a year later when they fire Mick for apparently
29:25
Speaker 1: being too much of a rock star, they yeah, it
29:31
Speaker 1: wasn't the same. After that, there was of course a
29:34
Speaker 1: second incarnation of the group. But for me, the Clash clash,
29:40
Speaker 1: The Real Clash ended definitely ended with Mick.
29:46
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the book Down Rock podcast.
29:49
Speaker 2: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
29:53
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29:55
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29:57
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30:04
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30:06
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30:13
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Speaker 2: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
30:19
Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
30:23
Speaker 2: to the show. You briefly mentioned ghostwriting sessions for Topper's
30:28
Speaker 2: unpublished memoir, without revealing anything private of course. But those conversations,
30:32
Speaker 2: what did they teach you about him as a person? Oh?
30:36
Speaker 1: They were extraordinary. So this happened about twenty thirteen maybe,
30:42
Speaker 1: and I'd go down to his house. I went for
30:44
Speaker 1: a few times down at Dover and on the coast,
30:48
Speaker 1: and he would talk for a long time, maybe two
30:56
Speaker 1: hours NonStop. And for somebody who had a drug problem
31:04
Speaker 1: for a long long time. He had. He's got absolutely
31:09
Speaker 1: absolute total recall, so extraordinary detailed kind of behind the
31:18
Speaker 1: scenes insight into some of the some of the things
31:21
Speaker 1: that happened, and very very kind of some of somebody's
31:27
Speaker 1: you know, in recovery. As they say he was, he was,
31:33
Speaker 1: you know, he was very open about all all the
31:36
Speaker 1: all the drug stuff, and not very He didn't ever
31:41
Speaker 1: say anything bad about any of the other guys in
31:43
Speaker 1: the in the group at all. It was all it
31:46
Speaker 1: was all more about details about his own life and
31:50
Speaker 1: his own journey, and he was and he's quite vulnerable.
31:53
Speaker 1: He was quite vulnerable character. He talked about how I
31:58
Speaker 1: didn't realize the extent that he felt out of his
32:02
Speaker 1: depth thrown into the world of the Clash because it
32:06
Speaker 1: was such a kind of a kind of brutal and
32:11
Speaker 1: aggressive and perhaps not very welcoming place to be. Like
32:19
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy. I think as they sort of grew
32:23
Speaker 1: up and got on life in the Clash probably got
32:26
Speaker 1: slightly better, but they were pretty hard on each other.
32:29
Speaker 2: How close did that get to actually coming out?
32:34
Speaker 1: I did some sessions, and then Topper didn't as I
32:38
Speaker 1: understood it, he didn't want it to come out while
32:41
Speaker 1: his father was still alive, and I don't think his
32:45
Speaker 1: father is now, because he didn't want his family to
32:49
Speaker 1: to rub their faces into all the kind of excessive
32:53
Speaker 1: rock and roll stuff that he talks about. So it
32:59
Speaker 1: was put to one side. And whether it will come
33:02
Speaker 1: out in some form or another, I hope it does
33:07
Speaker 1: because it's it's an extraordinary tale and not just a clash.
33:11
Speaker 1: You know. After the clash, he made some solo records
33:14
Speaker 1: and stuff, and he's very you know, it's just a
33:18
Speaker 1: very very interesting character and like the other members of
33:21
Speaker 1: the class, absolutely obsessed with music.
33:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, the title was I guess it depends on I
33:26
Speaker 2: always say Headen. Some people say Headen, but the title
33:28
Speaker 2: of the book would be The pronunciation is better if
33:31
Speaker 2: you say Headen collision. Right, That was the head On collision.
33:34
Speaker 2: Was That was the title of the book, Headen collision.
33:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, I say I say both. By the way, I
33:40
Speaker 1: end up saying both Headen and Headen. I think it's Heiden. Actually, yeah,
33:45
Speaker 1: I think he calls.
33:46
Speaker 2: Himself the book. Down Rock Podcast is part of the
33:52
Speaker 2: Boneless podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock
33:55
Speaker 2: and classic film, like I am go to Boneless dot
33:58
Speaker 2: lovable dot app to find over twenty great shows there
34:01
Speaker 2: that's boneless downlovable dot app, or just go to bookdown
34:05
Speaker 2: rock dot com the Boneless podcasting network. It is what
34:09
Speaker 2: you want to be. Listen with confidence. This is a
34:14
Speaker 2: quote from your book. By nineteen eighty five, when they split,
34:16
Speaker 2: the class were all but unrecognizable from their nineteen seventy
34:19
Speaker 2: seven model. But it was their valiant struggle to stay
34:22
Speaker 2: true to themselves and their ideals that makes their tails
34:25
Speaker 2: so fascinating. Why do you think that classic lineup ultimately imploded?
34:29
Speaker 1: One of the reasons was when we were talking about
34:32
Speaker 1: the Who a minute ago, they what happens to a
34:38
Speaker 1: punk band from London who were who played gigs where
34:45
Speaker 1: the tickets were comparatively cheap, so lots of people too,
34:51
Speaker 1: so they were very affordable gig tickets, The merchandise was cheap.
34:56
Speaker 1: The records London Calling and Sandinista was a triple, but
35:01
Speaker 1: it sold for the price of a double and they waved,
35:08
Speaker 1: and to do that, they waived the royalties on all
35:12
Speaker 1: their UK sales of the record, which is that nuts.
35:19
Speaker 1: So what happens when a band suddenly has a top
35:23
Speaker 1: ten hit in America and elsewhere in the world, and
35:28
Speaker 1: they send the money starts kind of tumbling in. It
35:32
Speaker 1: created a real dilemma from them because they's sort of
35:36
Speaker 1: been you know, they always had cash in their back pocket.
35:40
Speaker 1: But you know what happens when you've got the money
35:43
Speaker 1: to buy a house or you've got the money to
35:45
Speaker 1: buy the car and what have you. And I think
35:48
Speaker 1: it became a real real ideological problem for them, how
35:55
Speaker 1: they how they would move on from supporting the who
35:59
Speaker 1: they do their own stadium two they end up supporting
36:02
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones or something. I think that kind of
36:08
Speaker 1: ate away at them, really, and that's that was that
36:15
Speaker 1: that was that was a big part. I mean, chucking
36:17
Speaker 1: Topper out of Yeah, maybe that wasn't good, but yeah,
36:21
Speaker 1: they I think as an entity, the Clash had a
36:24
Speaker 1: shelf life if it was going to remain cool and authentic,
36:27
Speaker 1: it had a shelf life, as did the Pistols. But
36:30
Speaker 1: the Pistols shelf life was much shorter because you know
36:36
Speaker 1: that that was that was always going to just you know, implode.
36:41
Speaker 1: But the Clash fortunately went on to make all those
36:46
Speaker 1: great albums.
36:48
Speaker 2: Nick Jones was his last my appearance with the band
36:51
Speaker 2: at the US Festival.
36:53
Speaker 1: Yes, it was that was.
36:55
Speaker 2: That when the cracks start to show, or I had
36:56
Speaker 2: it started before that.
36:58
Speaker 1: After Topper were fired in nineteen eighty two, they brought
37:03
Speaker 1: back the drummer who'd played on the first album, Terry Chimes.
37:09
Speaker 1: And Terry Chimes was a guy who drummed it on
37:13
Speaker 1: the Who Stadium tour, and he said that he didn't
37:20
Speaker 1: do the US Festival because he said it was clear
37:24
Speaker 1: to him that the Clash had no future, that at
37:27
Speaker 1: some point they wouldn't be able to work with Mick anymore.
37:32
Speaker 1: And he said the tension was so bad during the
37:35
Speaker 1: time that he was in that band towards the end
37:38
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty two, that yeah, he didn't want to
37:44
Speaker 1: be around around it all. So I think if you
37:50
Speaker 1: read the book, i'd say in mixed defense, and I
37:54
Speaker 1: think there's always somebody in a group who carries the
37:57
Speaker 1: burden of it all into terms of having to write
38:02
Speaker 1: the next record. And Joe could do his lyrics, obviously,
38:06
Speaker 1: but but Mick had to come up with musicals. He
38:09
Speaker 1: always had to come up with the next single, the
38:11
Speaker 1: next the next album. They couldn't really do anything until
38:14
Speaker 1: Mick has turned up a rehearsal with a song, so
38:18
Speaker 1: you know all the music to a song. And if
38:23
Speaker 1: you and I think that that weighed really heavily on him,
38:26
Speaker 1: it really weighed heavily on him. I think he was
38:29
Speaker 1: he really cared. He was equality control was really high,
38:34
Speaker 1: and I think he was under a lot of pressure
38:36
Speaker 1: all the time and it probably did make him to
38:38
Speaker 1: be make him be quite difficult to be around with.
38:42
Speaker 1: I think he was quite a kind of when he
38:44
Speaker 1: was when he was in the band to beginning, he
38:47
Speaker 1: was quite sort of cocky and dismissive of people then.
38:49
Speaker 1: But he but I think it's because he carried that
38:52
Speaker 1: burden and I and if you draw a line back
38:56
Speaker 1: through their career, they're always arguing with Mick. There's always
39:01
Speaker 1: they're always having having problems. But that was just but
39:06
Speaker 1: that was part of the creative spark.
39:09
Speaker 2: I think, sure, Well, look at the band name, the
39:11
Speaker 2: class class there is. Yeah, it's always more of like
39:17
Speaker 2: a slow erosion, like like you say in the book
39:20
Speaker 2: that the purity of vision was slowly eroded by drugs, fame,
39:23
Speaker 2: and the music industry. Final question, looking back now, was
39:27
Speaker 2: the clash ultimately a success story, a tragedy or both.
39:33
Speaker 1: Well for me a success story because they they created
39:39
Speaker 1: like if you could read you could read the book
39:42
Speaker 1: as a kind of a manual of how how to
39:47
Speaker 1: do a band while not well being, you know, not
39:53
Speaker 1: caring what your record company thought. You know, you can
39:55
Speaker 1: go on strike. You don't. You don't do things because
39:59
Speaker 1: people are people think it's a good idea, or they say, oh,
40:02
Speaker 1: you made loads of money, or you're going to get
40:04
Speaker 1: really famous doing this. You don't. You do you make
40:08
Speaker 1: a band because it's the band that you want to
40:10
Speaker 1: be in, and that it's the band that you want
40:13
Speaker 1: to make and create. And also as a political thing,
40:20
Speaker 1: the Clash really did open up people. I mean, I
40:24
Speaker 1: can only really speak from over here, but it really
40:27
Speaker 1: did open their eyes to politics and the message about
40:33
Speaker 1: being anti racist and anti fascist. There was in the
40:38
Speaker 1: late seventies and early eighties over here there was a
40:40
Speaker 1: huge rise in right wing groups, movements and groups, and
40:49
Speaker 1: the Clash bought against that. That that was their thing.
40:52
Speaker 1: So that idea of being kind of a gorilla musical
40:58
Speaker 1: gorilla unit fighting for the for the cause, for the
41:01
Speaker 1: good cause, it really did mean a lot to everybody.
41:04
Speaker 1: And I think that's the kind of legacy they still
41:08
Speaker 1: carries on. Do you know, You just know, be cool,
41:10
Speaker 1: do what you want to do, but you know, and
41:13
Speaker 1: if it's the right thing, you know, just hold on
41:16
Speaker 1: to it, hold onto your moral integrity in the face
41:19
Speaker 1: of the of the music industry.
41:21
Speaker 2: The only band that matters, and fifty years later, they
41:24
Speaker 2: still matter.
41:25
Speaker 1: Hey, Eric, the new.
41:28
Speaker 2: Expanded fiftieth anniversary edition of Passion as a Fashion The
41:31
Speaker 2: Real Story of the Class It is out now. You
41:34
Speaker 2: can find out wherever books are sold, all the usual outlets.
41:36
Speaker 2: You can look forward at your nearest independent bookstore. You
41:39
Speaker 2: can go to book down rock dot com to find
41:40
Speaker 2: your nearest bookstore. All right, Pat, where can people find
41:43
Speaker 2: you online?
41:44
Speaker 1: I've got my website Wwwpatgilber dot co dot uk. And yeah,
41:50
Speaker 1: I'm easy to find. I'm everywhere.
41:52
Speaker 2: I will put a link up in the show notes
41:54
Speaker 2: so people can check that out. Pat. This is awesome man,
41:57
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Love talking the clash and this is
41:59
Speaker 2: a phenomenal book, the original version. It just gets better
42:03
Speaker 2: as the years go on. So congrats on this book.
42:05
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for coming on.
42:06
Speaker 1: Oh Eric, thank you that means a lot. And yes,
42:09
Speaker 1: thank you for having me on.
42:17
Speaker 2: That's it.
42:18
Speaker 1: It's in the books,