We Are the Clash

by Mark Andersen

  “Sufferation” is a Rasta term meaning suffering, especially due to poverty or repression. Strummer explained, “Down in Jamaica, sufferation is like something that’s in the air.” When he tried to outline to the interviewer why The Clash had lost its way, he reached for similar metaphors: “We lost that ghetto direction, the direction of the sidewalk, of concrete, and of hunger.”

  The intertwined roles of pain and anger became obvious when Strummer explained his approach to writing: “I tell you what I do—I plug into the world. When I hear about the terrible things that are going down, it throws me into a rage and so it prompts me to write and sing songs about it.”

  This explanation made sense. Yet Strummer’s life was on a trajectory away from the street, ghetto hunger, and sufferation. Even if he did not act or look a stereotypical millionaire property-owning father with a wife and a young child, this was his life now. This longtime squatter who had emulated Woody Guthrie’s hobo life was drifting back toward the privilege he had scrubbed away.

  There surely was pain in that realization. But what if this agony—fearing that one had become a hypocrite, a failure, a sellout—paralyzed instead of catalyzed? Can this burning-fear-verging-on-self-loathing be turned into art that matters, that can change lives, maybe even change the world?

  * * *

  Strummer struggled to find that revelation as anger and pain threatened to boil over in his homeland. Thatcher was pressing her offensive against the miners on several fronts at once. In principle, the strike was a simple dispute between workers—the NUM—and their employer—the National Coal Board—with an impartial police and judiciary merely refereeing. Yet few doubted that Thatcher was truly the general commanding the entire campaign, bending public institutions to serve her wishes.

  Seeking to encourage a trickle of striking miners returning to work as their hardships grew, Thatcher pushed the police out of relatively friendly environs like Nottinghamshire into areas solidly behind the strike. The resulting hostile occupations bred backlash. Callincos and Simons: “Whole mining communities rose up in revolt with women often playing a leading role . . . On July 9 the first pitched battles between police and Yorkshire mining communities occurred.”

  Thatcher encouraged two Nottinghamshire miners who were bringing a legal case claiming that the NUM had attempted to embroil them in an unlawful strike. If favored by the court, this would allow the Tory government to “sequester” the union’s funds, crippling its ability to meet the needs of its striking miners.

  Strikers don’t get their wages, only a meager union stipend, so many families were already eating at community soup kitchens. Their prospects became even bleaker on July 26 when Parliament enacted the Trade Union Act. As a result, neither striking miners nor their families were entitled to state benefits. The children of strikers could not receive free school meals or social security help with school uniforms.

  The growing suffering fed fury at those who crossed picket lines. In August, the Rhymney Valley Miners Support Group issued a front-page editorial, “What Is A Scab?” in the Rhymney Valley News. To the authors, the dictionary definition—“an unpleasant crust of dead tissue”—seemed apt to describe those returning to work: “Such a person is a scab on the face of the community. As far as the miners of [South] Wales are concerned, there is nothing so low as a man who will stab his fellow workers in the back by strike-breaking.”

  The barely contained fury of those words foreshadowed agonizing fractures to come. As hunger became rife, miners faced a dilemma: return to work and be viewed as a “scab,” ostracized in your own community; or stay out and live primarily on the most meager of handouts. The vast majority chose the latter.

  When a dock strike in mid-July opened a second front, the miners’ hopes rose. The Tory government was in danger of defeat—and was preparing extreme measures to prevent that eventuality. As the Guardian reported years later, “Margaret Thatcher was secretly preparing to use troops and declare a state of emergency . . . out of fear Britain was going to run out of food and grind to a halt.”

  The Clash on the docks, mid-1984, before Strummer’s disappearance. (Photo by Mike Laye.)

  The prospect that a broader Britain would face the deprivation that miners and their families endured daily no doubt cheered some—but it was not to be. Under immense pressure from the Tories, the dock strike collapsed within two weeks.

  Nonetheless, the threat of union solidarity remained. As Moore recounts, “Scargill at Orgreave exorcised for Mrs. Thatcher the demon of Scargill at Saltley twelve years earlier. It did not automatically follow, however, that the government would win. It remained possible that key trade unions would combine successfully against it.”

  Britain’s north was now in turmoil, with the strike impacting the daily lives of millions. Although the south was less contested, the chaos was spreading. Thatcher aide Andrew Turnbull allowed, “‘The Battle of Orgreave’ recalled ‘the Wars of the Roses’”—an admission that something akin to civil war had broken out.

  He was not the only one to come to this conclusion. As Moore writes, Thatcher aide David Willetts “recalled that when working for Mrs. Thatcher during the miners’ strike the comparison with a civil war was apt. ‘You would be in a meeting with Mrs. T on some other subject and messengers would come in with reports like “Kent is solid . . . Nottingham is with us . . . Yorkshire is in rebellion.” It did feel like a scene from one of Shakespeare’s history plays.’”

  Thatcher again sought the rhetorical high ground, painting the miners not simply as her political opponents but enemies of the country. According to the Times of London, “Speaking at a private meeting of the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbench MPs at Westminster [on July 19], Mrs. Thatcher said that at the time of the Falklands conflict they had had to fight the enemy without; but the enemy within, much more difficult to fight, was just as dangerous to liberty.”

  Such rhetoric had consequences. As Moore admits, it “gave Mrs. Thatcher the permission . . . to have some of the strikers’ activities monitored by the Security Service . . . Stella Rimington, who later became the head of MI5, classified Scargill—whose phone had been tapped for years because of his links with the Soviet-backed Communist Party of Great Britain—as ‘an unaffiliated subversive.’”

  While Moore agrees with Thatcher’s use of the phrase “the enemy within,” he distances himself from its impact by noting the obvious: “Being a declared enemy of the government led by Margaret Thatcher did not of itself make anyone a subversive,” i.e., an enemy of democracy.

  Even though the details of the “dirty tricks” campaign would not be exposed for years, any careful observer saw the scale of the Tory offensive. It might have been expected to break the will to resist—but the miners persevered. They inspired allies from around the country to organize support groups that channeled food, clothing, and money into the hard-hit mining communities.

  Nick Sheppard’s parents joined one such group, which provided a much-needed outlet for the frustrated guitarist. Sheppard: “Vince, Pete, and I worked pretty much a five-day, ten/eleven a.m.-to-six/seven p.m. week rehearsing and doing whatever busy work Bernie devised. We were set various tasks: record a new Clash song—I did ‘Pouring Rain,’ and was told there would be no ‘disco’ on the new record—record a cover, fix guitars, dig a hole, fill it in . . . Mind-numbing repetition, really.”

  This would have been trying at any time. But with Britain on fire, this disconnect was incomprehensible and infuriating. Sheppard: “I had gone on marches for the miners . . . and I do remember asking Bernie if we were gonna do any benefits for the miners, because I really couldn’t believe that we wouldn’t. And I wasn’t given an answer then . . . That was difficult.”

  Instead, the guitarist for the most popular revolutionary rock band in the world did a benefit for the miners’ strike—arranged by his parents. Sheppard: “My mum and dad live in Bristol, which was close to Wales, one of the centers of the strike. And I did a benefit they helped
organize with some other bands and friends of mine. Not as anything to do with The Clash—I just went down to Bristol to play at a benefit to specifically help this one particular town in Wales.” If the show scarcely had the impact of a Clash gig, it at least eased Sheppard’s conscience.

  Sheppard was not the only musician whose personal support for the miners’ cause had begun to turn toward acts of concrete solidarity. The Clash’s anarchist nemesis Crass played a miners benefit in July in what turned out to be its final show. Other artists like Chumbawamba, Redskins, Paul Weller, New Model Army, Bronski Beat, and Billy Bragg were preparing to do the same. Even relatively apolitical bands such as New Order joined the cause, as did Music for Miners, a group of writers, artists, and filmmakers aiming to activate the youth.

  This fit well with a new strategy of the miners’ movement. With the loss of Nottinghamshire, the defeat of mass picketing at Orgreave, and setbacks in the public relations war, it was becoming clear that the NUM needed broader support to outlast Thatcher. This meant aid from other unions, but also went far beyond.

  Peter Carter, the British Communist Party’s industrial organizer, argued, “Trade-union solidarity alone is not enough. A wider public support has to be won for the miners . . . A major industrial dispute of this character cannot be won by industrial muscle alone in the face of hostile public opinion. The miners should concentrate on winning wide sympathy, building a broad alliance around their objectives.”

  While reiterating his support for mass picketing, Scottish NUM vice president George Bolton similarly argued, “The government and the [National Coal Board] have consistently tried to contain the argument to the question of mass pickets, violence, and law and order; and they have avoided like the plague any discussion of what the dispute is all about. That tells you that they have a real fear of a mass understanding by the British people of what the dispute is all about . . . The question of the arts is very important. We need to get the world of entertainment identified with us, not least because they get mass audiences.”

  Bolton’s words suggested precisely the sort of alternative news network that Strummer and Rhodes had envisioned with the “Radio Clash” concept, and that the band had endeavored to fulfill in its own way. At this perfect moment to push the idea, however, Strummer remained MIA, with The Clash consequently dormant. As Sheppard ruefully recalls, “In terms of discussing the miners’ strike with Joe, on any level, it just didn’t happen . . . because I didn’t see him.”

  If Thatcher and Reagan were the “enemy without” for Strummer, he was now contending with his own “enemy within.” Depression was made worse by his addictive tendencies, not only with alcohol, but his old frenemy marijuana.

  Strummer had foresworn pot loudly, publicly, and repeatedly. Those closest to him knew it wasn’t that simple. Years later, Salewicz claimed, “Bernie may have said there was a ‘no drug policy’ but Joe was smoking spliffs all the time!” Interviewed in 1999, Strummer agreed: “[The anti-pot line] was Bernie’s new regime. It didn’t last long. After two weeks, we were gagging for it.”

  Strummer’s self-deprecating sense of humor may be at play here. None of The Clash’s newer members witnessed such drug use, so Strummer was clearly keeping it close to his chest. Such corrosive secrecy could breed self-loathing as one did in private what one denounced in public. In the same 1999 interview, Strummer copped to “feeling like a no-good talentless fuck” during this period.

  The vehemence of his antidrug stand in 1982–84, and the depth with which it was articulated, suggest that Strummer actually believed it—but couldn’t live it. Far from being something forced upon him by Rhodes, Strummer’s stance came from self-knowledge. On the US tour, the singer had spoken of “little gems of wisdom” learned from harsh experience: “I know how to take care of myself a bit more—like I have two beers instead of eight, stuff like that.”

  But for an addict such lessons are often beside the point. Bill Wilson, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, argued, “The actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge.” Strummer’s ability to translate insights into changed behavior was limited. His most revealing, articulate, and convincing discussion of his antidrug stance—his June 1982 conversation with Mikal Gilmore—was itself lubricated by copious amounts of alcohol, as the writer’s blow-by-blow makes clear.

  Strummer was more cognizant than most that human beings can be intellectually aware of some truth without that knowledge producing a change in behavior. The mere fact that Strummer found it so hard to stop using—even for a short time, even when he was publicly committing himself to his audience as well as privately to his band—suggests addiction.

  Asked directly about this, Strummer’s friend Salewicz gently notes, “Pot can help you get through a lot.” Strummer was sliding back into self-medicating to ease his pain. While better than his brother’s way, Strummer knew drugs could be “slow suicide.” “I kill my soul / each and every day” ran a line from an early version of “Glue Zombie,” and Strummer now found himself slipping into this limbo.

  Salewicz: “The pressure must have felt enormous. The very last thing you would have thought [Strummer] wanted to do was go on the road, breaking in a new group, though . . . this might have been exactly what he did want to do.” Now, Salewicz argues, Strummer was back home and could hide no more from his feelings. “Over the ensuing months he would come close to cracking under their pressure, unable to avoid the messages they were sending him.”

  Drugs, like pain, could be a catalyst for creativity—but they could also crush the spark. Strummer found himself in a hurting place, and not an easy spot from which to live out his lofty vision. So he didn’t. He hid away, hoping the pain would somehow translate to inspiration. But months passed, and Strummer remained stuck, isolated from his band and desperately in search of his muse.

  In late August, something finally shook loose. Vinyl recalls, “London was feeling oppressive for Joe and I, so we decided to just take off, no agenda except getting out of Dodge for a few days!” Once the penny-pinching Rhodes was convinced to fork over some money, the duo went to the airport and flew to New York City.

  Vinyl: “That night in New York we hatched a plan—nothing preconceived—that we would go to Los Angeles and make a record, totally on the fly.” The next day they were off. “I got somewhere cheap to stay and looked for a cheap demo studio out of the back of the LA Weekly while Joe worked on some material—I’m not sure if it was something he had or just made up on the spot.”

  The next day, they recruited a mariachi trumpet player and percussionist found at a Sunday brunch. Vinyl: “When I was on the phone with the percussionist, Joe shouted, ‘Tell him to bring all the gear that he usually isn’t allowed to play!’” With musicians in hand, the pair took off to a tiny demo studio for a swift session.

  As Strummer hadn’t even brought a guitar, the studio provided one. Much to the dismay of Strummer, it was a jazz-rock guitar with a built-in keyboard, similar to an instrument that Jones sometimes used. “The studio guy was showing us all the sounds it could make,” Vinyl says, laughing. “And finally Joe just said, ‘We ain’t in search of fucking Spock, mate . . . Just make it sound like a guitar!’”

  None of the studio folks or musicians connected these scruffy Brits to a Top 10 rock band. Vinyl: “We said we were hustlers just trying to make a quick buck.” Of the three or four songs that the makeshift group knocked out in a few hours, “Three Card Trick” was the only song Vinyl recognized—though this incarnation was adorned heavily with Latin trumpet and percussion.

  The impromptu session completed, the duo flew back to New York to remix the demo at another fly-by-night joint—“some place out of the Village Voice classifieds,” says Vinyl—and were off to London the next morning, the entire adventure completed within a long weekend.

  It was a startling burst of creative energy, especially given the stalemate Strummer had found himself in fo
r the past three months—but it would go nowhere. Vinyl: “We played the tape for Bernard and he was very taken aback because he thought we were just out getting drunk.”

  This “go in and bash it out” session echoed what Strummer had touted as his plan for the new Clash record—only the larger platoon was not involved in any way. In any case, Rhodes was not impressed. Vinyl: “We gave him the tape and it was never talked about again, other than when I once mentioned an arrangement from the session. Bernard was not happy that I brought it up.”

  While Vinyl describes the adventure as “great fun,” he is also clearly pained that the tracks simply got filed away. Given Rhodes’s desire for control of all things Clash-related, the outcome is not surprising. Still, it came as yet another blow to Strummer’s shaky creative confidence.

  This stasis was costly for The Clash, as well as Strummer personally. As the brutal Thatcherite response to the miners’ strike cast a shadow over the entire UK, the moment seemed ripe for the band to shine. Other performers like Billy Bragg were knee deep in strike support. But as Bragg asked later, “Where was The Clash? They were AWOL, missing in action, nowhere to be seen.”

  Bragg was not the only Clash fan who felt let down. Recalling the savage assault by mounted riot police at Orgreave, Clash biographer Marcus Gray noted, “‘Three Card Trick’ and ‘This Is England’ reflect the brutal face of contemporary policing, batons are wielded willy-nilly in both,” only to mourn that “The Clash missed a real opportunity to attach themselves to the miners’ cause at this crucial time.”

  It was a massive burden for any person to carry, but Strummer could not escape it. “I really enjoyed being a bum again. I wish I could do it every day, really,” Strummer had told Gilmore in 1982, referring to his disappearance to Paris. “But I can’t disappear anymore. Time to face up to what we’re on about.”