updated 16 January 2017 - page started
updated 27 Dec 2018 - minor additions

No recording in circulation

None - though one may exist according to Kris Needs in his Clash tome, Joe Strummer and the Leged of the Clash. Needs accurate descriptions of the tracks are very (too) precise and detailed.

Terry leaves, Rob Harper comes in on drums

Terry Chimes had left the band. Unconvinced by the politics, and increasingly put off by the growing amount of violence around the scene he had announced his decision to quit, his last gig just four days earlier at the Nags Head on the 18th.

The Clash had advertised and audiotioned '50 drummers' including one Jon Moss who would go on to trade on the fact that he had been 'a drummer for the Clash'.

Fed up with with his claims, Paul reviewing the singles for Sounds (25th June 1977) dismissed Moss when reviewing his single.

In desperation, Harper was invited back for a second audition and put the kit but he needed to learn the songs ahead of the Anarchy Tour. Lanchester Polytechnic was a warm up gig for the tour .

Harper finally perusaded the band to allow him to record a session so he could play along and learn the songs.

Rehearsals at Harlesden Colisuem

When I spoke with Rob from Subway Sect yesterday he said the Clash only played Harlesden once - in early 1977. They rehearsed there for the Anarchy Tour. Vincent

PIstols, Clash rehearsing at Roxy, Harlesden

Book: England's Dreaming
By Jon Savage

Link

Page 257 onwards [Anarchy Tour]
On the evening of 1 December the Sex Pistols got a break. An EMI group, Queen, pulled out of an appearance on the local London evening TV show, Thames’ Today, presented by Bill Grundy. Eric Hall suggested the Sex Pistols as a substitute and had them accepted by researcher Lyndall Hobbs. McLaren wasn’t sure: the group were rehearsing hard on a stage at the Roxy cinema in Harlesden and the Heartbreakers were flying in from America at that very moment, but when Hall arranged an EMI limousine, McLaren agreed.

Rob Harper interview [Extracts]

Interview 9: Rob Harper - Part 1 (October 2017): Original U.K. Subs drummer and The Clash's 1976 'Anarchy Tour' drummer

UK Subs / Time and Matter

Online

ROB: Well, regarding The Clash and the Subs... I did audition for The Clash in late 1976. I 'passed the audition' and played drums with them on the 'Anarchy Tour', along with the Sex Pistols et al, and also at the Roxy in Covent Garden at the very beginning of '77.

My recollections of the Anarchy Tour are many, various, disjointed and probably blurred by the mists of time... however:  the first I knew that anything had gone wrong was when I read the headlines on other peoples' papers on the underground on the way to rendezvous with the tour on its first day... by the time I got there I already had a pretty good idea that cancellations were likely!

MC: No 'cash from chaos' you could say!

ROB: Well it was interesting to me, having just been studying sociology at university, to see a moral panic in full swing... the papers portraying the whole Sex Pistols/punk thing as far more lurid and decadent than it really was - behind the scenes, the band members and even the managers were decent people, if a bit left-field... I was disappointed that the tour was mostly cancelled, but it was still a great experience to watch the various machinations from the inside - although I was far from being an 'insider' - watching Malcolm McClaren turn the publicity to his advantage, and to participate in a few trailblazing gigs..

MC: And some of the characters you met along the way...

ROB: At the Manchester venue, in the afternoon of the soundcheck, Johnny Thunders was informed that the president of the New York Dolls fan club - or appreciation society, whatever - had turned up and wanted to speak to him... JT murmured to those of us nearby that he hated this sort of thing and found it awkward and embarrassing... he spoke to the long-haired, shambling, great-coated, head-bowed fellow and signed something or other for him... you couldn't possibly have known that in short order this bloke would be well-known as The Smiths singer. Amazing...

MC: Yes, amazing indeed, especially when you could argue that another Johnny; Lydon and Steven Patrick Morrissey were two of the most revered and influential singers and lyricists for the decade 76 to 86!

ROB: At the same venue, I think it was the Electric Lady?

MC: Electric Circus in Manchester... (19 December 1976 - ed!)

ROB: ... yes there! On the other occasion we played there, again at soundcheck time, I was alone in the spacious Victorian toilets, rinsing my hands, when I heard the sound of someone throwing up in one of the cubicles... then Johnny Rotten appears from the cubicle, and is shocked to see me.... "you won't tell anyone about this, will you? I have to drink so much honey and warm water coz of my voice that it sometimes makes me sick!" I muttered something sympathetic and promised to say nothing... and here I am reneging on that promise decades later... I didn't have any proper conversations with JR but in the few brief exchanges we did have, and from watching him around the tour, he was a genuinely nice guy...

I do recall one particularly - in retrospect - funny occasion when Lydon, who obviously likes to study people and suss them out, came up to me away from everyone else, and actually asked... "'Why do you go to bed so early?'

On another occasion, backstage at Plymouth while I was waiting (alone) to go on with The Clash, he confided that "you lot are really hard to follow, you know..."  I said "yeah, I know", but if anybody could better them, it was him... I mean it... I saw lots of soundchecks and lots of performances, and the Pistols were fucking brilliant, overwhelmingly new and powerful - as were The Clash, in their different way - but JR's presence dominated everything, including even Joe Strummer's awesome onstage charisma and authority...

JOE STRUMMER AND THE LEGEND OF THE CLASH
Unconvinced by the politics, Terry Chimes announced he was leaving

Page 60
While the record labels were hesitating to offer the band a deal, Terry Chimes announced he was leaving. Unconvinced by the politics, and increasingly put off by the growing amount of violence around the scene, Terry agreed to fill in until a replacement could be found. As it happened, the drumming position wouldn't have a permanent incumbent until the arrival of Topper Headon the following year. In the meantime, The Clash tried out a guy called Rob Harper with Terry periodically reappearing up until March.

PASSION IS A FASHION
Harper described the Clash frontline as being like 'three Eddie Cochrans' after Lacy Lady gig

Page 127
Whatever Mick's worries. The Clash were poised to take their message to the nation. In the last week of November, The Clash began rehearsing with their new drummer, Rob Harper-Milne (then calling himself Rob Harper). A friend of Billy Idol's from Sussex University, Harper had seen the group at Ilford: he described the impact of their frontline as being like 'three Eddie Cochrans'. He had replied to the advert for a drummer the group had placed in the Melody Maker.

RETURN OF THE LAST GANG IN TOWN
Rob Harper was persuaded back for a second audition

Page 171
Panic by now having begun to set in among members of the Clash camp, Terry Chimes suddenly found he was no longer being given the cold shoulder. ‘After they auditioned 50 or so, and couldn’t find anyone they liked, they changed to a reconciliatory mood,’ he laughs. ‘Bernie in particular kept on and on and on telling me I was making a mistake. He couldn’t understand how anyone could walk out on what he saw as his masterplan taking shape.’ Nevertheless, Terry remained adamant that he was going to quit. So Rob Harper was persuaded back for a second audition, and Mick Jones’s charm was turned full on. ‘Mick said, “Look, this is going to be a classic rock’n’roll tour. Why don’t you come on it and see what you think? We need you.” And that was the final arrangement.’ He might have let himself be talked around, but Rob was under no illusions about the situation. “You mustn’t think that Mick was mad keen that I was the drummer for them: it was more a matter of expediency, because they had to have somebody.’

Rehearsals began immediately. ‘Very thorough. Turn up every day at 11 or 12 and run through the set a couple of times,’ says Rob. He never got to play “How Can I Understand The Flies’, abandoned at this point either because it no longer fitted in with the rest of the material, or because its drum pattern was more suited to Terry’s clipped style than Rob’s more fluid, Keith Moon-style assault. Also dropped was ‘Deadly Serious’, though it would resurface the following year in the guise of ‘Capital Radio’. The repertoire for the tour initially numbered 11 songs, which Rob listed — along with self-addressed tips and reminders — in the front of the diary he kept for the duration of his time with the Clash: ‘1977’, ‘Protex Blue’, ‘48 Hours’, ‘What’s My Name’, ‘Janie Jones’, ‘I’m So Bored With The USA’, ‘White Riot’, ‘London’s Burning’, ‘Career Opportunities’, ‘Deny’ and encore “1-2 Crush On You’.

In order to help him learn his parts, Rob asked if he could record one of the early rehearsals. Already concerned with maintaining as tight a grip on their public image as possible, the Clash initially refused permission, but in view of the limited number of rehearsal opportunities remaining, reluctantly gave way. The tape is fascinating, catching the Clash with their guard down at this, the most self-conscious and studied period of their career. Rob insists they were ‘just slopping through the material’, explaining why there is only occasional evidence of his characteristically fluid, vigorous style, ‘Janie Jones’ misses Terry’s crisp staccato, and ‘1977’ sounds particularly lifeless. Joe’s guitar was down to two strings on this day, and funds did not appear to be available for replacements, so he concentrated on singing. Or rather, he just sang: the evidence suggests that his concentration was somewhat lacking. Most of the time, he cannot remember all the words, and in the case of “Protex Blue’, usually sung by Mick, he cannot remember any. Conversely, ‘I’m So Bored With The USA’ and ‘What’s My Name’ are indecipherable because Joe had not yet written full lyrics for the songs. Although the tape catches him in loose rehearsal mode, a tendency for him to mess up the words during bona fide performances was to remain a feature of Clash gigs.

On Monday 29 November, the Clash supported the Sex Pistols at Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry. To all intents and purposes, the bands were using it as a warm- up gig for the Anarchy Tour, due to open that Friday, 3 December. Instead of taking the opportunity to let Rob break himself in for live work, however, the Clash asked Terry to play what was supposed to be one last farewell gig. The students proved far more deadly serious than the Clash even at their most intense. Not only was ‘White Riot’ misinterpreted, but also the Sex Pistols’ new song ‘No Future’ (later to be re-titled ‘God Save The Queen’): an emergency committee meeting decided both were fascist. “They didn’t want to pay us,’ says Terry. Thus, he left in the middle of a fraught situation that was, if nothing else, at least typical of his time with the Clash.

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Photo

Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer of The Clash at a Chalk Farm rehearsal studio in December 1976.