Today being Joe Strummer’s birthday, I thought I’d republish this review I did in 2010.
Saw a very nice copy of THE CLASH’s 1985 swansong, Cut the Crap, at one of my favorite record shops the other day. I didn’t have a copy of this record—the only one I was missing by the only band that matters—so I picked it up. Now, you may remember the reviews of this final album under that storied band name from when it came out, and they were uniformly bad. Not B.A.D., as in the band Mick Jones started with Don Letts after he was kicked out of his own band (and who were a better group than the one on this record), but C.R.A.P.
Joe Strummer, bless his populist little heart, decided to carry on under the name he helped promote to #1 Punk Band in the Land, recruited some young punks (no new boots or contracts), and cut an album of new generation singalongs. A few of these songs aren’t that bad, including the two singles “This Is England” and the severely misguidedly-titled “We Are the Clash,” neither of which charted very high. Part of the problem here is that Strummer co-wrote the tunes not with his old mates in the band (or even the new ones), but former Clash manager Bernie Rhodes. Some songs retain a bit of the old grit-and-go the band once had, but let’s face it, this one was not helped by BR’s input. Basically, it’s the arrangements and the constant “everybody sing with me!” choruses that wear on you.
Clearly, Strummer must’ve felt he had something to prove when he undertook this record. Despite the fact that The Clash had Top 10 hits everywhere, had successfully toured the globe in support of their 1982 Combat Rock album, and had garnered more great reviews than any punk band ever, he’s definitely giving it his all here. “This Is England” ain’t half-bad, “Movers and Shakers” and “North and South” are alright, too, but overall, you can’t really listen to this one much. And that may be why, when in the early ’90s a box set of the band’s work was released, mysteriously this record’s name was missing from the band discography and not one cut from it appears on any of the three discs. I like to think that maybe even those few years later Strummer realized that he’d sullied his band’s name and decided to try and forget the past. In the late ’90s all of the band’s albums were remastered and reissued—all except this one. I guess they really did cut the crap.
2/5 (Epic FE 40017, 1985)
[review originally published 1/27/2010 on Skratchdisc]
They’ve taken both of XTC’s alter ego releases as THE DUKES OF STRATOSPHEAR and put them into an ultra-mega-deluxe box set called The Complete & Utter Dukes that includes both CD and vinyl versions (180 gram, too!), a 7″ single, a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle, some Dukes Dollars, and a coupon for a Dukes t-shirt of your very own. All of this comes in a real nice purple velvet box. So if you haven’t picked up 25 O’Clock or Psonic Psunspot since they were reissued by Andy Partridge’s Ape House label, now’s the time. The remasters are much better than the ones Virgin originally put out, the CDs feature extra demos and stuff, and the vinyl is very psychedelically psupreme. (The vinyl versions come out separately in their own right anytime now.)
This time, XTC’s US label, Geffen Records, took notice and released the album on both vinyl and CD (under the title Chips from the Chocolate Fireball, including the 25 O’Clock tracks). Once more XTC took a backseat, not hopping into the driver’s seat again until Spring 1989’s Oranges & Lemons. Thirty years after their final release, the Dukes of Stratosphear continue to thrill with their recorded righteousness—often outshining releases by XTC proper. If “Little Lighthouse,” “What in the World??” and “My Love Explodes” don’t smother you in their organic guitar goodness, you may well be a lost cause.
I finally made time for this one. A compilation of tracks produced by an American ex-pat, Making Time: A SHEL TALMY Production is a 25-track platter of mostly British rock and freakbeat from the early/mid ’60s. Talmy is most famous for producing The Who’s first album (and its same-titled single) My Generation, a few Kinks records and The Creation’s greatest, errr, creation, “Making Time.” Ace Records, the UK label known for putting out quality compilations of this ilk, has once again sorted out a quality collection of tunes, including some big names and lots of lesser known ones—and even a pseudonymous track by a fellow called Davy Jones (not that guy from the Monkees). What you don’t get with Making Time is the feeling that Talmy was the great producer that legend has him, but really just a hustler with a good ear.
Along came The Easybeats, Manfred Mann, The Creation, Chad & Jeremy and a load more. Hell, he even produced a female singer with the unlikely but cool name of Perpetual Langley! Later down the road he started his own label, Planet Records (not to be confused with the one started by Richard Perry in the late ’70s). Talmy gets a bad rap for keeping The Who in mid-sixties limbo with litigation that severely curtailed their early momentum, but that was eventually sorted out by both parties.
Here’s another in a series of releases designed to bring you more of THE BEACH BOYS’ mid/late ’60s output. This time, since they’ve already mined the Pet Sounds/ Smile era about as much as must be possible, we’re getting the very next chapter in their story: the sessions for their following album, 1967’s Wild Honey. Unsung by the mainstream press but acclaimed by those with a deeper appreciation for Hawthorne, CA’s favorite sons/cousins/best friends, this new release covers a year’s worth of activities from a time when the Wilson Bros. & Co. were much busier than anyone knew.
Whatever was the label’s master plan, The Beach Boys themselves started a number of projects in 1967 and no less than seven of them are represented here. Wild Honey itself makes up disc one, with a brand new stereo mix (it was never mixed that way back in the day) that shines a nice bright light on the album, including some great songs of their own and a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “I Was Made to Love Her.” Some thirteen tracks of outtakes from the album’s sessions are next, which comprise an interesting look at what the Boys were doing but which aren’t that revelatory to their working practices. (We’ve already been given two different 4CD anthologies of how they made Pet Sounds, and though these WH tracks were primarily recorded at their own personal studio, aside from sound quality they don’t show anything new of the group’s arranging and recording methods.) Still, disc one is Wild Honey through and through. Disc two, however, is much less focused. Here we get Smiley Smile sessions (the album prior to WH that ultimately became the sad reminder of what Smile might have been, had the band ever finished it), live and simulated live tracks for the aborted Lei’d in Hawaii album, more live tracks, and a few pre-Surf’s Up studio tracks. I found the Lei’d tracks quite depressing. I hoped (or is it expected) they’d be exciting, but instead they were slow and dull. Clearly The Beach Boys were in transition, and it’s been documented that they, indeed, seemed rudderless at this point. Sadly, this is the proof. The actual live tracks are as lifeless as the studio recordings they planned to add audience sounds to in order to hoodwink America. Luckily, the band—or some entity close to them—sensed these dreary tracks would not help their case and chose not to go ahead with the project. That they have now speaks to either their wish to give the hardcore fans what they want or to their failing memories. After all, the Boys are now Old Men.
NuDisc 