Oct 30 2022

May 1982 by this time London was on volcano of creativity. Talent was flocking into the capital city from every point of the nation, young hopefuls waiting in turn to be the next big thing. Whilst it was the start of the “80’s Music” that is so talked of today, there was also a very strong line of what music fans would call real music. The great thing about London Club life was that it started at 11pm and ended after 2am which meant it was possible to catch Bauhaus and The Birthday Party at the Lyceum and then pop into Le Beat Route or the WAG afterwards. So me and my mates happily jumped between being gig goers and clubbers. Sadly a lot of the avant-garde nightclub school no longer went to gigs due to the violence and if anyone was going to get picked on it was going to be them, however they would turn up in their droves for the right band. Strangely one of the attractions the club scene had was sex….for a start half of the crowd were girls, whereas at a gig it was about 10% if you went to a punk gig by now. It was also a big melting pot of boys there to meet girls, or boys…or both. So it was a brilliant cauldron of ideas.

As the New Romantic Dandyism hit the tabloids major retailers saw a cult they could cater for and suddenly everyone looked like a Duranie with their white frilly shirts and pixie boots. All those 14 year olds from 77 were now 19 and ready to party. The eclectic lava was still there with bands like Visage and Japan drawing on a German Electro vibe, British funk had emerged from both the black and white communities with bands like Hi-Tension, Linx and my one time label mates Imagination from one camp and likes of Pigbag, Funkapolitan and of course the Spandau Ballet….drawn from the soul boys that wore those mohair jumpers and plastic sandals that the punks nicked off them in 76. Along with this the ska kings, Specials and Madness were still going strong….Celtic folk rock with Dexy’s and The Pogues……but mainly fame was the draw for most of the variants with that Thursday night slot on Top of the Pops being the coveted prize along with a front cover of the soon to be selling million circulation pop journal Smash Hits. However if you wanted to read beyond the latest fad to find out what the trend setters were doing the The Face magazine was your guide.

There were still “proper bands” about but most serious musicians seemed to have big hair and white trousers on, Japan were chasing fame, Scritti Politti, The Jam were happy to appear on our TV sets on a Saturday morning and my old band mates Bananarama were just starting to bounce around everywhere on their way to becoming one of Britain’s most successful girl bands…….to be fair to The Clash they had said right back in 76 that they would never appear on Top of the Pops and the content of there albums shouted a wish to be artists rather than stars. So still working in the record shop I was really looking forward to the next Clash album and here it is, Combat Rock with another great cover………So as usual when a significant album was released we all got our cup of tea, our happy band of employees with our diverse musical tastes, Chris and I into punk-indy-electro, Paul and his love of Pink Floyd and Dire Straits, Mike and Glenn Boystown and the odd show tune……..the record shop and our lives in Soho was always a bright sunny day in 1982…….with a small grey looking cloud in the sky……this time we have an old fashioned single album to listen to……..hey ho, let’s go

Side 1 : Kicks off with Know Your Rights which a month before had been released as a single….great Clash song sort of reggae rockabilly with a message totally suits Joe’s rasping vocal, good start. Car Jamming, sounds a bit like a song that should have been on the third platter of Sandinista one of those songs that moves along nicely but doesn’t take off. Next up is Mick’s Should I Go Or Should I Stay…..which was an extremely successful song for the band in the 1990s when it was part of that series of iconic Levi’s adverts. I must admit I don’t like it and always felt that Jones had a better vocal in him….but it’s all about opinions and the vast majority would I am sure disagree. THE Clash song for many, Topper’s Rock The Casbah, classic 80’s Indy-Disco crossover, a fabulous foot tapper guaranteed to fill the floor at The Mudd Club in Soho or Manhattan’s Studio 54. Whether you like the old school punk version of the band or Faggin’s musical thieves of later years it is still a classic. Red Angel Dragnet see’s Paul on vocal with Cosmo Vinyl and I am not really sure where this is going, there is no real hook to it with a strange “comedy” talking rap on it, it would have made a poor B side for 70’s Clash. This side finishes with Straight to Hell which is cool laid back number very much on the plus side of the new sound of the Clash with continuing influence from the Vietnam War which was dominating our movie screens at the time and had a heavy influence on the pervious album.

Side 2 : Overpowered By Funk….mmmm….very of the moment, there had been a white funk movement in New York which had inspired a lot of British artists to follow in the steps of Was Not Was, James Chance and others mainly producing good tunes without that something special and this is one of those songs. Atom Tan see’s Strummer and Jones singing together on this short ditty driven by one riff with what sounds like a WASP synthesizer drifting in and out. Sean Flynn see’s our Artful Dodgers pick Japan’s pocket moving their previous years smash Visions of China to Vietnam, it’s a likeable amble through the paddy fields along with a haunting saxophone adding to the mystery. Ghetto Defendant see’s the boys team up with the US Beat Generation cultural icon Allen Gindsberg….should you remove his contribution this could have been a much better song although it does sound like a base that needs building on or could have been turned into an interesting dub track. Inoculated City is another duet for Joe and Mick it’s a marker for where Mick was about to go with Big Audio Dynamite with drum machine and samples. The closing track is the kooky Death Is A Star…..which could almost feature on The Beatles White Album.

I find it strange that this is the bands most successful platter. To me it’s very much a mixed offering, Side 1 is significantly better than Side 2. Four songs appear on singles, although Should I Go/Straight to Hell was a double A side. At the time of hearing it we all hated it and I don’t think anyone played it after our initial session. The intensity and passion seemed to have disappeared and they were making the mistake of trying to chase the latest styles which only works on Casbah. However putting the disc on today and my thoughts have mellowed, it sits nicely on the turntable whilst I am reading a book and tunes which have now become familiar drift though the air, on close scrutiny it still have the same flaws but it’s still the Clash after all.

So as I left my shift at the record shop that dark cloud in the early summer sky had started to produce some rain and two months later a young man collapsed at Heaven Nightclub which I had visited before with the boys from the record shop…..days later he died….his name was Terrance Higgins…….Britain’s first AIDS victim