Mick Jones: Stayin' In Tune - The Unauthorised Biography

by Mick O'Shea

  'It [the Punk Festival] was quite important because it brought everyone together in one room for the first time,' Joe later recalled. 'And it was historically important because of Siouxsie and the Banshees playing, with Future Sex Pistol bassist Sid Vicious on the drums. We could see for the first time that we had something; that we weren't on our own.'7

  The festival may have brought everyone on the scene under the one umbrella so to speak, but there was precious little evidence of the solidarity to which Joe alludes. Aside from the inter-group backbiting, a row erupted when Bernard – having taken umbrage to Siouxsie sporting a swastika armband – refused to allow the Banshees the use of The Clash's PA – now painted a distinctive bubblegum pink to thwart any opportunistic 'borrowing'.

  Sid, who was sporting a ripped-up T-shirt festooned with crudelydrawn swastikas, escalated the situation by calling Bernard a 'fucking mean old Jew', which might well have curtailed the Banshees' career before it had even started had it not been for Malcolm stepping in and allowing them to use the Sex Pistols' backline.

  ♪♪♪

  Up until the 100 Club festival, punk had largely been the preserve of a smattering of disaffected youths and bored middle-class art students, but following Sid's glass-throwing antics during The Damned's performance – which resulted in the 100 Club effecting a blanket-ban on punk – the latest musical craze began to attract some rather more unbalanced characters whose antics would come to be interwoven into punk's bondage-strapped tapestry over the proceeding decades.

  When The Clash played the Institute of Contemporary Arts – billed as 'A Night of Pure Energy' – a month or so later on 23 October, Jane Crockford, or 'Mad Jane' as she was more colourfully known to one and all, supposedly got so caught up in the mood that she threw herself at future Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan and tore a chunk from his right ear.

  This was also the night that Patti Smith jumped up on stage. Paul has since admitted that he'd been about to swing a paint-splattered boot at the uninvited interloper before realising it was the celebrated punk poetess. Paul was lucky to be on stage himself seeing as he'd come uncomfortably close to spending the night in the cells, as Bernard explained: 'After the soundcheck, Paul and I went out for a walk. Paul found a roll of film screens and he thought he might try sticking them onto his clothes to see what they would look like. We set off up the road but a cop car pulled us up. "What have you got there?" The screens were pornographic. I thought, "Oh no, we've got a gig to do and they're gonna nick my bass player."

  'They eventually let us go, but I'd borrowed a friend's car for the night and Paul left the screens in the car. The next day the owner rings up saying his wife had found the screens, and he didn't know where the fuck they'd come from.'

  A fortnight later on Guy Fawkes Night The Clash staged their own 'Night of Treason' at the Royal College of Art in Kensington Gore. It would prove a trying time as a section of the crowd were hostile throughout, and expressed their displeasure by pelting the stage with glasses and bottles. The barrage got so bad that Terry was forced to adjust his cymbals. Of course, Mick, Joe, and Paul didn't have the luxury of having cymbals to hide behind and were occasionally called upon to play defensive strokes with their guitars.

  The mood was getting uglier by the minute, and when fighting inevitably broke out in front of the stage it seemed as though The Clash would be forced to abandon the show. However, whilst Mick was pondering whether discretion might indeed be the better part of valour, Sid appeared as if out of nowhere and waded into the mêlée with both fists pumping.

  Following his recent release from Ashford Remand Centre, where he'd spent several weeks supposedly curbing his enthusiasm for mindless violence, the future Sex Pistol was temporarily bedding down at The Clash's rehearsal space and had realigned his loyalties accordingly. Seeing as the heavily outnumbered Sid was defending their honour, Joe and Paul had felt honour bound to down tools and dive in to even up the numbers. Mick, however, chose to remain a passive spectator.

  On returning to the stage once order had been restored Joe and Paul had angrily questioned Mick as to why he hadn't jumped in with them. 'Well, someone's got to keep in tune,' came the reply.

  It was at the ICA show that Stephen 'Roadent' Connelly first entered The Clash's domain; his having recently arrived in London from his native Coventry following his release from Winson Green Prison. 'I couldn't go wasting the few quid I had on a ticket, and so I asked Joe if they needed a hand with their gear,' Roadent explained. 'Then when Joe learnt I didn't have anywhere to sleep that night he immediately offered me a mattress at Rehearsals.'

  While Roadent is undoubtedly splendid company – especially when he's in his cups – there is neither rhyme nor reason behind Joe's show of benevolence other than his perhaps recognising a kindred spirit. For like Joe, Roadent has tried very hard to distance himself from the privileged private education he received courtesy of a state bursary. Indeed, it is only when he is sufficiently lubricated with gin that the 'H's he drops with deafening regularity deftly take their proper place. But as they say, nothing polishes a diamond quite like its own dust.

  Roadent moved into the upstairs space where Paul was already living to share the room's basic amenities – an arrangement which might have proved awkward had it not been for their shared mischievous child-like nature. Indeed, it was Paul who would bestow him his longstanding nickname. He also received a new pair of socks courtesy of The Clash kitty, along with free membership into the group's evergrowing inner-circle.

  Roadent says he and Joe also gelled immediately owing to their shared passion for history and politics – not to mention their fascination for European terrorist groups such as the Red Army Faction, Brigate Rosse [Red Brigade] and the Baader-Meinhof Gang. Mick, however, considered him nothing more than a hired-hand. 'The only one I found it hard to get on with was Mick,' he shrugged matter-of-factly. 'But then, didn't everyone…?'

  Roadent was only just getting acquainted with Terry when he – having grown weary of Bernard's rhetoric, and the constant intergroup politicking – announced his departure. 'I just thought I'm not happy, and what's the point of being here if I'm not happy,' Terry explained. 'I thought Bernie would be happy, but he wasn't. He said, 'Look, you're the foil. Whenever they [Mick, Joe and Paul] come up with something, you say what the man in the street or the press would say, you immediately confront them with the rational argument against what they're saying. If they can get past you, they can get past the world without being shot down in the first minute.'8

  Terry, however, remained unmoved by Bernard's argument, though he did agree to honour The Clash's up-and-coming commitments which included their first proper demo session for Polydor Records at the label's Marble Arch studios.

  Having lost out to EMI in securing the Sex Pistols' signatures, Polydor's A&R head, Chris Parry, had realigned his sights on the next group on the punk pecking order. Much to Mick's chagrin, the producer Bernard chose to oversee the sessions was none other than Guy Stevens.

  'Polydor set us up to do some demo recordings, and Bernie suggested we try working with Guy,' Mick explained. 'We went in and banged out four or five numbers – ('White Riot', 'London's Burning', 'Career Opportunities', 'Janie Jones' and '1977') – which were the first in our live set. I think Guy went to the pub or something and didn't come back, so I don't know how they got finished. 'I was really excited about going into the studio and it was probably overwhelming. I didn't notice anything that was going on in too much detail because I was just getting carried away with it all.'9

  Guy's going AWOL meant Polydor's resident engineer had to step up to the plate, and his having no idea as to who or what The Clash were – coupled with his insistence that Joe enunciate every syllable – left the group understandably unhappy with the finished results.

  * * *

  * The Black Swan subsequently changed its name to The Boardwalk, before closing its doors for the last time in November 2010. (BACK)

  * Pat's brother, Richard 'S
nakehips Dudanski' Nother was the drummer with the 101'ers. (BACK)

  – CHAPTER SIX –

  WHO NEEDS REMOTE CONTROL…?

  'Well as far as The Clash and songs like "White Riot" [are concerned], the thing behind it all was Joe. In that case Joe was the prophet of that, like they talk about "Cheat The Prophet" and G K Chesterton, it's a game people play. They recognise what's happening and imagine it in the future. Well that's it – Joe was the prophet, I just put the music to it.'

  – Mick Jones

  TERRY'S DEPARTURE WAS certainly a blow, but it was far from a knock-down. Having selected a Sussex University attendee called Rob Harper from the pool of hopefuls – which included Paul's younger brother, Nick – The Clash began rehearsing with Harper to put their new drummer through his paces. Time was of the essence as they were set to go out on the road on the impending nineteen-date punkpackage tour that Malcolm had put together in order to promote the Sex Pistols' debut single 'Anarchy In The UK'.

  The Anarchy In The UK Tour was set to commence at the University of East Anglia on Friday, 3 December. Aside from The Clash, the tour's support bill consisted of ex-New York Doll Johnny Thunders' new outfit, The Heartbreakers, and The Damned. The Sex Pistols would be picking up the tab for The Heartbreakers and The Clash, but as The Damned were signed to Stiff Records – the recently incorporated independent label set up by Dave Robinson and Andrew Jakeman, a.k.a Jake Riviera – Malcolm was insistent that they pay their own way.

  In a fit of pique, Riviera said that if The Damned were to be treated differently, then they would travel separately.

  Malcolm's high-handedness towards The Damned was primarily due to an on-going spat with Riviera in the wake of Stiff's releasing 'New Rose', and yet he'd been forced to invite them onto the tour to assuage worries about the Sex Pistols being a big enough draw to fill some of the larger venues on the tour. But of course, any worries he may have had about the Sex Pistols' pulling power were swept asunder by the ensuing tabloid tsunami following their appearance on Thames TV's weekday magazine news programme Today, two days prior to the tour.

  With EMI owning a fifty per cent stake in Thames, the Pistols had been hurriedly drafted in to replace the end-of-show screening of the promo video for Queen's latest single 'Somebody To Love', which couldn't be screened owing to the video not having received clearance by the all-important Musicians' Union*. What should have been an innocuous three-minute interview – during which a clip of the promo video to 'Anarchy In The UK' was screened – to allow the Sex Pistols to plug both the single and the tour, descended into four-letter farce when the show's boorish host Bill Grundy wilfully goaded Steve Jones to 'say something outrageous' on prime-time television.

  The 'Filth & Fury' headlines of the following morning were a marketing man's dream, and transformed the hitherto relatively unknown Sex Pistols into a household name. Yet the ensuing kneejerk reactions from various councils, civic leaders, and educational authorities – shamefully aided and abetted by Fleet Street's moralitymongerers – left the Anarchy Tour's itinerary in ruins.

  'Punk exploded with the Grundy show,' Mick said. 'Then there was the lorry driver who smashed his telly in when the Sex Pistols were on it and the whole thing started to affect us. Loads of dates on the Anarchy Tour were cancelled because of it, but punk was massive by then.'1

  Newcastle's outraged councillors had already slapped a banning order on the Sex Pistols crossing the Tyne by the time Frank Thistlewaite, the vice-chancellor at the University of East Anglia, decided to exceed his authority by overriding the Student Union's protests and cancelling the opening show. The tour party had little choice but to make for Derby, the next stop on the itinerary, but this date fell foul of the local council who tried bringing the naughty Sex Pistols to task by insisting they perform a 'behind-closed-doors' matinee for the town's Leisure Committee.

  The Leisure Committee had said the other bands on the bill could still play regardless of Malcolm's decision over the matinee, but given that he was picking up The Clash and The Heartbreakers' tabs, both acts told the committee where it could shove its offer. Despite there being little love lost between their respective managers, The Damned would have also shown solidarity had they been given the option. However, as they were charting their own course from venue to venue, they were holed up in a B&B on the other side of town unaware of Malcolm's last-minute subterfuge.

  From that point on the tour rapidly descended into pantomimic farce, and despite Malcolm's valiant efforts to find alternate venues, only three of the nineteen dates went ahead as scheduled. Yet while the tour served as the Sex Pistols' tumbrel ride through the streets before being hung out to dry by their corporate paymasters, The Clash came away with plenty of positives. Not only had they played in far-flung places such as Plymouth, Cleethorpes, and Caerphilly, but whilst out on the road the NME had devoted a two-page feature to the group entitled 'Eighteen Flight Rock, and the Sound of the Westway'.

  The paper had also sent their hip young gunslinger Paul Morley out on the road to cover the tour. Though he would describe The Clash's 'high energy surges of arrangements as being surprisingly only a few steps removed from Showaddywaddy', he was suitably impressed with their 'rhythmically strident sound', and signed off proclaiming them to be 'the best rock 'n' roll band in London.'

  With such heady praise ringing in their ears, The Clash returned to London knowing their days of playing second fiddle to the Sex Pistols were over.

  ♪♪♪

  On New Year's Day 1977, The Clash rang the changes with two rhythmically strident performances at London's new premier punk venue, The Roxy. The Covent Garden venue had been staging live shows since mid-December when Tony James' new outfit, Generation X, and Siouxsie and the Banshees had broken in its boards, but the new leaseholder, Andy Czezowski, had designated the opening day of the year as the club's official unveiling.

  Czezowski had initially wanted to give the honour of headlining to the Sex Pistols with The Clash in support, but since returning to London Malcolm had now developed something of a siege mentality where his charges were concerned. The Clash, of course, were more than happy to herald in the New Year as it gave them the perfect platform to launch their sonic assault on the year when the two sevens clashed.

  According to the Jamaican political leader Marcus Garvey, who'd advocated the return of the African Diaspora to their ancestral lands, 1977 was to be the year of great upheaval. The year the Rastafarians would return to Ethiopia, the spiritual homeland where their ancestors had lived before being dragged off to a life of slavery in the colonies.

  Mick must have sensed a portentous whiff in the air as he and Paul had been born the year the two fives had come together, and of course, England had lifted the World Cup eleven years later. So it's ironic that in the opening month of this supposedly apocryphal year when the downtrodden blacks would be symbolically freed, that The Clash signed a recording contract that would enslave them to CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) for the rest of their career and beyond.

  'I don't remember signing anything particularly at CBS – we didn't sign any photos or anything. It seemed to be over so fast,' Mick later reflected. 'I guess Bernie didn't have enough [cash] to organise any stunts to celebrate it, so we went to the pictures.'2

  As with Joe and Paul, Mick had assumed The Clash would be signing with Polydor, seeing as they'd gone so far as recording some demos for the label. But with CBS offering £100,000 compared to Polydor's £40,000, just as he had with the Sex Pistols several months earlier, the hapless Chris Parry would see his prize lured elsewhere by more appetising bait.

  As they sat in the darkened cinema watching Charlton Heston and Henry Fonda heading a star-studded cast in Battle Of Midway, which chronicled the decisive naval battle that proved a turning point in the Pacific theatre during World War II, The Clash could have been forgiven for thinking they'd reached a similar pivotal juncture in their career. Sniffin' Glue's Mark P. wasted little time in accusing The Clash of 'sellin
g out', but it was more a case of them selling their souls because the contract weighed heavily in CBS's favour. Aside from the £100,000 advance having to cover recording costs, hidden away within the legal jargon was an option allowing the label to insist on eight or even ten albums – an option they would exercise in due course. And of course, Bernard, as per his contractual rights, creamed his twenty per cent off the top tax free.

  'It's true that Chris Parry had tabled an offer for £40,000, but I wasn't gonna turn down £100,000, was I?' Bernard shrugged. 'Obie [Maurice Oberstein, CBS' CEO] wasn't all that interested in punk, except for the dollars he could add to the balance sheet. I was on my to CBS' offices in Soho Square when I bumped into Malcolm. I knew he was keen to find another label for the Pistols so I invited him to come along. Obie said he'd give us £100,000 to set up our own label and CBS would distribute the records.

  'Malcolm said he was interested and that he wanted time to think about it, but as soon as we got outside he changed his tune and said he wasn't going to be held to ransom by CBS. He then asked if he could borrow a fiver for a cab back to the King's Road. I thought, "How can you turn down £100,000 and then ask for a fiver?" But that was Malcolm. I gave him the fiver, went back in to see Obie to explain the situation, and he said I could have the £100,000 for The Clash.'