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It was 1985. I loved westerns. I loved The Clash’s ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’. Mick Jones kindly blended my interests by leaving The Clash, forming B.A.D. and releasing This Is Big Audio Dynamite with ‘Medicine Show’ as its kick-off track. It was a delightful soup of punk, hip hop, reggae, funk and spaghetti westerns. “Duck, You Sucker!”
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Paul Simonon was asked to join The Clash because he was cool – and not because he was a musician. He also brought to the band his childhood growing up in London’s Brixton and Ladbroke Grove, which had become hubs for Caribbean culture. By the time of the band’s third album London Calling, his music was becoming more confident. Inspired by the 1972 Jamaican gangster flick The Harder They Come, ‘The Guns of Brixton’ appeared at the end of the LP’s A-side. This was Simonon’s work and his bassline was a thing to behold. Several years after the band split, it would reach a new audience when Norman Cook (aka Fatboy Slim) lifted it for Beats International’s hit single ‘Dub Be Good to Me’.
A late weekend treat… a look back at 1979 and my soundtrack of nine, in no particular order.
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Honourable mentions also go to: Tom Petty for ‘Don’t Do Me Like That‘; Squeeze for ‘Up The Junction‘ and ‘Cool For Cats’; Suicide for ‘Dream Baby Dream‘; Blondie for ‘One Way Or Another‘; Pauline Murray And The Invisible Girls for ‘Screaming in the Darkness‘; Pretenders for ‘Brass In Pocket’; Prince for ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover‘; Bauhaus for ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead‘; Neil Young and Crazy Horse for ‘Hey Hey, My My (Out of the Blue)‘; Michael Jackson for ‘Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough’; Judie Tzuke for ‘Stay With Me Til Dawn‘; Joe Jackson for ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?‘; Pink Floyd for ‘Comfortably Numb‘; and The Jam for ‘Eton Rifles’.
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While bassist Paul Simonon was starring in the filming for Ladies and Gentlemen The Fabulous Stains, The Clash brought in the funky basslines of The Blockheads’ Norman Watt-Ray. This ideally suited guitarist Mick Jones’s new-found passion for the hip hop he’d heard in 1980 New York. Watt Ray features large on ‘The Magnificent Seven’, the opening track off the band’s triple-LP triumph Sandinsta!. Blondie’s ‘Rapture’ was still a half year off. While Mag 7 wasn’t the successful single they had hoped for, an instrumental remix of the track (‘The Magnificent Dance’) would give it a stack of unexpected dance floor credibility.
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Released shortly before he was allegedly killed by mobsters in 1966, Bobby Fuller and his band the Bobby Fuller Four popularised ‘I Fought the Law’ with their cover of a song that was originally written by Sonny Curtis of The Crickets. Unlike Fuller, the song would have several lives. After listening to Bobby Fuller’s track incessantly on a jukebox at the Automatt studios in San Francisco, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones decided to cover the track and create their own classic. A song about “robbin’ people with a six-gun” makes for a great punk statement.
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The NME have called ‘Sha Sha Sha’ the bastard son of ‘A Town Called Malice’. The sentiment might be similar, but the sound is different. Fontaines D.C.’s frontman Grian Chatten sneers and quips like a young Iggy Pop to Mick Jones-like riffs. The song features on the Dublin band’s debut album Dogrel.
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This year marks the 40th anniversary of a number of mould-breaking punk albums. ‘Janie Jones’ opens one of the biggest, The Clash’s eponymous debut released in April 1977. Unadulterated, charged and revolutionary. “You lucky lady!” Have a great week.
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A couple of years after his debut album Panic Prevention and his “blue blooded murder of the English tongue”, Wimbledon boy Jamie T showed some maturity in his sophomore long player Kings And Queens. Within the spiralling panic of ‘Spider’s Web’, Jamie reveals a sound that hasn’t fallen too far from The Clash/Big Audio Dynamite tree. Top banana. Have a good week.
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‘London Calling‘ may take the top spot as a favourite Clash track, but ‘Train In Vain’ has its own space. The sound is largely influenced by Mick Jones and incorporates elements of rock, funk, reggae and new wave – much like this blog. The result is a coherent pop sound that features as a ‘secret’ and unexpected track at the end of the London Calling long player. I heard it on the radio today and smiled. Jones would revisit the blend again some years later with Big Audio Dynamite.
Before the ‘Bongo Bong’ of his first solo album Clandestino, Manu Chao was fronting the French band Mano Negra (Black Hand). They were big on the European and Latin American continents, but did not break the US or the UK, despite their evident love of rockabilly and The Clash. The sound of punk rock and flamenco is an intoxicating mix. ‘Mala Vida’ shows them off at their energetic best. Gogol Bordello would go on to cover ‘Mala Vida’, if you like the idea of an accordion thrown in too.
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The weekend has brought about a lot of sketchy memories from the jubilee of 1977. Unfortunately, there was not much good music in the Samuel household at that time. Any mention of The Clash, The Ramones, Elvis Costello etc. will have been memories formed since. But I had a ‘cool uncle’ who liked Blondie. ‘Rip Her To Shreds’ was off Blondie’s eponymous debut album a year earlier. Debbie Harry knew how to do cat-fight chat.
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For the next week or so of the Easter break, I’ll keep it brief and let a choice of genre-defining music do the talking. First off, it’s Punk Rock. It’s ‘London Calling’. BANG!
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Mick Jones left The Clash, formed B.A.D. and released This Is Big Audio Dynamite. I remember purchasing, listening and playing it over and over. ‘E=MC2’ (and ‘Medicine Show’) gloriously blended punk, hip hop, reggae and funk, and sampled some great movie moments. In this instance, it’s Nicholas Roeg’s Performance. “I like a bit of a cavort, I don’t send ’em solicitor’s letters. I apply a bit of pressure.” “He’s an ignorant boy. An out of date boy.” All said with a strong cockney accent, of course. And unlike most ’80s music, the song has stood the test of time.
Samuelsounds 