| August 21st, 2004 11:33 AM |
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| FPM C10 |
Thanks to Torn & Frayed from over there <----------
Sony Legacy is releasing an expanded edition (2 CD's + 1 DVD) of The Clash's landmark album on Sept.21
Found a cool article in the New Zealand Herald (!):
One of rock'n'roll's great lost albums, a set of recordings made by the Clash, has been rediscovered 25 years after the songs were thought to have disappeared for ever when they were left behind on a London Underground train.
The recordings, which have become known as "the Vanilla Tapes", had previously been heard only by the band and are being hailed as a hugely significant find. It was long believed the only copy had been mislaid by one of the band's roadies on a Tube train.
But master tapes have now been discovered in a cardboard box by the Clash's guitarist and singer Mick Jones as he prepared to move house.
The Clash inspired a generation of musicians from U2 to Billy Bragg. They managed to transcend the three-chord thrash of their early days to embrace jazz, blues, reggae and hip hop, and are credited with putting a political edge back into rock.
"The Vanilla Tapes" date back to 1979 as the band worked on songs which would eventually become their third album, London Calling, widely hailed as their masterpiece. Now 21 of the tracks from "The Vanilla Tapes" - including five songs that were previously unknown - are to be released for the first time as part of the 25th-anniversary reissue of London Calling. The majority of the tracks are unpolished versions of the songs which the band put on the album.
Band biographer Pat Gilbert said: "There is very little unreleased Clash stuff. The idea that a whole album's worth of material has come to light like this is absolutely incredible."
The existence of the recordings took on mythical status when roadie Johnny Green wrote in his memoirs about how he had lost them. He had been asked to deliver a tape of the band's new songs to prospective producer Guy Stevens, to see if he was interested in working on the material, but lost it en route. "I was told to deliver it to Guy but I went down the pub and had a few, well, quite a few," he said. "I fell asleep on the Tube and when I woke up I realised I was at Warren Street where I had to change, so I rushed off, but left it on the Tube. One of the band had marked the tape 'Val Doonican' so I have this vision of someone finding the tape player and being really excited, then finding the tape and thinking 'what's this?' and throwing it in the bin."
However, a master tape survived, long forgotten in Jones's private collection.
The songs were recorded at Vanilla Studios in Pimlico, central London, where the band wrote and prepared their next album - with only their two roadies, Green and Baker Glare, in attendance. Using primitive recording techniques they set the tapes rolling each day to capture the works in progress. At one stage the band's other front man Joe Strummer - who died in December 2002 - had been keen to use the basic set-up to record the band's next album, but the idea was ditched.
The Clash were in a golden period, expanding their boundaries. "There was a point where punk was getting narrower in terms of where it was going," said Jones. "We thought we could just do any type of music." They themselves were also getting on famously, bolstering their camaraderie with regular football matches - a marked contrast to the bitter infighting that would follow.
After weeks holed up at Vanilla they moved into Wessex Studios in Highbury, north London, where the colourful and unpredictable producer Stevens used a variety of unconventional methods to coax out great performances.
"He'd pick up a ladder and then swing it around and then he'd throw six or seven chairs against the back wall," recalled Jones. Footage of his antics are contained in a documentary made by Clash associate Don Letts, which is being released as part of the reissued album.
Jones said "the Vanilla Tapes" would give an insight into the band as they limbered up for their finest hour. "They were just sketches, really. But I'm glad I found them. They tell you quite a lot about what we were like at the time."
Pat Gilbert, whose book Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash is published in October, said: "In some ways the mystique is washed away by hearing the basic construction of these songs, but they still stand up musically."
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This is incredibly exciting for me - I recently realized that I didn't have this absolutely vital album on CD and was going to buy it anyway. That fact that there is film of Guy Stevens throwing chairs against the wall blows my mind.
My own band from back in the day, Friction, defined ourselves after we all saw the Clash at the Tower Theater in 1980, and next year is also our 25th anniversary, so we've been kicking around the idea of re-mastering all of our vinyl releases for CD and (since none of us are fat, bald or dead) doing a reunion gig or two. This landmark re-release makes me think that is something we definitely will do. You're all invited!
Yahoo! Sometimes nostalgia really rocks!
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| August 21st, 2004 11:35 AM |
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| egon |
Got damn, i have that album and completely forgot about it!
Let's fire up the stereo! |
| August 21st, 2004 12:13 PM |
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| mac_daddy |
i cant wait for this, either (in fact i posted the info a while ago, when i first saw the news). glad to know the release date. the letts documentary will be sweet...
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OT - i'm looking forward to seeing X tomorrow - they were one of the originals for me (the stones and the clash, too)... |
| August 21st, 2004 02:05 PM |
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| Soldatti |
Great info, thanks! |
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