1986-10-18 Record-Mirror - The Dynamite Mix, page 54

THE DYNAMITE MIX

"No ballads, no funny chord changes... and it's gotta get you going"
After a highly acclaimed debut album and the restoration of rock 'n' roll chic, BAD are coming back for their second helping. It's time to crank up the guitar, get in the ring with Joe Strummer and get hard!

Story: Stuart Bailie
Audio visual: Joe Shutter

When Big Audio Dynamite promised to take us to Part Two, nobody thought it was was going to be like this. We anticipated some up-market sophistication perhaps, or maybe some clever dancefloor stylings, but we were all way off the the mark. For our starter, 'C'mon Every Beatbox', is more like a space-age, rockabilly sort of a groove, a 'call to party' on the urban tribes. It's shot through with bum notes, and it's rowdy as hell.

During the video shoot, Mick Jones points to the tape of the new BAD album, um, and urges me to stick it in the Walkman. "Go on, strap yourself in, and enjoy the ride!"

A perplexing half hour later, and Don Letts singles me out with mock horror. "Oh no! He's sitting down! You've just disproved my theory... I said it would be impossible to listen to it without standing up!"

The new BAD recordings might throw a few preconceptions up in the air, but that's not to say that they've done anything wrong. We've still got that cosmopolitan mixture of musical styles, but this time they're executed with a great deal more confidence and enthusiasm. More dramatic than that though, is that Mick Jones has taken to stepping out once again in the role of Guitar Hero. He knows that he's going to cause a lot of bewildered reactions across the board, but the idea just makes him laugh the more.

"There's no two ways about it, we've got rock and roll guitar now. For a while, I didn't know if I wanted to play guitar, but I've since found out that people like that. I found out that I was pretty good at it as well, I could express myself with it."

So have you ditched the guitar synthesiser?

"It looks like a dalek's handbag, doesn't it? I don't use it so much, I think it's a load of old cobblers to be honest. I'd much prefer this," (he pats his trusty Gibson) "This one's a 1952, you know. That's older than me. I'm just bringing it back to life great that it's still alive?" isn't it

What about the echoes of Eddie Cochran in 'Beatbox'? Was that accidental?

"It was accidental, I wasn't trying to rip anybody off. But then... Actually, if we're really gonna pin it down, I would say it was Huey Piano Smith's 'Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Pneumonia Woogie Flu'. That came out before 'Summertime Blues'; one is by a dead bloke, and the other is by an alive bloke. So if Eddie Cochran comes looking for me through his live lawyers, I would refer them to Huey Piano Smith.

"But what can you do about that stuff, you can't really write anything new anyway. I didn't say I was gonna do an Eddie Cochran song, that was just the way it worked out, you know?"

There's quite a few rough edges on the new stuff, isn't there?

"Yeah, we like it to be rough and ready, it takes all the bollocks out of it if it's too polished, I think. We feel it's a step in the right direction, no matter what it is. We've definitely tried to make a harder record this time. I think that every time a group makes one LP... You know when you used to get a Beatles record, and every time you'd be excited 'cause it was gonna be different to the last one? That's kinda what we're doing. It was gonna be a quickie one day recording and one day mixing but we did go a little over budget on that."

So have you been listening to a lot of rock and roll records lately, or did that just come naturally?

"Well, not really. I just listened to a lot of other people's records, and I realised there weren't none. I got really hip to it around the time of the Anti-Apartheid concert. I saw all the other acts, and I enjoyed them, but I realised that out of a whole mass of acts, there wasn't a single rock and roll band.

"So when the MC asked me how we wanted to be introduced, I got him to say that we were the rock and roll part of the evening. And something about that clicked, you know? Then I knew what I was doing, which, funnily enough, was what I've always done best I guess it's a natural thing."

Now that Big Audio Dynamite have been out of the wrapper for a year, it is easier to appreciate the general shape of things. They were never revolutionary, nor did they claim to be, but BAD had the style and a musical freshness that set them apart even in those early, shaky, gigs. The band's brief remains the same, no ballads, no funny chord changes, and it's gotta get you going, and it's an approach that has already won a lot of people over. Mick appreciates this recognition, yet he retains a fair degree of caution.

MIX

"Obviously, I like all that stuff, as obviously, was difficult for me to show that I could do something by myself. But I don't like to start having the situation where I have to live up to things. I want to keep it really low key, not to try and become all big-headed and that. 'Cause that will ruin it."

And to his credit, he is honest enough to recognise that the emergent BAD did have its fair share of shortcomings.

"Definitely. And we were trying to work on them. One of them was singing, and I'm more happy singing now, it's that thing about confidence again. The musicianship has improved too: I started off with a band saying that that doesn't matter, but it turns out we've made a musically proficient record as well. I was really happy to see everyone in the group develop. Life will be hectic from now on, won't it?"

"And it's gonna be like this until Christmas time. I've been away for a few months, and since I come back, I'm not even sure of the language. It's a little hard to get back into it. I was sitting in my front room the day I got back, and everyone was rushing around and talking really fast, and it was like I was witness to a bonfire, everyone coming in and chucking more stuff on."

"And I thought, I'm gonna chill out for a while, I'm gonna stay calm and take it as it comes."

But with the band's activities stepping up, isn't there a danger of getting caught up on the music business treadmill?

"I'm so finicky and particular about every detail of it that at the moment, that's not likely to happen. We're quite disciplined. It could happen when I've been completely bought over by millions," (he sniggers) "and I'm living in Buckingham Palace, and driving around in a pink Cadillac. But just 'cause I'm doing that, you won't believe that I've sold out, will you? I'll just be the same old bloke, won't I?"

It's going on 10 years since Mick Jones and Joe Strummer came together in The Clash on an inspired partnership that produced some truly brilliant moments. But then there was the bust-up and the bitching, which degenerated into a public slogging match with all the drama of a Taylor-Burton divorce case. Now there's been a reconciliation, and while things might never be quite the same again, there's still no-one out there to match these two in charisma and strokes.

Joe might not be recognised as a bona fide BAD member, but he's now officially 'on the team', co-writing half the songs on the album and taking the production credits alongside Mick. Doubtless, the new 'rockin'' mentality in the BAD camp must also be partly down to his influence, as is the new album title, 'No 10, Upping St.'—where the funky Prime Minister lives, as opposed to the "fked-up one".**

"That was Joe's idea. Right at the very last, we had a huge exhibition in the studio of 100 different titles, all made up to look like the record cover. Titles like 'Hose Pipe', which was a great favourite of mine, because to me, 'Hose Pipe' sums up rock and roll in two words. Don't you just think of washing machines?"

"What does Elvis do with a hose pipe?"

"He stuffs it down his trouser-leg."

"And what happens when he does that?"

"The girls scream, and you have rock and roll. We might call the next one that, actually."

"Another title was 'Hubcap'. What does that make you think of?"

"Yeah, cars... rock and roll. But we're thinking of giving that one to Bruce Springsteen."

According to Mick, the other BAD members have been only too willing to accommodate his wayward partner:

"Everyone was cool about it," he says, "there were no paranoias once they realised that Joe was a real cool guy. He slept under the piano, you know?"

Don Letts too, is unconditional in his praise:

"It was a buzz for me, it was very exciting. He's definitely the real McCoy."

And what exactly did Mick contribute towards Joe's solo single, 'Love Kills'?

"I did it, and then I didn't, if you know what I mean. I ended up mixing something that didn't get released, and there wasn't as much of my guitar on as what I'd done. It went abroad, and someone else got their hands on it."

"It didn't really turn out the way I thought it would, I thought it would have been better, but it's not for me to say, it's Joe's record. I know the next one's gonna be great, 'cause I'm gonna be involved from the start."

There was a recent quote in which Joe referred to the 'Radio 2 tendencies' in some of your songwriting.

"Well fk him if he said that,"** he laughs.

"No, you can't say that, you'll make us fall out again. You better just say that I listen to some radio, but I don't think it's Radio 2. It might be, I can't tell nowadays with a lot of the stuff you hear. Not my stuff though."

Joe seems to be taking to the film world these days. Have you ever seen yourself as a bit of an actor?

"Actually, I'm really disinclined about this film thing on the whole. Everyone's doing that, and I think it's hard enough to make a good record. You have to concentrate on that, and you have to be able to play live well. We aren't making a big deal with the video for 'Beatbox'. We did that with 'Medicine Show', and it didn't get shown."

So where's all this going to end?

"Well, I ain't going back to pushing a pen; being a clerical assistant. Even though I might have been quite a high-ranking one by now, there's none of that. And all these people that said that I should go back and work a petrol pump or whatever, they better come up with something before I'm going anywhere."

Chill out and turn around for a BAD front-to-back cover!

On reflection, however, it seems clear that the presence of loveable punk moptop Paul Cook and ex-Clash guitar hero Mick Jones, had caused some poor senile old punk to believe that it was '76 rather than '86. I actually only caught the end of the set by Cook's band, The Chiefs of Relief, however, so I cannot pass judgment on their performance.

They were followed by the Human Beatbox — very entertaining at first, but of strictly limited potential. Whistle were very competent, but, as my friend so acutely observed, with all their synchronised dances-teps and polished production, they are not a million miles from The Stylistics.

The main event of the evening was Big Audio Dynamite, and it is refreshing to see, in these days of washed and blow-dried, pop that some bands are still better live than on record. There are still some problems to be sorted out (some of the songs go on too long and the whole set sagged a bit in the middle), but this is still adventurous, original and exciting.

Something of the spirit of punk is still alive here, but mixed in with reggae, disco, rap and a host of other influences to give it an Eighties freshness.

At the moment it appears that Mick Jones rather than Joe Strummer has salvaged the most from the wreckage of The Clash. CDF

Jones, having left his old partner well behind with his new band Big Audio Dynamite and a first LP that year, got on the blower to the toothless one to ask him to come along and add some "Strummerization" to BAD's new LP.

The phrase is that of BAD member Don Letts who used it with a wry chuckle to describe the effect old Joe has had as co-writer and co-producer on the album, 10 Upping Street:

"It's harder, more rocky, with lots of thrashy guitar," explained Don, sending me immediately back on a nostalgia trip to the sweet refrains of White Riot and Complete Control.

"It was weird having Mick and Joe back in the studio again, it was most frightening, but also inspiring."

BAD though, with their camp fusion of funk, hip-hop, reggae and none other than that reliable old comrade, rock 'n' roll, managed to create something that is genuinely new. If only because it's understandable isn't this "good old day," collaborating a step back:

"It's not like that at all. There's a lot of progression, although yes, you can still see the hallmarks," said Don.

"As for BAD, people keep trying to call us all sorts of things. I'm dying for someone to come up with the right term for us."

Letts is himself just as much a part of music celebrity as Jones, Strummer, or even Lydon and Vicious. He was there right at the start as DJ at the Roxy Club in London, and directed the Super-8 chronicles of the times, Punk Rock Movie.

He was also involved with The Clash as maker of their videos from London Calling onwards, and says he jumped in with Jones "in minutes" after they split, to conceive the BAD battleplan.

He enjoyed the chance to get into music more actively, and is so enthusiastic an ambassador for his group's philosophy as you'll ever hear. Live is what BAD like best and promised some heavy fun at their Newcastle Mayfair gig next Thursday.

In the days of ice-cold studio addicts, venturing onto stage only with the motherly care of backing tape, the BAD ethos is refreshing: making sure that the 1977 spirit lives on, but if we have to progress again, so be it.

"Fans at our gigs get involved - they're not into wasting time checking each other out," said Don.

"The bands who can do it live are the bands who are going to cut it in the future, that I'm sure of. There's just too much of this concept crap around, with people who've only ever seen the inside of a studio."

Does singer, FX-ter and film-maker Don Letts agree? "We're what rock and roll in the Eighties should be. It's a spirit. I'm not talking drapes and crepes, it's whatever the modern equivalent is. Prince is a great rock and roller."

Do I detect a flashy sense of humour at work in B.A.D? "Definitely! The songs are serious—but if we're on a soapbox, it's a polka-dot one with furry dice and Cadillac fins!"

Don spent three and a half years at a grammar school, found himself a DJ at The Roxy (the crucible of punk), and was swept along by the DIY ethic of the bands.

"I couldn't play guitar, so I grabbed a Super-8 camera and filmed everybody. The result was The Punk Rock Movie, and Don became video-maker to The Clash and a hundred others.

So why the move to B.A.D? "I got fed up! Bands got less and less charismatic. All you had to do with the The Sex Pistols was point and shoot. Today's stars are so uninspiring that's why videos are just bloated cosmetics.

"Mick formed B.A.D. 10 minutes after getting kicked out of The Clash. I knew a bass player, and he got a drummer from an advert. Mick doesn't like jazz trios, so he asked me to join!

"He didn't want a backing band, he wanted people who could cut it as individuals."

Mick's split with Joe Strummer was pretty unsavoury. But hey presto: Two years on, the Clashman is co-writing four tracks on No 10 Upping Street, and co-producing it! Is this really just a happy accident?

"I literally met him in the street, took him down to the studio and he never left! The album's successful because of the way Joe and Mick work together. It got Strummerised! His contribution is immense," said Don.

So how has he changed B.A.D.? "Well, he makes us say more with less—you don't need a dictionary anymore. With the first album, we set out to pack it full of singles. I think we're more successful this time."

B.A.D. play Rock City on 10 Nov. Two pairs of tickets to be won in this week's competition.

The sound was Big. The band was big Audio Dyanamite and the new album. "No. 10 Upping Street" (CBS) will tear strips off anything doing the same rounds this wall.

It's a fearsome delivery of rock and roll with with the BAD trimmings.

All sub-human life is here rap, rock, reggae. funk, street-life. stret-wise, gangsters, hipsters, and Joe Strummer. Aright royal rocker's re-venge.

Strummer heiped produce the LP and co-wrote five of the album tracks with contributing vocals. This 15 fast rocking rhythm stuff, from "Limbo The Law" to "Ticket" to "C'mon Every Beatbox."

B.A.D.'s debut LP last year "This Is Big Audio Dynamite" certainly grabbed attention with its solid walll of aural effects and proionged beat. But "No. 10" is far mure direct and rugged.

It's not a return to Clash rock, however there are plenty of kickbacks 10 those former dass. While B.A.D. harp on about politics Upping St.-Downing St.) and the seedier side of life.

Try "Dial A Hitman" for example w with its comical phone call at the end.

This new album will appeal to wider audience than those the band picked up at the beginning and no doubt vou can expect a number of singles in the coming months.

Whatever about The Clasn, Mick Jones has taken a dying sinder from its past and brought it up burning bright.

Big Audio Dynamite will be in town rext Friday night (31) for a show in the SFX.

They never actually did a gig, The London SS. There was Rat Scabies and Brian James, who went off and formed The Damned. There was Tony James who put together Generation X with a bloke who called himself Billy Idol. And then there was this American girl from Akron, Ohio, who had Screamed at The Stones as a kid when this new wild longhair group from England first played in America. Chrissie Hynde. a younger bloke from And a London who'd seen the Stones when he was 12 in 1969, seen 'em at Hyde Park and spent the whole day gettin' up to the front: Mick Jones.

After The London SS sketch, Mick fronted The Clash with a chap they found singing in a pubrock r'n'b band, Joe Strummer. Mick played lead guitar and co-wrote the songs with his new friend Joe who was the lead singer, and sometimes

Mick sang. And Chrissie Hynde ended up with her band The Pretenders, writing the songs, singing 'em and playing fine rhythm guitar.

The Clash became the most commercially success-ful punk band in the world - and sometimes one of the best. Their LP London Calling sold a million copies and when they played at the US Festival in California -at what turned out to be Mick Jones' last gig with them they were paid 700,000 dollars.

The Pretenders had an enormous hit with 'Brass In Pocket and their first LP smashed into the American charts at No. 1. Mick Jones got sacked from The Clash. Two members of The Pretenders died.

Now, Mick Jones is 31 and he's making some of the most interesting rock 'n' roll

BAD Is Brilliant!

BP FALLON luxuriates in new albums from Big Audio Dynamite and The Pretenders

MICK JONES: now 31, and making some of the most interesting rock 'n' roll in Britain

in Britain with Big Audio Dynamite. Their second LP 10 Upping Street (CBS) - as opposed to 10, Downing Street is an absolute stunner.

And Chrissie Hynde, 35, is making some of the best music she's done so far on the new Pretenders LP Get Close (Real Records).

The first LP that Mick Jones ever bought was Smash Hits by Jimi Hendrix, and on the current BAD single 'C'mon Every Beatbox a rallying call to dance to an Eighties version of Eddie Cochran's 'Summertime Blues' riffola Mick does a superb Hendrixy guitar solo in tribute to the man.

On The Pretenders LP, they do a suitably cosmic great version of Hendrix's song Room Full of Mirrors. This is by The Pretenders line-up that played on their last LP Learning to Crawl, the line-up that played in Dublin at the SFX in June 1984, when they were supported by The Waterboys. Then Then they were planning to release 'Mirrors' as a single. Instead, Chrissie Hynde went down to Windmill Lane studios and

Startling

Among the best songs on The Pretenders LP are the tender love song I Remember You', while 'Chill Factor' is about... well, well, it's cold to leave a woman with family on her own.

Possibly the most startling song is 'How Much Did You Get For Your Soul?", a funky raging piece of music that carries a diatribe by Chrissie against the black superstars in America who sang backing vocals on U2's Pride Pride (In (In The Name of Love) Chrissie's new line-up retains guitarist Robbie McIntosh while the new Pretenders bassist is TM Stevens who's played with James Brown, and it shows-and the drummer is Blair Cunningham who used to be in Haircut 100 and recently toured with Echo and The Bunnymen. Brilliant they are together, aided on the LP by the likes of one-time Bowie alumni Carlos Alomar and Bernie Worrell who has played keyboards with Talking Heads.

love song to one's mother, wonderfully, exquisitely:.. and she will always carry on, something is lost but something is found. The Pretenders LP is worth this one piece of beauty alone. BAD's LP is a different are bought by the huge corporations to advertise their plastic wares. It's uptight and to the point: You had the gospel when you were shackled to a tree. Now you've got your freedom, you sing for the money, Chrissie castigates, homing in on Michael Jackson as she continues: "You finally made it right up to the top. Millions of kids are looking at you, you say 'Let them drink soda pop', and a little Michael Jacksony voice squeaks The Pepsi Generation'.

She's dead on, is Chrissie. Doing those ads is tacky. But it's unfair to single out the black artists: look at Elton John, selling himself for a few shekels more, advertising chocolate bars. The outstanding song is the ballad 'Hymn to Her', written by one Meg Keene, and one of the loveliest songs I've heard in ages.

Chrissie Hynde sings this, a "Sambadrome celebrates a true-life South American outlaw who's on the make like a latterday Robin Hood, and 'Ticket loosely reminiscent of lan Dury and The Blockheads is about attempting to settle in England from Jamaica.

'Hollywood Boulevard is an allegorical glance at Tinseltown's elite "There's Brendan B and Hunter T, what's a poet got kettle of tape, and equally recommended. The music is cosmopolitan mixture from London, New York, Jamaica... and Hollywood, with snatches of conversation from movies woven into the aural tapestry. It's rock 'n' roll music but with bouncing percussive dancing rhythms, the like of which no other group is doing.

Mick Jones' blood-brother Joe Strummer has returned to work with his pal and together they produce the LP and co-write five of the nine songs. 'Beyond The Pale' is about the grandfather refugee who came came to Britain from Russia (I'd say Soweto's gonna happen here too) while Mick Jones says 'V Thirteen' is about Fastenders! to say, Hunter's looking for a story about the IRA, and Little Richard and Sal Dali singing out of key, both hallucinated, the Sandoz was for free."

An agitated British upper-class voice introduces 'Sightsee MC! with Come in London come in London control...before we're taken on a tour of London from Sixties slums to Chinatown, to the race riots where the nights are wild and petrol spill, Firestone Freddy and Molotov Jill you can guarantee she'll burn tonight 'cos England keeps the household white.'

Throughout, the lyrics are a collage of images over a carpet of percussion, and this is a superb group. Don Letts, the English Rasta man, who co-writes. sings and works the FX, is the perfect foil to Mick Jones' singalongy floaty voice.

Listen. BAD are brilliant. Even at their heaviest they enthrall. They need to be heard, they need to be seen. I'm hot to see 'em when they play in Belfast next Thursday at The Whitla Hall and in Dublin at the SFX hall on Friday.

His role is as writer/producer these days. But for those of us who denied all knowledge of Queen and Yes and all the other dinosaurs back in '76 he will be remembered as the spirit of the Clash.

But his ghost was always in evidence at the Royal Court last night.

His old sparring partner Mick Jones whose role in the Clash was uncer-emoniously brought to an end by Strum-mer a couple of years ago with the sack - tried valiantly to ignite the show:

PHOTO: ERIC JACKSON/Royal Court

However, his leadership only managed to light a slow fuse which ended up with a whimper compared to the big bang of a London Calling or White Riot.

The highlight came three songs from the end when they played their biggest hit in this country, E=MC2 which was inspired by a Nicholas Roeg film called Insignificance, which you shouldn't read too much into.

All of a sudden the audience realised they were at a concert instead of a wake and actually started to shuffle rather than fidget in their seats.

But for all the bottoms raised to boogie just as many were raised to beat a trail home. Perhaps it would have been different if Mick Jones, had been slightly more charismatic.

For most of the evening he mumbled his way through introductions with the only coherent statement being a rally-ing call for Derek Hatton, which raised a cheer from a few drunks at the back.

Luckily on record, charisma is the last thing you need and I have it on good authority that the band's two albums have been worthy efforts.

No. 10 Upping Street, the most recent release, is the trendiest thing south of Watford. But let's face it, down there they go for anything with a neat line in hats and white jackets.

No, it has to be said. BAD are merely OK with only two ways to improve their live efforts either a boost of their beatbox or the summoning of Joe Strummer on stage. Give me the last option any day.

Justly E Mc2 climbed into the top ten and it is still a mystery why Medicine Show didn't take the charts by storm.

The vital vinyl of Jones, sideman Don Letts, and the rest of BAD was backed up with some of the best live offerings this summer, culminating storming three song set at Clapham Common's Anti-Apartheid rally.

Since then Jones and long lost friend and erstwhile Clash colleague, Joe Strummer have been working with Letts, Led Williams (bass), Greg Roberts (drums) and Don Donovan on the second BAD LP.

It's at times like these the fear grows whether the beatbox boys could match the wit, spontaneity and sheer class of the debut.

No. 10 Upping Street (CBS) is living proof that, rather than lose the refreshing drive and power of This is ..., the band have consolidated their position as arch-plagiarists and musical magpies, raiding Eddie Cochran's back catalogue and even knicking a toon' from an old Cozy Powell single.

Kicking off with the sadly neglected C'mon Every Beatbox, track two, Beyond The Pale, sees Jones and Strukmer reunited on the songwriting credits.

Limbo the Law and Sambadrome bubble along nicely but it is the first track, side two, V Thirteen that is the killer cut.

It's quite simply top five material. A heavenly melody floats above a catch tune, underprinted by Greg Roberts' rocksteady drumming.

BAD are on tour and it would be folly to miss the most innovative band doing the rounds at the moment. Catch them at Leicester on Friday and Brixton on Saturday.

But it didn't take long before Jones was back on the road once more with the most unbelieveably scatterbrained sound around Big Audio Dynamite a band so mighty it could reduce the A to Z of 80s rock and roll to a mass of quivering vinyl.

They began their attack on the global earlobes with their moderately suc-cessful debut LP, This Is Big Audio Dynamite and singles like E Equals MC Squared. And now they're on to phase two of the battle with a new LP, No. 10 Upping Street.

To help them on their way the band recruited the services of an old pal ... Joe Strummer. The man who is said to have sacked Jones has co-produced and co-written the best part of the new album.

Helping

To return the favour Mick Jones will be helping Strummer out on his forthcoming solo LP while the future of the Clash who visited these shores two years ago h'e1s been put on hold.

The two men were brought back together again by BAD member, film director and former punk manager Don Letts. Don managed all-girl group The Slits in 1977 when he first met Mick Jones. The two have re-mained friends ever since.

You can't mistake the Big Audio sound. It's got rock, pop, rhythm and blues, reggae, funk, rap and hip hop, all adding to that mighty beat.

Don't forget the special audio effects, including excerpts from movie soundtracks, radio and TV broadcasts and a tele phone conversation bet-ween actor Matt Dillon and hit man who bumped off the wrong woman. Is that a hard act to follow or not?

The band features Jones on guitar and vocals, Don Letts on sound effects and vocals, Leo E. Zee Kill Williams on bass, Greg Roberts on drums and percussion and Dan Donovan on keyboards.

It's 10 years now since Jones helped form one of the towering acts of punk with the help of Paul Simonon and Joe Strummer.

Like a lot of rockers. then they didn't want to go down the fame and fortune route travelled by most overweight and deadpan acts of the early 70s.

Attention

The Clash story has been well covered, from their early days in the Roxy club in London through a string of albums, Give 'Em Enough Rope. London Calling and Sandanista to the early 80s.

Regardless of ideals or origins the Clash came full circle with all the trappings of stardom and half measured songs. It seemed inevitable that something had to give. Jones left in 1983.

By that stage the guitarist was becoming deeply immersed in American culture, particularly the funk and the slowly emerging sound of hip hop, dance music that had been stripped down to the bare essentials, the beat,

With this in mind he recruited a group of new musicians interested in the same ideas.

Keyboard player Dan Donovan was originally asked to take photographs of the band. He not only took the shots joined the group. he

To recruit the final member of BAD, Mick Jones turned to his old friend Lon Letts for advice. Don was already a video and film maker as well as special effects man. Instead of re-commending another man for the job he joined them himself.

Covered

Naturally the band at-tracted some attention from the start owing to their illustrious front man. The chances of climbing back up on the rock pedestal for second time are usually very slim.

But Jones had learned his stuff in America and put a fresh new stamp on British rock right frem

the start. Instead of cop-ying Stateside sounds he engineeres a new in-dividual style which has surprised many.

With their latest L.P. No. 10 Upping Street their antidote for 10 Downing Street, Big Audio Dynamite have taken on an even harder dance beat than the original sound. Some credit for that must go to the work of Joe Strummer on the LP.

But there are no plans for Strummer to join the band. He is about to launch his own solo career and has already had one outing with the theme song to the movie about Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen Love Kills.

Jones takes his Funny Ghetto Blaster down to Ladbroke Grove where he gets some Big Laughs. Chortling loudest is Super-Eight punk historian Don Letts. The chums collaborate on some Serious Words which they then paste to the boniest of melodies. And all the time, Letts conceals a video camera in his hat. He is making a film that Jones knows nothing about. The film will be called Bloody. Awful. Documentary.

But in the meantime, what have we got for entertainment? B.A.D. is an occasionally engaging mess which consists of eight dub-singed middle eights stretched, at times, to transparency. Jones the Guitar is surprisingly reticent and is assigned the task of plotting a route along which the tech tricks trickle.

During tracks like 'E-MC 2' and the opening 'Medicine Show', it provides the illusion of songs being performed and masks the sound of switches being flicked. Jones the Voice is all-pervading, mopping up even the biggest bleeping mess with an endearing tunelessness.

Letts adds soundtracks; scratches and snatches of film dialogue which often come in handy as matchsticks for keeping tired ears open. Leo Williams, Greg Roberts and Dan Donovan (bass, drums and keyboards) help prevent the whole thing breaking into hundreds of indulgent pieces and give BAD a sturdy, contemporary edge.

BAD will sound just dandy on Saturday Superstore, for it's in the lyric department that the sleeves have really been rolled up. We see Mick, arriving at An International Trouble Spot. he makes a few notes along the lines of, 'cor blimey, wot a rotten world', and rides off into the sunset, his Walkman firmly back in place.

At times this BAD travelogue turns the world and its problems into a well-meaning pop video script with I've been everywhere, man observations on South Africa ('A Party'), Japan ('Sony') and The World In General (The Bottom Line'). Back home, the AIDS scare gets some clumsy attention with lines like: No time for social kissing, You'll hardly raise a smile/When you think what you've been missing, Iron undies back in style... I hope we're meant to laugh....

Big Audio Dynamite-sad, not bad.

John McCready

PHOTO: The Lonesome Cowboys watch with relief as last week's lead Gasbag letter rides off into the sunset.

• Joe Strummer and Mick Jones are working together for the first time since The Clash came to an end. They are producing the new Big Audio Dynamite album Worse, due out in the autumn.

STRUMMER has teamed up with Big Audio Dynamite thus bringing to an end the feud between Mick Jones and the man who sacked him three years ago. The single 'C'mon Every Beatbox' is released this week.

JOE STRUMMER-

THE most original sounding band of recent times — Big Audio Dynamite — is about to release its second album.

No. 10 Upping St. comes out on CBS on Monday and promises to be quite different from the group’s original and brilliant first effort.

Mick Jones’s Clash heritage is apparently betrayed on the new release. Another member, of what was once the best punk band around, Joe Strummer has helped out co-writing five of the nine tracks and co-producing the LP.

A number of tour dates have been organised to coincide with the new release the nearest being London Brixton Academy on November 15.

'10, UPPING STREET' is a fictional place where the funky prime minister lives. It is also the title of the second Big Audio Dynamite LP, another location in the weird world of Mick Jones and his multi-cultural friends from West London.

With B.A.D., Jones has successfully merged elements of hip-hop, old-fashioned British rock (punk pedigree) and reggae. It’s a fresh-sounding mix of English rock ’n’ roll guitar and drums, American styled beat box, Jamaican bass and cockney vocals, with Jones’s co-songwriter, dread-locked video-maker Don Letts, wandering off into reggae rap.

On their first album we were treated to a dense lyrical attack; the songs were full of puns, nonsense and serious notions. Subject matter ranged from fashion to the domination of Japanese technology. The record contained snatches of film soundtrack and voices to heighten the word play.

On the new record, Jones still uses snippets from films and the odd voice, but he has also created his own film roles. ‘Most rock musicians seem to fancy themselves as film stars these days,’ he explained. ‘I’m breaking down that barrier. We got actors on record.’ On 'Dial a Hitman', Jones has enlisted acting friends Matt Dillon and Larry Fishburne for a play within a song.

Another vital new presence on '10, Upping Street' is Joe Strummer, Jones’s old songwriting partner and co-founder of The Clash. Strummer co-produces the record and has co-written several of the songs. The previous break-up of such a formidable writing team was, Jones claims, a tragic mistake orchestrated by a jealous and power-hungry manager.

Jones built B.A.D. quietly, touring in Europe to get the feel for the new band. He had met Letts and bass player Leo Williams at The Roxy club during the idle days of punk. Letts was then the DJ; Williams a barman.

After his split from The Clash, Mick Jones and Joe Strummer didn’t talk to each other for two and a half years and he was never officially asked on to the new B.A.D. LP. ‘Don bumped into Joe on the street and told him we were recording,’ says Jones. ‘He came into the Soho studio and stayed. He even slept under the piano. But it was he who kept me focused on the street.’

Jones was dismissed from The Clash for ‘ideological’ reasons and he left with little idea of what would happen next. He spent a while in New York finding it increasingly hard to con his way into nightclubs because he was no longer a star. He tried working with The Clash’s first drummer, Topper Headon. He took up acting lessons for six months to disguise the fact he wasn’t working any more. ‘I had been pretty famous since the age of 19,’ he says, ‘and I soon learnt what it was like to be an ordinary bloke again. I also learnt that I didn’t need to be famous, that it was a bit like a prison.’

GOOD news — BAD news. Yes they are in Liverpool on November 3. The album 10 Upping Street, produced by Mick Jones and Joe Strummer, is in the shops this week.

The Liverpool gig is at the Royal Court, but anyone who saw Big Audio Dynamite at the State earlier this year will know what a stunning stage presence the band has. Support for the Liverpool gig will include Schooly-D from New York and the Sipho Josaanna band.

BIG AUDIO Dynamite release a second album this week titled No 10 Upping Street, and will be setting out on a UK tour to coincide.

Mick Jones, of the band, has co-produced the record with his old Clash pal Joe Strummer, who receives a writing credit on five of the nine tracks. It is highly unlikely that Strummer will be playing with the band on tour.

Support on all dates comes from Schooly D and Sipho Josaanna and his band, and the nearest venue to Yorkshire is Manchester Apollo on November 2.

Photo: New release and tour dates: Big Audio Dynamite.

BIG Audio Dynamite, play the Studio, Bristol on November 9, as part of the promotional tour for their recently released album.

The disc, No 10 Upping Street, carries nine tracks.

Former Clash member, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, teamed up again to write five of the tracks.

Jones and Strummer also produced the album, which features guest appearances by Sipho, the human beat box, Matt Dillon and Larry Fishburne.

Supporting bands for the tour are New York outfit, Schooly—D, and Sipho Josaanna and his new group.

More special guests will be announced during the tour. Tickets are £5 with a 50 pence rebate for the unemployed.

ROCK/POP
Adam Sweeting

BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE: No. 10, Upping St., (CBS).
LONE JUSTICE: Shelter (Geffen).
THE PRETENDERS: Get Close (WEA).
THE STRANGLERS: Dreamtime (Epic).

Upping the anti

THE REUNION of Clashmen Mick Jones and Joe Strummer would be reason enough to remember Big Audio Dynamite's second album, even if its contents weren't so alluring. Strummer, who threw Jones out of The Clash, seems to be a man reborn and keen to atone for past mistakes, while Jones has long been willing to turn the other cheek. It may not be too far-fetched to attribute Strummer with a valuable pruning and shaping role in No. 10, Upping Street, a much shrewder and funnier record than its predecessor. He also shares heavily in the songwriting.

BAD is the sound of England in crisis, but there's also a love for our grey and crumbling land running through the group's dissembling soundtracks, a frantic empathy with "salt 'n' pepper people stirred not shaken" (C'mon Every Beatbox). The music is a shattered mosaic of drum machines, stolen voice-overs, droning guitars and surreal narrative. It's menacing in Sightsee MC!, trashy and dog-eared in Dial A Hitman and waspishly astute in Ticket, a saga of sporting mayhem — "Botham is cool, selectors are spaced/England's losing again, W. G. Disgraced." Only music as restless and mercurial as this has any hope of doing justice to the way we are, so plug in.

AFTER two years of not speaking to each other. And another of not talking all that much, ex-Clash frontmen Mick Jones and Joe Strummer have made it up.

Jones, having left his old partner well behind with his new band Big Audio Dynamite’s first LP last year, got on the blower to the toothless one to ask him to come along and add some “Strummerisation” to BAD’s new meisterwerk.

The phrase is that of BAD member Don Letts who used it with a wry chuckle to describe the effect old Joe has had as co-writer and co-producer on the album, 10 Upping Street.

“It’s harder, more rocky, with lots of thrashy guitar,” explained Don, sending me immediately back on a nostalgia trip to the sweet refrains of White Riot and Complete Control.

“To see Mick and Joe back in the studio again was at most frightening but also inspiring.”

BAD though with their crazy fusion of funk, hip-hop, reggae and none other than that reliable old comrade, rock ‘n’ roll, managed to create something that is genuinely new. If only because it’s indescribable! Isn’t this “good old days” collaboration a step back?

“It’s not like that at all. There’s a lot of progression, although yes, you can still see the hallmarks,” said Don.

“As for BAD people keep trying to call us all sorts of names. I’m dying for someone to come up with the right term for us.”

Letts himself just as much a part of punk celebrity as Jones, Strummer, or even Lydon and Vicious. He was there right at the start as DJ at the Roxy Club in London and directed the legendary The Punk Chronicle of the Times, Punk meisterwerk.

He was also involved with the Clash as makers of their videos from London Calling onwards and says he jumped in with Jones “10 minutes” after they split to conceive the BAD battleplan.

He enjoyed the chance to get into music more actively, and is as enthusiastic an ambassador for his group’s philosophy as you’ll ever hear live. He says, it was BAD like Bust and promised to see Mayfair at their New Thursday/Friday gig.

In these days of ice-cold studio addicts, venturing onto a stage only under much duress, the BAD experience thus might mean as the 1977 ethic did. “But if we only ever get to progress again in so be it.”

"Fans at our gigs get involved – they're not into wasting time checking each other out," said Don.

“Bands are no gigs are not wasting their time checking each other out,” said Don more.

“The bands who can do it live are the bands who are going to cut it in the future. That it we find out there is too much of this “concept” crap around, we should bring in a video or something instead of a studio.”

ERIC JACKSON/Royal Court

THEIR hats make Big Audio Dynamite look like a bunch of Captain Scarlets — with Joe Strummer as the Mysteron.

Abbreviated they are BAD, but in my mind it’s just SAD that Mr Strummer should hog the limelight so much when he doesn’t even strike a chord, warble a chorus or so much as shake a demented leg in live performances.

His role is as writer/producer these days. But for those of us who denied all knowledge of Queen and Yes and all the other dinosaurs back in ’76 he will be remembered as the spirit of the Clash.

But his ghost was always in evidence at the Royal Court last night.

His old sparring partner Mick Jones — whose role in the Clash was unceremoniously brought to an end by Strummer a couple of years ago with the sack — tried valiantly to ignite the show.

However, his leadership only managed to light a slow fuse which ended up with a whimper compared to the big bang of a London Calling or White Riot.

The highlight came three songs from the end when they played their biggest hit in this country, E=MC2 which was inspired by a Nicholas Roeg film called Insignificance, which you shouldn’t read too much into.

All of a sudden the audience realised they were at a concert instead of a wake and actually started to shuffle rather than fidget in their seats.

But for all the bottoms raised to boogie just as many were raised to beat a trail home.

Perhaps it would have been different if Mick Jones had been slightly more charismatic.

For most of the evening he mumbled his way through introductions with the only coherent statement being a rallying call for Derek Hatton, which raised a cheer from a few drunks at the back.

Luckily on record, charisma is the last thing you need and I have it on good authority that the band’s two albums have been worthy efforts.

No. 10 Upping Street, the most recent release, is the trendiest thing south of Watford.

But let’s face it, down there they go for anything with a neat line in hats and white jackets.

No, it has to be said. BAD are merely OK with only two ways to improve their live efforts — either a boost of their beatbox or the summoning of Joe Strummer on stage. Give me the last option any day.

Photo: Former Clash lead vocalist. Mick Jones and his new band Big Audio Dynamite will be visiting the Birmingham Powerhouse on Tuesday, November 11, as part of their nationwide tour.

The tour is set to coincide with the release of the group’s latest album No 10 Street, produced by Jones and his Clash colleague Joe Strummer.

Also in the Dynamite line-up (pictured) are Don Letts, vocals; Greg Roberts drums and percussion; Leo Williams, bass; Dan Donovan, keyboards.

The group came together in 1985 and achieved limited success with their debut single The Bottom Line.

Photo: JONES ... haunted by the ghost of The Clash.

SIT tight and listen keenly while I play for you another brand new musical biscuit.

And with that the boys from Big Audio Dynamite serve up a pleasant selection of sweets and savouries on their first album No 10, Upping St.

The second Mick Jones starts to wail comparisons with the late lamented Clash become inevitable and they continue to haunt through the album.

A lot of the old quirks are there — synchronized chap-chant, voice-overs and a few well aimed kicks — and it is hardly surprising.

For sleeping partner Joe Strummer and front man Jones take production credits and seem to have written most of the songs with some help from the other four band members.

But, despite this, Don Letts, Leo Williams, Greg Roberts and Dan Donovan have firmly exerted their influence and the result is an infectious funky hop-bop beat producing tracks with danceability.

In fact, it is not bad at all, except for the album cover, which is a truely appalling mixture of baseball and Captain Scarlet.

SECOND outing for one of the hottest bands around and sees former Clash-mates Mick Jones and Joe Strummer back together again. Recommended listening — in fact, it’s dynamite!

PHIL PARKIN

BAD. 10 Upping Street (CBS). The process of Strummerisation (see feature) works just how you'd guess. This is tougher, though not necessarily stronger than the first LP, with Jones playing the axeman again, and songs like V Thirteen sparking an uncanny sense of deja vu (of you-know-what). As a work, it works, but in Strummer's case, I hope it's just a temporary job.

It's great to have Big Audio Dynamite on the cover (March), and the article sure made Mick Jones seem smooth. I've seen a couple of "Best of 1985" lists that included the Clash's Cut the Crap, and several with This Is Big Audio Dynamite, but none with both.

These are two great bands, two great records. Can't we like them both? Listen, the Clash was the only band since the Beatles to sound different with every record, to try new things, and always to play great rock 'n' roll.

At least now we know who was responsible for what in all those Strummer/Jones songs. Please, stop belittling Joe Strummer. I've been bitching about this Strummer/Jones critical dichotomy to my friends for months.

Karen Trago
Minneapolis, MN

-----

Seemingly constrained within the claustrophobic aura of the Clash, Mick Jones has found a life preserver in Big Audio Dynamite (while the enigmatic Joe Strummer goes down with the ship). Jones has transformed his onstage enthusiasm and nifty songwriting abilities into his new project and sounds pretty damn good doing it.

It's also pleasing to see that he doesn't take a "suck on this, Strummer" attitude in Lenny Kaye's article (although he might have been justified in doing so).

Mick Jones has realized what many musicians fail to: that being serious about one's work and having fun at the same time is not a contradiction.

Antony Saxon
Acton, Ontario

★★★★
Big Audio Dynamite, THIS IS BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE (Columbia).
Although no one would mistake Mick Jones's BAD for a simple follow-up to the Clash, this proud, ebullient record takes off from the multilayered production and eclectic rhythms of his old group's Sandinista! — with its pop riffs made more elusive, Mick condensing his guitar playing, and the beats rolling more than they rock. But the warmth never fades beneath the pervasive knob twiddling: these sly, pieced-together arrangements spring from the interaction of a flesh-and-blood band. The songs' array of thorny subjects keeps pace with the feisty arrangements: a bemused meditation on the uses and abuses of rock and roll ("Medicine Show"), an absurdly funny lament on sexually transmitted diseases ("Stone Thames"), and a nicely balanced metaphor about Africa ("A Party"). Go ahead, London.

★★★
The Clash, CUT THE CRAP (Epic).
This isn't so much the Clash as it is Joe Strummer with uninspired back-up, further hampered by a clotted mix and a clutter of disjointed sound effects. The signal track might be "We Are the Clash," a massed-millions chant that suggests this outfit isn't a particular bunch of guys tied to any specific era but a timeless state of mind you can all join in. Strummer often makes his wishful retrenchment work: the state-of-the-nation anger of "This Is England," the rudie-rousing of "Dirty Punk." And if, for the moment, he's easy to skewer, he's still hard to chuck out whole: songs like "Dictator" and "North and South" might get sharper with time, the way Combat Rock's "Straight to Hell" did.

★★★★ Superb  ★★★ Good  ★★ Middling  ★ Bearable  ● A turkey

First, the big news is that Mick Jones and Joe Strummer are working together again.

Jones and Strummer, who together formed the most influential, most popular, and possibly the best punk band ever when they started the Clash, went their separate ways in a public spat after the Clash’s last record, “Combat Rock.”

Jones blamed it on politics.
Strummer said it had more to do with Jones’ propensity for consuming lots of dangerous drugs.

Whatever the real reason, feelings were bent out of shape enough for Strummer to pick a few new guitarists and continue with a “new” Clash. Jones, meanwhile, went off and busied himself with a secret musical project later revealed as B.A.D.

Predictably, both records, Strummer’s “This Is England” and B.A.D./Jones’ “This Is Big Audio Dynamite,” came out within seconds of each other.

Surprisingly, Jones’ record was by far the better, spawning three dance floor remixes of its jagged crossover singles, while Strummer’s rearguard Clash quickly disintegrated.

This, however, is where it gets tricky. Second albums are like that. You sit in your basement, play a lot of gigs, and before you know it you’ve recorded an album with every one of your best songs on it.

The situation in this case is somewhat different. Don’t get the idea that the five white-suited posers smirking on the cover of B.A.D.’s new album have been sitting in anyone’s basement.

But what Jones did do was to recruit his old arch-rival Joe Strummer as co-producer, churn out a record, and then let him explain why the new one doesn’t measure up.

That’s probably unduly cynical, but B.A.D.’s second record, “No. 10, Upping St.,” is clearly no match for the first.

Where there was once eminently danceable, intelligent music, with techno-pop flair added by unpredictable breaks and flashes of spontaneity, we have, on “No. 10, Upping St.,” bland and overly clever music, designed with the consumer in mind.

Critics observed that the first record didn’t so much contain songs as skeletons — Jones’ flat, neutral voice stretched out over the jagged framework of a crossover funk beat.

This time around, the music has been cleaned up and the beat excised. It’s pretty and it’s smooth, and all the jagged edges have been replaced with soft breaks and electronic filler.

A lot of what’s on the LP sounds like cheap pop, not the simple-minded pop Jones aimed for in “Lost in the Supermarket,” (from “London Calling”) but psuedo-Euro fluff which echoes but does not approach the smarts of such groups as Shriekback or The Beastie Boys.

“Hollywood Boulevard,” one of the weaker songs, gives us “Messiahs of the milk bar, hellraisers to the end,” a line to the ton of an annoying backbeat drum machine, polyrhythmic melody. “Dial a Hitman” is a halfway amusing tale of a man who decides to bump off his wife, on which unfortunately concludes with an interminable telephone conversation.

The obvious hits are pleasant and innocuous enough. “V. Thirteen” is close to conventional pop, with descending chords and pretty melodies. “C’mon Every Beatbox,” another soon-to-come single, has a catchy hook and decent beat, while “Beyond the Pale,” a collaborative effort by Jones and Strummer, is just portentous enough to recall how good the Clash were before their decline.

Do you know what the problem is? It’s pop. All pop. Where B.A.D. promised innovative dance music with a brain, the new record produces uncommitted, middleweight pop.

The first record promised sunny optimism with “So when you reach the bottom line/the only thing to do is climb.”

B.A.D.’s second LP makes it clear that the band still has a long hike ahead.

The date for the show has yet to be announced, but you can see them in person in December, when they open for The Pretenders at the New Haven Coliseum.

"Big Audio Dynamite" (Columbia)—Mick Jones—Mick Jones and Joe Strummer were hailed as a New Wave John Lennon–Paul McCartney when The Clash hit the United States in 1977. But the two bandmates–songwriters have gone their separate ways—Strummer with a reformed Clash that returned to its punk roots and Jones with Big Audio Dynamite, which follows up on The Clash’s experiments in reggae, dub and rap.

Its debut album, “Big Audio Dynamite,” is an outstanding record. Jones joins with keyboardist Dan Donovan and the dreadlocked duo “E-Zee Kill” Williams and Greg Roberts, to create a political statement–cum–dance record.

The album opens with “Medicine Show,” which features audio takeouts from films by Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpagh and Walter Huston and was co-written by Jones and British film director Don Letts.

From there it moves quickly, attacking and commenting on runaway Japanese technology (“Sony”), Great Britain’s treatment of its working class (“The Bottom Line”) and the recent rash of sexually–transmitted diseases (“Stone Thames”).

The album’s closing track, “BAD,” is a fine cut which points up why Jones left The Clash: Its features a rap break, dubbing, and scratching. And it all works, with much of the credit going to album producer Jones.—
Larry McShane, Associated Press Writer.

Mick Jones and Joe Strummer were hailed as a New Wave John Lennon–Paul McCartney when The Clash hit the United States in 1977. But the two bandmates–songwriters have gone their separate ways — Strummer with a reformed Clash that returned to its punk roots and Jones with Big Audio Dynamite, which follows up on The Clash’s experiments in reggae, dub and rap.

Its debut album, “Big Audio Dynamite,” is an outstanding record. Jones joins with keyboardist Dan Donovan and the dreadlocked duo "E-Zee Kill" Williams and Greg Roberts to create a political statement–cum–dance record.

The album opens with “Medicine Show,” which features audio takeouts from films by Sergio Leone, Sam Peckinpagh and Walter Huston and was co-written by Jones and British film director Don Letts.

From there it moves quickly, attacking and commenting on runaway Japanese technology (“Sony”), Great Britain’s treatment of its working class (“The Bottom Line”) and the recent rash of sexually–transmitted diseases (“Stone Thames”).

The album’s closing track, “BAD,” is a fine cut which points up why Jones left The Clash: Its features a rap break, dubbing, and scratching. And it all works, with much of the credit going to album producer Jones.
By Larry McShane, Associated Press Writer.

Big Audio Dynamite's No. 10 Upping St. sees former Clash leaders Mick Jones and Joe Strummer kiss and make up and attempt to revitalize their flagging careers.

Strummer went down the toilet last year when he attempted to recreate the angry anthems that punctuated the classic Clash sound. Jones achieved marginal success with BAD's first album, a conglomeration of beat box rhythms, reggae bass lines and simple melodies.

Bringing in Strummer to work on the second BAD album has mixed results. It's danceable, but overly mechanical. Both Strummer and Jones are highly emotional singers, but on this serving, the emotions are awash in technical overkill.

Fans of the Clash who expected the reunion of Strummer and Jones to recreate past glories will be disappointed.

CUT THE CRAP, The Clash, (Epic). Three Stars
THIS IS BIG AUDIO DYNAMITE, (Columbia). Three Stars

Coming from the two leaders of the original Clash, both of these albums have to rank as major disappointments. After a falling out a couple of years ago, Mick Jones and Joe Strummer parted ways. "Cut the Crap" is the group's first LP since that split, and with Strummer completely in charge the emphasis is on basic, stripped-down politically minded songs and away from more melodic, pop numbers like "Rock the Casbah" and "Train in Vain."

Unfortunately, though, with only a few exceptions the songs lack the power of classic Clash material. Part of the problem lies with the production — half the numbers sound like Strummer's demos, not tracks cut by an actual band — and the rest lies with the songwriting. Without Jones' pop sensibility, Strummer (and now ex-Clash co-manager Bernard Rhodes) ends up penning half-finished songs that are sadly lacking in any melodic hooks.

The opening track on "The Is Big Audio Dynamite," the debut LP by Jones' new band, seems to pick up somewhere around "Sandinista!," the eclectic, three-record set the Clash released in 1980. "Medicine Show" is a dreamy, rhythmic tune that's based on a simple Jones' guitar riff and includes bits of synthesizer, harmonica, background voices and so on.

Though it's a promising start to the album, the song goes on for 6½ minutes and lacks a solid hook — both forewarnings of problems that plague the rest of this LP. Almost all of the songs here lack focus, and most of them drag out into dub-like arrangements for no apparent reason.

Though neither of these LPs ranks anywhere near the Clash's best, Jones and Strummer are both talented individuals, and there are a few tracks on both of these records that are worth a listen. We can now only hope that recent rumors that the rift between the two men has been healed are based in truth.