Redemption Song

by Chris Salewicz

  ‘But they really didn’t get on, Mick and Joe. Joe always treated Mick like an idiot and so Mick responded by staying stoned and rock-starred-out. I could be more relaxed with Mick, and get on with him – he was fairly straight-headed. Mick didn’t have the political hang-ups of Joe, who was always demanding low prices: “It’s for the kids.” With Joe everything always ended up as a compromise, with every issue unresolved.

  ‘Joe would always have a bunch of blokes around him, Joe acolytes, random people, almost like a security blanket. So you couldn’t have a serious discussion because of them. I also felt he never totally accepted me as a manager. I felt that in his eyes I was the personification of the business that they had to deal with and didn’t want to, hoped it would just go away. I could outdo Joe about politics and he didn’t like that. I would try to explain: “It’s not quite like that, Joe.” Went down like a lead balloon. I gave up on it because I didn’t want to show up my artist in front of the punters – and there was always an audience.’

  Although there may have been an element of security blanket about such companions, Joe’s manner of sitting around with ‘blokes’ in front of whom your business is publicly conducted is actually very Jamaican. Aptly named ‘reasonings’, such debates are frequently subject to the reaction and scrutiny of onlookers. During his cultural perambulations Joe must have picked up on that, and liked the position it gave him, the Don and his posse. A whole heap of the Clash street-pose came from that red-gold-and-green reggae world – in the late 1970s Joe often would wear an Ethiopian flag lapel badge.

  As the years rolled on Joe’s posse tended increasingly to be characters straight off the Notting Hill Spaghetti Western set: professional drunks, aristocrats, actors, artists, scamsters, thieves, junkies, poets, dealers, great minds, mystics, misfits, madmen, musicians, the cream of the scum, who had worked hard to be there, the version galore of Notting Hill. They were pulled into Joe’s orbit for stimulation and education and to osmose the Clash singer’s energy, determination and ruthless will to succeed. In Joe’s world there was only one revolutionary king: even though he took time to disguise the servant status of his basking rabble army of assorted vicarious low-life, that is what they really were.

  In the late summer of 1979 Joe is seized with a new energy. As are the whole group. At this point the Clash come into themselves: they’ve reached into their beings during the five months at Vanilla and the six weeks at Wessex and fulfilled themselves with what has emerged. Working on their own, they have shown extreme inner strength and know how great is their new record. They are on a far more mature high than that of the White Riot tour. For Joe, happy with both his work and his home life, it is extremely validating, only spurring him on to more. London Calling is a big change: this is a group in touch with its creative core, bringing to bear all the influences to which it has been subject. Ironically, it has done this by subverting the early punk notion of Year Zero and going back behind it for its subject matter. The album was now finished. Like film directors who acknowledge that they are too close to their material to edit it objectively, the group left the tracks in the hands of Guy Stevens and Bill Price, the engineer, for them to provide the final mix, then headed for California, where the Clash’s second US tour was about to start.

  ‘Then we pissed off to play the Monterey Pop Festival,’ Joe told me. ‘And we left it with Bill Price. And he and Guy Stevens mixed it while we weren’t there. And then years later it was voted Best Album of the Decade.’

  ‘That tells you how manic it was,’ said Topper. ‘We were doing a double album for the price of one and before we finished it we were going on tour and had to get someone else to mix it.’

  15

  NEWS OF CLOCK NINE

  1979–1980

  On 4 September 1979 the Clash flew to San Francisco for the opening date of their second US tour, dubbed the Clash Take the Fifth: the group were to criss-cross the United States for seven weeks, a rigorous work schedule leading to physical and mental strain for all of them.

  In September 1979 Chet Helms’s Family Dog Promotions was putting on a weekend festival, the 2nd Annual Tribal Stomp Potluck Picnic and Dance, on the same fairground site as 1967’s legendary Monterey Pop Festival, 100 miles south of San Francisco. Topping the bill on the afternoon slot of Saturday 8 September, above Joe Ely, the country rock star, and the soul outfit of the Chambers Brothers, was the Clash. The presence of Joe Ely on the same afternoon bill as the Clash was significant. ‘Joe felt Hank Williams’s music a lot,’ said Kosmo Vinyl, ‘and Joe Strummer and Ely both found something they longed for in each other: Ely wanted one of those crazy English rock-’n’roll guys and Joe wanted that authentic Southern country guy. The connection with Ely was real. Ely is authentic, he’s a country singer, out of Hank Williams and Buddy Holly. He’s the real thing. A spiritual connection.’

  The Clash were driven down to Monterey from San Francisco by Rudy Fernandez, an employee of Chet Helms, who was to become fast friends with Joe. ‘I’d never met anyone from England. So I picked them up, and there were these four skinny pale English guys. Back then I had long hair, like everybody. But they were cool with the short hair. I spent a week with these guys, and I saw right there that they were what was happening. When they left I cut my hair.’

  Always aware of his rock’n’roll history, and the precedent set for headline-grabbing at the 1967 event by Jimi Hendrix when the guitarist had set his guitar on fire with lighter fluid, during the set opener ‘I’m So Bored with the USA’ Joe collapsed backwards – as though shot – into Topper’s drum kit. Photographers’ cameras clicked and the next morning a picture of Joe’s fall put the Clash on the front page of the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times. Part contrived theatricality, part out-of-control possession by random spirits – as were so many of Joe’s performances – this incident during the first number of the Clash’s second US tour proved pivotal in etching the image of the group on the consciousness of California. The first encore featured the première live performance of another tune that – as with ‘I Fought the Law’ – the Clash almost made their own: their cover of ‘Armagideon Time’ by Willie Williams, a recent hit tune on Jamaica’s classic Studio One label. Onstage the extended, dubbed-up song would develop into a set-piece production, one of Joe’s most impassioned performances as he clearly felt the lyrics, the palm of his right hand firmly clasped over his right eye, a dramatic piece of mime Joe had stolen from Bob Marley but which also served to let the short-sighted singer focus on his audience. ‘We gave it [“Armagideon Time”] a bit more of a heavy-handed approach,’ Paul Simonon told me, ‘as opposed to the original which is quite relaxed. Me and Joe were always amazed and thought it was fantastic, the way that in reggae a rhythm could be just lying around. It wasn’t like, “This is my song.” It could be freely used by anybody, and they’d just sing over in their own particular way, depending on what their vision was for that rhythm.’ Joe Ely, who would become Joe’s good friend, came onstage after that number to perform on his own song ‘Fingernails’, which the group busked through, and added his guitar to ‘White Riot’.

  Driving to the festival site in Rudy Fernandez’s Ford van the group had been excitedly listening to mixes of the London Calling album, direct that morning from London by courier. They were really up about them. During the journey to the festival Rudy was under pressure: Chet Helms had told him the Clash had to go onstage at 3 in the afternoon, and time was tight. When he arrived at the designated gate to the Monterey Fairground, the security men wouldn’t let them enter: ‘They’re like, “No one told us.” They won’t let us in. I go, “Look, the Clash – they’re English! Can’t you tell? Skinny white guys – come on!”’ When the stoned, long-haired security men refused to admit them to the festival, Rudy had a simple solution: he drove straight at the gate, as – behind him – the Clash delightedly sang, ‘Rudy can’t fail! Rudy can’t fail!’ ‘The hippies go flying, and I’m racing right to the stage. The Chambers Brothers were coming
offstage at that moment, and I almost ran over one of them. But I got the Clash on stage. That gate that went flying was a big gate, too.’ From that moment on, whenever the Clash, and later Joe as a solo act, were on the West Coast of America, Rudy Fernandez acted as their unofficial tour manager, becoming close friends, especially with Joe Strummer, who loved being in the Monterey area. ‘He was getting all excited. He loved America, but they’d never seen this part of California.’ For the duration of their stay at the Tribal Stomp, the Clash checked into a motel-like residence in Carmel called the Mission Ranch. Joe would mutter, ‘This is Steinbeck country!’ Apart from Mick Jones, who had finally split up with Viv Albertine, the group had brought their girlfriends with them, Topper with Dee, Paul with his new girlfriend Debbie, and Joe with Gaby. As Joe would disappear off on his own while on the road, Mick Jones would frequently remain in his room, listening to music, watching television, smoking spliffs, playing around with song ideas.

  To the delight of the group, Rudy arranged for a pot-dealer friend to bring over a duffel bag full of home-grown weed. ‘It was really strong, so we all had a great time.’ Were they stoned when they ran into the most celebrated screen policeman and cowboy star of the decade, Clint Eastwood, whose films were a staple of the group’s Top Ten? Wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a guitar, he turned up at the Mission Ranch on a visit and the Clash were delighted to meet him. On a trip to Carmel’s beautiful white sand beach all the group quickly burned in the California sun, and had to return to their accommodation. Catering to the needs of both Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, Chet Helms personally checked out the finest vegetarian restaurant in the town. ‘I’m not a vegetarian,’ mumbled a somewhat miffed Paul.

  Rudy was impressed with the generosity of the group, especially Joe’s. ‘Joe was the most generous guy, more generous than I’ve ever been and probably ever will be. Homeless people, whatever – he’d give them all his money, and if he didn’t have any money he’d give them my money. I don’t mean a dollar: he’d give them packets of twenty. I’d go, “Look, here’s the guy you gave the money to going to the liquor store on Sunset.” He’d say, “Well, he’ll have a nice time tonight.”

  ‘Joe would talk to everybody. “Come on, Joe, we have to catch that plane.” “I don’t care. We can catch another plane.” He loved the fans. He would tell me at the end of the show, “Bring the kids back here.” He was always sneaking people into concerts, and there was so many on the guest lists. I have opened up windows to let people in. He’d go out to the liquor store to buy some smokes, and get talking to someone, and then he’d go, “Hey, Rudy, put him on the list.”’

  When the full tour opens at the Civic Arena in St Paul, Minnesota, four days later, Joe announces onstage: ‘I come over here and I switch on the radio and all I hear is the Eagles and Steely Dan.’ Joe is not happy with the group’s performance. His guitar acts up and he performs the last half of the show without it, his hand in his pockets. ‘It’s no good. It’s a pile of shit,’ he grumbles after ‘White Man’. Perhaps this is because he is very nervous: before The Clash are about to go onstage he has learned that Bob Dylan – turned on to the group by Ellie Smith at CBS during his London sojourn in May 1978 – has brought his entire family, about forty people, to see them. During the performance there is ongoing disagreement between him and Mick, and at one point Joe bites Paul Simonon on the arm. In Detroit an empty whisky bottle just misses Joe’s head. ‘Is that the best you’ve got?’ he demands. Another fusillade of missiles rains down on the stage. Wayne Kramer and Rob Tyner from the inspirational MC5 are in the audience. Kramer loves the show but Tyner irritates Joe by sitting in the front row, arms folded, with an OK-show-me expression on his face. Ted Nugent, the local hard rocker, arrives at the venue with his guitar, asking to play onstage with the group. ‘Only if you get your hair cut first,’ they tell him. Ted Nugent does not play with the Clash in Detroit. When a journalist asks Joe what advice he would give to Americans, his reply is pointed: ‘Eat less.’ Whilst being interviewed backstage by Creem writer Dave DiMartino, a benign fellow, Joe loses it and smashes the interviewer’s cassette-machine against a dressing-room wall.

  Visiting the alley by the side of a Chicago cinema in which Public Enemy Number One John Dillinger had been shot to death in 1934, Joe Strummer runs his fingers around and in the bullet-holes in the wall. Leaving Toronto to cross the border from Canada back into the USA, Mick Jones famously throws the kind of wobbler that later would be held very much against him. Out of weed, he refuses to board the tour bus until a spliff has been procured for him, requiring some fans to disappear to score, delaying the group’s departure by some hours.

  On 19 September the tour reaches Boston’s Orpheum Theater and Blockhead’s keyboard player Micky Gallagher, from Ian Dury’s group the Blockheads, arrives from London to add his Hammond organ sound to the group’s mix. He plays with them on and off for the next year and a half. The theatricality of the stage shows has become honed to perfection. During the last couple of numbers Joe always ‘spontaneously’ slings his Telecaster to one side and it must be snatched out of the air by a waiting Johnny Green. (At the Seattle gig on 15 October Green is ill from food poisoning and Barry Myers has to assume his task.)

  When the Clash hit New York on 20 September for two more nights at the Palladium, Joe – who has lost his stage pass – almost doesn’t get into the venue. Bafflingly, Bianca Jagger dances at the side of the stage. More famously, in New York Paul Simonon is pissed off by the distance between the Clash and their audience during the second Palladium show. During ‘White Riot’ he smashes his bass to pieces on the stage floor. Pennie Smith catches the moment on her camera, and, at the suggestion of Ray Lowry, a cartoonist taken on the tour as a kind of war artist, the shot is selected as a prospective cover for the new record.

  Set-list from the 16 Tons tour (Lucinda Mellor)

  Years before, Lowry had written to Joe as a fan, and, to his surprise, quickly received a reply; a friendship grew. ‘I was able to see the man close up and mostly closed up, a most private gregarious fellow and quite obviously an inspiration to the vast American audiences he touched with his mixture of ferocious assault and charming vulnerability. A rounded human being carrying his fair share of demons.’

  Demons are circling other members of the group. In Lubbock, Texas, on the journey back from paying tribute at the grave of Buddy Holly with Joe Ely, Topper Headon nods out and turns blue. He is OD’ing on heroin. The group’s vehicle is stopped and he is walked up and down a dirt path until he is out of danger. A portent of the future.

  Joe as seen by on-the-road Clash ‘war artist’ Ray Lowry. (Ray Lowry)

  In an article for the NME, Paul Morley, on tour with the group, asks perceptive questions of Joe, who admits he is happier with his growing years. ‘It’s a great relief for me to be twenty-seven in a way, ’cos I think the worst time of my life was when I was twenty-four, ’cos I used to lie about my age, make myself younger, say I was twenty-two or something, I was so paranoid about it. It was the early days of the Clash, like “Fuck, if they find out how old I am that’s it, I’m in the bunker, the dumper.” And then I thought, “Fucking hell, I feel great.” I feel, like, ’cos I’m older than this lot, I’ve got a little bit extra to add. Kind of experience.’

  What turns him on apart from rock’n’roll? he is asked. ‘I like the look of things … I get interested … I want to know about everything really. When I’m in some God-knows-where café and I’m feeling down and I’m having a cup of coffee, I can start listening to what they’re saying at the next table and for me it almost becomes grippingly fascinating. I almost forget totally about myself and I start working out who they are and what they’re doing. I dunno. I get interested in any old crap.’

  Morley asks Joe about the new album. ‘Are you bothered how people are going to take it?’

  ‘Naah.’ Strummer dismisses the idea. ‘Y’know, I’m way past all that “What are they going to think of this?” I don’t care any m
ore …’ cos whatever you do people are going to say “bollocks”.’

  On 18 October the exhausted group flew back from Vancouver to London. On their return they changed their look, transforming themselves into what their friend Jock Scott, introduced into the camp by Kosmo, defined as ‘the Mafia Beatles’. The classic movie look of their new image ensured its timelessness. Fitted suits and overcoats, and an assortment of jauntily brimmed hats – the style was actually taken from English gangsters of the 1940s. Specifically, it came from the film of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock. Paul Simonon had loved Greene’s dark tale of hoodlum lifestyle on the English south coast; when David Mingay and Jack Hazan had acquired war films for them while making Give ’Em Enough Rope, they had also procured the Brighton Rock film for Paul. At weekends he would take it and the projector home to hold screenings in his flat. ‘I started buying clothes from that era. Everyone else then did. It was just evolution.’

  In Don Letts’s video for the ‘London Calling’ single, a master-stroke of image-making, shot at the Festival Pier overlooking the Thames at Battersea Park at the beginning of December 1979, this look is assisted by the rain that swept across the night-time riverside set, adding a men-against-the-elements romantic timbre. Kosmo Vinyl, the self-styled consigliere of the group, had taken the Clash to Jack Geech, ‘the Teddy-boy tailor’, in Harrow, and Sid Strong, a Teds’ barber on Camden Bridge. Not that the group always went along with Kosmo’s suggestions. As a rock’n’roll purist he was adamant it was not acceptable for songs to exceed three minutes in length. Accordingly, when the group had gone back to Wessex in November to record their cover of ‘Armagideon Time’ as a B-side for the twelve-inch version of the ‘London Calling’ 45, Joe can be heard on the track rasping ‘OK, OK. Don’t push us when we’re … hot!’ as the song reaches its climax: Kosmo had been signalling to bring the tune to an end at a point when Joe knew the group was absolutely cooking.