If Music Could Talk

Kory wrote: ↑

02 Oct 2018, 6:35pm

bmc wrote: ↑

01 Oct 2018, 1:59pm

Forgot to add to my review. BMC gets no reference. There’s no reference to the banks of monitors on stage (or the video production) which was seen as radical and copied by U2.

I remember reading about this in the book, am I remembering something else?

Hello,

I remember this from the Clash Mk2 show at Vassar College (Poughkeepsie). I think they included shots of the band wandering around some local places.

Kory wrote: ↑

02 Oct 2018, 6:35pm

bmc wrote: ↑

01 Oct 2018, 1:59pm

Forgot to add to my review. BMC gets no reference. There’s no reference to the banks of monitors on stage (or the video production) which was seen as radical and copied by U2.

I remember reading about this in the book, am I remembering something else?

I also thought I remembered that in the book.

Forgot to add to my review. BMC gets no reference. There’s no reference to the banks of monitors on stage (or the video production) which was seen as radical and copied by U2.

I also thought I remembered that in the book.

So do I, and the reader is free to draw whatever inference they wish.

As for the abovementioned review, it wasn't forgotten -- there was quite a bit of stuff that didn't make the cut. I did push for bits that seemed especially relevant to the proceedings, like that one, but we were under a mandate to come in at a certain length, X amount of words, full stop. That was the publisher's concern, to keep the book reasonably priced, which Mark and I felt bound to honor.

That being said, the good news is, there is a website for the book, so the tastier ouittakes -- including some of my own bits, I might add, that didn't make it in -- could live there quite happily. Mark and I have discussed this, but we're not ready to work on that, simply because the current drive to work what we can, when we can, takes precedence. At any rate, something to think about down the line.

It arrived (completely soaked in water, by the way). Wow, I'm on it... can't believe...

Finished. A great read, carefully written and researched, academically speaking. Just one question: it sorted out that the band rehearsed constantly, most likely taped as the Lucky Demos tapes testify. How's possible nothing came out after all those years?

Finished. A great read, carefully written and researched, academically speaking. Just one question: it sorted out that the band rehearsed constantly, most likely taped as the Lucky Demos tapes testify. How's possible nothing came out after all those years?

Thanks for the kind word. As far as your question goes, lots of mental energy has been spent on this board debating that issue -- I'd chalk it up to Bernie's notoriously tight-fisted policy concerning such things. Think back to the band's five-piece beginnings, in '76, as Pablo LaBritain found out -- when Bernie asked to "borrow" a copy of the rehearsal tape he'd made, and never got back! Imagine what that'd be worth now, historically speaking.

That's the short answer, I'm sure the long answer would take a bit more time to unwind...but I suspect Bernie has a fair amount of that stuff in his archives somewhere.

But, given how much time and effort we put into We Are The Clash, that particular issue went well beyond our brief to track down...TeddyB, feel free weigh in. And while you're at it, did Mick ever tell you what he thought of the book?

As we got fired up in the Clash polling, I realized I had Ralph's great book mostly unread since I purchased it, put it down when life got in the way of reading, and neglected picking it back up. Decided to start fresh this weekend, and what a great read. Between our polling exercise and watching The Americans with the missus, I'm in the exact right headspace to relitigate both Clash Mark II and the Reagan/Thatcher years. It's been too long since I read a book that was unafraid to assert that music and politics can be indelibly interwined, and I'm about halfway through and the case is being made extremely well.

Hope everything works out for these crazy kids.

35 years ago this month was the first leg of the US Out of Control tour. Really a shame so few folks here got to see it. The recordings really don't do it justice. They were so damn loud you could feel the sound. It was total sensory overload from start to finish. The 4-17 show was just pure bedlam. I'd been to more hardcore shows than I could count but I never saw that level of violence at that scale. Even the bouncers were getting their asses kicked. NIck booted one right in the side of the head because he was beating the shit out of one of my friends.


Come to think of it, it's good concerts aren't like that anymore.

I might have mentioned this in years past but to this day I think the Providence show was such a bloodbath was because of the way the cops were acting, arresting and harassing people before and during the show. They were just grabbing people for dancing on their seats and hauling them out of the venue. Two of my friends were busted before the doors opened and spent the night In jail. I couldn't believe how much fighting I saw where I was standing (in the lower right orchestra right next to an entrance ramp) and a lot of it was hockey jocks punching it up with plainclothes cops.

I guess this kind of bears out Ralph's thesis.