Parsons, Tony, and Julie Burchill. "One little piggy went to market — three little piggies stayed in the CBS car…" New Musical Express (UK), July 23, 1977, Cover & p. 12.

One little piggy went to market — three little piggies stayed in the CBS car…

— Chaotic chronicle of The Clash’s aborted Digbeth Rag Market gig in Birmingham, police intervention, and eventual impromptu set at Barbarella’s.

— Joe Strummer’s interactions with soaked fans, Bernie Rhodes’ behind-the-scenes manoeuvres, tensions within the band.

— Cameo appearances by Shag Nasty, Warhead, and Arianna of The Slits, plus disputes over equipment.

— Digbeth Rag Market performance; Barbarella’s gig, Birmingham, July 1977; concurrent The Jam show at Hammersmith Odeon.

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New Musical Express  |  July 23rd, 1977  |   Cover & Page 12

July 23, 1977 18p

U.S. $1.10/Canada 60c cN Sc NZ 35c SA 35c Den Kri 5 NF450 2.50 Malaysia $1.10. 5p

Alert! Alert! Clash coming, Clash coming

Rotten: A punk and his music Page 12.

I'm in there with the New Wave & 25.

Thrills

One little piggy went to market

— three little piggies stayed in the CBS car . . .

The Clash in Birmingham

Waking up in the back of a van crammed with The Slits may be some people's idea of heaven, but after the Pyrrhic victory of The Clash City Rockers alternative event, all you're thinking about is the hobnailed boot that someone has lodged in your ribcage.

After the proposed one-day punk festival featuring The Clash and several less revered New Wavers was cancelled by police order, the band issued a communique stating that they still intended to show. The law then warned that such action would result in charges of conspiracy and incitement to riot, and required that The Clash issue a press release to the effect that fans should stay away from the arranged location of the event – Digbeth Rag Market.

But a convoy carrying The Clash and others headed up the motorway on Sunday afternoon, and there was no law to stop them.

Driving two tanks right up to the gates of the market, Clash manager Bernie Rhodes had said wistfully: Imagine that! But even if you hire them you can't get a licence to drive them on the motorway.

In a Consul, not a Sherman, Joe Strummer bounced and sang along to the endless reggae coming from his cassette machine, occasionally adding to the book he calls The Thoughts of Chairman Strummer. The tranquility of the trip was enlivened only by the mildly High Noon ambience of police surveillance and the taking of registration numbers, at a service-station tea-break.

The convoy comes to rest in the vicinity of the Rag Market at seven in the rain. Joe and the NME kinder bunker can't persuade Jones, Simenon and Headon to leave the car of the American CBS press officer for a pilgrimage to the closed market gates of red steel, and Strummer delivers the first of many tirades that cease only when the gig at Barbarella's is confirmed.

Some thirty kids, soaked to the skin, have ignored the repeated police warnings broadcast on the radio and swarm around Strummer.

Where's the rest of the band, Joe?

They're over there in the car.

Moved on by two amiable cops, refused entry to a nearby pub, all High Noon fantasies are temporarily dismissed as our vehicle follows the convoy to the only pub in town not too terrified to take our money.

Really, there was nothing to fear. Nicky Headon expresses his disapproval of all authority by firing peas at innocent drinkers while Paul Simenon favours a pink plastic pistol as a means of inciting teen rebellion.

In a corner away from the rest, Strummer seemed genuinely brought down by the others' lack of interest in making the gesture he had to the kids that care about them. I feel like a stranger in my own band, he repeated several times. I feel like a pimple that's about to burst...

Abstract theatre! Bernie says, hurtling into the pub pursued by hordes of Clash supporters. It's everything's spontaneous. Great. If we were at home we'd only be watching television.... What are we doing, Bernie? Mick demands.

You're gonna play Barbarella's, smiles Bernie. While The Jam are gonna be playing Hammersmith Odeon. How does that make you feel?

I just want to play, Mick says. It doesn't make me feel what you think I should be feeling, Joe slurs, before demanding that the whole band returns to the Rag Market. Mick agrees enthusiastically and a kid in the now-crowded pub calls out that there's about five hundred kids waiting for them.

I'll tell you what, Bernie says, I'll drive you back and you can lean out the window and call to them. But you've got to stay in the car.

The band immediately dismiss this idea as preposterous. That would make us as bad as fuckin' royalty, says Strummer.

So the band takes off, Joe hanging out the window like a demented wild-eyed Moses in a bondage suit. The reported number of kids is accurate and the law move in swiftly, threatening arrest if the crowd doesn't disperse pronto, Tonto. The band are forcibly assisted back into their car but not until the word has been passed, and the troops troop off to Barbarella's.

Back in the pub people soon begin to harangue the band with complaints that the management of the club is too frightened to open their doors to a seething mass of 500 punks when the small annexe adjacent to the main ballroom holds only 250. It's OK, I'll take care of everything, Bernie reassures all and sundry. Everyone will get in and the bands will all play.

By now The Slits have arrived to a jubilant welcome from the same Clash member who only fifteen minutes earlier had quipped: The Slits are cunts! Anxious youngsters Shag Nasty asked Bernie again if they will really get to play a set tonight. Bernie assured them that they will, obviously relishing the prospect of power-struggles galore on behalf of the three.

Abstract theatre, he chuckles gleefully, brilliantly pulling off several complex manoeuvres, enabling the whole crowd of waiting punks to gain entry to the large ballroom where he persuaded the management to allow The Clash to play three numbers as a frantic finale to the headlining heavy metal locals, Warhead.

Shag Nasty played their three chord Teenage Wasteland set in the smaller venue and all that prevented The Slits from a similar victory was the cute cussing given by lead singer Arianna to the band who were to lend them their equipment, New Heart. The only obstacle in the way of The Clash's set of three numbers was the stubborn refusal of Warhead to permit the band use of their drumkit and amps. But Bernie had come too far to give up now.

We are all creative people, he reasoned. This is all spontaneous. Are you artists, are you musicians?

The Clash came on at midnight and the three numbers multiplied to a full fifty-minute set which served as a suitable climax to a day of uh abstract theatre. They gave everything they had and it hurts to admit that it wasn't enough.

With just one microphone in working order, sometimes with none, the new songs' quality was buried under a morass of noise, the feedback whine cutting through all the songs you love from the album, a couple of ecstatic kids being hurled back onto the heads of the crowd and rich-bitch strangers with painted faces tapping their toes and pantomiming applause at the back of the stage.

But the ultimate contradiction is that if you really want a riot, you're not going to get it in Barbarella's Dancehall

Or rock and roll.

□ Tony Parsons Julie Burchill

Lone Joe Strummer being handed back into his limo. Pic: Chalkie Davies