by Mick O'Shea
– Mick Jones
GIVEN THAT THE CLASH had prophesied 1977 as a ground zero in terms of a musical changing of the guard, it is ironic that they should choose to knowingly lift the readily-recognisable tell-tale riff to The Who's 1964 hit 'I Can't Explain' for the their next single, 'Clash City Rockers'.
Mick was particularly pleased with the new song, possibly owing to it being the first time the group had dipped a toe into Mott The Hoople-esque self-mythology? His euphoria, however, faded away with the chimes of Prince Far-I upon giving the promo copy of the single a spin and discovering to his horror that the final cut had been vari-speeded without his being consulted. Filled with incandescent rage at the 'Pinky & Perky' mix, he set off in search of an explanation for this duplicitous act. Mick's search ended at the first door upon which he knocked as there was only one possible culprit… The Clash's in-house engineer, Micky Foote.
Micky had indeed put his finger to the vari-speeding trigger without first consulting Mick, but he had raised the question of the song's original tempo with Bernard. He'd also proposed that the group return to Whitfield Street to record the song again, but with some four months having passed since The Clash's last release Bernard was anxious to avoid incurring CBS's wrath for failing to deliver a new Clash single within the pre-agreed contractual deadlines.
So while Micky's tempo-tinkering had come with Bernard's approval, the latter – for the time being, at least – was beyond reproach, which left Micky without a chair once the music had stopped.
One could argue that Mick's refusal to budge on his insistence that Micky be expunged forthwith from The Clash's inner-circle was further evidence of the high-handedness that had caused Roadent to serve notice, but justification for the culling came with 'Clash City Rockers' stalling at number 35 on the Singles chart – some seven places lower than 'Complete Control'.
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The Clash's frenetic touring schedule of recent months might have allowed them to fashion a stage show breathtaking to behold, but it wasn't particularly conducive to their coming up with new material for the all-important follow-up album – evidence of which came with their having to co-opt an old 101'ers song (albeit with revised verses) for the B-side of 'Clash City Rockers'.
As a means of getting Mick and Joe's creative juices flowing again, Bernard surprisingly consented to Joe's proposal that the duo fly out to Kingston to get a real understanding of Jamaican culture. 'I only suggested it as a joke,' Joe later told the Record Mirror. In hindsight, their going 'to the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery'*, with not even a dog-eared Berlitz travel booklet to guide them along the way was asking for trouble. Indeed, had the locals not mistaken them for a couple of off-duty sailors – as Joe later surmised – then he and Mick may well have come to a sticky end.
Joe's joke would end up backfiring badly as he and Mick returned to London ten days later with precious little in the way of new songs to show for their Jamaican jaunt. 'We only wrote a couple of songs in Jamaica. "Safe European Home" and "Drug Stabbing Time", I think,' Mick later confessed. 'The rest were written in Britain, and even in the studio in New York.'1
The paucity of new material wasn't Bernard's only headache in relation to the follow-up album, however. Epic was still refusing to release The Clash in the US on the grounds that it wasn't 'radio friendly' (despite it being the best-selling import, shifting upwards of 100,000 in the twelve-month period April 1977 – April 1978) the label was keen to make The Clash's 'Westway sound' AOR (Adult Orientated Rock) friendly, and handed Bernard a short-list of potential producers. 'There was some suggestion at the time that our second album was being geared for the American market, which is why we got an American producer,' Mick reflected. 'But it was Bernie who introduced Sandy to the situation.'1
When it was first announced in the music press that Samuel 'Sandy' Pearlman – the power behind Blue Öyster Cult's worldwide success – would be producing the new Clash album, the news was greeted with widespread derision, and yet it's worth noting that Mark P. had deemed the Long Island rockers worthy enough to feature in the first issue of Sniffin' Glue.
Blue Öyster Cult may have benefited from being given the 'Pearlman Polish', but the rough-and-ready Clash were a totally different proposition in every sense of the word. And their relationship didn't get off to best of starts owing to Robin Crocker giving Pearlman a smack in the mouth when he tried busting in on the group backstage at the Lanchester Polytechnic.
One of those who witnessed Pearlman's going down for the count was The Clash's new road manager, Johnny Green (a.k.a. John Broad), who'd booked the Anarchy Tour to appear at Lancaster University, where he was enrolled studying Arabic languages, only to have the bra-burning feminists within the Student Union revoke the invitation on the grounds that punk music was sexist.
Johnny would be thrice thwarted in his attempts to see The Clash before he finally got his wish at Dublin's Trinity College on the Get Out Of Control Tour when he secured a ringside seat after being coopted by the lighting crew to train a spotlight on Joe as he moved about the stage. He performed the task so well that he was asked if he wanted to tag along for the whole tour. Johnny hadn't needed asking twice, but he turned up at the Kinema in Dunfermline three days later only to find the lighting crew hadn't expected him to show and given the job to someone else.
His journey north of the border wasn't to be in vain; however, because the crew belonging to tour support act Richard Hell happened to be a man down. This happenstance of course, meant Johnny was perfectly placed for when Roadent took his official leave of absence from The Clash in Edinburgh two days later.
Johnny was two years older than Joe, and five years older than Paul and Topper, and had packed a lot of living into his twentyseven years. His being something of a natural raconteur meant he inevitably found himself invited into The Clash's inner-sanctum, and by the tour's finale – which ended with three consecutive shows at the Rainbow – he was chauffeuring the group around in a rented mini-van. At the tour's end Johnny returned to his native Gillingham to spend Christmas with his parents, but the roadying bug had bitten hard and the New Year found him at Rehearsals occupying the grubby mattress vacated by Roadent.
When being interviewed for the Viva Joe documentary, Johnny – albeit tongue-in-cheek – says his involvement with The Clash came about owing to Roadent having 'fallen in love with Johnny Rotten.' Yet while Roadent was happy to don a Glitterbest trench coat to undertake certain extra-curricular activities such as the botched attempt to kidnap Nancy Spungen and bundle her on a plane back to New York whilst Sid was at the dentist, nowhere did his duties extend to wet-nursing Rotten or any other Sex Pistol quite like Johnny ended up doing for Mick.
A road manager's duties don't normally extend beyond picking up members of the group and delivering them to wherever they did to be at an appointed hour, but Johnny might as well have donned a butler's uniform before setting off to Pembridge Villas. Led Zeppelin's road manager Richard Cole was happy to chop out a line or roll a joint for Jimmy Page on occasion, but nowhere does he make any mention in his own on-the-road book, Stairway To Heaven, of his being called upon to flit about emptying ashtrays and putting the dirty glasses in the sink while Jimmy lounged around in bed sipping ice-chilled Ribena with some tart in his arms.
It could be argued, of course, that Mick's lack of personal restraint came from his having been primped and pampered throughout his formative teens by his doting nan and her sisters, but the rest of the group should all shoulder some of the blame for allowing Mick to repeatedly ignore the idiomatic inch in favour of the infinitely more appealing mile.
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If further proof was needed that The Clash were intent on veering away from the punk pulse beat then it came towards the end of June with the release of '(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais'. Aside from the glaring absence of The Clash's usual machine gun, three-chord thrash, the lyric goes so far as to belittle punk rockers of Everywhere UK for failing to n
otice what was going on in front of their eyes as they were all 'too busy fighting for a good place under the lighting'. Ironically, when The Clash played the Glasgow Apollo a week into the Out On Parole Tour on 4 July, many amongst the audience suffered a beating at the hands of the venue's bouncers for daring to express themselves under the lighting.
The Apollo's bouncers' notoriety for punching first and evicting second was legendary on the circuit, but while venting his frustrations after the show Joe was arrested for smashing a lemonade bottle. Paul soon followed Joe into the back of the Black Maria for daring to intercede. The coppers were looking to make a clean Clash sweep, but Johnny Green literally carried Topper to safety while Mick scurried back to the hotel to set up an emergency base of operations.
The idea to call The Clash's latest UK jaunt the 'Out On Parole Tour' was in response to Topper and Paul's recent incarceration at HMP Brixton following the fabled pigeon shooting incident that was subsequently mythologised in the song 'Guns On The Roof'.
With lyrics about 'torturing of all the women and children', and of 'putting the men to the gun', one could be forgiven for thinking The Clash had been involved in a siege akin to the one in Balcombe Street in Marylebone in December 1975, when an IRA cell held two hostages at gunpoint for six days within the media glare before surrendering, whereas the truth of the matter was that Paul and Topper had incurred the wrath of the anti-terrorist squad after downing several prized racing pigeons from the roof of their rehearsal space with an air-rifle.
Mick might never have had a cell door slam shut behind him, but he knew only too well from Robin's tales from his time inside what potential horrors awaited his friends the longer they remained detained at Her Majesty's pleasure. Unable to get hold of Bernard he called Caroline Coon, who was well seasoned in dealing with the machinations of the British penal system through her involvement with the charity organisation Release, which she had co-founded in 1967.
Joe and Paul's subsequent arrest in Glasgow had given the tour title an even more prophetic tone, and if Mick was beginning to feel left out then he needn't have worried as he would have his collar tugged after being found in possession of cannabis after the show at the King George's Hall in Blackburn on 13 July.
The group was staying at the long-since demolished Moat House Hotel on the outskirts of Blackburn, close to the M6. While subsequently recounting the tale of Mick's arrest, Johnny Green said that the hotel's irate manager – already getting hot under the collar from The Clash and their entourage wilfully spliffing up in the bar area – finally exploded when a pissed-up Robin Crocker 'pulled out his plonker and pissed in the pocket of the [pool] table.'2
With the bar now closed, everyone had begrudgingly made their way up to their rooms. Johnny was disgruntled to find Steve Jones – who'd joined The Clash on stage earlier in the evening for the encore – in his bed with some bird he'd picked up at the venue. This was the second time he'd returned to his room to find the ex-Sex Pistol soiling the bed sheets and was understandably pissed off; his sense of humour diminishing even more when two denim-clad drug squad detectives wrenched him from his slumber a couple of hours later.
The quick-thinking Johnny managed to convince the cops that the stash of white powder they found in his briefcase was chalk dust rather than amphetamine sulphate, and stalled them long enough to enable his sidekick, Baker (a.k.a Barry Glare) to warn everyone to get rid of any incriminating substances, but he hadn't counted on Mick's inability to flush his entire stash.
Howard 'Mr. Nice' Marks probably has more cannabis resin under his fingernails at any given time than the piddling amount the cops unearthed in one of Mick's socks, but Blackburn CID's very own Starsky and Hutch were honour-bound to haul The Clash guitarist off to the cells. However, it wasn't his getting busted that was uppermost in Mick's mind as he emerged from the police station – ironically located to the rear of King George's Hall – but whether Steve Jones had an ulterior motive for showing up in Blackburn?
Serial ligger Steve had joined them on stage for the encore the previous night at Birmingham's Top Rank, but Mick hadn't thought anything was amiss and was happy to rehearse 'Pretty Vacant' as a special finale. However, when his namesake took to following them around in his battered second-hand black BMW, Mick confronted him and was bemused to hear Steve confess that he'd been under the impression he was auditioning for The Clash.
If Sandy Pearlman is to be believed, Steve was occupying Mick's traditional place to the right of the stage when the producer dropped by the 100 Club where The Clash were rehearsing during his flash visit to the UK at the beginning of the year.3
Just why The Clash would have been rehearsing at the 100 Club instead of Rehearsals has never been revealed, but Pearlman says that when he enquired about the situation he was informed that the others were angry with Mick for some reason and had thrown him out of the group. When asked what the reason might have been, Pearlman suggested that it could have been his wanting The Clash to be like Mott The Hoople.4
Johnny Green maintains that the reports of Mick's temporary sacking – like Mark Twain's demise – were greatly exaggerated, but of course, his position within the group's inner-circle meant he understood the pressures The Clash were under to come up with the goods for the second album. As Johnny says, you had to know the individual Clash members to understand their idiosyncrasies. Just because they had their rows didn't mean they wouldn't pull together when an outsider tried to interfere. Bernard was far from an outsider, but nor was he one of those going out night after night giving their all.
This was the second time Bernard had thought to bring a Sex Pistol into The Clash fold, but whereas Paul had shrugged off the rumours about his switching places with Glen, Mick took Bernard's meddling personally – very personally indeed. As far as he was concerned, his manager's card was marked.
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While the music press continued their ongoing fixation with John Lydon's post-Sex Pistols group, Public image Limited, following the release of their eponymous debut single, The Clash were ensconced at the Record Plant in New York with Sandy Pearlman adding the final touches to their follow up album which was given the provisional working title All The Peacemakers after the line from 'Police And Thieves'. The last-minute tinkerings could have probably been administered much closer to home at Basing Street Studios where the twelve tracks had been recorded, but of course the Portobello Road came in a very poor second compared to hanging out in New York. Mick and Joe had been in America since early August having flown out to San Francisco to link up with Pearlman at the Automatt; the state-of-the-art studio on Folsom Street a spit and a stride from the dock of the bay immortalised in song by Otis Redding. There was some serious work to be done with vocal and guitar overdubs, but the boys still found plenty of time to immerse themselves in all things Americana.
When they weren't making music they could usually be found checking out the likes of the Dead Kennedys, the Avengers, and the Nuns at the Mabuhay Gardens – or the 'Fab Mab' as it was colloquially known. San Francisco may no longer have been at the epicentre of the counter-culture revolution, but the city still enjoyed a vibrant music scene – especially with the advent of punk.
Whilst there they ran into Nick Lowe, the one-time Brinsley Schwartz bassist whose debut 1976 single, 'So It Goes' had provided Tony Wilson with the name for his late-night TV show, and his current squeeze Carlene Carter, the step-daughter of Johnny Cash.
They also became acquainted with an eighteen-year-old half-Filipino singer called Pearl Gates. Pearl, who'd recently formed her own punk group, and changed her name to 'Pearl Harbor', was already attuned to The Clash's wavelength having bought The Clash on import. In the months ahead, Pearl would, of course, become even more ingratiated with The Clash: first by supporting them on US tours, and then by marrying the bass player.
It wasn't all play and no work, of course, and for three weeks Mick and Joe had toiled away doing everything asked of them in the studio. Yet despite Pearlman's sub
sequent boast of there being 'more guitars per square inch on this record than in anything else in the rest of Western civilisation,' CBS were less than thrilled with the results thus far.
This was the point where Mick and Joe supposedly threw their guitars out of the pram. 'We couldn't stand it any more,' Mick explained. 'We missed the other two [Paul and Topper] so much, and we wanted them to come over. So we went on strike.'5
Mick and Joe were obviously frustrated at CBS' nitpicking, but for Mick to say he and Joe 'went on strike' was stretching poetic license somewhat… unless they considered going on strike to mean relocating cross country to the Record Plant in New York where Pearlman had intended on conducting the final mixing?
The manner in which they made the 3000 mile journey betwixt seaboards suggests the two strikers were given a week's paid vacation to tempt them in from the picket line, because while Joe rented a flatbed pick-up truck and traversed the US seaboards via the more scenic 66 route to New York, Mick accompanied Pearlman to Los Angeles to see Blue Öyster Cult play the Hollywood Palladium, 'I flew in on the Saturday night and saw it [New York] in all its glory at night,' Mick revealed. 'It was fantastically exciting, especially for someone like me who'd grown up watching American TV.'6