Cleef City Rockers

Source: SOUNDS, June 13, 1987, Page 15

Cleef City Rockers

From the walkways of London's Westway to the wide open spaces of America's Wild West, JOE STRUMMER has successfully made the transition from Clash city rocker to vagabond movie actor. In this Scanners Special, JAMES BROWN speaks to him about his new found role and his lingering regrets about the old one. Windswept shots PETER ANDERSON.

JOE STRUMMER gets off his horse and drinks his milk *

"It dawned on me The Clash were becoming a parody of our former selves so I decided to quit. It probably would have been better to quit two years earlier."

The sun burns its way down over the Spanish horizon. An empty beer bottle slips from a hand, down a leg, and through a rust-worn hole in the chassis of a long since roadworthy Spanish Dodge.

Joe Strummer wipes warm sand from his lips. Behind him Dick Rude, the bald, shotgun-wielding deep-throated punk from Repo Man lies crumpled around his own bottle.

When the strenuous 18 hours of sunlight that illuminates the filming of Alex Cox's Straight To Hell comes to an end the pair retire to the front and back seats of the old car and wait for the fireball to return.

It's their club house, a place to sit and keep the flies and The Pogues away whilst waiting for the next shoot.

The next shoot finds Strummer and his snarling bad-mouthed companions heads down in a table top city of beer glasses and wine bottles. Most are dirty, some are broken, but all are empty; which is as good an insight into the film's characters as any.

Dennis Hopper walks into the bar with Grace Jones and sells Strummer's banditos some machine guns, two Pogues amble up, scowl, spit on the saloon door and walk away. The characters shout at each other. It's the sort of stupid, aggressive, over-acted scene that makes Straight To Hell Alex Cox's funniest film to date.

Built around the fusion of the traditional light-tipped spaghetti style and Cox's personal sense of the ridiculous, the film is a hotbed of violence, car chases, lust, greed, and drought. A trio of hit men, who couldn't hit anything, and a pregnant woman, who never stops whining, run their brand new Metro into that ubiquitous cowboy valley of dusty beer, big hats, and small square banks.

Dragging their gold to Death City, or whatever the hell Cox calls his fistful of sunbaked stables, the black-suited criminals meet up with the maniac local coffee addicts The McMahon Family (The Pogues), party with them, and then laugh and drink a lot whilst six by six in true snot-spittin' style everybody kills each other.

The film is littered with historical inconsistencies and ludicrous jokes; hand machine guns and pick-up trucks replace the more traditional means of killing and the whole script reeks of irreverent lunacy that is the heart of its appeal. Mexican messenger boys speak in Yorkshire accents, a hotdog seller gets pistol-whipped every time someone crosses the square, and Michele Winstanley gives the film beauty just by being there.

Straight To Hell has character and it may be surprising but the grade A acting passes.

Joe Strummer has worked with Alex Cox before, writing the score for Sid 'n' Nancy-having beaten the attempts of numerous respected music faces including Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, The Ramones-but how did he end up playing a major role in Straight To Hell?

"Me and Dick Rude and Tom Richmond the cameraman were staggering round Cannes with terrible hangovers and we all were wearing black suits and filthy white shirts, and were really smelly.

"Cox had the idea that we looked like a trio of useless hit men. Too incompetent to even pull a job off and that sort of fired his imagination and I became a bar room joke; we'd be walking down a street saying, 'Yeah then they could do this and then they could do that.' And I thought it'd just stay there on the bar room floor like most bar room ideas but Dick Rude and him went back to L.A. and in three days they hammered a script out. In a week they had a million dollars, and in two weeks we were on a plane out to Spain."

"Straight To Hell was a laugh, like a holiday. I don't think I'm supposed to say that but it was. It wasn't sloppy but it was hard not to party. It's quite an enjoyable film if you go along not expecting anything that advances Western civilisation."

You don't say much in the film.

"Legend has it that when Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef made the first of those spaghetti westerns they both had yards of script so Cleef went back to the hotel and if he had eleven lines he'd cross ten of them out. So they got to his bit and he just stood there snarled and delivered one sharp line straight. Deadpan.

"The first day this happened it threw Eastwood off so he went back to the hotel and did the same thing, so in the end neither of them were actually saying much at all. We liked it like that. Just to say one thing. It's more like real life, people often just say one thing and you pick up what they're talking about. They don't launch into great long speeches."

"Also it was easy to learn."

When Alex Cox sees someone onstage like yourself or Shane, do you think he visualises a character occupying a role?

"Yeah, he gets into the cartoonery of it because we are like cartoons of ourselves really. I was watching Shane in Dublin and he's quite a caricature of himself. Another thing Cox does is write parts for people: he knows so many actors and people that he writes specific parts for specific people."

Did your role in The Clash ever get to the stage where it was just an act?

"The time that I felt that was August '84 and that's when I knocked it on the head. It dawned on me that we were becoming a parody of our former selves so I decided to quit. It probably would have been better to quit two years earlier."

There was a lot of humour in Clash songs but on the whole they were serious. Do you think that's one of the reasons why you've enjoyed working on a comic film so much?

"Yeah, it's like a break. Maybe it's the right time to be stupid. I keep thinking, 'When am I going to get another band together?' But the pomposity and seriousness of it all at the moment puts me off. I did start thinking, How can I put something together that is... stupid, that doesn't take itself seriously, that's a laugh to go and see? Like The Beastie Boys, I think it's the time to get stupid because everything's getting pretty grim. I'd like to do something lively, it seems like there's life in humour."

"I'm not saying let's escape from everything but... 1987 maybe it's just the right time to be a little irreverent."

"Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I've been away too long but I was in Dublin Airport this afternoon and I walked in the duty-free shop and it suddenly struck me that there was all this stuff, fancy boxes of cheese and chocolate, whiskey, perfume, masses of the stuff. And in Nicaragua there's nothing. The shops are really dark little places with a few strange, gnarled bottles on the shelves. They've got their basics, they've got rum or beer, beef or fish, rice and beans, and that's about it. Which I quite like. I like simple stuff but when I came back here it seemed like Easy Street."

"I tell you if you brought the Nicaraguans to a British supermarket they'd freak right out."

You've been filming with Alex Cox on his next movie Walker. What was it like in Nicaragua considering there's a war going on?

cleef city rockers FROM PAGE 15

"Also I think the art of performance has been lost. Frank Murray, the manager of The Pogues, told me he took the band into the studio and told the engineer he was going to record them all at the one time and the engineer was baffled. He was used to wiring everything up individually and couldn't comprehend a whole group just stood there waiting to go one, two, three, BANG!

"Something happens when you play all together, you adjust to each other constantly and that's where the feel comes from. You build up a rapport between a guitar, a drum and a bass player. You hit a treble and slide a finger, pull a note there, scream one back, then thrust one. All those little things going on in the background that make a great record. There's no risk today, all the machines are designed to eliminate risk. You make a f** up and it's play back, correct it and march on. It's just boring.*

"I got to the Dublin television studios where I'm supposed to be playing just with Terry Woods, The Pogues' mandolin player, and all the band were there banging drums and they turned to me and said, Can't we all play the song together? I hadn't been in that situation, fronting a band, for three years and I started beating it out and it was great. I haven't got the restraint to be a gentle finger picker. I'm too crude.

"I don't get a kick out of pressing some cold keyboard and making a sound come out, I like the flesh and bone of a guitar, the way it hurts a bit when you pull the strings down. It's all quite direct, and I don't think that will ever die, it's too exciting."

Strummer is moving on gracefully. He tells me the most important thing he learned from his years in The Clash is that "there's no point going forward if you can't maintain your self-respect. There's just no point getting to the top if on the way you become completely hollow, and you do. You lose touch with reality and become completely obsessed with yourself."

I tell him I think Alex Cox is overrated and that he's just a punk Walt Disney and Strummer starts baying this hoarse throaty laugh. He struggles to agree with me through it, but is rocking his head back and forth bellowing out this infectious laugh.

Whilst he's doing so he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a well-kept colour photograph. A hard-boiled skull is covered in dirty straggling strands of hair, a full black beard fills an open collar, a moustache runs amok over an upper lip. The man looks like Fagin with crabs. A snarl of Lee Van Cleef proportions crucifies his mush. Joe Strummer is unrecognisable.

"That's what I look like in Walker," he says and then starts back into his brilliant happy laugh.

Straight To Hell and Walker and Alex Cox are Joe Strummer's club house, a place to retire to after eight years hard and gutsy rocking. A place to sit and observe a wayward society career by keeping the flies away, waiting for the next shoot.

FORMER Clash partners Mick Jones and Joe Strummer have startled friends—and amused rivals—by claiming to be one of th world's greatest songwriting teams.

"I like the idea of me and Joe being the new Rodgers and Hart," warbles Jones, who recently made up with Strummer after an acrimonious split. "There are no great songwriting partnerships nowadays. I suppose there's Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox—then there's us!"

The world may hear the results of the pair's collaboration quite soon. "Joe and I have written a song called Beyond The Pale that I think is like Rodgers and Hart," says Jones. "It's the biography of my great-grandfather."

Clash hits include London Calling, Bank Robber and Should I Stay Or Should I Go/Straight To Hell? Rodgers and Hart wrote Moonlight And Roses, Blue Moon and My Funny Valentine. Spot the similarities?

POINT BLANK

Letters

Edited by Karen Dolan

Pope Joe

I enjoyed and agreed with John Leland's review of Joe Strummer's latest effort and the update on the Clash/Big Audio Dynamite soap opera (Singles, November). Jones and Strummer are no longer Sandinistas, they are Contras. I don't know why I should be surprised. Dylan found God. Jerry Rubin found Wall Street. Eldridge Cleaver became a conservative ordained minister. It is sad that one of the most influential bands of the '70s and '80s has lost touch with where they came from and the people who are still stuck there.

I'm sick and tired of listening to Joe Strummer pontificate his ex-user-gone-straight morality about why I shouldn't smoke pot. Where were they for Live Aid? Where were they for Amnesty International? Where were they for Artists Against Apartheid?

Eric Rife
San Diego, CA

MUSIC — Page 14 - March 26, 1987
Music Magaazine in the Tampa, Florida area.Iinterview

Photo: From left: Dan Donovan, Don Letts, Mick Jones, Leo "E-Zee Kill" Williams, Greg Roberts.

BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE

Mick Jones Justifies His B.A.D. Attitude by Ken Hall

In 1984, guitarist Mick Jones was unceremoniously "thrown out" of England's premier punk group, The Clash. A polite press release indicated that the sack was brought about by the "usual" musical differences, and because Jones had "drifted apart from the original idea of The Clash." Bitter statements later emanated from the Clash camp accusing Jones of selling out, wanting to be a rock star, (a Cardinal punk sin), and wanting to go commercial, (the ultimate punk sin). As often as not, it was Jones' good buddy, Joe Strummer, behind those verbal barbs.

Ultimately, Mick formed Big Audio Dynamite as a decidedly uncoordinated venture. And who should show up at the studio to assist in writing and producing the second B.A.D. album but his old Clash mate Joe Strummer.

MICK JONES ON JOE STRUMMER:

"He came to see me and we sort of built up our friendship again. Co-producing is basically just having someone you respect to kick the idea about with."

None other than mud-slinging Joe, whose patched up Clash released only the dismal Cut The Crap album before disbanding.

B.A.D. has been more fortunate. Through constant gigging around their native England, the band has managed to build up a sizeable enough following to be voted Melody Maker's "Band Of The Year" for 1986. Mick Jones is now setting his sights on America, hoping to capture the imagination of the former colonies with a quick stateside tour.

Less than a week before Big Audio Dynamite's U.S. jaunt opens, Jones is busy doing several interviews. His attitude is less cynical than in the halcyon days of hell-raising punk, although his thick working class British accent is still intact. He seems confident that America will fall under the spell of B.A.D.'s armada of styles, which incorporates such diverse elements as hip hop, reggae, rock 'n' roll and film soundtrack dialog. It's essentially dance music, but more like what you would hear on the streets of New York than in a club. B.A.D.'s sound is truly unique, yet it follows Jones' musical philosophy. "It should reflect our environment, what's going on at the moment," he explains. "Even just walking down the street sounds like a B.A.D. record to me. It's definitely a mixture. It's sort of a chopped together style, you know, all thrown around, but it's a London style as well, I would say. It's surprising how it turned out, really. I think it's very important to find the right people."

The "right people" for Mick Jones are drummer Greg Roberts, bassist Leo (EZ Kill) Williams and two non-musicians: photographer-turned-keyboardist Dan Donovan and filmmaker-turned-audio effects man, Don Letts. Starting a new band with totally inexperienced musicians doesn't seem like the soundest career move, but it again falls in line with Mick's philosophy.

"I could have probably worked with a lot of established musicians, but I think that they're very set in their ways — without being disrespectful to them. I would much prefer to work with people that I could spend time with and talk to about other things as well."

Perhaps that's why Jones practically dropped out of sight for two years following the Clash coup. He wanted to form a band that was fresh and exciting, yet one he could live with. He was also looking for people who shared his musical vision and could complement it with their own input. Essentially, Jones was searching for his own Utopia, and that takes time and determination.

With their second album, No. 10 Upping Street, his band has found their niche — a sort of global funk melting pot — and he's inspired by the freedom of the approach.

"I knew that I wanted to do all types of music and try to bring it all together," he says. "I like the beat of the New York thing and reggae bass with sort of rock 'n' roll guitar. That dancefloor sound was really the thing. I just wanted to try out things, really, have a place where I could do that. I was looking for people who had fresh, new ideas. I wasn't even looking for musicians, particularly, just people with good ideas that I had a rapport with, to make it an interesting group. We just let it happen — see where it goes. The sound just developed over the last eighteen months."

B.A.D.'s debut album, This Is Big Audio Dynamite, lived up to Jones' demand for fresh ideas. Unfortunately, there were so many, the results were often chaotic. It was a total aural assault that was difficult to sort out, but easy to dance to.

B.A.D. took to the road, tightening up the loose ends and attempting to stabilize its direction. When the time came to record a second album, B.A.D. found itself fresh off a tour, with precious little time to prepare for the studio. This lack of readiness didn't seem to phase the group though, as B.A.D. went in and knocked out a much more focused and accessible LP.

"We only had a couple of weeks' preparation," Jones explains, seemingly still amazed by the results. "We had a bit more than just one song; we had a few rhythms and that. We were really bluffing — hoping that we could do it. We only spent about eight weeks recording the album and at the end, we had a proper record. We were lucky. It just came together and came out all right, but I won't do it again, like that. We wanted to get the album done in the least time possible and still make a good record. We were still doing gigs on the weekends, while we were recording, to keep our hands in it. I've always hated that thing where bands go away for eighteen months to do a record. We had lots of friends helping us with their opinions."

I take that as a cue to ask about Joe Strummer's involvement in No. 10 Upping St. When the Clash split from Jones, there seemed to be an irreparable rift between Mick and Joe. I ask for details — did the press blow it out of proportion — but Jones is evasive.

"Well, I didn't say very much about it at the time. There isn't very much to be said. We're friends now. All those people on that side had a lot to say, but I figured that the truth would come out, and I wouldn't need to say very much about it. I still haven't."

Joe and Mick's reunion actually was orchestrated by a mutual friend: Don Letts. Don ran into Strummer, who was working on the Sid And Nancy soundtrack, and invited him to the studio where B.A.D. was holed up.

Mick personally tags no importance on the circumstances surrounding his renewed association with Joe, but his relief at having Strummer as a mate again is obvious. "He came to see me," he laughs, "and we sort of built up our friendship again."

Jones does admit that Strummer's presence helped to make No. 10 Upping St. a better album, but he feels the press went too far, making it seem like Joe had joined the band. Joe co-wrote several of the songs with Mick and co-produced the album. "For us, it's (Joe's input) been invaluable, but they (the press) kind of got the wrong angle on it. Co-producing is basically just having someone you respect to kick the idea about with."

If the press had the wrong angle, the other members of the band knew exactly what was happening, and offered no opposition to Strummer's sudden presence.

"Everybody was really cool about it," Mick laughs. "They were pleased too. No one was paranoid — I didn't get any late night phone calls from members of the band worrying. Everybody knows I'm really committed to the new band, and it's cool."

MUSIC — Page 16 - March 26, 1987
Mick Jones musical philosophy: "It should reflect our environment, what's going on at the moment. Even just walking down the street sounds like a B.A.D. record to me."

One of the more striking aspects of B.A.D.'s music is their use of sampling and effects. Don Letts is basically in charge of that aspect of the band, and though Jones downplays the technical side, he feels as though it makes Big Audio Dynamite's approach more current. "We tend to de-emphasize it and think of it as just another instrument," is his explanation. "It's a traditional group, but we're living in 1987, not 1976. I prefer to emphasize what's behind the instruments. It's so easy to say it's all this flash stuff that's not accessible to young kids. I think it's the person behind it that's important — not the piece of equipment. It's still a question of who's playing what, not who's pressing 'play'."

"We like all that stuff. Don's approach is very visual and he sees it as part of the music. Where before, you might have had a guitar solo, now we'll have a specially prepared piece that Don has done that's, in some way, appropriate for the song."

Mick continues enthusiastically: "Don helps us develop situations. He sets the stage and sort of tells a story — very straightforward — like it was a short script... which is quite good, I can accommodate that. We work very well together."

As far as B.A.D.'s live performances are concerned, Jones insists that they have no problem reproducing their music on stage. They've been known to cover Prince's "1999" for an encore, but they don't play any Clash songs. They have been working on "Uptown", but for the most part, they prefer to stick to Big Audio Dynamite material. "You can expect a really good show — something you haven't seen before."

Sometimes following B.A.D.'s current tour, Jones hopes to repay Joe Strummer by helping to record his album, "providing that I'm not doing anything with B.A.D., that's my first priority. It's gonna be a completely separate thing," he insists.

Mick makes it clear that (to quote Huey Lewis) "B.A.D. is B.A.D." Joe's help is appreciated, but in the end, it's Jones' band. It's a distinction he feels it necessary to emphasize.

As for the future, Jones is looking forward to writing new material for some possible 12-inch singles, to be released this summer. The group will also continue to hold their Planet B.A.D. clubs (an ever-changing gathering of friends and musicians) periodically at various available venues. As the guitarist describes them, the clubs sound like a return to the acid tests of the '60s, without the electric Kool-Aid.

"We get some of the bands that play with us on tour, and rappers and D.J.s and so on. We have a time and show our live shows, we film bits of ourselves when we're about — very interesting stuff. We mix it up with what we like and put it out, or play behind it."

Mick mentions he's already planning the next B.A.D. album and his concept sounds rather unusual: "All these groups come here sounding like us," he says. "They've all got the cut-up bits and they all play guitar with a beat behind what we've started. So what we're gonna do is take the best track from each of the groups that play at our Planet B.A.D. clubs, record them and call it 'The Planet B.A.D. Album'."

Is he serious or is that dry British humor simply winning over? Only time will tell, but I wouldn't put it past him.

THE CLASH – FOREVER ON CD !

In 1987, Clash fans go to heaven as the greatest albums by The Only Group That Mattered are released for the first time ever on Compact Disc!

"The Clash", "Give 'Em Enough Rope", "London Calling", "Sandinista!", "Combat Rock". They're all here, preserved forever in state-of-the-art digital sound!

Joe Strummer and Mick Jones have moved on. But The Clash lives forever on CD!

COMPACTCLASH FROM EPIC RECORDS.

Make several enciclopédicos about musicians' individual trajectories, and the changes of groups they've participated in since the beginnings of rock, more than three decades ago. The reasons for such changes are very diverse, although mainly two, the need to have more strength in final decisions when leading a band, and individual fame and fortune, seem to be the most common. If one could design a room of musical interrelations of different kinds, among all musicians who still survive popular or semi-popularly in the eighties, coming from different periods of rock, including the current one, we'd realize that practically no empty space would remain. And let's not talk about relationships outside the musical realm, because that's a different kettle of fish. On one hand, these kinds of disruptions can harm a group's collective development, but at the same time, in many cases, these changes give rise to an enrichment not only of the final versions of a large number of bands but also of the final result, which in theory should matter more, that is, the musical product and its projection into the future. Let's take a look at a current example of what has been previously stated, with what has happened so far between the members and ex-members of the groups The Clash and B.A.D.

In July 1985, the band Big Audio Dynamite was at Sam West Studios in London recording their first album. Mick Jones had previously managed to put this group together after being practically kicked out of The Clash by Joe Strummer in 1984, and now he was adding his vocal talent to the piece "The Medicine Show," a track that put the medical industry, including its practitioners, in real legal trouble, which was expected and necessary, and what better method than through popular music. "We don't choose these kinds of topics to be deliberately controversial," said Jones. "It's simply a relevant topic today, and the present must be relevant enough to stimulate musicians' creativity." Everyone knows, of course, that Strummer accused Jones of not being extremely radical enough to belong to The Clash, and perhaps with that track, Jones tried to prove the opposite. When Jones was satisfied with his vocal contribution, it was revealed that Don Letts, originally The Clash's video director, had also obligatorily changed jerseys and had become another member of B.A.D. (Big Audio Dynamite). Jones then explained the difference between collaborating with Strummer and with Letts. "Joe and I used to write all of The Clash's material together. Over time, we started writing separately and combining our ideas. The moment came, later on, when we showed each other our respective material through our promoter. With Letts, it's a more consistent situation, and more constant, and so far, there hasn't been any kind of problem."

A year later, on June 26, 1986, Jones' thirty-first birthday, B.A.D. was at Trident Studios recording "Number 10, Upping St.," their second album, and surprisingly, Joe Strummer was there. "I hope to keep making good rock with Mick," commented Strummer, showing that when a good team achieves certain goals, despite periods of misunderstanding and personal problems, it's destined to keep being a good team. Fortunately for Strummer and Jones, circumstances led them to come together again, something that in many other cases hasn't happened, even if the joint magnetism remains, but stubbornness is more powerful.

The relationship between Strummer, Jones, and Bernie Rhodes, The Clash's original promoter, was always somewhat complex. After a series of legal problems and somewhat shady maneuvers on Rhodes' part, Jones demanded his resignation, but after a series of economic-administrative failures in the group, problems at various levels, Strummer re-demanded his return as a condition to continue in the band. It was Mick Jones, the most ardent critic and opponent of Rhodes, who asked him to come back with them for the good of the group, but after two and a half years of problems, and after their performance at the US Festival in Los Angeles in 1983, Jones left the group to form B.A.D., just as Rhodes had predicted, claiming that Jones was in no way a reliable or formal musician. Strummer, who was going through a personal crisis, simply for being Joe Strummer, helped Rhodes in the plan to kick him out of The Clash.

But neither of them sat in a rocking chair watching people pass by on the street, as Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon reorganized the new The Clash and began touring America, while Jones formed B.A.D. with Don Letts. B.A.D. was completed with drummer Gregg Roberts, keyboardist Dan Donovan, and bassist Leo Williams. And while B.A.D. was organizing itself seemingly perfectly, Strummer's goals slightly changed in tone. Jones commented on his surprising satisfaction after an excellent concert in Kentish Town: "I don't know many people who've had the second chance I've had, and I see it as the opportunity not to make the same mistakes twice. It's true that I'm an informal person, and that's something very, very hard to change, but I've come to understand that the more I put in, the more I get out, and this is making me change."

In the summer of 1985, while Jones was working on B.A.D.'s first album, Strummer, after a deep analysis of the circumstances and his goals, plus remembering the magnetism with Jones in the past, declared: "After much thought about the events, I've come to the conclusion that Jones was right, and the wrong one was Bernie Rhodes." Days later, they met on the street after a long time of not seeing each other, and Strummer tried to apologize and convince him to return to The Clash, with little success, as Jones felt his situation in B.A.D. was very fortunate and with good projection, plus he held some resentment for what had happened. Strummer's lack of tact, though perhaps part of one of his hidden qualities, honesty, led him to tell Jones about the lack of good material in B.A.D.'s first album, "This Is Big Audio Dynamite," suggesting that their collaboration was indispensable to make good music together again. But despite everything, this album sold enough to become a good product, with serious aspirations, while The Clash's new album, "Cut The Crap," was practically a failure. Strummer then gradually dissolved The Clash, and Paul Simonon, the last original member of the group, returned to his painting career. The relationship between Jones and Strummer began to improve little by little and to strengthen gradually, first with guest appearances at B.A.D. concerts, and later, after his visit to Trident Studios during the recording of "Number 10, Upping St.," it returned to what it was before, as Strummer didn't leave the studio and collaborated on the lyrics and co-produced the album. After "Cut The Crap," Strummer went through a period of creative block, but after starting his new work with B.A.D., he began a new stage of maximum creativity and effort, which has undoubtedly benefited the group at a very significant level. Strummer's obsession with avoiding trends of not very good taste and his insistence on perfectionism convinced Jones to set up a studio in New York with engineer Groucho Smykle. After recording the album, Jones became fully convinced of the move, as he agrees with Strummer that New York is the ideal place for their kind of music, with an especially free and varied "happening" atmosphere. This projected the Jones-Strummer duo back in the original direction, and definitely, the style of their compositions has solidified, even though The Clash ceased to exist and B.A.D. came to life. With the aces in hand and apparent harmony in their friendly-professional relationship, Strummer even made public statements with a touch of "mea culpa" about past mistakes that almost derailed the creative careers of two very popular figures today: "I should never have demanded Rhodes' return, as that's when things got even more complicated... It must be understood that there are a lot of people in the middle who, like me, are idiots. There's a lot of illusion in music. You think you're doing something specific by playing rock every night, traveling on tours, and maybe, at that moment, for the people who see and hear you at the concert, you're really doing something meaningful. But really, you're doing nothing. There's a line that divides what is prophecy from what is human, and a musician can play the most devastating political points in the human sector, like in 'Love Of The Common People.' I can think about the lyrics of that piece for a hundred years, and this is what's truly known as political writing."

After mixes and remixes, changes and grafts, vacations and reflections, the album "Number 10, Upping St." took its final form, in which the urban rhythm was ultimately replaced by a solid rock foundation. And proof that commercially, within their rock-punk-new wave fusion, this directional change has brought them great success is the agent's response to the album's tracks. "C'mon Every Beatbox," with the clear influence of Eddie Cochran, "Beyond The Pale," which represents the philosophical foundation of the album and the group itself, and recalls their involvement in the British Artists Against Apartheid movement, "My Grandpa Came From Russia," about Russian immigration in Great Britain, "Ticket," which talks about the migratory experiences a Jamaican was subject to in England in the fifties, "Sightsee MC," and "V13," which close the album, both works of formidable strength and ferocity, together form a classic rock record with many qualities. "Everyone can understand the tracks," Jones declared with a slight smile on his face, "as there are no detours in the lyrics, and besides, we've managed a clear concept of things between Joe, Don, and me."

The album is simple, without unnecessary complications, but at the same time, it shows several facets of the group musically speaking. The works of the Jones-Strummer duo during their time as members of The Clash seemed to have the imperative need to complicate themselves and intellectually satisfy their members' objectives, but in B.A.D., a literary and musical clarity is maintained that goes hand in hand at all times and provides the listener with a series of clear and pleasant nuances within a classic rock & roll context, which is an important achievement in the musical sphere of 1987, a year that, in general, like the last four, hasn't been very promising so far, except for exceptions like B.A.D. and their recent work "Number 10 Upping St."

One of the important issues for this group's future development was the calm and tolerant attitude with which the other band members accepted Joe Strummer's incorporation, on one hand, because Jones' reaction, had he resisted opposition, might have harmed the evolution of future projects, and on the other hand, because everyone was aware that with his integration, B.A.D.'s horizons would expand, as has happened. The potential of the Jones-Strummer duo reaches great proportions, and with the direction and master touch of Don Letts, the group can go very far.

However, according to Strummer's latest statements, his continuity in B.A.D. is still pending. He's extremely satisfied with the album and, in general, with the joint work, but he seems to need to complete a solo work first, titled "Throwdown," before deciding if his stay in B.A.D. will be permanent. Everyone agrees that after producing such an album, he'll rejoin the group that offers him a future full of adventures in the field of creativity, especially because Mick Jones is there, and the magnet that exists between the two is stronger than the two separately, but we'll have to wait for events to unfold and see how reality shapes up.

And leaving audiences hanging with the comment: "We need to keep searching for purpose and reason, because what society has given us so far is harmful to the soul," Strummer seems to leave an air of questioning in the environment, something that almost always happens with personalities like Strummer. If anything, Strummer is honest with himself, as before committing and failing, he prefers to do a deep analysis of his possibilities and the harmony between his ideals and B.A.D.'s. This is reflected in his influence and collaboration on "Number 10 Upping St." and constitutes precisely one of the work's qualities. Jones' attitude, in his style, is certainly similar, and it's one of the factors where the strength of the magnet between the two lies.

B.A.D. is the product of circumstances, but more than anything, of the sincere and hard-fought search for the best possible means to express, through music, the relevant thoughts of musicians who coexist in a relevant reality. This group's project, their second album, clearly reflects the interaction of real individuals in a reality full of farce and fantasy, and rock once again imposes its style to serve as a mirror to these factors. B.A.D. is achieving its purposes, and to break the rules, it's one of the few exceptions so far this year.

FIVE

CHANGING JERSEYS by Miguel Angel Alonso
Sunday, May 3, 1987

Joe Strummer during one of his vibrant concerts.