SOUNDBOARD UPGRADE BRIXTON 30 JULY 1982

[Heston]

Nice to see Terry getting some reasonable assesments here, but a little heavy on the hyperbole re: Topper being wildly inconsistent and his skill somehow being detrimental to the band live; also Paul being an awful player because his bass sounds bad on a few board mixes (shocking!).

Seconded.

[Tim Bucknall]

Personally, I'm a Rob Harper man.

theres an example of what Ikaris said about anyone who helped out being treated badly,
they shunned and mocked the poor bastard on the Anarchy Tour, he wasn't a bad drummer oddly enough, a really hard hitter
Glen Matlocks autobiography says he felt sorry for the poor bloke being on his own and befriended him

I don't have too much of a problem with Simmos playing, no one should base their judgement of Paul on the Tokyo TV show, the eq'ing is retarded, John Entwistle would sound bad with that EQ!

obviously if the drummer is stoned or Terry is having a bad day then Paul is going to find it tough to lock in,
I've been listening to May/June 80 & 1984 and when the Drummer is good Paul is tight

I was thinking of starting a new thread about the similarities between Clash II & the Euro Leg of 16 Tons. but this will do
normally people speak of Clash II as a return to 78 or even 77, but to me Joe is clearly trying to recapture the above.
May/June 80 they were playing most of the 1st album with a lot of aggression but the band were excellent musicians by that point and
the sophisticated edge was creeping in nicely.

Topper was still for the most part on brilliant form. in terms of setlist and performance i see a lot of connections between 16 tons euro leg and in particular March 84
its like they went back to just before Topper started to fail and started developing again IMO,
85 is almost the parallel universe version of mission impossible if Topper wasn't on drugs

[IkarisOne]

Personally, I'm a Rob Harper man.

theres an example of what Ikaris said about anyone who helped out being treated badly,
they shunned and mocked the poor bastard on the Anarchy Tour, he wasn't a bad drummer oddly enough, a really hard hitter
Glen Matlocks autobiography says he felt sorry for the poor bloke being on his own and befriended him

I don't have too much of a problem with Simmos playing, no one should base their judgement of Paul on the Tokyo TV show, the eq'ing is retarded, John Entwistle would sound bad with that EQ!

obviously if the drummer is stoned or Terry is having a bad day then Paul is going to find it tough to lock in,
I've been listening to May/June 80 & 1984 and when the Drummer is good Paul is tight

I was thinking of starting a new thread about the similarities between Clash II & the Euro Leg of 16 Tons. but this will do
normally people speak of Clash II as a return to 78 or even 77, but to me Joe is clearly trying to recapture the above.
May/June 80 they were playing most of the 1st album with a lot of aggression but the band were excellent musicians by that point and
the sophisticated edge was creeping in nicely.

Topper was still for the most part on brilliant form. in terms of setlist and performance i see a lot of connections between 16 tons euro leg and in particular March 84
its like they went back to just before Topper started to fail and started developing again IMO,
85 is almost the parallel universe version of mission impossible if Topper wasn't on drugs

I see that period as when Topper fell to earth. He started to have a lot of tempo problems and developed some really stiff beats. I thought it was funny that Matey bases his hatred of Terry pretty much on the pocket playing on the Shea CD TIV, when I don't think Tops ever played that song unshittily from around this time to his sacking. I mean that umm-pah /ummpahh/boop!boop! Donna Summer beat he started playing in 1981? In what alternate universe is that not the most excruciating shit on earth?

But by the same token there were shows where Tops blew away the cobwebs and could make your heart stop, especially when he was clean. Which is probably why he wasn't sacked much sooner than he was. I wish he never fell apart like he did- I worship his playing on stuff like Cleveland 79. But I wish Mick didn't decide he hated rock and roll and verse-chorus song structure or surround himself with dingleberry lickers and I wish that Paul learned to play for real and I wish that Joe didn't start writing fantasy world lyrics and I wish the Clash used competent producers. But then they would have turned into u2 and how interesting would that have been?

[bazarboy75]

I wish you stop thinking too much

Topper was THE drummer of the Clash, no need to philosophy
Those guys were young, they made mistake no doubt about it, but take it or leave it.
i don't find many interest in re-make the game for hours

And my favorite Clash album is sandinista by the way even if Paul didn't play on M7 bla bla bla...
That's was the Clash.
Their music still speaks to me now.

Everybodies got their own preference.

Still a bloody cool band to me

[Chuck Mangione]

Whoever said Topper didn't like punk?* He chose to associate with more than one punk band that weren't the Clash, after and during (Bush Tetras, Chelsea, that bar band The Heroes or whatever the fuck it's called on YouTube, TRAC, if that counts) so that's proof that he doesn't necessarily detest it. I think I remember him giving props the Heartbreakers' Jerry Nolan's style of drumming in an interview once.



*I can't find the page that was on, so I can't quote it, but I remember IkarisOne saying it.

[IkarisOne]

Whoever said Topper didn't like punk?* He chose to associate with more than one punk band that weren't the Clash, after and during (Bush Tetras, Chelsea, that bar band The Heroes or whatever the fuck it's called on YouTube, TRAC, if that counts) so that's proof that he doesn't necessarily detest it. I think I remember him giving props the Heartbreakers' Jerry Nolan's style of drumming in an interview once.



*I can't find the page that was on, so I can't quote it, but I remember IkarisOne saying it.

Bush Tetras were an art band, not really a punk band. And that episode is a whole other story. I heard some things from Cynthia about the whole debacle but I don't want to tell tales out of school.

[matedog]

It's interesting, I actually don't listen to Topper too much live. He usually sticks to the album version right down to the fills (WMHP, ugh). Even something like Clampdown isn't that interesting when he improvises a bit. For the most part, he stays out of the way, propelling the band, making way for the Joe (and to a lesser extent Mick) show.

When I listen to really any Terry show, I do notice the drums. And my reaction is almost always negative. Just basic shit he doesn't play right. Sure Straight to Hell is tricky, but he fucks up the chorus beat on SISOSIG, he sometimes plays, sometimes doesn't play the hits on Radio Clash. He fucks up the bridge in Clampdown. His timing is all over the place on Tommy Gun, especially when he tries to play the triplet/sextuplet parts. And he seems to feel the need to his crashes on the first beat of the measures when it's really not called for. Two examples would be Tommy Gun and the intro to IFTL. To his credit, he still sounds good on Police and Thieves and Police on my Back, and I like hearing god damn different fills on WMHP without having to resort to Pete's tasteless overplaying on that particular tune. But I'll take Topper on almost all first album material, especially Career Ops. He also gives it that driving energy whereas Terry kinda drags it down a bit. Whenever I hear ECW on Shea, without fail, it has me running back to listen to the 79 Lyceum version or the Lewisham version. I know your point of contention is 81-82 Topper and I've cited pre-81 shows, but I've never noticed any 81/82 shows being particularly bad in terms of the drumming. I'll take your word that his tempo my get a bit shoddy, but I haven't noticed without having to actually focus on the drumming.

And my Terry issues aren't just Shea. It's every single show with Terry. I've never heard a show where he doesn't have the fundamental problems that I listed above. Sometimes I can get beyond them if it's a straight rock song and Joe/Mick are on fire. But more often than not, it is jarring and strident to my ears. That sounds a bit melodramatic, but it is something that I notice.

[IkarisOne]

Some very interesting observations there. As I've said, getting technical about the Clash is pretty hopeless since despite all their submissive bendovers for soft rock radio programmers in their later days they were supposed to be a punk rock band, which in those days wasn't at all about technique.

Unfortunately any defense of Topper is immediately nullified once you listen to Waking Up, on moral and ethical grounds. Most of you are too young to recognize the demarcation lines, or remember having that variety of Michael McDonald/Boz Scaggs rubbish shoved down your throat morning, noon and night to see what an unvarnished act of virulent and aggressive hatred it was against people who bought Clash records. To the legacy of Punk itself, in some ways.

Just imagine if Tim Armstrong quit Rancid and hooked up with N'Sync and did a straight up boy band album. That's the level of flat out hatred that record projects. As does TRAC, for that matter.

Topper must have really been miserable having to play rock and roll all those years, even if it made his career. Maybe it was the golden cage effect that led to his self-destructive habits.

[Rat Patrol]

It's interesting, I actually don't listen to Topper too much live. He usually sticks to the album version right down to the fills (WMHP, ugh). Even something like Clampdown isn't that interesting when he improvises a bit. For the most part, he stays out of the way, propelling the band, making way for the Joe (and to a lesser extent Mick) show.

When I listen to really any Terry show, I do notice the drums. And my reaction is almost always negative. Just basic shit he doesn't play right. Sure Straight to Hell is tricky, but he fucks up the chorus beat on SISOSIG, he sometimes plays, sometimes doesn't play the hits on Radio Clash. He fucks up the bridge in Clampdown. His timing is all over the place on Tommy Gun, especially when he tries to play the triplet/sextuplet parts. And he seems to feel the need to his crashes on the first beat of the measures when it's really not called for. Two examples would be Tommy Gun and the intro to IFTL. To his credit, he still sounds good on Police and Thieves and Police on my Back, and I like hearing god damn different fills on WMHP without having to resort to Pete's tasteless overplaying on that particular tune. But I'll take Topper on almost all first album material, especially Career Ops. He also gives it that driving energy whereas Terry kinda drags it down a bit. Whenever I hear ECW on Shea, without fail, it has me running back to listen to the 79 Lyceum version or the Lewisham version. I know your point of contention is 81-82 Topper and I've cited pre-81 shows, but I've never noticed any 81/82 shows being particularly bad in terms of the drumming. I'll take your word that his tempo my get a bit shoddy, but I haven't noticed without having to actually focus on the drumming.

And my Terry issues aren't just Shea. It's every single show with Terry. I've never heard a show where he doesn't have the fundamental problems that I listed above. Sometimes I can get beyond them if it's a straight rock song and Joe/Mick are on fire. But more often than not, it is jarring and strident to my ears. That sounds a bit melodramatic, but it is something that I notice.

I think part of Chris's point is that in the audience none of that is going to be noticeable, because the FoH sound is so fucking loud and the adrenaline is pumping. The only thing an audience member is going to notice is the much heavier bottom. So I get why that matters.

However, the largest Terry audiences were the outdoor arena shows where that effect is diminished a lot by shittier outdoor acoustics and the inferior bottom that's going to expose more of the flaws to the audience. And the largest number of people period who saw Terry was SNL and his excruciating butchering of SISOSIG. So...that's going to nullify a goodly chunk of the folks who got the midsize indoor venue power bottoming.

And let's not forget, Shea with its pro production WAS in the queue for a 1983 official release before the band's implosion shelved that project. We're fully acknowledging here that it's a very mediocre performance and that Glyn Johns' best production wizardry only manages to paint tasteful lipstick on a big. Terry sucked that night. He sucked at most of the arena shows because the acoustics couldn't cover it up. It may have had some very small % to do with the band's intransigence in front of those Who audiences, because nothing about the outdoor FoH could've covered it up with more bottom. So the argument does start falling apart when the band's full intent was to foist that subpar drumming on their fans as the first official release since they broke big. Terry looks better simply by being on a majority of the official-release live material 30 years later to a buying public where only 0.00000001% of the audience ever HAD a direct chance of experiencing that power bottom FoH working as intended. Unfortunately, not much better at exposing the buying public to Topper shows like Cleveland '79, Lewisham, or even hardly-perfect Bonds for an on-record comparison...which is not going to favor Terry at all. Unless they happened to be watching Japanese TV in 1982.

Chris...you have to realize what an extreme, extreme statistical outlier your experience is when pushing this argument. That absolutely, positively makes you lucky and fortunate (Orpheum, at least, was a minimum second-out-of-four tier Terry show, even if Cape Cod CC wasn't). But it's not representative. Not at all. Shea, SNL, arena shows, and the boots record are what the not-one-in-a-hundred-million division has to rate him on. And the playing is what they hear first. Andrew may take particular exception being himself a well-studied drummer with behind-the-kit experience and mentality on technique being the all-encompassing focus. Because that's what he has to focus on when he's playing a gig or practicing. But there's not a lot of good shows to choose from where Terry's limitations don't get in the way. For me it's pretty much the first week of the tour when seat-of-pants adrenaline was lifting the unit above the lack of practice, the Jul. hometown shows where the audience energy was pushing them to another level, the first couple weeks back in the U.S. in AUg. when they were still feeding off the residual shit-hot energy from the UK leg, a couple of the between-Who gig Oct. college shows where the change of pace refreshed them, and Jamaica (although the extra reverb coating him on both the SBD and the video mix probably helps more than the performance). Late-June is dregs-of-earth awful, Sept. is generally not good at all save for Boston, and the arena shows are dregs-of-earth awful. Topper at his worst didn't have long consecutive streaks of mediocrity or getting in the way like that on the audio record. He was still capable of uncorking a nails-tight couple of Mogador or Lyceum shows, Shibuya, Osaka, Auckland, etc. Crapshoot, yes. But I don't feel the need when doing a boots rotation to ever skip whole weeks or months of any tour because of half-assed drumming like I do with whole tracts of the Terry Tour.

It is what it is for the not-one-in-a-hundred-million set. That's reality.

[Marky Dread]

Some very interesting observations there. As I've said, getting technical about the Clash is pretty hopeless since despite all their submissive bendovers for soft rock radio programmers in their later days they were supposed to be a punk rock band, which in those days wasn't at all about technique.

Unfortunately any defense of Topper is immediately nullified once you listen to Waking Up, on moral and ethical grounds. Most of you are too young to recognize the demarcation lines, or remember having that variety of Michael McDonald/Boz Scaggs rubbish shoved down your throat morning, noon and night to see what an unvarnished act of virulent and aggressive hatred it was against people who bought Clash records. To the legacy of Punk itself, in some ways.

Just imagine if Tim Armstrong quit Rancid and hooked up with N'Sync and did a straight up boy band album. That's the level of flat out hatred that record projects. As does TRAC, for that matter.

Topper must have really been miserable having to play rock and roll all those years, even if it made his career. Maybe it was the golden cage effect that led to his self-destructive habits.

OK my here's my 10 cents.

All the members of The Clash except Mick went back to doing what they already knew. Topper back to his Soul/R&B Chicken-in-a-basket chops. Paul a pale imitation of The Clash with Havana 3AM and awful synth drums. Joe after The Clash II fiasco that was CTC went onto soundtracks making some good music in Trash City and Love Kills/Dum Dum Club but these are not a million miles away from the 101ers. The Walker soundtrack was a departure in ways but how much Joe actually plays and orchestrates fuck only knows. Only Mick had the balls and the capabillity of really strecthing out to try new ideas for better or for worse. Wasn't one of the goals of punk to be always looking forward and to not stagnate. The Clash may well have had punk songs on their first album ideas wise but they were always a rock n roll band.

[Rat Patrol]

Some very interesting observations there. As I've said, getting technical about the Clash is pretty hopeless since despite all their submissive bendovers for soft rock radio programmers in their later days they were supposed to be a punk rock band, which in those days wasn't at all about technique.

Unfortunately any defense of Topper is immediately nullified once you listen to Waking Up, on moral and ethical grounds. Most of you are too young to recognize the demarcation lines, or remember having that variety of Michael McDonald/Boz Scaggs rubbish shoved down your throat morning, noon and night to see what an unvarnished act of virulent and aggressive hatred it was against people who bought Clash records. To the legacy of Punk itself, in some ways.

Just imagine if Tim Armstrong quit Rancid and hooked up with N'Sync and did a straight up boy band album. That's the level of flat out hatred that record projects. As does TRAC, for that matter.

Topper must have really been miserable having to play rock and roll all those years, even if it made his career. Maybe it was the golden cage effect that led to his self-destructive habits.

OK my here's my 10 cents.

All the members of The Clash except Mick went back to doing what they already knew. Topper back to his Soul/R&B Chicken-in-a-basket chops. Paul a pale imitation of The Clash with Havana 3AM and awful synth drums. Joe after The Clash II fiasco that was CTC went onto soundtracks making some good music in Trash City and Love Kills/Dum Dum Club but these are not a million miles away from the 101ers. The Walker soundtrack was a departure in ways but how much Joe actually plays and orchestrates fuck only knows. Only Mick had the balls and the capabillity of really strecthing out to try new ideas for better or for worse. Wasn't one of the goals of punk to be always looking forward and to not stagnate. The Clash may well have had punk songs on their first album ideas wise but they were always a rock n roll band.

. . .and,

[youtube][/youtube]

Loverboy covers.

⁷⁺ⁿ

[Marky Dread]

Some very interesting observations there. As I've said, getting technical about the Clash is pretty hopeless since despite all their submissive bendovers for soft rock radio programmers in their later days they were supposed to be a punk rock band, which in those days wasn't at all about technique.

Unfortunately any defense of Topper is immediately nullified once you listen to Waking Up, on moral and ethical grounds. Most of you are too young to recognize the demarcation lines, or remember having that variety of Michael McDonald/Boz Scaggs rubbish shoved down your throat morning, noon and night to see what an unvarnished act of virulent and aggressive hatred it was against people who bought Clash records. To the legacy of Punk itself, in some ways.

Just imagine if Tim Armstrong quit Rancid and hooked up with N'Sync and did a straight up boy band album. That's the level of flat out hatred that record projects. As does TRAC, for that matter.

Topper must have really been miserable having to play rock and roll all those years, even if it made his career. Maybe it was the golden cage effect that led to his self-destructive habits.

OK my here's my 10 cents.

All the members of The Clash except Mick went back to doing what they already knew. Topper back to his Soul/R&B Chicken-in-a-basket chops. Paul a pale imitation of The Clash with Havana 3AM and awful synth drums. Joe after The Clash II fiasco that was CTC went onto soundtracks making some good music in Trash City and Love Kills/Dum Dum Club but these are not a million miles away from the 101ers. The Walker soundtrack was a departure in ways but how much Joe actually plays and orchestrates fuck only knows. Only Mick had the balls and the capabillity of really strecthing out to try new ideas for better or for worse. Wasn't one of the goals of punk to be always looking forward and to not stagnate. The Clash may well have had punk songs on their first album ideas wise but they were always a rock n roll band.

. . .and,

[youtube][/youtube]

Loverboy covers.

⁷⁺ⁿ

Oh fuck Ratty I had wiped my memory clean of that abortion.

[IkarisOne]

Some very interesting observations there. As I've said, getting technical about the Clash is pretty hopeless since despite all their submissive bendovers for soft rock radio programmers in their later days they were supposed to be a punk rock band, which in those days wasn't at all about technique.

Unfortunately any defense of Topper is immediately nullified once you listen to Waking Up, on moral and ethical grounds. Most of you are too young to recognize the demarcation lines, or remember having that variety of Michael McDonald/Boz Scaggs rubbish shoved down your throat morning, noon and night to see what an unvarnished act of virulent and aggressive hatred it was against people who bought Clash records. To the legacy of Punk itself, in some ways.

Just imagine if Tim Armstrong quit Rancid and hooked up with N'Sync and did a straight up boy band album. That's the level of flat out hatred that record projects. As does TRAC, for that matter.

Topper must have really been miserable having to play rock and roll all those years, even if it made his career. Maybe it was the golden cage effect that led to his self-destructive habits.

OK my here's my 10 cents.

All the members of The Clash except Mick went back to doing what they already knew. Topper back to his Soul/R&B Chicken-in-a-basket chops. Paul a pale imitation of The Clash with Havana 3AM and awful synth drums. Joe after The Clash II fiasco that was CTC went onto soundtracks making some good music in Trash City and Love Kills/Dum Dum Club but these are not a million miles away from the 101ers. The Walker soundtrack was a departure in ways but how much Joe actually plays and orchestrates fuck only knows. Only Mick had the balls and the capabillity of really strecthing out to try new ideas for better or for worse. Wasn't one of the goals of punk to be always looking forward and to not stagnate. The Clash may well have had punk songs on their first album ideas wise but they were always a rock n roll band.

I'll get to Ratty's post but let me just address this- I don't think you can really say Mick was stretching out new ideas because every BAD song is essentially a rewrite of Inoculated City, with different production and rhythmic techniques thrown in the mix. But the basic template- even on to a lot of the C/S material- was established there. I have no problem with that- I'm on record as much preferring BAD to Joe's post-Clash work. But he basically took ideas that The Clash had established and extruded them into a style. But you see, I don't care if it's mono-ideational, to me all great rock and pop music is. Killing Joke and Cocteau Twins made great records when they stuck to their formula and terrible ones when they didn't. Eclecticism is usually contrived and often desperate. The Beatles are the exception, not the rule. The Clash ended up looking like ELO or Seals and Crofts, not the Beatles, with some halfass disco and a couple token rock songs and a lot of soft rock slurry. Ironically so, since Inoculated City blatantly steals its main riff from "Living Thing."

Topper isn't playing R&B, he's playing corny old Holiday Inn Michael McDonald coverband versions of fifth-hand R&B. Exactly what was driving everyone to depression in 1975. Every article I read about Punk in the 70s- and I think I read them all- talked about how oppressive and soul-destroying all that Paul Carrack shit was- so why make an album full of it unless you're making a statement? Who the hell makes Boz Scaggs records in 1985? Wasn't Scaggs himself making synthpop records then? Waking Up was a statement- it was a deliberate rebuke. He was "waking up" from Punk.

[Marky Dread]

Some very interesting observations there. As I've said, getting technical about the Clash is pretty hopeless since despite all their submissive bendovers for soft rock radio programmers in their later days they were supposed to be a punk rock band, which in those days wasn't at all about technique.

Unfortunately any defense of Topper is immediately nullified once you listen to Waking Up, on moral and ethical grounds. Most of you are too young to recognize the demarcation lines, or remember having that variety of Michael McDonald/Boz Scaggs rubbish shoved down your throat morning, noon and night to see what an unvarnished act of virulent and aggressive hatred it was against people who bought Clash records. To the legacy of Punk itself, in some ways.

Just imagine if Tim Armstrong quit Rancid and hooked up with N'Sync and did a straight up boy band album. That's the level of flat out hatred that record projects. As does TRAC, for that matter.

Topper must have really been miserable having to play rock and roll all those years, even if it made his career. Maybe it was the golden cage effect that led to his self-destructive habits.

OK my here's my 10 cents.

All the members of The Clash except Mick went back to doing what they already knew. Topper back to his Soul/R&B Chicken-in-a-basket chops. Paul a pale imitation of The Clash with Havana 3AM and awful synth drums. Joe after The Clash II fiasco that was CTC went onto soundtracks making some good music in Trash City and Love Kills/Dum Dum Club but these are not a million miles away from the 101ers. The Walker soundtrack was a departure in ways but how much Joe actually plays and orchestrates fuck only knows. Only Mick had the balls and the capabillity of really strecthing out to try new ideas for better or for worse. Wasn't one of the goals of punk to be always looking forward and to not stagnate. The Clash may well have had punk songs on their first album ideas wise but they were always a rock n roll band.

I'll get to Ratty's post but let me just address this- I don't think you can really say Mick was stretching out new ideas because every BAD song is essentially a rewrite of Inoculated City, with different production and rhythmic techniques thrown in the mix. But the basic template- even on to a lot of the C/S material- was established there. I have no problem with that- I'm on record as much preferring BAD to Joe's post-Clash work. But he basically took ideas that The Clash had established and extruded them into a style. But you see, I don't care if it's mono-ideational, to me all great rock and pop music is. Killing Joke and Cocteau Twins made great records when they stuck to their formula and terrible ones when they didn't. Eclecticism is usually contrived and often desperate. The Beatles are the exception, not the rule. The Clash ended up looking like ELO or Seals and Crofts, not the Beatles, with some halfass disco and a couple token rock songs and a lot of soft rock slurry. Ironically so, since Inoculated City blatantly steals its main riff from "Living Thing."

Topper isn't playing R&B, he's playing corny old Holiday Inn Michael McDonald coverband versions of fifth-hand R&B. Exactly what was driving everyone to depression in 1975. Every article I read about Punk in the 70s- and I think I read them all- talked about how oppressive and soul-destroying all that Paul Carrack shit was- so why make an album full of it unless you're making a statement? Who the hell makes Boz Scaggs records in 1985? Wasn't Scaggs himself making synthpop records then? Waking Up was a statement- it was a deliberate rebuke. He was "waking up" from Punk.

That he established in The Clash. Punk rock is a very flawed idea and the best bands from that era very quickly shed the one dimensionalaity it had become.

I have no idea who Michael McDonald is and that would appear to be a good thing.

[IkarisOne]

I think part of Chris's point is that in the audience none of that is going to be noticeable, because the FoH sound is so fucking loud and the adrenaline is pumping. The only thing an audience member is going to notice is the much heavier bottom. So I get why that matters.

However, the largest Terry audiences were the outdoor arena shows where that effect is diminished a lot by shittier outdoor acoustics and the inferior bottom that's going to expose more of the flaws to the audience. And the largest number of people period who saw Terry was SNL and his excruciating butchering of SISOSIG. So...that's going to nullify a goodly chunk of the folks who got the midsize indoor venue power bottoming.

And let's not forget, Shea with its pro production WAS in the queue for a 1983 official release before the band's implosion shelved that project. We're fully acknowledging here that it's a very mediocre performance and that Glyn Johns' best production wizardry only manages to paint tasteful lipstick on a big. Terry sucked that night. He sucked at most of the arena shows because the acoustics couldn't cover it up. It may have had some very small % to do with the band's intransigence in front of those Who audiences, because nothing about the outdoor FoH could've covered it up with more bottom. So the argument does start falling apart when the band's full intent was to foist that subpar drumming on their fans as the first official release since they broke big. Terry looks better simply by being on a majority of the official-release live material 30 years later to a buying public where only 0.00000001% of the audience ever HAD a direct chance of experiencing that power bottom FoH working as intended. Unfortunately, not much better at exposing the buying public to Topper shows like Cleveland '79, Lewisham, or even hardly-perfect Bonds for an on-record comparison...which is not going to favor Terry at all. Unless they happened to be watching Japanese TV in 1982.

Here's the thing that I think you guys are all missing- it's not about "Terry or Topper" for me. Terry is a non-entity in my life Until I actually sat down and went through the shows and brought a lot of them into Audacity and fixed all the speeds- nearly every show on the Megalist was WAY offspeed- I only ever listened more than once to a few Terry shows. Of course the ones I did listen to- St Paul, Casbah Club- I played like crazy. Usually I'd hear some way fucked up shit- like that SF soundboard that ended up sounding like a terrible audience recording- and go back to listening to some show with Pete. I was the hardcore Pete guy, remember?

And I have to say it, this anti-Terry stuff is Matey's creation, pure and simple. He's the Evangelist for this and converted everyone here to his cause by relentlessly hammering home his personal opinions. That's fine- I did the very same for Clash II back in the dial-up era. But it used to be that people liked Terry or didn't but pretty much didn't care much one way or the other. The worst I can say about Terry is that he was mediocre and I'm completely gobsmacked by the obvious emotion he arouses in Andrew. I mean I most certainly understand being bugged on a technical sense by a player, but once Terry got his sealegs he was perfectly adequate and certainly on par with the mutton-handed players he shared the stage with. As a former guitarist I'm actually a bit insulted by it- and no dig at Matey per se, since I love talking music with him- because where are the guitarists- never mind the bassists!- standing up for the instrument when the Clash's playing would never have passed muster in the pre-punk days?

And I absolutely won't hear anyone telling me that Topper 1981-82 was an on-par professional rock drummer, because skill is only half the job description. Timekeeping is the first order of business, and there is no doubt in my mind that a Topper Combat Rock tour would have been a clusterfuck of the first order. There would have been an onstage meltdown followed by a bust, either for drugs or statutory, and even CBS would lose patience with these idiots.

Here's where it's at for me- The Clash were like some Medieval peasants who thought that bloodletting would cure their disease, their disease being their commercial underperformance. So they progressively bled out what it was that made anyone pay attention to them in the first place- their musical power. I was listening to prog before I got into punk so I never took this whole "musical progression nonsense" seriously- nor did a single solitary person I hung with, many of whom were musicians in big hardcore bands as you know.

Someone should have slapped them all in the head repeatedly and told them to knock it the fuck off, monkeys will rewrite Shakespeare before those sausage-fingered plonkers ever became Steely Dan. Drug-fueled one and two chord vamps on lifted riffs were no substitute for the instinctual gift both Joe and Mick had for classic British chord progression-driven rock and roll.

The fact that Mick surrounded himself with a Praetorian Guard of Kris Needses was not only a travesty for the Clash, it was for Rock and Roll and for culture in general in many ways. Someone needed to tell Mick to save the SRP shit for the next Ellen Foley album and keep the guitars at 11 at all times when playing with the Clash, no matter whose "culture of resistance" they were doing their cultural imperialism/rich white boy number on.

So the career that starts with "White Riot" ends with the junky nod-off of "Death is a Star" or the humiliating fartfest of "Cool Confusion" if you're looking at it chronologically. Before Sony rewrites the story the world sees it all as the one of the great epic fails of all time. And Topper is a huge bad actor in all of this, since The Clash themselves were the first consumers of the Topper Myth®. Not only can he barely sit up in the studio at times- a fact, not an opinion- he contributes some warmed-over disco and easy listening ethnickey riffs. It's all good since The Clash are not only trying to break America, they're trying to break their record contract since Bernie got them such a shitty royalty, so the more material the better, especially if it might break the soft rock stations in the big markets like NY, LA and Chicago.

The problem is that the record company isn't at all threatened by double and treble sets- Muff Winwood knew toothless hippie tourism when he heard it and he'll package it as "Socialist pop" and "brave statements" and the rest of that total PR nonsense (Winwood was also eternally patient and accomodating). Spineless old hippies like Christgau will lick it all up and ask for more.

Meanwhile, the people who thought the Clash were a punk band were reduced to expendable collateral damage in all of this. Lots of them wrote it all off and listened to Black Flag. But I think Joe realized the sands had shifted and the days when you could sell following all the old rules as "Punk meant no rules" were over. Topper had to go, even if "not so bad" passes muster with the consumers of the Clash Myth today. Topper said they should have replaced him with a Simon Phillips, which shows that not only did he not like Punk, he didn't understand it. Before "Casbah" hit, the Clash were very much on probation. "SIS" flopped and it was the tour that sold the album, not the other way around.

Why?

Because Joe was a genius in his own way. He knew he couldn't get away with fooling kids into thinking soft rock and sub-Dead jams were Punk anymore, even if Mick never figured that out. The real thing was being heard in every dive in every major city on every weekend. Simon Phillips would have been a disaster, not because he's not a great drummer (on his worst day he could play circles around Topper with one hand and one leg tied behind his back) but because he was part of the old order that Punk was supposed to replace. The first Clash album became a totem- it started competing with the usual Van Halen stuff at Nantasket or Revere Beach- and for everyone who thought Combat Rock was a total and complete sellout (which is everyone I knew) bringing Terry back was a statement.

Terry could have been the Sid Vicious of drums and it wouldn't matter. But fortunately he came across like a pissed-off maniac who laid down an aggressive, tribal beat that got people worked up. You could see him working them like a boxer works a heavy bag. And it was exactly his rudimentary 123412341234 that quantized the wavering Clash and allowed Paul and Joe to enter the mix, rather than the Clash being just drums and lead guitar. You see, I don't listen to Terry. I listen to Paul hitting the beats, and Mick playing real rock guitar again and Joe not sounding like he just gargled with lye.

I would have vastly preferred they found Pete when it mattered but at the same time they needed to make a statement that they were sorry for inflicting so much sub-Sting/sub-Steely Dan soft rock mush on their fans and did so by reaching back into their past before they began blowing kisses at the US music industry (Joe would apologize in 1984 though sort of walk it back- Mick sees concession as weakness and doubled-down on it). They needed a guy who made them sound like an invading army, especially since they were playing for thousands of kids who spent their weekends bloodying themselves in mosh pits. So sitting here worrying about technique is totally beside the point- as well as being radically ahistorical.

Chris...you have to realize what an extreme, extreme statistical outlier your experience is when pushing this argument. That absolutely, positively makes you lucky and fortunate (Orpheum, at least, was a minimum second-out-of-four tier Terry show, even if Cape Cod CC wasn't). But it's not representative. Not at all. Shea, SNL, arena shows, and the boots record are what the not-one-in-a-hundred-million division has to rate him on. And the playing is what they hear first. Andrew may take particular exception being himself a well-studied drummer with behind-the-kit experience and mentality on technique being the all-encompassing focus. Because that's what he has to focus on when he's playing a gig or practicing. But there's not a lot of good shows to choose from where Terry's limitations don't get in the way. For me it's pretty much the first week of the tour when seat-of-pants adrenaline was lifting the unit above the lack of practice, the Jul. hometown shows where the audience energy was pushing them to another level, the first couple weeks back in the U.S. in AUg. when they were still feeding off the residual shit-hot energy from the UK leg, a couple of the between-Who gig Oct. college shows where the change of pace refreshed them, and Jamaica (although the extra reverb coating him on both the SBD and the video mix probably helps more than the performance). Late-June is dregs-of-earth awful, Sept. is generally not good at all save for Boston, and the arena shows are dregs-of-earth awful. Topper at his worst didn't have long consecutive streaks of mediocrity or getting in the way like that on the audio record. He was still capable of uncorking a nails-tight couple of Mogador or Lyceum shows, Shibuya, Osaka, Auckland, etc. Crapshoot, yes. But I don't feel the need when doing a boots rotation to ever skip whole weeks or months of any tour because of half-assed drumming like I do with whole tracts of the Terry Tour.

It is what it is for the not-one-in-a-hundred-million set. That's reality.