Mick Jones: Stayin' In Tune - The Unauthorised Biography

by Mick O'Shea

  Another eye-opener for the new boy, was that while Kosmo had gone to great lengths bigging up The Clash's supposed 'gang mentality', while Joe and Paul did indeed spend most evenings socialising together with their respective partners, Gabby and Pearl*, Mick was nowhere to be seen. Mick had never been much of a drinker anyway, and much preferred staying home and smoking dope with his own circle of friends. He was also still playing 'getting to know you' with his new girlfriend Daisy Lawrence, and so an evening down the pub swapping war stories with the guys with whom you've spent the last six years living in and out of each other's pockets came in a very poor third.

  The fundamental problem facing The Clash was that Mick was keen to embrace new technology whereas Joe and Paul appeared content to keep reinventing the wheel. Indeed, their relationship had disintegrated to the point where Joe had taken to posting lyrics through Mick's door rather than deal with him face-to-face.

  Another niggling gripe causing unrest was that Mick had recently hired New York attorney Elliot Hoffman to oversee his interests. In hindsight, this doesn't seem unreasonable given that The Clash were finally making some real money – especially given that a sizeable chunk of the $500,000 from their appearance at the Us Festival was still forthcoming, owing to IRS' complicated tax procedures with moneys leaving the US. Bernard, however, took this as a personal sleight, and his mood wasn't improved when Mick subsequently refused to sign his copy of the managerial contract he'd had drawn up until his lawyer had cast an eye over it.

  Again, in retrospect, this doesn't seem an excessive request seeing as Hoffman could have withdrawn his services had Mick signed the contract without first seeking his expertise. Joe and Paul, however, were now way beyond such rationale, and with Bernard playing devil's advocate there was only likely to be one outcome…

  ♪♪♪

  Those closest to The Clash had been hearing rumours for several weeks, but it wasn't until Saturday, 1 September that the rumours were confirmed via a 'Clash Communiqué' from Bernard and Kosmo stating that Mick had been sacked owing to his having 'drifted apart from the original idea of The Clash'. The missive ended by saying that Mick's departure would 'allow Joe and Paul to get on with the job that The Clash set out to do from the beginning.'

  It wasn't until the announcement appeared in the NME's 10 September issue that the world at large first learned of the latest power play, or of Mick's response to his being sacked. Via a CBS press release, Mick challenged The Clash communiqué by saying how there had been 'no discussion with Strummer and Simonon prior to his sacking,' and that nor did he feel that he'd 'drifted apart from the original idea of The Clash' as Joe and Paul claimed. He brought his own communiqué to a close by saying he would be 'carrying on with the same dedication as in the beginning.'

  Mick's sacking would have Clash fans the world over poring over the lyrics to 'Should I Stay Or Should I go?' looking for subliminal hints as to Mick's state of mind in regard to his position in The Clash. But while he was probably already harbouring doubts about the group's long-term future, it's a matter of record that the song was a lament to his then failing relationship with Ellen Foley.

  Mick was quite correct in saying there hadn't been any discussion with him prior to his sacking, but there had been plenty of debate during his continued absence, as Paul revealed to Mojo in 1999: 'Me and Joe had been talking about it, and it got to the point where I said, "We're grown men, I can't take any more of this", and Joe agreed. We were both in agreement that we were fed up, we wanted to get on with the job, rather than waiting around for Mick.'

  When reaffirming his and Joe's position at the time of Mick's sacking in The Clash, Paul elaborated on what he'd meant by their 'getting on with the job' by saying he'd thought The Clash should carry on touring because the transatlantic success of Combat Rock saw them on the verge of making a serious dent on the music charts, while Mick supposedly wanted to stay at home.

  In the same tome, Mick admits to being 'surprised they put up with me as long as they did, really,' but such musings, of course, came long after bridges had been rebuilt.

  Back in 1984, it was a different tale entirely, and whilst venting his spleen to the NME, Joe claimed that he'd practically had to beg Mick to play guitar, and that trying to get him to do anything was 'like dragging a dead dog around on a piece of string.' The final insult, however, came with Mick supposedly saying that he didn't care what The Clash did as long as he could run it past his lawyer first.

  An incensed Joe supposedly told Mick to 'piss off, and write songs with your lawyer.' What he should have done, of course, is stop to consider that Mick's diva demeanour was down to nurture rather than nature. After all, aside from a few father/son outings, Mick's upbringing – as he revealed during the Sabotage Times interview – was overseen by a 'completely matriarchal society'; one that pampered his every whim. Indeed, the first 'adult' male to exert any influence on Mick's development was Guy Stevens, who was only twelve years older, and far from what one might describe as a role model.

  His being sacked from Violent Luck on account of his perceived lack of musicianship would prove instrumental in affecting his state of mind when putting The Clash together. Because by co-writing, arranging, and subsequently producing he – in his mind at least – pretty much made himself indispensable… Or gave him 'the best seat in the house' as he subsequently put it to Lisa Robinson in 1986.

  Mick is the first to admit that he lacked self-control during this period, but Joe and Paul were equally culpable for meekly acquiescing to his Elizabeth Taylor-esque whims instead of yelling 'cut' and demanding a retake. If Joe had stood up to Mick on occasion there would have been no need to bring Bernard back in from the cold – especially when he knew better than anyone that Mick and Bernard were cut from the same uncompromising cloth.

  Bernard is first and foremost an ideas man, which is the only reason he agreed to manage London SS in the first place. If he'd have thought for a heartbeat that Mick wanted London SS to become the next Rolling Stones he'd have ripped the 'What Side Of The Bed…' T-shirt from Mick's back that night at the Nashville.

  As Don Letts says in his highly-informative 2007 autobiography, Culture Clash, it was Bernard's knowledge of the underground cultures that had gone before The Clash that gave them added depth. 'They [The Clash] could see the tradition that they were following,' he explained. 'They made music as a way of communicating ideas as a protest thing, rather than just having an agenda of making music to just sell records.'

  Conversely, of course, no matter how much The Clash tried to adhere to Bernard's underground culture credo, while eschewing said agenda of making music simply to sell records, such was the brilliance of the music that it was inevitable they would by assimilated into the mainstream.

  It was Bernard who also set The Clash on their personal-political path by steering them away from Mick's paeans to teenage lust and getting them to write about what was affecting their lives. However, while such sagacious advice worked when penning the songs that made up the track-listing on The Clash, and possibly Give 'Em Enough Rope, by the time of London Calling their songwriting had inevitably come to encompass their on-the-road experiences, as did the more pertinent material on Sandinista!, but it could be argued that Combat Rock was a soundtrack-in-waiting should Francis Ford Coppola decide to direct Apocalypse Now II: Travis Bickle Gets Drafted.

  It's even questionable whether London Calling or Sandinista! would have seen the light of day – at least in their existing formats – had Bernard remained in charge of The Clash's affairs throughout. However, just because he called it right in suggesting bringing in Glynn Johns to jettison the Rat Patrol ragas didn't mean he was interested in making The Clash commercially viable second time around.

  If making money for The Clash was all Bernard had been interested in he would surely never have agreed to their signing their lives away on the CBS' £100,000 contract back in 1977.

  Like Robert Johnson, The Clash had reached a crossroads. However, whereas
Johnson supposedly traded his immortal soul in return for some juicy Johnny B. Goode licks, The Clash had simply reached the critical juncture that all successful bands inevitably reach where they were going through the motions. 'We all knew that we were just doing it for the money,' Mick admitted in 1985. 'We couldn't face each other. In rehearsals we'd all look at the floor. It was the worst.'8

  It certainly was, because CBS were chomping at the bit to get The Clash back into the studio to capitalise on the success of Combat Rock. When reflecting on the events leading up to his dismissal in 2004, Mick revealed how Bernard had taken him to a nearby pub to sound out what sort of records he wanted to make. When Mick said he wanted to make 'rock 'n' roll records, Bernard suggested The Clash 'play like New Orleans guys.'9

  Mick thought the notion as crazy as it was constricting, but while the idea of The Clash trying to play like New Orleans bluesmen may seem strange, it's worth remembering that Joe was desperate for The Clash to return to basics and Bernard had been schooled in the story of the blues by the American servicemen calling on the Soho street prostitutes that looked after him while his mother worked eighteenhour days on Savile Row. 'They (the lovelorn G.I.s) introduced me to the music of Muddy Waters, Lead Belly, Bukka White, Howlin' Wolf, and all the other blues greats,' he explained. 'There isn't a note or riff out there that I can't identify.'

  Joe might have shared Mick's scepticism about The Clash playing Bourbon Street blues, but only because with Topper gone Mick was the only one in the group capable of laying down a Louisiana groove. With the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to see Joe was stuck in what might be euphemistically termed 'two-man's land'. On the one hand he desperately wanted The Clash to be successful, yet at the same time he was a squathouse rocker at heart who was happy staying a dollar ahead.

  But The Clash, of course, were no longer a garageband, and while they still rehearsed in garageland-esque Camden Town, they'd reached the rarefied air where they could command six-figure sums for a show. For some time now The Clash's critics had accused them of being 'professional rebels', but while such snipings wounded Joe deeply it was so much expended ammo to Mick, as he'd always been more chaise lounge than Che Guevara.

  The musical impasse had been reached simply because Combat Rock had raised the bar far beyond anyone's expectation. Yet while Mick was championing new technology – such as the Roland guitar synthesiser – he didn't necessarily want to make a New York dance album. Joe and Paul probably didn't want a rehash of The Clash, but their reluctance to follow Mick's lead, coupled with Mick's abhorrence at the thought of The Clash returning to their punk rock roots, left little or no room for manoeuvring.

  ♪♪♪

  No one would have been surprised had Mick retreated from public view in the wake of his sacking, but rather than mope about licking his wounds he kept himself active by manning the mixing desk at several Sigue Sigue Sputnik shows in a show of public support for Tony James' outlandish new cyberpunk outfit. He also accepted an invitation from ex-Beat duo, Dave Wakelin and Ranking Roger, to play guitar with their new project, General Public.

  It's always been something of contentious bone amongst Clash fans as to whether Mick was a bona fide member of General Public. Although he's listed in the credits on their 1984 debut album, Tenderness, and did indeed play guitar on other tracks such as 'Where's the Line,' 'Never You Done That', and 'Hot You're Cool', he was busying himself formulating ideas for a new musical venture of his own long before the album was released.

  'Well, we did a bit of a barter deal,' Wakelin said of Mick's contribution in a 2009 interview. 'He had left The Clash and was starting Big Audio Dynamite, and he said to me that he had a load of lyrics, but he liked the way I played with the vocal melodies, and if he gave me a cassette of instrumentals, would I do some la-la-la and humming and ideas for melodies? And he would fit his lyrics around those, if they fit.'

  It was whilst the two were working on melodies to suit Mick's lyrics that Dave mentioned where he and Roger were at with General Public, and asked if Mick would be willing to play on some of the songs they'd written. 'So we gave him the songs as they were demos and let him get a feel for them,' Dave explained in the same interview. 'We asked about rehearsals and that, but he was a very intuitive player, and he said, "No, I've got an idea of the songs now. Wait 'till you've got a finished song that's begging for a lead guitar part, and I'll just come down. I'm not precious about it. I'll just play loads of things and you tell me what fits and throw away the rest."'

  However, things weren't quite so harmonious once they went into the studio, owing to Roger's fondness for hearing his own voice, as Dave revealed. 'I wouldn't say he (Roger) was a control freak, but he had a very particular opinion about everything. So Mick Jones would be starting to play something, and Roger would be on the intercom straight away, "Uh, Mick, could you try something like…" And I could see Mick start to get frustrated, y'know? I let it go on about two or three times, and then I thought, "Oh, no, this could spoil stuff." So, eventually, Roger went to push the intercom button, and I grabbed his hand, and I said, "Here's an idea, Roger: why don't you let the best guitarist in the world play what he wants? And if, at the end of the night, you still don't think you've got what you need, then come up with a suggestion. But as you can't actually play the guitar, why not shut up?" And there was a tense little moment, but he let Mick Jones do his thing, thank God!'

  Someone who was privy to Mick's immediate post-Clash activities was Kris Needs. Knowing how much The Clash had meant to Mick, Kris had called expecting to find himself offering a supporting shoulder, but was relieved to find his friend bursting with optimism for the future. Though thrilled to discover that Mick was busy sounding out musicians such as ex-Basement 5 bassist and former Roxy barman, Leo 'E-Zee Kill' Williams, and one time Theatre Of Hate saxophonist John 'Boy' Lennard, for his new venture – tentatively called 'Total Risk Action Company' – Kriss felt near compelled to ask why Mick wasn't looking to have his name in lights by taking the solo career option?

  'The best way to travel, without a doubt, is with a group of you because you have each other to share the experience,' Mick explained. 'It's much more fun. I don't know what it's like but a solo artist can't have as much fun as a band. You don't get to reach that point that you do with a band, or get to that point that we [The Clash] got to with the bands that we were inspired by. The Clash catered to the imagination and made people think, "Wow," what you can possibly do.'10

  The 'wow' factor in regard to Mick's new musical venture was that when TRAC headed into a Notting Hill studio in November to record a clutch of new songs such as Hiroshima', 'Interaction', 'Napoleon Of Notting Hill', and 'The Bottom Line' (a reworking of 'Trans Cash Free Pay One', with lyrics provided by Robin Crocker), they did so with Topper Headon in the line-up.

  It could be argued that Mick's extending a helping hand to Topper was a way of assuaging himself of the guilt he felt for not being more voluble in his support for Topper at the time of his dismissal from The Clash, but from a musical perspective, it made perfect sense seeing as Topper had been wholly in tune with what Mick had envisioned for Combat Rock regardless of his near-permanent drug fug.

  Mick was so keen to have Topper at his side again that he paid for his friend to undergo the electro-acupuncture cure that had helped Keith Richards to get himself clean. And this was certainly no flamboyant gesture on Mick's part as money was in short supply owing to his having instructed his lawyer Elliot Hoffman to initiate proceedings whereby all Clash earnings up to the date of his dismissal were frozen, pending mediation.

  The news of Topper and Mick working together again certainly caused a stir over in Camden Town where Joe and Paul were busy putting new Clash recruits Nick Sheppard and Vince White through their paces. When responding to The Clash Communiqué announcing his sacking Mick had refuted the claim that he'd 'drifted apart from the original idea of The Clash', and now that he'd been reunited with Topper he was in a position to challenge Joe and Paul's right t
o the group name. So much so, that when the post-Jones Clash flew out to California in the January, Mick reportedly telephoned Bill Graham to say he was promoting the wrong outfit and that he would be bringing the real Clash to America.

  Alas, the prospect of Mick and Topper working together again was consigned to the 'what-might-have-been' pile owing to the latter's failure to give up needles after the acupuncture treatment.

  It's unlikely that Mick had been serious about putting an alternate version of The Clash together, but Topper's self-perpetuating slide into oblivion certainly put paid to the idea. In hindsight, Topper's departure proved something of a godsend because it allowed Mick to focus on recruiting open-minded musicians who shared his vision for fusing elements of hip-hop with some Jones-esque jangly guitar to formulate his idea of what The Clash could have been, rather than put together a group obsessed with doing a better version of 'Rock The Casbah' on stage.

  To do this, however, was going to require a sizeable influx of cash because the equipment he had in mind for his new venture wasn't to be found in Tin Pan Alley. With this in mind, he instructed Elliot Hoffman to shelve his claim to the Clash name to free up the royalties.