The Clash Sandinista Reviewed

23/10/2022

A year after London Calling came the next offering from The Clash, I am still working in the record shop in Soho so am at the front line for seeing what the latest buying trends are. Indy youth pop is definitely on the rise with the Ska craze becoming an entry point to music for 12-15-year-olds across the land. What was considered punk bands are now three years into their craft and are presenting canvases that reach beyond the walled city of punk. Dress codes have changed with the punk look becoming much more formularic, homemade and second-hand store chic has been replaced with bondage trousers and leather bikers jackets all around…….rebelling against this bands like The Skids and The Banshees were opening the door for the New Romantic movement by seeking out flamboyant young designers hidden away in High Street Kensington Market. I would pop down on my day off to buy something or during my lunch break I would walk up to Endell Street in Covent Garden to PX, where Steve Strange worked……I still remember the light blue baggy pegged trousers I got from them and wore to Le Beat Route which on a Thursday night was home to all the bright young things, it was a nightclub but occasionally had a band on but I only remember Andy Polaris band PRIDE playing, Sade was a backing singer before she stepped forward a few feet and became one of the sensations of the 80’s.

I am still going to lots of gigs and Sunday nights at the Lyceum are becoming quite a thing, quite often they had an early start with five band bills which were usually well-curated…..but sometimes it wasn’t a great mix to throw in a couple of ska bands with a few mod ones…..which ended with a massive brawl which spilled out on to the Strand as the riot police arrived……but as Hammy Hamster would say “but that’s another story”.

Whilst Gary Numan and his movement were having their electric dreams punk bands were showing they were able to sell a few discs themselves with Stiff Little Fingers, UK Subs and 1980’s hippest punk band, Adam and the Ants all hitting the Album Top 10……..obviously Kings of the Wild Frontier was Adam’s cross over the album, fresh new and catchy, sadly this was followed up by Prince Charming as the band chased pop stardom and won. Things were changing driven by people sitting in nightclubs soaking up an eclectic diet of music, in these places you were likely to hear Fad Gadget, Jackie Wilson, Bauhaus, Simple Minds and Was Not Was. With this constantly shifting environment, what could we expect from the Clash……

Sandinista! Arrived in our record shop in December 1980, here it was in its black n red cover, a great picture of the band, yet again a brilliant album cover. A much-awaited recording, this time a triple album!!! So after we had done our first thing in the morning tidy up and made a cup of tea we put the first disc on the turn table……hey ho let’s go…..as someone once said

Side 1: The Magnificent Seven, immediately the breaking sound of New York fills the room, this is Sugar Hill Gang meets the Clash with a track cool enough to grace the dance floor of the hippest clubs across the land. Hitsville UK bounces along with a very catchy jig and Jones’s voice being less aggressive than Joe’s always gives his numbers greater pop appeal. Junco Partner is a great reggae number, weirdly written by the producer of Janis Joplin’s breakthrough band based in San Francisco. Ivan Meets G.I. Joe sees Topper take the microphone with this classic bit of 80’s pop complete with a computer arcade game sound, Space Invaders? Next up is a rockabilly romp, The Leader, that The Clash does so well. Side one ends with Something About England which has overtones of Roger Water’s The Wall….too many sound bites and not enough tune.

Side 2: Rebel Waltz a beautifully crafted piece that Bob Dylan would be proud of. Look Here has a trad jazz line and is sort of out of place early on in the album, might have been better placed on the final “quirky” disc. Crooked Beat sees Simonon take centre stage with a dub-style backdrop with Paul toasting over the top. Somebody Got Murdered again we see how Mick’s lighter vocal can take a sinister line and turn it into a pop classic along with a solid drum track. We finish with One More Time and the dub version, having grown up listening to the likes of Culture, The Mighty Diamonds and U Roy I love listening to these highly influenced tracks.

Side 3: Begins with Lightening Strikes, Grand Master Flash with a cup of jazz piano where Joe’s white man rapping doesn’t really hit the mark. Up In Heaven bobbles along nicely, not a classic but catchy guitar riff. Corner Soul doesn’t really work for me as the bass feels more reggae but the tune is more Bowie Philly Sound. Let’s Go Crazy we are back in the West Indies but earlier with a Calypso ditty which would get your Aunty on to the dance floor at your sister’s wedding. For If Music Could Talk we stay in the Caribbean, this time for some lovers rock, the slower tempo works well with Joe’s voice. The Sound Of Sinners brings us back to the USA with the sweet rhythms of gospel ending the disc on a high.

Side 4: Police On My Back…..a bit of traditional classic Clash with Jones taking on a cover of an Equals song, tight beat and quick vocal delivery. Midnight Log sees Joe in Rockabilly mode, bit more laid back than the usual blockbusters he produces in this genre but it really works. The Equalizer sees us back to dub with Tymon Dogg’s violin working at juxtaposition to the rest of the track which for me really works. The Call Up is the sort of thing this group does so well, a foot-tapping musical arrangement combined with a serious message. For which the same could be said of Washington Bullets. This disc finishes with Broadway which at the beginning sort of ambles along but doesn’t get anywhere, it feels more like a demo which gets better as it goes along ending with real promise……Guns of Brixton reprise!!!!! Not evening going there.

Side 5: Strangely kicks off with an excellent Tymon Dogg song, Lose This Skin, sung by Dogg himself with get backing track and screaming fiddles. The next song takes its title from a line from the film Apocalypse Now, Charlie Don’t Surf, for me, it’s the standout track on the LP with a reggae lilt and some wonderful jangly guitar backed with a helicopter blade beat and a tab of LSD. This is followed by a “trip” up Mensforth Hill a backwards version of Something About England with overdubs, it is aurally interesting and challenging. Junky Slip takes a soul groove and travels along with Joe delivering what sounds like an ad-lib over the top, sounds like there is a good sound waiting to get out, the same could be said for Kingston Advice and the final track on this side The Street Parade both songs are pleasant listen and jog along at a pace that is present throughout the album.

Side 6: Version City has a blues vibe that I can imagine on a Rolling Stones album during the 80s when they were nodding to the New York disco boom. Living In Fame see us return to the sound houses of Ladbroke Grove with Mikey Dread toasting through a dub of Washington Bullets, home turf for the Clash and it works really well. By this time the comedy interludes between tracks are getting a bit wearing, these sorts of things always sound great at a one-off hearing by start to grate on a disc you play a lot, reference the nonsense on Ogdens Nut Gone Flake! Silicone On Sapphire sees The Clash experiment with a very John Foxx synthesizer sound accompanied by that Sandinista groove beat, it works but like a few tracks feels like it is the sketch of a future rendition. Version Pardner (Junco Pardner in Dub) is quite fabulous and relaxing as it crawls out of my speakers, the great thing about dub is its format allows you to take a good song and channel it into something different but familiar. Career Opportunities, who thought this was a good idea, if you released this in the early 70’s it would have given Clive Dunn’s Grandad and Benny Hill’s Ernie a run for the Christmas number one…..so after a few breaks for tea between discs we come to the end of this 144-minute behemoth with a slow dub version of the first album classic track Police and Thieves in dub….sadly I think it’s the worst dub on the record which is a disappointing way to end.

I remember really liking it on the day and immediately using my sales discount to purchase Sandinista myself, taking it home I played it mercilessly for weeks. For me, it was a much better recording than London’s Calling as it seemed to have much more of a sonic footprint though most of the album. It’s interesting that when you give great bands like The Beatles (White Album) The Stone (Exile) and The Clash the chance to play on more than two sides of vinyl that rather than just paint a bigger portrait the use the canvas to develop and introduce characters around the edges.

Sitting back and listening to Sandinista! today it’s still as strong as it ever was…..yes it is too long with at least five tracks that could have been culled but it still makes one hell of a listen with a couple of glasses of Laphroaig on a rainy winter’s night. Sadly this output divides people more than any other Clash album and it seems to be loved or loathed with little in between. As we moved into 1981 I’m off to meet my mates at Planets, a nightclub in Mayfair, it was unlikely that Tasty Tim the DJ was going to play anything from The Clash as they were no longer hip or trash enough to make it to the dance floor of a club that mixed The Archies with Pigbag.

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