Rockerilla Magazine
No50 – Oct 84

Joe Strummer for the Neapolitans is not Maradona.

No wonder then to learn the news that Joe, for three days, before the start of the Italian tour in September, wandered through the Neapolitan streets together with some local 'scooterboys', with whom the leader of the Clash had promptly made friends.

However, Strummer's stay in Naples did not go completely unnoticed, his Mohican allowed many fans to identify him, perhaps in the alleys of the Toledo, or at the entrance of a museum, in front of
to the astonished looks of the keepers.

This Strummer who lets himself be led by 'guaglioni' in reconnaissance around the city, to see 'where they live, where they go to have fun, what are the problems to find a job, or even to find a girl' may seem like the usual Strummer, yet it is not so, he has changed the vet, and with him the Clash.

Simonon, enigmatic, always struggling with his bass (every Clash concert further reveals his skills to us) seems to want to help Joe on stage, but he doesn't like it, he doesn't like much and moves little, White and Sheppard are certainly more integrated into the group when we saw them for the first time at the concerts in Milan, Howard is an excellent drummer, ...

This Are the New Clash!

These are the new Clash, the ones who will enter the recording studio to record "something profoundly different from what was heard in concert," something that surprises, makes you scream with wonder. Maybe it will be pop, at least in part. And you will like it too to women" (!!!)

Sex, style and subversion are the new words / slogans of these new Clash, and the concert seems interesting to us.

Gender: Lovers rock and Janie Jones, to put it briefly. "

At Janie Jones's deposit (the real one, the one recently released from jail) Joe Strummer seems very disappointed with the work done for '' The House of Ju-Ju Queen ", or rather he claims it was just a demotape, nothing more.

Style: Style for the Clash is fascination.

The rebellious look is once again very neat, but the Clash style is elsewhere. Style as a means of defeating Thatcher but also of making fun of the Labor Party.

Subversion: to all those who continue to accuse them of being traitors to the 'just crusade punk', Strummer responds very well.

Remember the money invested by the Clash in the D.B.C., "a good radio", remember how the police put the seals on part of the equipment and seized the other part, remember that the London ether is more fascist and monopoly than that of Paris or New York.

Then, to those who, as usual, ask him how he manages to make the ideology of '' m So Bored With the USA "coincide with the great success in those parts, he replies: 'Christ descended between f and prostitutes, he did not stay in the temple because he blamed them, but he went among them. He was not afraid of getting contaminated. So we sing about being pissed at the United States, and why shouldn't we sing it to the American kids? ""

On the subject of subversion there is also a response to the famous phrase by Mark Perry, who stated that “punk died when the Clash signed for. CBS ": Joe Strummer of an indie, of simple alternativism seems to really not want to hear about it, CBS perhaps now gives him the required space, perhaps like any self-respecting rock star, he prefers concreteness (that of dollars, the evil ones will add ) to idealistic sophisms.

His answer, however, is this: "I set up an indie type record label and then one day I get a call from a Manchester shop that wants 10 copies of the Clash record and I'm looking for someone who can bring me 10 copies to Manchester. am I going to get the records to Texas or Australia? " (Dear Joe Strummer, have you ever heard of independent distributors like Rough Trade, The Cartel, Red Rhino, just to name three British organizations? Where do you live? N.d.d.) "My job is to play the guitar, to make records, not to sell them. You journalists ... are your newspapers manuscripts or do you use the printing house? And should I be there to work out how to get ten copies to Manchester when I can do otherwise? ".

This seems like a much more concrete Joe Strummer, perhaps because he is away from the cameras (it seems that the latter immediately transform him from a rocker into a TV variety actor!), Who talks about politics, Reagan, Fidel Castro and Ho Chi Minh (among others ).

He discusses pop music with ease, he doesn't argue much with electropops, it seems. not disturbed by the presence © on the market of AMHarem Girl, mini Ip of the Souk Brothers perhaps a parody of Rock the Casbah, he considers the political attempts carried out by the C.N.D. or by the women of Greenham Common, because "The war is now everywhere, it is in us"

But is he still that kid from 'Garageland'?

Yes, or at least so it seems to me.

Today she is also a rock star, perhaps at a crossroads in his career, but Joe Strummer is still ready to show you how the punk revolution has changed his life, and ultimately ours too. Joe, who is a rock star, but who does not seem to behave as such, he is not a shriveled mummy, he does not want to keep himself at the top of the charts at any cost, he does not churn out a record a year like the P.I.L. do now, he changes, he evolves , and with him the Clash.

Some previously unreleased songs, which I had the opportunity to listen to live on three or four occasions (each concert is a different set: this means r'n ° 'r for the Clash)' We Are the Clash ”and 'Are You Ready for the War ”are convincing anthems, which seem to indicate a return to the roots, as even the less convincing at first listen, but equally well constructed, This is England, 3 Card Trick and The Dictator suggest.

It's not like it used to be, London Calling and Sandinista are far away, even more Topper Headon and dear Mick Jones, but probably these new Clash will still be loved. Because, like Marlowe in one of Raymond Chandler's many writings, 'If they weren't tough, they wouldn't be alive. If they couldn't be sweet, they wouldn't deserve to be alive ",
They are the Clash!

FEDERICO VACALEBRE