by Mick O'Shea
Cut The Crap was rubbish by anyone's standards, let along a group whose previous album had graced the Billboard Top 10, and the critics gave it the savaging it so rightfully deserved. Although some of those same critics would lay into This Is Big Audio Dynamite with equal gusto, it was generally accepted elsewhere that in the twelve months since his departure from The Clash, Mick had taken a bold leap of faith into the future, whereas Joe and Paul were viewed as having spent the correlating period in a three-chord time warp.
Of course, by the time Cut The Crap was being lambasted from pillar-to-post in the media, Joe had finally seen the error of his ways in choosing Bernard over Mick and called the last post on The Clash.
Arthur Conan Doyle once observed that 'Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius.' No one would argue against the classic Strummer/Jones/Simonon/Headon Clash line-up having created flashes of genius, but it's equally undeniable that following Mick's departure mediocrity took root.
'When I got chucked out [of] The Clash they couldn't get it right anymore, and Bernard would say, "No, no, do it like Mick!"' Mick joked in December 2011. 'When I'd left they were shouting at the new guys and Bernard would turn to Joe and say, "See, immigrant blood!" because Bernard had a similar background to me, and he believed it was all in the blood.'6
With the blood coursing through his own veins being of diverse stock, Joe may well have shared Bernard's logic, because having given Pete Howard, Nick Sheppard, and Vince White their thousand-pound pay-offs, his next port of call was Colville Gardens.
Having run himself near ragged putting the finishing touches to This Is Big Audio Dynamite, Mick had booked a busman's holiday of sorts staying at Chris Blackwell's holiday home in the Bahamas while working with Talking Heads duo Tina Weymouth and Chris Franz on the duo's new sideline venture, the Tom Tom Club. Mick was at home awaiting the taxi to take him, Daisy, their daughter Lauren, and Tricia Ronane to Heathrow when Joe turned up on the doorstep armed with a conciliatory spliff and an apology.
Though taken aback, Mick invited Joe inside and the two retreated into the kitchen. Their peace pow-wow was soon interrupted when the taxi pulled up at the kerb. Rather than leave things in the air, however, Joe booked a seat on the next available flight to Nassau, where – according to Joe's reflections while penning 'The End Of The Clash' for Uncut in September 1994 – 'over the course of a long weekend, they got burgled, witnessed a near-fatal car smash and ended up in a crack house looking to score weed.'
'Joe came over and rode around the island on a bicycle for two days looking for me,' Mick revealed. 'Finally he found me, and he said, "C'mon, let's get it back together again." I'd just done the first BAD album, and I said, "No, I've just done this record, come and have a listen to it." So we went over to Compass Point Studio's special listening room. I came in really excited about it. I said, "What did you think?" Joe just said, "I've never heard such a load of old shit in my life!" He didn't mean it. He just wanted me to get [The Clash] back together again.'7
Cut The Crap had left The Clash open to ridicule, but their name alone ensured they would be allowed the opportunity to make amends. After all, there was also no shortage of offers for live appearances, and according to Vince White The Clash had tours of Japan and the Far East set for the coming year. Alas for Joe, however, his play came way too late in the day as Mick was now totally committed to BAD.
The suits at CBS must have been praying for Mick to rethink Joe's offer, but Mick's dedication to BAD was vindicated the following April when 'E=MC2' b/w 'This Is Big Audio Dynamite', the second single to be culled from This Is Big Audio Dynamite, reached number 11 on the UK Singles chart and thereby equalling the highest UK chart placing ever afforded The Clash.
The primary reason for this achievement, of course, was undoubtedly Mick's decision to finally set aside his objection to appearing on Top Of The Pops, and allowing mainstream music lovers to sample BAD's wares. Judging from his beaming smile throughout the performance he was clearly enjoying his inaugural appearance on the TOTP stage, and one is left to wonder what success The Clash might have enjoyed had they bitten the BBC bullet.
The single's unexpected success certainly put an added spring in Don's step as he'd co-written the song with Mick. Speaking with Uncut magazine in August 2009, he revealed his anxiety at having to step into Joe Strummer's shoes as Mick's principle songwriting partner. 'I didn't want to let Mick – or Joe – down. It was very hard working in his (Joe's) shadow,' he explained. 'I approached lyrics like film treatments, which is why they had that cinematic quality. Probably two-thirds of [E=MC2 is] mine, with Mick's guidance. I wrote it after me and Mick went to see Nick Roeg's film, Insignificance. I was so moved by the concept of it, and I'd loved Roeg since Walkabout. The song lists all his films in a cryptic way. I called it an homage to Roeg.'
Don's preferred method may have been to consider lyrics like film treatments, but his and Mick's songwriting process was pretty much the same formula as the one Mick and Joe had used in The Clash, with Mick messing around on either the guitar or keyboards, while he was huddled in a corner scribbling away. 'It gets your juices flowing when you hear this stuff going around in your head; scribbling notes on paper, sometimes complete verses, sometimes couplets, sometimes nonsense,' he explained. Mick'd go, "Right, put that there, do a little cut and paste" and knock 'em into shape. I have to say, on reflection, it's a great hindsight to have got to be able to do that with Mick, because Mick is pretty good at that. If you look at the hit tunes from The Clash – particularly in America – they're all Mick, except for "Rock the Casbah". Joe used to call 'em "Radio 2 tendencies," which was a slight dig, but hey, we all dig a cool melody.'8
Another of Mick's 'Radio 2 tendency' melodies was put to good use in 'Medicine Show b/w 'A Party', the third and final single lifted from This Is Big Audio Dynamite. The song, meant as a sideways swipe at mid-Eighties media manipulation, with sampled dialogue from A Fistful of Dollars, A Fistful Of Dynamite, and The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, may have failed to capitalise on the success of 'E=MC2' (peaking at number 27) but the promo video proved receptive to Clash fans everywhere as it featured cameo appearances from both Joe and Paul. 'We had Joe and Paul playing [Southern] cops,' Don explained. 'There is that poignant shot at the end of the video where Mick is in prison and Joe and Paul are looking at him.'9
Mick and Joe, of course, had already smoked a spliff of peace at Mick's flat prior to the Bahamas trip, but Paul's presence in the video was evidence that the hatchet had been truly buried. 'We had loads of fun after we split up,' Mick revealed in November 2007. 'After a short while, we became close and strong friends again. Which I think is quite different from most groups that split up. We were always close, in a kind of... I always felt [we were like] a family.. I read now I might have misread the signs, but that's how I saw it anyway.'10
* * *
* Sarm West was the former Basing Street studio where The Clash recorded Give 'Em Enough Rope. (BACK)
* William Heath Robinson (1872 – 1944) was an English artist who drew strange, complicated machines that could do simple jobs. (BACK)
* The album was originally to be called Out Of Control. (BACK)
– CHAPTER FIFTEEN –
THEY PLAY KNOCK ON WOOD
'I always felt great about [10 Upping Street], right from the start. I can't remember a time when I felt so over-awed, or was so happy with what I was doing.'
– Mick Jones
BY THE SUMMER OF 1986, CBS were as yet still unsure how to best market BAD, but with This Is Big Audio Dynamite having attained gold disc status in the UK, the label was more than happy to let the group back into the recording studio to begin work on the follow-up album. Rather than return to Sarm West, however, the group moved into Trident Studios in St Anne's Court in Soho, where some three weeks into the sessions – coincidentally, the day of Mick's 31st birthday – Don was making his way along Wardour Street when he happened upon a familiar figure – Joe.
As luck would have it, there was a BAD promo poster on a nearby wall and instead of greeting his friend, Joe grabbed the nearest passerby and jabbed a finger at Don, 'Look! It's the man in the poster!' Don was mortified and fled into a nearby tobacconist's, but Joe was in a mischievous mood and followed Don inside the shop to continue his playful harangue. Realising he wasn't going to be able to shake Joe off, Don invited him to Trident to no doubt wish Mick a happy birthday, as well as see how the new album was progressing.
Mick and Joe hadn't exactly been strangers since the 'Medicine Show' video shoot, as Joe – having been sweet-talked by American director, Alex Cox, into penning a theme song for his second feature film, Love Kills*; the tragic telling of Sid and Nancy's doomed love affair – had graciously invited Mick along to Regent Park Recordings in Primrose Hill, north London, to add guitar to both 'Love Kills' and 'Dum Dum Club', which Joe had also written for the film. However, by the time the tracks had been mixed in readiness for release as a single, the majority of Mick's playing had been eradicated.
Given that Joe's already prodigious alcohol intake had taken on epic proportions of late, Mick probably assumed Joe would hang around the studio until knocking-off time before taking Mick for a celebratory drink. But Joe, of course, had other ideas, and aside from assigning himself the co-producer's role, he also helped out with the lyrics on five new songs: 'Beyond The Pale', 'Limbo The Law', 'V Thirteen' and 'Sightsee MC!'
With his creative juices flowing once more, Joe – as was his want in The Clash – erected a spliff bunker out of various flight cases beneath the studio's grand piano, which also served as an ad hoc sleeping quarters. Joe would tell Chris Salewitz that on realising he gave maximum effort to anything he got involved with Don and the rest of BAD were okay with his constant presence in the studio.
When reflecting on the Trident sessions, Don readily admitted that he and the others had been worried about 'Joe's shadow' hovering over the group in the early days. However, he now knew that Mick was now totally committed to BAD, and so welcomed Joe's contribution. 'It was a beautiful thing to see those guys creatively fall in love,' he explained. 'It was beautiful to be a part of and to watch happen; [to] see them bury the hatchet. I didn't feel threatened at all. I got to sing some songs written by Strummer and Jones, and work with them in the studio. That's great.'1
Mick was equally appreciative of Joe's input, and clearly still valued his opinion 'What Joe did with me on that record is what he did with me in the Clash. He gave it the once-over, so to speak, with the lyrics and everything. It all went through him.'2
Joe would also be credited with coming up with No. 10, Upping Street as the album's title; meant as a hip, alternative take on 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's official residence. However, not all of Joe's proposals proved beneficial for BAD, most notably the one where he suggested they mix the album at the Hit Factory in New York. Mick would subsequently say this had been Joe's means of gaining revenge for his insistence that Combat Rock be recorded at Electric Lady. Yet while decamping to New York would put a serious dent in BAD's recording budget, the final decision about where to mix the new record had rested with him.
However, while it was no secret that Joe was desperate to get The Clash back together around this time, it's unlikely he had an ulterior motive. Indeed, he would subsequently tell Chris Salewitz that he'd suggested mixing the album in New York because he 'wanted it to be like good vegetables – fresh.' Nor would Mick have required much arm twisting, as he'd been enamoured with all things Big Apple ever since playing the Palladium on the Pearl Harbor '79 Tour. And with the city having taken BAD to its heart as it had The Clash, what better place to mix the album?
With BAD in town, the Hit Factory on West 54th Street became a celebrity hangout with the likes of Iggy Pop, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, maverick film director Jim Jarmusch (who would shot the promo video for 'Sightsee MC!'), and actors Matt Dillon and Lawrence Fishburne all dropping by to say hello. Indeed, Matt and Lawrence would end up on the album owing to Joe cajoling them to act out the imaginary scene about an assassin inadvertently killing the wrong person, which appears on 'Dial A Hitman'.
Mixing the album would take three months, and with the majority of the budget being used up in studio time the group were forced to subsist on very little money. Don, however, says it was never about the money with BAD, but rather the chance to travel the world and immerse themselves in different cultures. It was, of course, whilst in New York mixing the album that he met his future wife, Grace. As Mick, Don, and the rest of BAD were all listening to the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy around this time, it was perhaps inevitable that the Def Jam sound would filter into their own style – most notably 'Sightsee MC!' That they were also enamoured by Brian de Palma's Scarface is evidenced not only with the album cover showing the group posing in front of a Tim Jones painting based on a still taken from the film, but also with the dialogue samples featuring in 'Limbo The Law'.
These days anyone sampling dialogue from films without first attaining permission would find themselves in breach of copyright, but at the time no one thought to question what BAD were doing, as Don explained: 'That was all so early in the history of music that no one knew what to do. We didn't ask anybody's permission. The record companies didn't ask us to clear the samples. They weren't even called samples then, because we really were the first band to have hits with those kind of things. It was all so new that no one really knew what hit 'em. You could never do that now.'3
'Sambadrome' featured samples from legendary Brazilian commentator Osmar Santos, who actually joined the group on stage when they played Brazil. The song, about a Robin Hood-esque drug dealer living in the Favalas of Rio de Janeiro proved a surprise hit with the locals, but the city's police chief was less enthused about an English pop act highlighting Rio's escalating drug problems and was pictured in the local newspapers flushing the twelve-inch single down the toilet.
By his own admission, Mick had expected it to take time for those who knew him from The Clash – not to mention the mainstream music-loving public – to appreciate what he was trying to do with BAD, and while he had to put up with the occasional idiot shouting for 'London Calling', the gamble appeared to be paying dividends in terms of ticket sales. BAD's first major UK headline tour had run over from April into May owing to popular demand, and prior to entering Trident to begin work on the new album, they'd appeared on the bill at the free Artists Against Apartheid UK Freedom Festival alongside Peter Gabriel, Billy Bragg, the Style Council, and Elvis Costello.
The festival, staged on Clapham Common on Saturday, 28 June, was the biggest UK outdoor festival since the Isle Of Wight Festival sixteen years earlier, and drew a crowd in excess of 250,000. As the organisers had been worried about the local council's strict 10 p.m. curfew, headliners Peter Gabriel and Sting had gone on earlier in the day leaving BAD the honour of bringing the curtain down – albeit with a truncated set.
The music critics, however, were proving more difficult to please, and the ensuing reviews following the release of No. 10, Upping Street that October were lukewarm at best, with the majority lamenting the album's failure to live up to the promise of the group's debut long-player. It initially seemed the critics had erred in their damning appraisals as the album climbed to number 11 on the UK chart. However, unlike This Is Big Audio Dynamite, which remained on the chart for six months, it quickly faded thereafter.
What was even more disheartening was the chart performances of the three singles lifted from the album. 'C'mon Every Beatbox b/w Badrock City', and 'V. Thirteen (Remix)' b/w 'Hollywood Boulevard (Remix)', both failed to break into the Top 50, while 'Sightsee M.C!' b/w 'Another One Rides The Bus' failed to make the chart at all.
Unsurprisingly, Joe's involvement on No. 10, Upping Street was at the forefront of the media's interest in the album, and Mick was forced to spend much of his time in the immediate wake of the album's release stressing that there were no plans for Joe to join BAD on a perman
ent basis. However, his admitting that he and Joe would be working together again in the near future on Joe's proposed solo album – tentatively titled Throwdown – only served to stoke the embers on a potential Clash reunion.
The mooted collaboration didn't of course come to pass, largely on account of Mick and Joe being on polar opposite career paths, but 'Beyond The Pale' and 'V Thirteen' – the two Strummer-Jones compositions on No. 10, Upping Street – serve as a lasting testament to what might have been.
♪♪♪
In April 1987, prior to heading over to New York where BAD were set to play eleven consecutive nights at the Irving Plaza on East 15th Street to promote the US release of No. 10, Upping Street, Mick and Don flew out to Oracabessa in Jamaica for a little rest and recreation. In Culture Clash, Don says that he was chilling on the private beach at Goldeneye (James Bond author Ian Fleming's private estate, which was – and still is – owned by Chris Blackwell, and of course lent its name to the seventeenth Bond film), when he saw a dishevelled figure ambling towards him sporting a huge Bowie knife. It wasn't until the figure was almost upon him that Don realised it was actually Keith Richards, who was also holidaying on the island.
Having gotten acquainted over a spliff or three, Keith invited Don and Mick over to his holiday home where the ice was further broken over a bottle of Jack Daniels. Over the ensuing weeks, Mick and Don spent many a debauched evening chez Richards, with Mick realising a fantasy he'd probably nurtured ever since seeing the Stones play Hyde Park some twenty years earlier by jamming with his ultimate guitar hero.