Craig Stephen continues his extensive overview of The Clash and its wider musical legacy (see multiple posts about “solo” Joe Strummer and The Clash elsewhere on the blog):
And this is not a
typical album review. You kind of can’t with something so universally despised
by critics, dismissed by Clash fans, and even rejected by its creator. Cut the Crap
truly was a disaster of epic proportions, a stinker extraordinaire that as a
Clash fan myself I’ve only ever given one or two spins as the headaches proved
too much.
Instead, this is the
story behind the making of the worst punk record. The personality clashes, the
sackings, the accelerated decline of the world’s best rock band of the time and
the incredible mistakes propelled by egos and insecurity.
Pete Howard was first
in, replacing Headon’s replacement Terry Chimes, while Jones was still in the
band. Howard would soon take a call from a wired Strummer telling him he’d
“sacked the stoned cunt” and demanding to know if he was on Jones’ or
Strummer’s side. Howard, clearly knowing where the power lay, affirmed he was
pro-Joe. Nick Sheppard, once the guitarist with pseudo punk band The Cortinas,
was roped in first, followed by Gregory White whose name wasn’t rock’n’roll
enough for the band so became Vince – after Vince Taylor. They were both
replacements for Mick Jones.
The trigger for the album
which was initially called Out of Control was the 1984 tour that featured
several new tracks. These gigs signalled a return to punk rock, or Rebel Rock
as it would be dubbed by the band. There would be no dub tracks, no soul-fun
workouts, no kids singing … it would be all about the music, and they’d only
play with Les Pauls.
The Clash were now a
band but not a unit. Strummer and Paul Simonon the only other surviving member,
were the new Clash; Howard, Sheppard and White were self-professed guns
for hire, taking a weekly wage. And in time even Strummer and Simonon would
become secondary to Rhodes’ inflated sense of worth.
A mini tour of
California in January 1984 played to smaller venues than the stadiums that they
had the year before, and was generally regarded as successful. While the
classic Clash songbook prevailed, there was space for new songs like ‘Sex Mad War’,
‘Three Card Trick’ and ‘This is England’. A particularly impressive track, ‘In
The Pouring Rain’ (it’s on the Future is Unwritten soundtrack), was aired at
some gigs during 1984 but wasn’t included on the eventual album, presumably
because it just didn’t fit.
With the return of a
punk sound came the unwanted return of gobbing. Which at a Brixton Academy gig in March 1984 so
incensed Strummer he threatened to kill someone. And wasn’t joking about it.
Strummer was sporting a Mohican – not quite à la The Exploited
- and there was a militaristic ambience about this new act, including calling
the new members recruits who were part of a platoon, rather than a band. There
were dictums left, right, and centre and Howard equated it to being in a
religious cult like the Moonies.
On a 10-day tour of
Italy in the autumn of 1984 in aid of the Italian Communist Party, Strummer was
absent from rehearsals and there was a single soundcheck, in which they hashed
through ‘Be Bop A Lula’ before heading to the pub. Strummer was reportedly drinking
two or three bottles of brandy a day.
It was a difficult time
for Strummer after hearing that his mother and been diagnosed with terminal
cancer, on top of his father dying at the beginning of the year. This led to
the postponement of the recording of the appropriately titled Out of Control.
With Strummer looking after his ailing mother, Rhodes took “complete control”
and that was where it all began to go wrong. The recording of the album
involved session musicians with actual members sidelined. Rhodes tinkered with
it to his delight … to inevitable results.
Meantime, the band did
a busking tour of the north of England in May 1985, stalking Welsh rockers The
Alarm from gig to gig just to wind them up. The end came at a festival in
Athens, Greece, sharing a bill with The Cure, The Stranglers, Depeche Mode and
Culture Club, in July 1985.
Cut the Crap was
released in November 1985 and as predicted by everyone was without exception
derided. It was a messy, punk’n’hip hop ramble with incoherent, childlike
lyrics and inane chants like We Are The Clash. None of it was coherent, none of
it was pleasant listening, and the electronic drums were unbearable… And it
really wasn’t punk rock. Only ‘This is England’, which was a brutal take-down
of Thatcherism, greed and war, and ‘North and South’ escaped some of the
savaging.
Strummer told his
bandmates he was going to pen a hand-written admission of guilt in 1930s
Soviet-style lettering saying he made the wrong decision. It was intended to go
in all the still influential music weeklies such as NME, Sounds and Melody
Maker, as well as The Guardian and wherever else. It never did appear.
It is easy to consider that this was a disastrous period for Strummer, Simonon and The Clash legacy, which was certainly tarnished by the misadventure but initially the band seemed to be doing something right. They were playing some good gigs and festivals, and the new songs didn’t sound like the lumpy, degenerate, half-baked monstrosities that they would become in Rhodes’ hands. The return to basics project after stadium tours and hob-nobbing with Michael Jackson’s manager and film stars was the right decision to make at the time. It was the execution that failed. It was tainted by Rhodes’ control freakery, the impact of family issues and bad decisions. Dealt with professionally, Cut the Crap or Out of Control as it more likely would have been called if Rhodes hadn’t had so much power, could well have been a decent album, made by people that actually wanted to make it work. One day someone will release the original demos.
'This Is England' ...
