REVIEWS
REISSUES
The Clash
Combat Rock SONY
Apocalypse again! Classic line-up’s surreal last statement, now expanded with rarities.
Created tortuously against internal pressures, The Clash’s fifth album ironically proved to be their most successful, flying biggest hits amid its post-Vietnam fever-dream tone poems and New York street clamour.
The intra-band cracks showing while recording Sandinista! had widened by rehearsals for its follow-up at London’s Ear studios. Joe Strummer urged returning to basics, against Mick Jones’s continuing hip-hop obsession when sessions commenced at NY’s Electric Lady, Topper Headon sinking deeper into heroin addiction. The state of The Clash then glowers from Pennie Smith’s cover shot: Jones and Simonon distracted, Headon wasted, Strummer part-covering his face.
Yet magic still happened in the studio, luminescent mini-movies Straight To Hell and Sean Flynn reflecting their Vietnam war obsession on hallucinogenic jungle slowboats, Ghetto Defendant addressing inner-city drug-scapes with poet Allen Ginsberg. New York street energy charged Know Your Rights and Overpowered By Funk, before baroque finale Death Is A Star addressed cinematic escapism.
Recently deceased mentor Guy Stevens got credited with “Inspiration” on Combat Rock’s cover, notably Jones’s block-rocking future chart-topper Should I Stay Or Should I Go. Headon’s multi-instrumental overdubs culminated in Rock The Casbah providing another huge hit before his sacking in ’82. Jones’s Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg mixes became legendary after the band overruled his expansive visions, manager Bernie Rhodes hiring Glyn Johns to panel-beat it into a commerciallyleaning single album.
The People’s Hall bonus disc adds early Radio Clash and Know Your Rights versions, B-sides and curios including racy out-take instrumental He Who Dares Or Is Tired and Outside Bonds acknowledging 1981’s NY-conquering residency with fieldrecorded street sounds. Futura 2000 draws from sessions with NYC’s graffiti artist of the same name, Mikey Dread’s Radio One dates from Sandinista!. Rat Patrol-derived tracks include B-sides First Night Back In London and Long Time Jerk, Studio 54-inspired The Fulham Connection (The Beautiful People Are Ugly Too) and Idle In Kangaroo Court (Kill Time). Lost until 1999’s Clash On Broadway, Midnight To Stevens reappears as their heartfelt eulogy to the fallen producer. The original Sean Flynn, breathing extra heady magic suggests further Rat Patrol nuggets – and, therefore, a more widescreen picture. Ultimately, however, this magnificent set is a vital snapshot of The Clash’s glorious last stand; on triple vinyl!
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Kris Needs
Quartz
On The Edge Of Tomorrow HNE RECORDINGS
And the Bandy Legs played on.
True Story. In 1975 this writer was embroiled in the chaos of Black Sabbath’s Sabotage tour. I sat with Ozzy Osbourne in a Range Rover as we travelled between gigs. After a while, he grew bored and made our driver stop. Without explanation, Ozzy got out of the 4x4, waved down the van following us, and climbed on board. It transpired that the battered vehicle was transporting members of Sabbath’s support act, the unlikely named Bandy Legs. The van disappeared in a cloud of exhaust smoke. Bandy Legs eventually became known as Quartz.
Fast-forward through the decades, and Quartz, who flirted with, but never quite embraced, the NWOBHM, are back, in part to honour the memory of founder member and sometime Sabs alumnus Geoff Nicholls. The guitarist/keyboard player passed away in 2017.
On The Edge Of Tomorrow is a riotous return but also a poignant one; a reminder of purer, simpler times when Midlands metal, born out of the region’s industrial badlands, unwittingly took over the world. Naturally, the style is very Sabbafy, the guitars chunking and thunking over an achingly familiar Butler/Ward groove, the crisp but primitive production making you wonder if Rodger Bain is credited. Freak Of Nature, Death Or Glory, Night Of The Living Dead… the track titles tell it all. Cue recollections of headbanging chaos amid the cheap seats at Birmingham Odeon, the entire balcony bouncing terrifyingly, like a swimming pool springboard.