Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography of Joe Strummer. Chris Salewicz
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November the 101’ers drove up with their equipment to Jackson’s Studios in Rickmansworth on the fringe of north London, where Maile – an ex-BBC sound engineer who worked at the studio – recorded six of their songs: ‘Motor Boys Motor’, ‘Silent Telephone’, ‘Letsagetabitarockin’ ’, ‘Hideaway’, ‘Sweety of the St Moritz’ and ‘Steamgauge 99’. The 101’ers claim not to have enjoyed the experience: they didn’t take to Maile’s martinet-like approach to recording. He didn’t get them a deal.
But others were also interested, among them Ted Carroll, who with his partner Roger Armstrong ran a pair of vintage record stalls called Rock On, one in Soho Market, the other in Golborne Road, at the top of Portobello Road, often frequented by Joe Strummer, as well as Paul Simonon. Carroll had decided to start his own independent record label, Chiswick Records. Joe said: ‘When Ted Carroll came to me after a gig at some university and said, “Hey, do you want to make a record then?” it was so far from my mind that anyone could make records who were in our world that I remember looking at him as though I was observing a lunatic, let out from a loony-bin for a day-out trip. I said, “What?” And he said, “Do you want to make a record?” I just couldn’t believe my ears – it was that far away. You know, we were under the sub-sub-sub-level of the subunderground level. It just baffled my head when he said that. I couldn’t believe it.’
But Ted Carroll was completely serious. Two weeks later, on 4 March, the 101’ers were at Pathway Studios in Canonbury, with Roger Armstrong producing. They recorded a trio of songs, ‘Surf City’, ‘Sweet Revenge’ and ‘Keys to Your Heart’. Six days later Joe Strummer, ‘Evil C’ Timperley, Desperate Dan Kelleher and Richard ‘Snakehips’ Dudanski returned to Pathway, where they re-recorded ‘Surf City’ and ‘Sweet Revenge’, and added a version of ‘Rabies (From the Dogs of Love)’. Two weeks later, on 24 and 25 March, ‘Keys to Your Heart’ was mixed and completed.
Under the auspices of Boogie, the 101’ers were in a different studio only three days later, on 28 March. Half a dozen 101’ers’ originals were recorded at the BBC studios in Maida Vale, where live performances were recorded for broadcast. It was not a successful session: ‘Joe didn’t really click with studios at that stage, with the repetitious listening to the stuff that had been recorded, and the laying down of vocals, and the post-production.’ The songs put on tape included another version of ‘Keys to Your Heart’, ‘5 Star Rock and Roll Petrol’ and ‘Surf City’.
Perhaps Joe found the recording experience difficult because he needed the energy of a live performance to overcome his musical limitations, rather than resorting to drugs as did so many of his contemporaries. He and his cohorts were almost entirely outside the grasp of amphetamine sulphate, then widely used on the rock’n’roll circuit. As Joe Strummer told Paolo Hewitt, it was absurd to claim the 101’ers’ shows were the product of this cheap speed: ‘Used to annoy me. At the Western Counties one night we played this really great set, really firing on all cylinders. Then we went out into the bar to have a drink and this bloke goes nudgingly, “Not bad that.” And he’s winking and nudging me and I was going, “What’s the matter with the geezer?” And he says, “How many lines did you snort before that set then?” And we weren’t into speed. We couldn’t afford speed. We couldn’t afford a drink.’
Something needed to change. Gigging on the pub circuit was draining, and Joe grew frustrated. ‘It was just a slog,’ said Joe. ‘It seemed after doing eighteen months of that we were just invisible. I started to lose my mind. I would go around the squat saying, “We’re invisible, we should change our name to the Invisibles.” You’d get back to London about 5 a.m., unload the gear, put on a kettle and go, “What the fuck’s that about?” And in the paper it’d be like Queen and all that. We were just shambling from one gig to the next banging our heads against the wall.’
At least the 101’ers had spent five days of March in recording studios, and they had a full date-sheet of forthcoming gigs. On Friday 2 April 1976, accompanied by Tymon Dogg, the 101’ers played a ‘Benefit Dance’, at fifty pence a ticket, for That Tea Room at Acklam Hall in Notting Hill, beneath the Westway. The mildly psychedelic poster – all blues, greens, and oranges – sets the tone:
Starring That Tea Room Food
Eaten by
101’ers Tymon Dogg
Louis The Jeep (Late Bar Toilets)
Co-starring Clowns Fire-eaters Idiots MC Philipe 4-speed
record-player
Dog-fighters bullitt and trouble
The Dancing Pirana Sisters featuring Pirana Custard and
Romero – solo – Dave The VD
The Beatles. Rob on insults. Bouncers Dylan and Wiggin
Foote and Boogie
+ Largest Flapjack in the World + a Nigel
The Miserable Circus
The poster was designed by Helen Cherry. Joe, she said, was very pleased with it: ‘He really, really liked it and I got a big pat on the back. He said, “Helen, a lot of people came to see it and we made a lot of money because of your poster.”’ In retrospect, the entire concept of the evening seems from a very specific world indeed, like a fantasy of an idealized San Francisco of 1967, certainly an event from another, more innocent time.
Which it was about to be revealed to be.
The next night, 3 April, the 101’ers played what must have seemed merely another date, at the Nashville Rooms, next to the tube station in West Kensington. The support act? The Sex Pistols. Glen Matlock, the bass-player and songwriter, had gone to Acklam Hall. Backstage he found Joe Strummer trying to tune his guitar. ‘Ah, the Sex Pistols,’ he said to Glen. ‘We’ll see how it is tomorrow night.’
Joe did see. And everything changed.
11
I’M GOING TO BE A PUNK ROCKER
1976
For Joe Strummer the show the next day at the Nashville Rooms was an epiphany: ‘As soon as Johnny Rotten hit the stand, right, the writing was on the wall, as far as I was concerned. We’re top of the bill. And we’re sitting in the dressing-room and then they walk through it to get to the stage and they just came through in a big long line. And I saw this geezer in a gold lamé Elvis Presley jacket at the end of the line as they walked through. So I thought, I’m going to see what these guys are like. So I tapped him on the shoulder and said, “That’s a nice jacket you’ve got on there.” And he turned around and it was Sid Vicious. And he went, “Yeah, isn’t it? I’ll tell you where I got it. Do you know that stall up at Camden? Blah blah blah.” And he was like dead friendly, he was such a nice guy. He didn’t have to cop any attitude. And they looked so great that I knew this was something great. So I went out in the audience and sat down.
‘There was perhaps thirty people lying around, you know. And they came out and they just, just cleaned me out. They came out, with like, I don’t fucking care if you like it or not, this is it. If you don’t like it, piss off. It was that difference. They were like a million years ahead. I realized immediately that we were going nowhere, and the rest of my group hated them. They didn’t want to watch it or hear anything about it. So I started sort of going off to the punk festivals and getting into the whole thing. Eventually it tore the whole band apart.’
Woody Mellor as Joe Strummer. Letsgetabitarockin’! (Joe Stevens)
Nearly three weeks later, on 23 April 1976, the Pistols again supported the 101’ers at the Nashville.