Goteborg 80 fanzine Funtime #13 (1980) .
It's covering the gig in Gothenburg 1980.

So finally it was time for the Clash to play in Göteborg (Gotenburgh) and at Scandinavium of all places... London Calling has made the Clash unbelieveably big in Sweden, it's a record everybody seems to love except some punk nostalgics. A few days before the Swedish tour 400 upset punks in Hamburg were shouting that The Clash had broken their punk ideals. In Gotenburgh the punks are not that extreme but some had the opinion before the gig that the gig would be bad as the Clash don't sound today as they did on their first album. What these punks haven't understood is that if the Clash had not developed in their music they wouldn't been here today. The Clash are the only original punk band that still exist today.

The Gotenburgh gig was very good, much better than the gig before in Lund. No one should have been disappointed except those who thought the gig would sound like the London Calling album. At a Clash gig today it's shown that the biggest influence on the band nowadays is reggae. They use dub which confuses the reviewers on the daily newspapers in Gotenburg as they haven't heard dub before, they thought that the echo used in the reggae numbers was due to bad acoustics in the arena!

They guys who did the fanzine did get an interview with Joe in the dressing room, the interview should then have continued at the hotel but at the hotel it was more beer drinking than an interview! But these questions was asked in the dressingroom.

Int.(Mats) - Why hasn't Bankrobber been released in the U.K? Joe - CBS and their MD (Maurice Oberstein) doesn't think it's commercial enough for release in England but we will do anything we can to get it released and we are used to winning against CBS. Int - Is it the lyrics or the music CBS don't like? Joe - It's the music, reggae is not accepted at major record labels 'cos it doesn't sell. The only possibility to get reagge to sell is to mix it with ordinary pop like the Police. Also Mr Oberstein hates reggae. Int - Bankrobber has been produced by Micky Dread, how did you get in contact with him? Joe - By coincidence we found out that he was in England and that he was unemployed at the moment. He's one of the best reggae producers and has made some fantastic dub records. We asked him if he wanted to produce us and he said yes, we felt very honoured. Int - After Bankrobber he does a toast version of the song... Joe - It was he's own idea, he lives up to "Dread at the controls" as the results hav been superb. Int - Was Mikey's toast made as a b-side? Joe - No it was meant to be included at a disco mix record. We had plans for a new song as the b-side but due to the CBS troubles it wasn't included.

Int - Are there any black people at your gigs? Joe - Hardly any maybe some black punks. Our reggae is not appreciated by black people, many people just listen to Jamaican reggae. Even black British reggae bands like Steele Pulse have been criticised for mixing their reggae with other music styles. We play reggae because we love this music and hope to get people interested in real reggae music, it's better if people listen to black reggae music than our version of it.

The Clash really love reggae music and it seems like they don't listen to anything else. Everywhere they went, Paul Simonon was walking around with a tape recorder and played dub reggae.

Int - Have you made any gigs with reggae bands? Joe - No it doesn't work with "mixed gigs" it will just get confrontations by black & whites, a lot of skinheads would just go there just to fight. Black people mainly go to "all black gigs" which is natural as is such a big divide between black and white people in the U.K at the moment. Every city in Britain has there own ghetto where the black people are put together and are being discriminated against in different ways such as no jobs, bad education etc. The racial discrimination is getting worse, just look what happened in Bristol a while ago. Int. - How can you reduce racial discrimination? Joe - If you get white people to understand and like music by black people you have gone a long way. I like the ska movement , that music was invented by black people. Hopefully the ska people will get into reggae soon. Int - So reggae has a future in England? Joe - Absolutely, within two years many will use dub on their records and there will be a reggae record on top of the US chart (ha,ha)and the big record labels will release reggae records.

Int - Didn't you help Mickey Dread to get a record out in England? Joe - It's our manager Kozmo Vinyl who helped Mickey's "Rockers Delight”  7" to get distribution, hopefully there will be more records released on the "Dread at the Controls" label. So if it works there will be some great reggae records released in the British record market soon.

Said Joe Strummer who was in a happy mood after a great gig in Gotenburgh a gig that showed that the Clash still has a lot to offer.    Story by Mats J. Photos Lars Sundestrand