THE CLASH TURN PRO (SORT OF)

PETE SILVERTON reports from the deepest mid-west as they finally find American success (and hookers in the dressing room)

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SOUNDS
September 29, 1979

TUESDAY LUNCHTIME: Cleveland Airport.
With a couple of hours to kill before my one-stop-only flight to Minneapolis and the first date on the Clash's second American tour (bewilderingly named 'The Clash Take The Fifth'), I dragged out the Corona Calypso, balanced it sloppily on a tubular chrome ashtray (everything's bigger and shinier at Cleveland Airport), and started attacking the keys. Unfortunately, this attracted the attention of a perambulating mahogany tree.

"Hey, you, man, whaddya doin', man? I was gonna buy myself a fuckin' Remington, man. That's the best fuckin' typewriter in the world, man. And it only cost a hundred bucks."

The giant interloper paused to fiddle with his oversized shoulder bag before adding somewhat perplexingly: "But I never did get it ’cos my apartment got burgled… Hey, man, what are you?"

"A journalist."

He wandered off to allow this piece of information time to find his brain and then eased his three hundred and fifty pounds onto the blue vinyl upholstery right slap next to my right ear.

"You're a German, huh?"

I chose to ignore this Pinteresque reply.

"Which part of Germany?"

Remembering what my mother told me about talking to strange black men in airport lounges, I kept my lips tightly clamped on my Kent.

"Hey, man, you some kind of fuckin' communist?" This last word was spat from his gullet like he thought he was just about to choke on his gum. "I fuckin' hate communists, man." (This from a man who looks like he drew a five, a seven, and a three in the Great American poker game.)

"I fuckin' wish I could fuckin' kill you, you motherfucker. If I had a gun on me right now, I'd blow your fuckin' head away, you goddamn motherfucker."

He drifted away.

America is a foreign country. They do things differently there.

TUESDAY TEATIME: A Minneapolis hotel room.
Having just left Paul Simonon in the nineteenth-floor bar with a brace of double Brandy Alexanders and his girlfriend Debbie (who he introduced to me with the words, “This is Debbie, she takes photographs”), I’m sitting in Room 511.

Kosmo Vinyl and his yellow-blond-with-black-roots hair is sitting at the coffee table. I’m perched by the window. One of Ian Dury’s managers, Andrew King, is lounging on a bed talking into the phone.

Both Kosmo and I remain conspicuously silent.

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Although we can only hear one end of the conversation, it’s obviously one of those phone calls that are awarded the respect normally reserved for the dead. With half the information trapped in the confines of a long-distance line, little of it makes much sense. I do, however, pick up on a couple of phrases: “Get out in the marketplace” and “shift some units.”

The Clash turn pro in the depths of the American heartland, indeed.

Being a naturally inquisitive sort, I wonder exactly why Ian Dury’s PR and manager are sitting in an American hotel room dealing with Clash business. It’s explained to me that this is one of those most modern of relationships: a trial marriage.

The Clash, although still connected to Bernard Rhodes by law and contract, are technically without management. At home in England, they’d taken turns—one week Mike would carry the attaché case, the next week Joe would get the honor. But, on the road in America, they desperately needed someone to take care of the business.

And, after all, Andrew King did have the necessary experience of American backwaters—he’d seen ’em all handling Ian Dury’s failed attempt to interest the Yanks by supporting Lou Reed.

And so the Clash, Kosmo Vinyl, Andrew King, and his partner, Pete Jenner, are all currently huddled together under the church porch, trying to make up their minds and waiting for the priest to arrive.

By the time this is all clear, Kosmo is beginning to enjoy himself. “So I asked him if he’d got a copy of the new album (the new album, for the purposes of this article, refers to The Clash You Ess of Ay style) an’ ’e said ’e ’adn’t… ooooh, is there gonna be some fun at Epic tomorrow. I’ll get right on the blower and they’ll get a bloody vice president down there.”

Relations with Epic, their American record label, are, I quickly discover, far from conjugal.

(Not that the Clash ever bitched to me about Epic. They learned that lesson long ago. Blabbing off to the press about what is essentially a family affair can make you look like the silly, whining children of the relationship. They didn’t even moan in public about CBS England insisting on a £1.49 cover price for The Cost of Living EP when they wanted to keep it down to a quid!)

I don’t know for certain why they’re not exactly cuddling up under a nuptial blanket with Epic, but I’d hazard a guess that it’s not because Epic don’t think they’re worth it, can’t see their effort being returned in hard currency, but precisely because Epic figure (ha, ha) they stand a more than fair chance of using the Clash to buoy up their books as their profits slide nearer and nearer the red column and the total of Indians they’ve sacked starts pushing past treble figures.

Figure it this way. Having originally decided not to release the debut album, Epic were taken aback by the relative success of Give ’Em Enough Rope (which they did put out), the following tour of North America, and, perhaps most tellingly, the overwhelming critical acclaim for the band, writ largest in Rolling Stone and Village Voice, respectively the Bible and the Koran of the American music consumer press as it’s viewed by the American record industry. (Being suggested as an escape valve for the fear and frustration engendered by China invading Vietnam might seem a touch hyperbolic to English ears; to an American record company it quite likely seems understated.)

So, after putting out the debut album (which has already set a record by selling 100,000 on import) to keep the band and the potential audience sweet, Epic reckon that the third album (which only needs to be mixed at the end of this tour) could maybe be the big one for these boys, elephant dollar time. But, if that’s to work out to Epic’s advantage, they need a degree of control over the band they’ve so far been unable to gain. Even without management, the Clash have retained their independence (of sorts—they still needed tour support for this swing through North America).

Accordingly, the label put the bite on the band, saying no to this, maybe (if you do this) to that, and generally making life not easy for a band on the road. That way, if Epic play a careful game, by third album time, they hope the Clash’ll be doing it their way. Add Kosmo Vinyl and Andrew King to this mess of divergent ambitions, and you have the perfect recipe for tension between a band and their record company.

This, you understand, is all supposition, but I was told by one of the Clash’s two American tour managers that if Billy Gaff (Rod Stewart’s manager, who was once rumoured to be taking over the Clash) was in charge, he would be getting everything they wanted out of Epic with ease.

As we cross the fledgling Mississippi, the journey takes a good half hour. As we arrive, we are greeted by an illuminated sign outside the St. Paul Civic Centre promising the Clash tomorrow and Abba next week, and the four Clash bouncing around the stage in mufti.

TUESDAY EVENING: St. Paul Civic Centre.
We’d been told to be ready to leave for the rehearsal around six-thirty—the following day’s show was to be the first gig of the tour proper. The only previous date had been an open-air show in Monterey. We finally left around ten. The journey from the safe Minneapolis home of the Sheraton hotel along a dark and drizzly freeway to St. Paul took a good half hour.

Paul, as always in a peaked cap and black, was swinging his bass like he was building a railroad. Mick, in a trilby, white vest, and black pegged pants—Bruce Springsteen’s obviously big in the Jones book this year. Topper was behind his kit, and Joe was in a green shirt, shouting down at me:

"’Ow long you been ’ere?"

"Since last Friday."

"Oh, I thought you’d been here for ages. You’ve got fat."

Retreating in shame to the back of the hall that Peter Frampton couldn’t fill the week before, I joined Andrew King, who was dancing along to Paul Simonon’s first song, Guns of Brixton, which featured him and Joe switching instruments—Paul on the 240 Volts Killer Telecaster and Joe on the Pressure bass. It’s a moody, dub-like nonentity, which doesn’t improve with subsequent listenings.

Really, it’s like a sideshow to the main action, which is Mick running the show from the center of the stage. It’s him who’s arguing with the roadies, chivvying the sound guys, and deciding which song they’re gonna run through next.

Now they’ve got someone running the road show, Mick’s free to concentrate on the music while Joe messes around with the presentation, getting Johnny Green, the band’s ‘personal,’ to shine a torch up into his face as a dramatic addition to their new reggae cover version, Armagideon Time.

A few more runs through new songs like (The Police Walked in on) Jimmy Jazz, an R&B number with a heavy debt to Staggerlee, and London Calling, which is a bridging link between the histrionics of the past and the more measured pacing of the present.

On past midnight, when the union crew for the whole hall switches on to treble time, I fall asleep and get woken by a bottle of beer over my head courtesy of Topper.

The band return to the hotel and their girlfriends—only Mick didn’t bring his beloved; she’s on tour with The Slits.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON: Dressing room.
"See what I did was put the jacket carefully in the case so when I took it out there were no creases," Topper’s girlfriend Dee says. She’s in a multi-colored spotty suit, Gabba’s blonde-haired finest in a more functional drab boiler suit and boots.

"Mum ironed all my stuff before I left," replies Mick.

Back in the hall, the American sound mixer, Tommy, who’s identifying the band by means of the cartoons from the Sounds Christmas Clash game taped to the desk, announces:

"The hall union has requested we break for lunch."

Bemused by the crew politics, the union men tell another non-union guy, "Didja ever see such prices? Christ."

WEDNESDAY EVENING: Show time.
The Clash kick off with I’m So Bored with the U.S.A., as the Stars and Stripes beams down on them from the center of the backdrop, butted right up against the red, white, and green of Italy.

All in black, apart from Topper’s white shirt and collar points aiming for the sky, they’re running around the stage Clash-wise as Mick "testifies about Brixton" on Stay Free and starts to take chances with his solos on Complete Control—longer, freer, less structured, and, for once, not a carbon copy of the recorded version.

Joe reaches for the mic and starts blurting:

"I come over here and I switch the radio and all I hear are the Eagles and Steely Dan, so I turn it to a country and western station."

The crowd boos. Country and western is not the coolest thing in the world to a Clash fan who doesn’t know that, in Monterey, they brought Joe Ely on for the encore to do his I Keep My Fingernails Long So They Click When I Play the Piano.

The gig starts to disintegrate as Joe’s guitar refuses to work, leaving him skanking guitarless in front of the mic, sticking alternate hands in his pockets, and wailing through The Prisoner.

As the crowd wildly applauds White Man, Joe tells them:

"It’s no good. It’s a pile of shit." And later: "You gotta say, ‘Fuck off, you Limeys.’"

THURSDAY: The bus to Chicago.
Minneapolis to Chicago. Seven hours on a bus with one short stop. The tinted windows make it almost impossible to see, but the comforts of the bus make it seem more like a vibrating hotel room than a means of transportation.

By squeezing against a window and squinting, you can see out:

"Holiday Inn 41 miles. Exit 53 North."

We pull up by the Chicago Downtown Holiday Inn three hours later than scheduled. Everything except going onstage seems to happen three hours late on this tour.

Johnny Green rushes out and grabs me.

"Have you got your credit card? They insist on either full payment in advance or a credit card, and we haven’t got either. Just stroll in there looking like you’re the manager. I’ll take that bottle of Jack Daniels off you and give ’em the card."

FRIDAY NIGHT: Aragon Ballroom.
On this summer's tour of the States, Rod Stewart played the Uptown Theatre in Chicago. It holds four thousand. The Clash played the Aragon, which holds six thousand, and drew maybe four thousand to their first gig in the city.

The Aragon looks like the architect couldn't make up his mind on which style to copy… so he used them all. It's got a little bit of Mexican, a touch of Inca, some Spanish, and an entrance hall that looks like a catacomb.

An old ballroom that once played host to the likes of Glenn Miller and Count Basie, it's got history, the Lawrence 4800N 1200W "El" running right up its side, level with the stage, a warm feeling, and lousy acoustics. Topper sounds like he's the Scots Guards. And the Coldstream Guards.

Supporting them this night (as well as The Undertones, who are on all of the first half of the tour and got two encores in Chicago) was the mighty lumberjack himself, Uncle Bo Diddley, in his element and his hometown. With his computer-assisted guitar and primal rhythms, he's the point where the jungle and the research lab walk and talk hand in hand. And he plays the drone guitar to beat all drone guitars.

Holding "USA" back for the second number, The Clash opened with that R&B song "Jimmy Jazz." Most of the audience stared hard at the stage, trying to work out if they'd turned up on the right night, but by the end of "USA," you could tell Mick was enjoying it—he did a giant leap in the air for the final chord.

Already by this second date, the band are beginning to work out a new choreography—Joe advancing to the front of the stage during the subdued section of "Complete Control," and all of them retreating to the back of the stage in "I Fought the Law," which the audience interprets as drama, and I reckon is maybe, "We can't hear the drums."

Joe: "This is an American song. I want you to put your hands on your heart like this…"
Mick straps on a blond Ovation acoustic guitar. "When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah tra-la, he's coming by bus or underground…"

The acoustic has everyone confused, but the crowd still applaud convincingly. Having survived this test and wading through Paul's song, they push on through to the end of the set on at least five out of the six cylinders. The shouting, screaming, dancing, cheering, and lighted matches (lighted matches? Who do they think this is, Bob Dylan?) make it clear that if The Clash want to take America, it's theirs to take.

September 29, 1979 – SOUNDS Page 23

Amidst the Epic execs and fans in the dressing room are two bovine women looking very out of place in halter tops, fishnet tights, hot pants, garters, gloves, and very heavy eye-shadow. They look like ten-bucks-for-a-blowjob hookers and the least likely people you can imagine in a Clash dressing room. Later I'm told that they were brought by a local dee-jay as a little (refused) present for the band. I realize America is obviously ready to shower its fruits on The Clash.

SATURDAY AFTERNOON: Air Canada 727, smoking section, window seat.
I leaf through a copy of People Magazine, the one with the 'Music Biz Blues' cover story. A flighty, unthought-out, and soft piece on the recession in the American record business, one line caught my eye:

"Most of the major record companies have fired at least fifty employees. At CBS Records, where the body count was 172, victims took to wearing t-shirts reading THE CRASH OF '79.'"

How long before Epic alters that R to an L?

St Paul Civic Auditorium, Minneapolis, was a huge concrete barn, with an artificial floor which allowed it to be used as an ice rink. The stage moved on wheels towards the back of the hall, depending on how many seats had been sold. I said to the stage manager, ‘That’s a lot of empty seats.’ He said, ‘Not as many as for Abba.’ ‘I bet that was a great night.’ He just looked blank. Abba were touring America at the same time but our paths never crossed, to my disappointment.

New heads and fresh hearts waited for us. The Undertones joined us for the first chunk of the tour. We liked their music and loved their attitude. One day we walked past a journalist interviewing Feargal Sharkey, and overheard, ‘I’m not English and I’m proud of it.’ Joe zoomed straight in on that and talked to him about Irish republicanism and terrorism. He was always keen to find out the details from the man on the street on the spot.

The American sound crew awaited us, looking like they were ready to go to bed. Their gear looked as though it had come from a flea market. They were a bunch of burnt-out hippies. As I put my fags on the monitor desk on the first night I was astonished to see the soundman with hair to his waist, reading a book. He was wearing headphones – not plugged into the music but unplugged to block out the noise. We crossed from the dressing room to the stage, which seemed like a five-minute jog, and Joe said, grinning, ‘Are you sure Hank done it this way?’

The set was OK, but the best sound was probably way up in the roof. ‘Good night’ echoed round the stadium. As the Clash bounced off-stage, Strummer grabbed me.

The candelabra. Quick. Now.’ I knew what he meant. In the dressing room he had spotted a huge candelabra. Liberace must have left it behind, with all twenty candles intact. I sprinted across, grabbed it and ran back to where the band were slugging a quick drink behind the stage. Joe said, ‘Zippo,’ and he lit the candles. With the stage lights down, the band eased into the gloom, and started the chords of ‘Armagideon Time’. I guided Joe as he crept behind the drum riser, candelabra in hand. It looked loads better than a bunch of weedy lighters held above heads in a crowd.

After the encore Mick said, ‘That was brilliant, just brilliant – improvised theatre. Keep that. We’ll keep that in the set.’ I put the candelabra straight in the flight case, but the manager copped me. ‘I’ll have that back.’ Mick said, ‘Pay him. Buy it.’ And I pointed the manager to our man with the calculator.

Sharing photos from that show, local record retailer John Kass remembers meeting the Clash "in the parking lot of Sun Ray Shopping Center on the east side of St Paul. They had stopped to buy liquor and groceries on their way to Chicago, and I just happened to be next door applying for a job at J.C. Penny."

While the Clash sparked a movement in the UK, they didn't make it big in the US until 1982 when "Combat Rock" sold more than 500,000 copies. The Clash returned to the Civic Center that very year to 8,300 attendees (including Bob Dylan) and more lukewarm (at best) reviews in the local news — this time followed by a defiant reader rebuttal published a couple days later. "The Clash's stage performance was outstanding," the reader wrote," Maybe your reviewer could have asked a few fans whether they enjoyed the concert."

One fan who did was The Current's Bill DeVille. "It was fantastic," he remembers. "It blew my mind. They were my favorite band at the time, by far. Went to Ragstock to get some new duds for the show. Went with all my buddies. We drove to St. Paul...it was a big night.

DeVille remembers a crowd that was "very receptive, very enthusiastic. It was electric." He continues:

I still remember getting there, in line really early. It was festival seating, and I remember thinking back to that concert that happened a few years earlier by the Who where people died. I thought when they opened the door the same sort of thing was going to happen, because people bum-rushed as soon as they opened the doors.

The local band Shangoya, who were kind of a reggae/ska band around here, took the stage, and once they started playing there was a lot of pushing and shoving going on. This friend of mine ended up falling down, and he literally had to grab the tails of my shirt to pull himself back up again. Some people were actually jumping on stage. It was just insane.

Then, once the show started, I forgot about all of the nightmares. I had lost both of my shoes; I was barefoot. It was just insane. It was a big night, and one that I'll certainly never forget. As far as concerts, it's probably my strongest memory of a show that I have.

In May 1984

In May 1984, struggling to regain momentum in the wake of an onstage scuffle at the US Festival and the firing of guitarist Mick Jones, the Clash played their last show in St. Paul to a little over half the size of the audience at the band's '82 show. Bream wrote, "the teenage guys had come in their combat fatigues and the gals in their Flashdance fashions to vent some energy and witness (for the first time for many of them) a legendary name in rock history. However," he continues, "many of these young concert-goers found a legend that had lost its luster."

Just two years later the band dissolved, ahead of their time to the end. "They're not Top 10 material," a fan told the Star Tribune in 1979, "They're loud, fast, and simple. They're not a cerebral experience."

Lydia Moran is a music and arts writer in Minneapolis.  

The Clash – The Hand of Ray Lowry

To give an insight into my dads' creative technique on the tour I shall pass you over. The ghost of my father visits:

" One of my drawings from Toronto bears the caption ' Done when drunk again. This is shit ' The modus operandi was to do quick sketches backstage or down in the audience and work them up with coloured inks back in various hotel rooms late into the night, whilst drunk. This cannot be faulted as a young man's working method. Except that I was a decade older than most everyone else on the road. Whiskers Green being about half a decade behind me, so far. The 25th found us in Montreal at the Orpheum Theatre where the stage was invaded when Joe stormed into " White Riot ". Just like the far off days in England. A distant memory by now " . - Ray Lowry 

Taken from Ray's 1979 tour sketchbooks  | Outer dimension - 24" x 17.5 approx | Art Dimension - 18" x  12.5" approx | Giclée print | Hahnemühle German Etching | 310gsm | 

The Clash - Topper - Soundcheck (he bangs the drums) - Limited Edition – The Hand of Ray Lowry

The Hand of Ray Lowry
The Clash - Topper - Soundcheck (he bangs the drums) - Limited Edition Print (1 of 79)

★★★★★

 5.0 2 - Regular price, Ј200.00

Colourful ink | The beat of the band | Black, blue, pink and orange make up this powerful piece, capturing Topper Headon doing what he does the best. This image exudes the ferocity and energy he brought to the kit, captured beautifully on a day of soundchecks in the USA back in September '79' |

" After intense rehearsals and sound - checking through the 11th September, the band played the biggest event I'd witnessed them handle thus far. The Yankee audience were noisily anticipatory and The Clash didn't disappoint them. The crowds of well wishers I spoke to after the Minneapolis shows were largely rapturous in their praise and boisterous admiration. Another win for the boys supported this time by The Undertones. Feargal to audience " I'm not English and I'm proud of it ". Cheers. " - Ray Lowry

Taken from an original page from Rays 1979 tour sketch book of The Clash  | Outer dimension - 16.5 x 23.4" | Art Dimension - 11.5" x 15.5"  approx | Giclée print | Hahnemühle German Etching | 310gsm |