Chart entered : 21 July 1990
Chart peak : 57
This is the first of quite a few posthumous hits that feature here in the nineties from groups that had long since split up.
The Clash of course were one of the top punk groups and really the only ones that sought to develop new musical horizons. They were helped by the departure of Terry Chimes after the first album and his replacement by Nicky "Topper" Headon, a multi-instrumentalist. Their singles steadily did better in the charts up to "London Calling" in 1980 , the title track to the double album that critics have decided to canonise. The band then over-reached themselves with the triple album "Sandinista !" in 1980 , full of dub experiments which confused their audience. Their single sales, already depressed by the band's longstanding refusal to appear on Top of the Pops started to decline. They then turned it round with the album "Combat Rock " which went Top 10 in America as did its lead single there "Rock the Casbah ". Ironically that song was almost completely written by Nicky who had been sacked from the band just after the album's release because of his escalating heroin habit. Terry , who'd been marking time in synth-pop outfit Cowboys International, rejoined the band as his replacement for the US tour but departed once it was over and was replaced by Pete Howard. Relations were also deteriorating between Joe Strummer and Mick Jones and the latter was fired the following year. Two young guitarists Nick Sheppard ( formerly with briefly-fancied New Wavers The Cortinas ) and Vince White came in to replace him . The album they eventually released , "Cut The Crap" in 1985, was eviscerated by the press. Joe blamed producer Bernie Rhodes who'd stepped into Mick's shoes as musical director and took off to Spain declaring the band over.
All the major players had put music out since then but we'll deal with "Return To Brixton " first. It is actually a remix of the popular album track "Guns of Brixton" from "London Calling" by former Haysi Fantayzee man Jeremy Healy, released to cash in on the sampling of the bassline by Norman Cook on Beats International's recent number one hit "Dub Be Good To Me". Healy speeds up the track slightly and replaces Nicky's drums with more contemporary beats but doesn't mess with the vocal or the structure of the song.
The original song was Paul Simonon's first contribution to The Clash as a songwriter and addresses the frustration caused in Brixton by police oppression and anticipates a bad outcome similar to the death of Jimmy Cliff's character in The Harder They Come which is explicitly referenced. Paul sang it as well in a charmingly stiff attempt at a Jamaican accent.
It quickly became a stage favourite although Paul had to swap instruments with Joe because singing and playing the bass line simultaneously was beyond his capabilities.
I'm not clear if any of the former members endorsed or did anything to promote the release of the single.
After his ejection from the band, Mick briefly contemplated joining General Public but instead decided to form a new band. He brought Nicky into his plans but soon realised the heroin addiction was out of control and dropped him. Instead. he formed the band Big Audio Dynamite with punk film director Don Letts - despite the fact he couldn't play anything - and three younger guys. Trailed by the single "The Bottom Line", their debut album "This Is Big Audio Dynamite" was released in October 1985. In stark contrast to "Cut The Crap ", its mix of left-field drum machine- driven pop , sound effects and film dialogue samples drew rave reviews. Apart from the tedious closer "BAD" and the Yellow Peril warning "Sony" which seriously over-stretches Mick's voice, it still stands up today.
The next single " E=MC2 " , a tribute to director Nic Roeg, peppered with dialogue from his film Performance and featuring a naggingly memorable keyboard hook .made the Top 20. That drew an invitation to appear on Top of the Pops which Mick decided to accept, giving a self-conscious performance, the weight of history clearly on his shoulders. The third single from the album "Medicine Show" made number 29 and the band received a publicity boost when young keyboard player Dan Donovan became the first of many husband for it girl Patsy Kensit.
It looked like Big Audio Dynamite were the future but somehow it slipped out of their grasp. Mick had already reconciled with Joe who suggested reforming The Clash. Understandably, Mick was not willing to jettison B.A.D, so they worked out a curious compromise where Joe helped write some of the songs and co-produced the next B.A.D. album but didn't sing or play on it.
"No 10 Upping St" was released in October 1986. It peaked higher than its predecessor but didn't sell as well due to the failure of its singles to make the Top 40. "C'mon Every Beatbox" an attempt to update Eddie Cochran, marred by the decision to allot some vocal lines to the tone-deaf Letts could only get to number 51 and "V Thirteen", one of those co-written by Joe and the best song on the album, could only improve on it by two places. "Sightsee MC" missed the chart altogether. Their momentum was lost but I don't think it can be put down to Joe. The album sounds like it was released prematurely and, for all its self-conscious modernism, what you have is really just under-produced synth-pop.
Joe was not involved in the next album "Tighten Up Vol. 88" for which Paul designed the cover. The songs are better realised , the film sampling has largely been abandoned and there's one or two attractive tunes but the songs were not strong enough to restore their position nor was Mick's needling voice a plus. The lead single "Just Play Music" a protest against the promotional chores necessary to sell set to a a Fairlight fluff backing track stalled at 51 and the stoic "Other 99" didn't chart. The album peaked at 33.
Mick had a serious bout of pneumonia before the release of the next album "Megatop Phoenix" the following year. This one was sample-heavy once more including "ironic" choices like Bernard Cribbins and George Formby but at the expense of good tunes and it really drags with a paucity of any interesting music. Neither of the singles "James Brown" and "Contact" was a hit and like its predecessor the album spent a mere three weeks in the chart. Interestingly while the band's profile slipped in the UK their fortunes in the US were improving and the album was the first to breach the Top 100 in the States.
In 1990 the band provided "Free" a pleasant enough house tune for the soundtrack to the Dennis Hopper film Flashback. It was the last recording by the original band. Mick decided to dispense with all of them and form Big Audio Dynamite II who had a more conventional two guitar, bass, drums line up, a bit like The Clash really. That being said their next album "Kool-Aid" , released in the UK only was still synth-dominated and it's questionable how much the new guys contributed to it although bassist Gary Stonadge co-wrote three of the songs. There are some good ideas but all the songs go on too long. It spent just a single week in the charts. At around the same time, Mick returned to the singles chart in collaboration with Aztec Camera on "Good Morning Britain" which sounds much more like B.A.D. than Roddy Frame's previous work.
In the early part of 1991 Mick negotiated a new international deal and started re-working some of the songs on "Kool-Aid" for a new release. The sprawling opener "Change of Atmosphere" was cut down to 4 minutes and re-titled "Rush". The self-valedictory track retained a lengthy sampling break in the middle but packed enough of a garage rock punch to be selected for the other side of Columbia's re-release of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" to cash in on its use in a Levi's ad ( the irony of using a Clash track for this was much commented on at the time ). When the single was pressed it had the letters AA on the "Rush " side which some sources have interpreted as meaning the single was a double A side and thus granting B.A.D. a very tendentious number one hit. I don't recall it ever being announced as a double A side on radio or TV and it' not listed as such in Guinness.
The song was a genuine number one hit in Australia and New Zealand and reached 32 in America. The parent album "The Globe" achieved their highest placing there ( number 76 ) and the subsequent singles " The Globe" and the acoustic ballad "Innocent Child " did well in those markets too. In the UK, Columbia were far more interested in promoting a Clash compilation and both "Rock The Casbah" and "London Calling" were hits again on re-release. Like its predecessor , "The Globe" spent just a single week on the chart.
Mick then chose to support U2 on their Zoo TV tour rather than work on a follow-up and all momentum was lost. B.A.D.;s final three albums failed to chart anywhere although they managed one last minor hit with the ironic "Looking For A Song" , an enjoyable guitar jangle, in 1994. The band now featured former Beat vocalist Ranking Roger. Their last album "Entering A New Ride" was one of the first to be distributed solely through the internet but that didn't help it commercially.
Mick laid low for a few years then re-emerged in 2002 with Carbon/Silicon. As we'll be covering them in a future post, we'll leave Mick's story there and move on to Joe.
If B.A.D. ultimately failed to realise their potential, there is at least a solid body of work to examine. That's not the case with Joe over the same period. For more than a dozen years after The Clash's demise, he cut a rather forlorn figure, a restless nomad entombed by his past, endlessly searching for a suitable new musical home and producing relatively little. As he said in an interview with Record Mirror, " I'm a hopeless case, I'm a hopeless romantic, really out of order". As the writer ( Jim Reid ) tartly observed "This is the man who would be the third Blues Brother".
Joe's first post-Clash recordings were a couple of songs for Alex Cox's biopic Sid and Nancy after he met the director while gatecrashing the wrap party in London. John Lydon , who hated the film, blamed many of the failings on Joe in his autobiography but that was unfair; most of it had been shot before Cox and Joe even met. One of Joe's songs, "Love Kills" , was released as a single and became his only solo hit in August 1986 ( Mick helped him complete it ) , clocking in at 68 for a week.. It's a brutish rock track addressing Sid's last year in America with harmonica blasts as signifiers but not a bad tune.
Joe went to work on the second Big Audio Dynamite album ( covered above ) before returning to Cox to work on his next two films Straight To Hell and Walker . For the former he contributed two more songs "Evil Darling" and "Ambush at Mystery Rock". The first is a likeable, semi-acoustic folk-rock effort but it goes on too long while the second is a Cramps-ish near instrumental. Joe had a big part in the cod-Spaghetti Western comedy as Simms , one of the three incompetent hitmen around whom the plot revolves. For Walker, he had a smaller part in the film but a larger role in the soundtrack . Joe is credited as sole composer on all the tracks, most of them instrumentals, but he had a lot of help in the arrangements from American guitarist Zander Schloss, the beginning of a steady working relationship. The Latin / calypso tunes are listenable out of context but couldn't save the film.
Walker put an end to Cox's Hollywood career and he didn't get to make another film for four years , obliging Joe to seek pastures new. He had met The Pogues on the set of Straight To Hell and they had one of the best claims to be carrying on in the punk spirit. He joined them on tour in 1987/88 filling in for guitarist Phil Chevron who wasn't well.
He and Schloss then reconvened to work on the soundtrack to an early Keanu Reeves film. Permanent Record. Shloss and three other musicians took on the name The Latino Rockabilly War. Joe and his band contributed five songs. "Trash City" sounds very like "I Fought The Law" and "Nothin But Nothin is also pretty Clash-like.
In 1989 he came out with the underwhelming "Earthquake Weather" , an eclectic but listless collection of songs with some attractive trappings, courtesy of the band, but underneath it's uninspired mainstream rock . It's certainly not helped by Joe's murky production either. The single "Gangsterville " which can't make up its mind whether it's a rock or reggae number is typical. It didn't chart and cost Joe his contract with Sony.
Joe got one or two more acting roles then produced Hell's Ditch for The Pogues in 1990. Shortly after the album's release Shane McGowan was fired and Joe replaced him for the tour the following year. After that he drifted towards The Levellers and got a featuring credit on their 1995 hit "Just The One" for his piano part. The following year he got an artist credit on Black Grape's "England's Irie". Both seem a bit generous, in neither case is Joe's contribution particularly audible, but it shows the respect his name still commanded that they wanted his name on the record. He had a show on the BBC World Service for a while.
At the end of the nineties , he put a new band together the Mescaleros. In October 1999 he released his first album in a decade with "Rock Art & the X-Ray Style". The opener ( and single "Tony Adams" , confusingly about a catastrophe in New York, teases with its reggae guitar evoking his former band but thereafter it's a quiet singer-songwriter's album with many of the tracks set to sparse electrobeats highlighting Joe's dense lyrics. Joe makes a wise choice in allowing his colleagues Anthony Genn and Richard Norris handle the production chores but there's no potential hit on the album and while critics hailed it as a return to form the album stalled at 71. The second Mescaleros album "Global-A-Go-Go" in 2001 took a more acoustic approach with many world music influences. It got more attention than the first; I remember hearing the single "Johnny Appleseed" . It's a bit dense to fully appreciate in one listen although the 17 minute version of "Minstrel Boy" certainly tests the patience. It only improved on its predecessor by three places
It's clear that Joe was in a better frame of mind with these releases and was happy to play Clash numbers on the tours that supported them. In November 2002 Mick joined him on stage at a gig for the striking firefighters in London. Joe himself referred to the period as his "Indian summer " but he didn't realise how apt this was.
On 22 December 2002, Joe suddenly died of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect aged 50. He had recorded enough material for the release of a third Mescaleros album "Streetcore" in 2003 although many of the vocals are first takes and the band were not involved in the two tracks he recorded with Rick Rubin including a cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song". The album is sparer and less complex than its predecessors; whether Joe would have over-egged the pudding again if he'd lived we'll never know but it's refreshing to hear that voice on more direct material again. The glowing reviews were perhaps a bit over-generous due to the circumstances. Despite punky opener "Coma Girl" and "Redemption Song" making the chart as singles ( 32 and 46 respectively ), the album only got to number 50. His family and friends set up the Joe Strummer Foundation to promote new music in his memory.
Paul had already been marginalised by the time of "Cut The Crap"; he only played on two of the tracks. He joined a new band Havana 3 A.M. in 1986 but it took them a long time to get an audience and that was mainly in Japan where they recorded their only single "Reach The Rock" , which sounds like a beefed-up Chris Isaak though let down by an ugly drum sound. Their eponymous album was released shortly afterwards with Paul's girlfriend on the cover. It's a pleasant collection of retro-rock mixing The Pirates and Gene Vincent with reggae and New Wave influences, not the sort of thing that was going to have wide appeal in 1991. A couple of years later, singer Nigel Dixon died and Paul decided to quit the band and concentrate on his painting.
Paul wasn't lured back into music until 2006 when Damon Albarn wanted him in on the "The Good The Bad and the Queen" project along with former Verve guitarist Simon Tong and Nigerian drummer Tony Allen . The resulting album is according to Albarn "a song cycle that's also a mystery play about London". It was trailed by a single "Herculean" in October 2006 ( although they had already performed the album in its entirety for BBC's Electric Proms season ) . It's a mournful lo-fi effort about the prevalence of drugs with treated vocals that reminds me of Eels. Paul designed the cover for the single which reached number 22 in the chart. There was another single , the grim, post-apocalyptic whine of "Kingdom of Doom" which reached number 20 , before the album came out in January 2007. I'll put my cards on the table and declare that I'm not a great admirer of Mr Albarn but there is some good music on the album even if you don't buy into the concept. The album shot straight to number 2 when released. A third single , the fractured psychedelic pop of "Green Fields", ( actually a re-working of a song Albarn had written for Marianne Faithfull ) made number 51.
Paul went on to play on the title track ( as did Mick ) of the 2010 Gorillaz album "Plastic Beach".
In this decade Paul has become a Greenpeace activist and the band behind "The Good, The Bad.." played a benefit gig for them in 2011. That same year he spent a fortnight in a Greenland jail for his part in a drilling protest. Earlier this year Albarn revealed that the "band" is working on a second album.
By 1985 Nicky had got his act together to record his first solo single, a cover of a 1940s big band number "The Drumming Man" with vocals from Didi Sketcher. It got a bit of night time radio play in the summer of 1985 but wasn't a hit. For his next single, "Leave It To Luck" that autumn he had some heavyweight help from veteran guitarist Bobby Tench, Blockhead keyboardist Mick Gallagher and Jimmy Helms on vocals. The song is Nicky's original composition and it's a credible Stax pastiche although Jimmy sounds more like Tom Jones than Otis Redding. It set the tone for his solo album "Waking Up" in 1986 which included a cover of "Time Is Tight" and several tracks addressing his drug problems. The album was dedicated to the memory of another drug casualty, Pretenders bassist Pete Farndon. There was a third single "I'll Give You Everything" which has some fine brass work propping up a slight song. Alas, Nicky's work was just too retro for the times and neither the album nor its singles sold.
The following year his career was interrupted by a spell in jail for supplying heroin. When he got out he took to min-cab driving for a couple of years but only to finance his habit. He occasionally dabbled in music, producing an album for the Bush Tetras and helping out the reformed Chelsea on an LP. He then took to busking on the Underground and living in a hostel for the homeless. When Don Letts interviewed him for a documentary film in 2000 he weighed just seven stone. Eventually he returned to Dover to live with his parents and after umpteen attempts at rehab and a bout of Hepatitis C he finally got clean towards the end of the decade. He has since appeared with Carbon/Silicon on stage although he has to drum upright due to back problems.
Always a "Steady Eddie" by comparison, Terry went on to drum for various bands including Hanoi Rocks, The Cherry Bombz and most notably Black Sabbath in the late eighties. While with Sabbath, a sore arm was successfully treated by the band's personal chiropractor and Terry decided to enter the profession himself. Since 1994, he has run his own clinic, Chimes Chiropractic, in Essex. He is also involved with the Scouting movement and plays in some part time bands.
Nick returned to Bristol and formed the band Head with former Rip Rig and Panic man Gareth Sagar. like all Sagar's bands they sold diddly squat but they produced three albums in the late eighties which have been posthumously lauded as paving the ground for trip hop. When they folded, he had a spell in a band called Shot but they never released a record. In 1993 he emigrated to Perth , Australia and opened a clothing store . He plays in a part-time band The Dom-Nicks.
As Pete didn't play on "This Is England" , the only single released during his time with the band, I'll just mention in passing that he went on to play in the bands, Eat and Queenadreena. Vince wasn't on the single either. He became a mini-cab driver then a fine artist and a pick-up musician for visiting blues legends.
All the major players had put music out since then but we'll deal with "Return To Brixton " first. It is actually a remix of the popular album track "Guns of Brixton" from "London Calling" by former Haysi Fantayzee man Jeremy Healy, released to cash in on the sampling of the bassline by Norman Cook on Beats International's recent number one hit "Dub Be Good To Me". Healy speeds up the track slightly and replaces Nicky's drums with more contemporary beats but doesn't mess with the vocal or the structure of the song.
The original song was Paul Simonon's first contribution to The Clash as a songwriter and addresses the frustration caused in Brixton by police oppression and anticipates a bad outcome similar to the death of Jimmy Cliff's character in The Harder They Come which is explicitly referenced. Paul sang it as well in a charmingly stiff attempt at a Jamaican accent.
It quickly became a stage favourite although Paul had to swap instruments with Joe because singing and playing the bass line simultaneously was beyond his capabilities.
I'm not clear if any of the former members endorsed or did anything to promote the release of the single.
After his ejection from the band, Mick briefly contemplated joining General Public but instead decided to form a new band. He brought Nicky into his plans but soon realised the heroin addiction was out of control and dropped him. Instead. he formed the band Big Audio Dynamite with punk film director Don Letts - despite the fact he couldn't play anything - and three younger guys. Trailed by the single "The Bottom Line", their debut album "This Is Big Audio Dynamite" was released in October 1985. In stark contrast to "Cut The Crap ", its mix of left-field drum machine- driven pop , sound effects and film dialogue samples drew rave reviews. Apart from the tedious closer "BAD" and the Yellow Peril warning "Sony" which seriously over-stretches Mick's voice, it still stands up today.
The next single " E=MC2 " , a tribute to director Nic Roeg, peppered with dialogue from his film Performance and featuring a naggingly memorable keyboard hook .made the Top 20. That drew an invitation to appear on Top of the Pops which Mick decided to accept, giving a self-conscious performance, the weight of history clearly on his shoulders. The third single from the album "Medicine Show" made number 29 and the band received a publicity boost when young keyboard player Dan Donovan became the first of many husband for it girl Patsy Kensit.
It looked like Big Audio Dynamite were the future but somehow it slipped out of their grasp. Mick had already reconciled with Joe who suggested reforming The Clash. Understandably, Mick was not willing to jettison B.A.D, so they worked out a curious compromise where Joe helped write some of the songs and co-produced the next B.A.D. album but didn't sing or play on it.
"No 10 Upping St" was released in October 1986. It peaked higher than its predecessor but didn't sell as well due to the failure of its singles to make the Top 40. "C'mon Every Beatbox" an attempt to update Eddie Cochran, marred by the decision to allot some vocal lines to the tone-deaf Letts could only get to number 51 and "V Thirteen", one of those co-written by Joe and the best song on the album, could only improve on it by two places. "Sightsee MC" missed the chart altogether. Their momentum was lost but I don't think it can be put down to Joe. The album sounds like it was released prematurely and, for all its self-conscious modernism, what you have is really just under-produced synth-pop.
Joe was not involved in the next album "Tighten Up Vol. 88" for which Paul designed the cover. The songs are better realised , the film sampling has largely been abandoned and there's one or two attractive tunes but the songs were not strong enough to restore their position nor was Mick's needling voice a plus. The lead single "Just Play Music" a protest against the promotional chores necessary to sell set to a a Fairlight fluff backing track stalled at 51 and the stoic "Other 99" didn't chart. The album peaked at 33.
Mick had a serious bout of pneumonia before the release of the next album "Megatop Phoenix" the following year. This one was sample-heavy once more including "ironic" choices like Bernard Cribbins and George Formby but at the expense of good tunes and it really drags with a paucity of any interesting music. Neither of the singles "James Brown" and "Contact" was a hit and like its predecessor the album spent a mere three weeks in the chart. Interestingly while the band's profile slipped in the UK their fortunes in the US were improving and the album was the first to breach the Top 100 in the States.
In 1990 the band provided "Free" a pleasant enough house tune for the soundtrack to the Dennis Hopper film Flashback. It was the last recording by the original band. Mick decided to dispense with all of them and form Big Audio Dynamite II who had a more conventional two guitar, bass, drums line up, a bit like The Clash really. That being said their next album "Kool-Aid" , released in the UK only was still synth-dominated and it's questionable how much the new guys contributed to it although bassist Gary Stonadge co-wrote three of the songs. There are some good ideas but all the songs go on too long. It spent just a single week in the charts. At around the same time, Mick returned to the singles chart in collaboration with Aztec Camera on "Good Morning Britain" which sounds much more like B.A.D. than Roddy Frame's previous work.
In the early part of 1991 Mick negotiated a new international deal and started re-working some of the songs on "Kool-Aid" for a new release. The sprawling opener "Change of Atmosphere" was cut down to 4 minutes and re-titled "Rush". The self-valedictory track retained a lengthy sampling break in the middle but packed enough of a garage rock punch to be selected for the other side of Columbia's re-release of "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" to cash in on its use in a Levi's ad ( the irony of using a Clash track for this was much commented on at the time ). When the single was pressed it had the letters AA on the "Rush " side which some sources have interpreted as meaning the single was a double A side and thus granting B.A.D. a very tendentious number one hit. I don't recall it ever being announced as a double A side on radio or TV and it' not listed as such in Guinness.
The song was a genuine number one hit in Australia and New Zealand and reached 32 in America. The parent album "The Globe" achieved their highest placing there ( number 76 ) and the subsequent singles " The Globe" and the acoustic ballad "Innocent Child " did well in those markets too. In the UK, Columbia were far more interested in promoting a Clash compilation and both "Rock The Casbah" and "London Calling" were hits again on re-release. Like its predecessor , "The Globe" spent just a single week on the chart.
Mick then chose to support U2 on their Zoo TV tour rather than work on a follow-up and all momentum was lost. B.A.D.;s final three albums failed to chart anywhere although they managed one last minor hit with the ironic "Looking For A Song" , an enjoyable guitar jangle, in 1994. The band now featured former Beat vocalist Ranking Roger. Their last album "Entering A New Ride" was one of the first to be distributed solely through the internet but that didn't help it commercially.
Mick laid low for a few years then re-emerged in 2002 with Carbon/Silicon. As we'll be covering them in a future post, we'll leave Mick's story there and move on to Joe.
If B.A.D. ultimately failed to realise their potential, there is at least a solid body of work to examine. That's not the case with Joe over the same period. For more than a dozen years after The Clash's demise, he cut a rather forlorn figure, a restless nomad entombed by his past, endlessly searching for a suitable new musical home and producing relatively little. As he said in an interview with Record Mirror, " I'm a hopeless case, I'm a hopeless romantic, really out of order". As the writer ( Jim Reid ) tartly observed "This is the man who would be the third Blues Brother".
Joe's first post-Clash recordings were a couple of songs for Alex Cox's biopic Sid and Nancy after he met the director while gatecrashing the wrap party in London. John Lydon , who hated the film, blamed many of the failings on Joe in his autobiography but that was unfair; most of it had been shot before Cox and Joe even met. One of Joe's songs, "Love Kills" , was released as a single and became his only solo hit in August 1986 ( Mick helped him complete it ) , clocking in at 68 for a week.. It's a brutish rock track addressing Sid's last year in America with harmonica blasts as signifiers but not a bad tune.
Joe went to work on the second Big Audio Dynamite album ( covered above ) before returning to Cox to work on his next two films Straight To Hell and Walker . For the former he contributed two more songs "Evil Darling" and "Ambush at Mystery Rock". The first is a likeable, semi-acoustic folk-rock effort but it goes on too long while the second is a Cramps-ish near instrumental. Joe had a big part in the cod-Spaghetti Western comedy as Simms , one of the three incompetent hitmen around whom the plot revolves. For Walker, he had a smaller part in the film but a larger role in the soundtrack . Joe is credited as sole composer on all the tracks, most of them instrumentals, but he had a lot of help in the arrangements from American guitarist Zander Schloss, the beginning of a steady working relationship. The Latin / calypso tunes are listenable out of context but couldn't save the film.
Walker put an end to Cox's Hollywood career and he didn't get to make another film for four years , obliging Joe to seek pastures new. He had met The Pogues on the set of Straight To Hell and they had one of the best claims to be carrying on in the punk spirit. He joined them on tour in 1987/88 filling in for guitarist Phil Chevron who wasn't well.
He and Schloss then reconvened to work on the soundtrack to an early Keanu Reeves film. Permanent Record. Shloss and three other musicians took on the name The Latino Rockabilly War. Joe and his band contributed five songs. "Trash City" sounds very like "I Fought The Law" and "Nothin But Nothin is also pretty Clash-like.
In 1989 he came out with the underwhelming "Earthquake Weather" , an eclectic but listless collection of songs with some attractive trappings, courtesy of the band, but underneath it's uninspired mainstream rock . It's certainly not helped by Joe's murky production either. The single "Gangsterville " which can't make up its mind whether it's a rock or reggae number is typical. It didn't chart and cost Joe his contract with Sony.
Joe got one or two more acting roles then produced Hell's Ditch for The Pogues in 1990. Shortly after the album's release Shane McGowan was fired and Joe replaced him for the tour the following year. After that he drifted towards The Levellers and got a featuring credit on their 1995 hit "Just The One" for his piano part. The following year he got an artist credit on Black Grape's "England's Irie". Both seem a bit generous, in neither case is Joe's contribution particularly audible, but it shows the respect his name still commanded that they wanted his name on the record. He had a show on the BBC World Service for a while.
At the end of the nineties , he put a new band together the Mescaleros. In October 1999 he released his first album in a decade with "Rock Art & the X-Ray Style". The opener ( and single "Tony Adams" , confusingly about a catastrophe in New York, teases with its reggae guitar evoking his former band but thereafter it's a quiet singer-songwriter's album with many of the tracks set to sparse electrobeats highlighting Joe's dense lyrics. Joe makes a wise choice in allowing his colleagues Anthony Genn and Richard Norris handle the production chores but there's no potential hit on the album and while critics hailed it as a return to form the album stalled at 71. The second Mescaleros album "Global-A-Go-Go" in 2001 took a more acoustic approach with many world music influences. It got more attention than the first; I remember hearing the single "Johnny Appleseed" . It's a bit dense to fully appreciate in one listen although the 17 minute version of "Minstrel Boy" certainly tests the patience. It only improved on its predecessor by three places
It's clear that Joe was in a better frame of mind with these releases and was happy to play Clash numbers on the tours that supported them. In November 2002 Mick joined him on stage at a gig for the striking firefighters in London. Joe himself referred to the period as his "Indian summer " but he didn't realise how apt this was.
On 22 December 2002, Joe suddenly died of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect aged 50. He had recorded enough material for the release of a third Mescaleros album "Streetcore" in 2003 although many of the vocals are first takes and the band were not involved in the two tracks he recorded with Rick Rubin including a cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song". The album is sparer and less complex than its predecessors; whether Joe would have over-egged the pudding again if he'd lived we'll never know but it's refreshing to hear that voice on more direct material again. The glowing reviews were perhaps a bit over-generous due to the circumstances. Despite punky opener "Coma Girl" and "Redemption Song" making the chart as singles ( 32 and 46 respectively ), the album only got to number 50. His family and friends set up the Joe Strummer Foundation to promote new music in his memory.
Paul had already been marginalised by the time of "Cut The Crap"; he only played on two of the tracks. He joined a new band Havana 3 A.M. in 1986 but it took them a long time to get an audience and that was mainly in Japan where they recorded their only single "Reach The Rock" , which sounds like a beefed-up Chris Isaak though let down by an ugly drum sound. Their eponymous album was released shortly afterwards with Paul's girlfriend on the cover. It's a pleasant collection of retro-rock mixing The Pirates and Gene Vincent with reggae and New Wave influences, not the sort of thing that was going to have wide appeal in 1991. A couple of years later, singer Nigel Dixon died and Paul decided to quit the band and concentrate on his painting.
Paul wasn't lured back into music until 2006 when Damon Albarn wanted him in on the "The Good The Bad and the Queen" project along with former Verve guitarist Simon Tong and Nigerian drummer Tony Allen . The resulting album is according to Albarn "a song cycle that's also a mystery play about London". It was trailed by a single "Herculean" in October 2006 ( although they had already performed the album in its entirety for BBC's Electric Proms season ) . It's a mournful lo-fi effort about the prevalence of drugs with treated vocals that reminds me of Eels. Paul designed the cover for the single which reached number 22 in the chart. There was another single , the grim, post-apocalyptic whine of "Kingdom of Doom" which reached number 20 , before the album came out in January 2007. I'll put my cards on the table and declare that I'm not a great admirer of Mr Albarn but there is some good music on the album even if you don't buy into the concept. The album shot straight to number 2 when released. A third single , the fractured psychedelic pop of "Green Fields", ( actually a re-working of a song Albarn had written for Marianne Faithfull ) made number 51.
Paul went on to play on the title track ( as did Mick ) of the 2010 Gorillaz album "Plastic Beach".
In this decade Paul has become a Greenpeace activist and the band behind "The Good, The Bad.." played a benefit gig for them in 2011. That same year he spent a fortnight in a Greenland jail for his part in a drilling protest. Earlier this year Albarn revealed that the "band" is working on a second album.
By 1985 Nicky had got his act together to record his first solo single, a cover of a 1940s big band number "The Drumming Man" with vocals from Didi Sketcher. It got a bit of night time radio play in the summer of 1985 but wasn't a hit. For his next single, "Leave It To Luck" that autumn he had some heavyweight help from veteran guitarist Bobby Tench, Blockhead keyboardist Mick Gallagher and Jimmy Helms on vocals. The song is Nicky's original composition and it's a credible Stax pastiche although Jimmy sounds more like Tom Jones than Otis Redding. It set the tone for his solo album "Waking Up" in 1986 which included a cover of "Time Is Tight" and several tracks addressing his drug problems. The album was dedicated to the memory of another drug casualty, Pretenders bassist Pete Farndon. There was a third single "I'll Give You Everything" which has some fine brass work propping up a slight song. Alas, Nicky's work was just too retro for the times and neither the album nor its singles sold.
The following year his career was interrupted by a spell in jail for supplying heroin. When he got out he took to min-cab driving for a couple of years but only to finance his habit. He occasionally dabbled in music, producing an album for the Bush Tetras and helping out the reformed Chelsea on an LP. He then took to busking on the Underground and living in a hostel for the homeless. When Don Letts interviewed him for a documentary film in 2000 he weighed just seven stone. Eventually he returned to Dover to live with his parents and after umpteen attempts at rehab and a bout of Hepatitis C he finally got clean towards the end of the decade. He has since appeared with Carbon/Silicon on stage although he has to drum upright due to back problems.
Always a "Steady Eddie" by comparison, Terry went on to drum for various bands including Hanoi Rocks, The Cherry Bombz and most notably Black Sabbath in the late eighties. While with Sabbath, a sore arm was successfully treated by the band's personal chiropractor and Terry decided to enter the profession himself. Since 1994, he has run his own clinic, Chimes Chiropractic, in Essex. He is also involved with the Scouting movement and plays in some part time bands.
Nick returned to Bristol and formed the band Head with former Rip Rig and Panic man Gareth Sagar. like all Sagar's bands they sold diddly squat but they produced three albums in the late eighties which have been posthumously lauded as paving the ground for trip hop. When they folded, he had a spell in a band called Shot but they never released a record. In 1993 he emigrated to Perth , Australia and opened a clothing store . He plays in a part-time band The Dom-Nicks.
As Pete didn't play on "This Is England" , the only single released during his time with the band, I'll just mention in passing that he went on to play in the bands, Eat and Queenadreena. Vince wasn't on the single either. He became a mini-cab driver then a fine artist and a pick-up musician for visiting blues legends.
I think Joe's death is one of the rare instances in my life I can remember exactly where I was when I heard: behind a row of terraced houses in Newcastle, in my mother's car, waiting to drive my brother home for Christmas. I guess it hit home not only because I was/am a big fan, but also that he was the same age as my parents.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading two of the last version of the Clash were sat at the same table in a pub in the 90s and chose not to acknowledge each other, such was their ill feelings towards the period. I gather the "enigmatic" Bernie Rhodes was the source of much of that.
I heard it the next day which was my 38th birthday and the first since my mum passed away. Although I wasn't his greatest fan it was sad that , like Roy Orbison some years before, Joe died in the midst of a career resurgence and he was also the first punk icon to pass away from natural causes.
DeleteIndeed, he died just before the Clash got in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which may have seen the band reunite.
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