Paul Morley from the NME

Clash Take The Fifth

WHEN The Clash is in Chicago there's enough people there to suggest America is waking up, even if the band still fall the wrong side of novelty for a lot of them. A lady journalist asks sweaty. Joe Strummer what advice he Would give Americans to improve themselves, "Eat less" he replies. There's a lot of on6 line pokes to the gut on this tour.

The Clash's first date, in Minneapolis, was, reported the Minneapolis Star "hardly transcendental".

"What's transcendental mean" wonders Paul Simonon. Mick Jones isn't too sure. They needn't worry. The Clash Take The Fifth' tour thus far has shown new songs and new energy. New Clash songs, Strummer explains to the lady journalist, are a long way from early Clash songs. "Those old songs are great and we still do them but we have moved on'

Clash in Minneapolis was a split-around-the-edges, breaking-amps, Strummer-biting-Simonon-in-frustration, non-stop, a-little-unfit, angry-at-everything-and-nothing show. Clash in Chicago was a harder, louder, Simonon-singing, Jones-with-an-acoustic-guitar,leaving-the-stage-patting-each-other's backshow.

The Chicago audience was great, the band decide, and The Undertones, opening on this Clash tour before American revivalists such as'Samand Dave, Bo Diddley, and David Johansen. went down just.as well.

Radio, which dictates the country's tedium, is pretty smutty in Chicago. A celebrity DJ who was set to interview Mick Jones on the biggest local station blew it out because he'd had a hard night snorting coke and bedding a girl. Mick Jones couldn't believe it. "To think I shook his hand and was dead nice to him." "You Slut", digs a passing Kosmo Vinyl. Later Mick Jones told the DJ exactly what he thought of him as David Johansen crawled to the guy. Clash crawl only so much.

Chicago's night clubs are many fold. The club called Hueys has Minneapolis group The Girls on. Four Walters to Clash's Denis The Menace. At one o'clock they're playing their first set of random weak electronic twisted pop to about 75 enthusiasts. The second set will be about 3 o'clock.

Buzzcocks fell foul of this routine when they played their Chicago gig at Mother's. They went on around midnight, ending their crude and unenjoyable set about 50 minutes later, and had to leave the club ultra swiftly. The Gang Of Four, drunk in seperate corners of the club, just groaned and laughed at the fleeing superstars.

After The Girls at Hueys a visit to Neo, which will stay open till dawn. They play the sort of records you'd love to hear at a gig or club in Britain but never do. You want to dance to Clash, Und3rtones, Madness, Specials, M, Magazine, Orchestral Manoeuvres, Joy Division, Sham 69, Sex Pistols, in Chicago? Well you can. You won't hear much 'new home grown Chicago music.

People will drive 500 miles from Kansas to Chicago to see The Buzzcocks and Clash. There's plenty of people hidden away in America who want to ..hear what we'want to hear. Slowly the balance is tipping over and the current flood of British groups in the country is doing a hell of a lot to help it.

So what else? Mick Jones had been shaking alot of hands, Johp Maher has been drinking alot of.Pernod, The Gang Of Four have been doing a lot of driving ancKorgetting about politics. Topper Headon has been drinking a lot ofBeer, The Undertones have been taking a lot of pictures, the Blockheads' Mickey Gallagher will be playing keyboards in New York and also on their third LP which just needs mixing, Paul Simonon has had to go to hospital for a check up on his back because he can hardly move. The best tomato juice I ever tasted was in Detroit. Been moaning a lot.

PAULMORLEY