Clash on Broadway: Disc 3

I don't find any of the miscellany here to be at the level of "Capital Radio One" or "Bankrobber," though "This is Radio Clash" comes close. For me, it'll be between that and the extended "Straight To Hell."

oh SHITE
sounds like murder!

Man, I love the late stuff so much -- the dance music hip-hop stuff. I want to be cheeky and go with "Cool Confusion," but I think I need to be honest and go with Magnificent Seven, Call Up, or Radio Clash.

Listening to this disc now and...I don't know what the hell I was thinking thirty-nine minutes ago. "This is Radio Clash" is an absolute classic, every bit the equal of any other great non-LP Clash track.

Broadway or Magnificent Seven. If the extended version of "Sean Flynn" had been there, it'd be an easy decision

The Call Up.

Ugh, I never need to hear "Rock the Casbah" again.

Lol that song rules, I love it.

It was many years before I realized that Paul was not playing the bass on the a lot of the funky stuff. Supposedly it's him on "Radio Clash," but I suspect it could be Norman Watt-Roy. Topper is the only credited bassist on "Rock the Casbah," but I think he said once that Norman Watt-Roy is on that one, too.

Yes, Rock the Casbah is great, c'mon. (Sean Flynn, yes!)

Voted Call Up, too. What a groove.

By contrast, I adore "Straight To Hell" in any version. As soon as the disc ended, I called up Emm Gryner's beautiful cover:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAj22PXJhgU

Street Parade for sentimental reasons

“Street Parade” to me always felt like their “Long Long Long” from the White Album - this mysterious, vulnerable 3am thing, easy to overlook near the end of a massive record but when it finally clicked with me it hit like a sledgehammer

"Rock the Casbah" was my introduction to the Clash, because I used to listen to American Top 40 every weekend, and that was clearly the best song on the chart when I was 11. (It made it to #8.)

I didn't always dislike it. I think I'm just sick of it. Just about the only Clash song you'll hear on "80s" radio, which admittedly may be might fault for listening to such things.

Radio Clash / Straight to Hell tossup, impossible. It sure seemed unlikely that final-phase Clash would ever be my favorite, but it's held that position for decades now...

Magnificent Seven, easy

So many great songs on this one though

Ripping cover (with Eno on backing vox!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F2sGhQ1CDk

Here's a live version with Eno and Mick Jones:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9BZ0WrvpP0

(RIP Rachid Taha, you ruled)

Story is that Strummer turned up to the studio early and found Topper had written and recorded Rock The Casbah overnight, and Joe wrote the lyrics and recorded the guitar and vocals before anyone else arrived.

Went with Radio Clash because as with prior volumes if I get into choosing among album tracks it’s too hard. I feel like Radio Clash has kind of disappeared, but it was a staple on rock radio for several years in the early 80s. It was the other song that you would hear on rock stations besides Casbah, SISOSIG and Train in Vain.

This one is legit impossible for me. One of these I guess:

The Magnificent Seven
The Call Up
Somebody Got Murdered
Washington Bullets
This is Radio Clash
Rock the Casbah
Straight To Hell (Unedited Version)

I once heard a U2-hating Clash fan argue that "Straight to Hell" was the kind of record U2 tries and wish they could make. I didn't agree with him (I like U2 and love a lot of their music despite their admitted lapses,) but I can see where they're coming from.

When I first got into the Clash, critical consensus seemed to have turned against Sandinista! and Combat Rock, but despite my initial reservations, I've grown to love them a lot, even though I currently program Sandinista! as a double LP (like 90+ minutes but less than 100) and my own version of Combat Rock is basically as close as I can get to Rat Patrol as pieced together from official releases. (I realize there are bootlegs of the real thing out there, but they're clearly from less than ideal sources and I opted for better sound quality.)

This one sounds pretty good (for youtube):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEyXCkTxBPc

Had to go for Straight To Hell although was super tempted by Magnificent Seven

I remember Radio Clash used to get a bit of stick in the UK music press when I was a slavish & uncritical reader - have a feeling D Quant1ck used to slag it off and perhaps others

But I always liked it and listened to it yesterday for the first time in ages and it is a fucking banger

Maybe lyrically some of Joe’s rebel pose stuff might’ve felt a bit old hat if you were there at the time? Cf also Know Yr Rights - but the music is killer and the package works great

Maybe lyrically some of Joe’s rebel pose stuff might’ve felt a bit old hat if you were there at the time?

not to me! granted I was 16, but still

LOL, everytime I hear "Know Your Rights," I think of John Mellencamp seething in anger and hating on the Clash.

JAM: The Clash bugged you?

Mellencamp: For some reason, that band really pissed me off. I remember at the time they were writing songs like they had some sort of pulse on the people of England. That was total bullshit. Those guys had maybe one successful album and they were all the rage. Their message was basically this. Know your rights, no one is allowed to take your life. Well thanks for the newsflash boys that no one can kill me. I don’t know what streets they walked on, but if you got stopped by a cop in Indianapolis, and you’re being hassled, you have no rights.

JAM: No one could have ever accused you of taking material from Time or Newsweek.

Mellencamp: For me to have written songs like The Clash – there’s just no way. For instance, “Hurts So Good.” It was a simple song that people everywhere related to. That song was exciting for me because I realized at 30 years old, for a good time, I could still walk around a shopping center and enjoy it. I know that sounds silly, but that’s how boring my life was, and if my life was that uninteresting, then I assumed everybody else’s was too. But the thing is, walking around the mall isn’t boring, it’s just one of the things we did for fun.

There's a lot of Mellencamp's music that I actually like (which he generally made after "Hurts So Good") but FFS...

lol

Well I'm running
Mall cops on my back

Haha

Great quote

gotta make clear I liked it a lot, I was 15-16 when I started getting into the Clash and their entire body of work sounded fucking righteous to me

also the fact that the proper Clash oeuvre all fits into a 5-year span 1977-1982 is unbelievable, i think of how fuckin hard it is to achieve even a fraction of that productivity in the current environment for music-making, they might’ve grumbled about CBS but they also lived their best life on that big biz cashflow

Honestly I feel like the harder question is to find which track on this disc is filler

(Xxxp)

lol I specifically remember reading that JC quote at the time

I heard this absolutely dire song by Survivor on the radio the other day, and for some reason my brain immediately sped it up, made it a bit looser, subbed Mick Jones on vox and turned it into a Clash song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLcbufKi0YU

Also, I think this came to mind some months/years back on a different thread, but I heard the Stones "Rock and Hard Place" on the radio and it struck me as sounding very much like something that would have fit on "Sandinista!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tPZPgu8FlY

Despite my exhaustion with the original, I dig that Taha cover.

Again, I only know the album tracks here, and I'm not fond of any of the Jones-led songs here. It's "Magnificent Seven" pretty easily, though "Ghetto Defendant" was unexpectedly gripping today.

I never need to hear "Rock the Casbah" again

I feel this way when it comes on the radio, though when I'm prepared for it, it can still feel fresh and unusual (and an unlikely hit record).

which track on this disc is filler

Every Little Bit Hurts

Police On My Back

I always liked Mick wailing away on "Every Little Bit Hurts".

Dithering… The Call Up or Magnificent Seven. Or This is Radio Clash.

Come on, team, it’s Magnificent Seven. YOU LOT. WOT?!?

"somebody got murdered" over "police on my back"

Broadway

The Street Parade

It feels like the soundtrack to a dream. Can't say I've heard anything like it.

Yeah, I think placing "The Street Parade" unlisted at the end of CD3 reinforces that "dream" effect (and I remember waking up to it playing on that disc, where I'd never really noticed it before — I hadn't spent much time with Sandinista! at that point).

"somebody got murdered" over "police on my back"

these are the two I'm hesitating between.

not fond of any of the Jones-led songs here

Love Mick’s prettier vocal melodies, might vote Somebody Got Murdered just in reaction to this :)

It’s such a feature-not-a-bug that both singers often seem to be writing far beyond their abilities to sing, but each in different ways.

Went for "Midnight to Stevens" because nobody else will...

Theoretically I like the mix of the rough yet poetic Joe and the more pop-oriented Mick, but most of the latter's songs are just too straightforward, sometimes to the point of blandness. This imbalance between the two frontmen is one of the things the group shared with Supertramp.

going with "straight to hell"

Listened to Sandinista again to try to decide between Police on My Back and Somebody Got Murdered, and only made it more difficult for myself because now I'm torn between Police on My Back, Somebody Got Murdered, Washington Bullets, and The Street Parade.

I went Washington Bullets. Deeply underrated gem.

Yes, Washington Bullets has one of Strummer's best-ever lyrics.

And a great groove to go with it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the people must not have something good to read on a Sunday

I’m extremely OK with this outcome.

Thx for these polls. Been holding off on listening to Sandinista! lately since I got the 33 1/3 and haven't started it yet. Now I am obsessed. Would have voted Police on My Back. Something about the energy there just made my afternoon today, blasted loudly. Previously, I sort of underrated the album but the playing and sequencing, for starters is insane.
Sry 4 thread derail

I just stopped into a record shop with a good $5 twelve-inch bin and they had a copy of The Call Up c/w The Magnificent Seven (and extended versions) - stoked!

Thanks from me for the polls too - have reactivated a bit of Clash joy at a time when it was good to be reconnected with that

Thanks, all! This stuff was fun to revisit.

Played the Clash at dinner, no one told me to turn it off!

This thread has good taste in late-period Clash songs. Thanks for running it!

It also concluded on International Clash Day — don't know if that was intentional, but good timing regardless.

I had no idea, but I certianly approve!

xxp how would we know unless someone runs a Cut The Crap and associated singles poll?