Manchester Evening News - Friday 24 November 1978

TONY JASPER 

FRIDAY POP EVENING 
- The Clash seen in Manchester this week 
- The Clash and them whether they talk politics just to package their product 
- Friday November 1978 Various colours RAY KING looks at the local scene 

Jilted John

Replay Hartman. The Telephone Blond Travolta. THAT unlikely chartbuster Jilted John the daft lad who lost his love to Gordon the Moron on one of the year’s strangest hits is spearheading a bid to win Manchester a bigger slice the recording business 

For the Manchester student currently hard at work just off Deansgate in the city centre cutting True Love Stories for EMI International album follow-up to his debut single success. In doing so he is carrying with him the the Arrow Recording Studios in Jackson’s Row for a major breakthrough the music business. In an industry where nothing succeeds like success a big seller would make the Arrow name practically overnight Jilted John's sessions in the studio follow those punk poet John Cooper Clarke whose Disguise Love on the CBS label was cut at Arrow and now bubbling just under album chart And that band of pop mimics the Barron Knights laid down several the tracks on their album Night Gallery aimed squarely at the Christmas market the Manchester studios.

Arrow was born out of a merger earlier this year with Indigo which operated its pop and commercials business in nearby Gartside Street and the new set up under the umbrella Greendow (MPS) Ltd. Boss Gerry Dow arrived in Manchester 10 years ago as a film editor and since has set up a mini Wardour Street in the city developing biggest film postproduction house the North Now ambition is to repeat that success in sound wooing away business that has traditionally gone London Co-incidenta. My at the same time 1968 that Dow came to Manchester young musician called Eric Stewart was making the initial moves that were to develop Into now firmly established Strawberry Studios miles down the road at Stockport the first major studio outside London. Aiming for the same sort of success Dow gutted the old Arrow refurbished it with an array of advanced recording gear including the first computerised 24 - track mixing desk in the North. The suite also provides facilities for artists and musicians to relax and a special lift enables vans containing group’s equipment to be 'hoisted.

Clash appeared at the Manchester Apollo

A such a surprising store studio level on the first floor From the new studios to the New Wave and two major album releases from the movement’s leading exponents: Clash appeared at the Manchester Apollo this week and X-Ray Spex who there next Wednesday night.

I wonder what Joe Strummer and the lads -the band who shunned Top the Pops as being inappropriate to their style make of the instant commercial success their album Them Enough Rope (CBS) which has rocketed to number two in the charts. Raw vocals Despite those who claimed the New Wave died when the Clash sold out to a big record company the band still sound pretty angry to me. Tracks like Tommy Gun the English Civil War and the Guns on the Roof are hardly middle of the road. And they are delivered with raw vocals over screeching guitars crashing drums and wailing brass which as often as not make the messages indecipherable. Perhaps The Clash don't particlarly care anyway.

Personally I prefer wit to weaponry and wit and parody are there in plenty Spex’s excellent album Germ-Free Adolescents (EMI) the title track of which has made the top as a single release Poly Styrene's invention and observation of the contemporary throw-away world makes the band’s debut LP worth waiting for.

X-Ray Spex

It features Spex’s two previous EMI singles tl3 amazing The Day The World Turned Dayglo and Identity both of which made the charts.

In addition it showcases tracks illustrating the direction the band’s music and Poly’s writing are likely to take in the future from Art-I-Ficial to the remarkable Plastic Bag With four singles from the film Grease already hits veteran heart-throb Frankie Avalon bids to make the score five with Beauty School Dropout (Mercury) but may find the going harder than Mr Travolta.

That versatile English actor-singer David Essex turns composer producer and arranger too on his new single Goodbye First Love (Mercury).

It’s a complete contrast to his last two hits but his ballad should succeed too Sally Oldfield also takes all the credits on her melodic composition Mirrors (Bronze) one of the best produced singles for some time With enough airplay this could make the 20 Finally I thought I'd heard it all with Mecco’s disco version of the Wizard Of Oz which I reviewed last week I was wrong Try to avoid the disco Dr Who by Mankind on Pinnacle If were a Dalek I’d exterminate exterminate.

The banned band.

THE Clash may only white faces adorning famous Jamaican producer Perry’s Wall Fame because made musical sense with reggae song Police And Thieves which Perry had co-authored produced for Junior Murvin outside of that tribute there are precious few from any quarter save from their fans.

The Clash have built their massive following among music addicts of vaguely New' Wave persuasion stirring up the creditable ingredients of behaving obnoxiously spitting out facile political diatribe and trying to shock. For all that they write some songs and provide sound to get the adrenalin flowing. They are an exciting act even if unfortunately misguided.

The Clash enjoy the dubious honour of being banned from countless towns. This wonderful feat achieves precisely nothing other than preventing their loyalist followers from both seeing and hearing the band. In recent the Clash have have played only venues where there are no seats Even they have found it both boring and financially disturbing paying repair bills Change though is afoot.

Well not exactly the recorded front if he latest album Give Enough Rope is the evidence That displays the ingredient I’ve mentioned but bass man Paul Simonon told me a few days ago "Well we have got fed up with the problems which seem to follow us. It’s becoming crucial things get sorted out. We have to see eye to eye with the people around us. I suppose us getting banned really leaves the kids in lurch because then they’ve got nowhere to go”. He felt criticisms amounted to sour grapes. "You get up to the top and some people want you hack again”.

When I sarcastically remarked that at least a great man of their lyrics couldn’t he heard because of the sound balance he replied. "It’s a lot Hearer these days. There’s improvement, the LP. When we started we sounded awful that’s past”