Re: the Clash's CUT THE CRAP

Does the Clash's CUT THE CRAP have any fans here? I recently read the book WE ARE THE CLASH, which covers the band's history after Mick Jones was fired, and it makes a case for the album. I bought it back on its original release and thought it was painfully mediocre apart from "This Is England." I listened to it again today, and my original opinion stands. Paradoxically, Joe Strummer's intention after COMBAT ROCK was a return to the band's punk roots and the sound of their first album, but Bernard Rhodes took over the production mantle and the 3 new members' treatment as hired hands diluted the band's new direction. The album flirts with synth-pop and hip-hop influences in a grating manner. (The combo of Oi! football terrace shout-alongs with production out of mid '80s AOR is particularly bizarre.) I have nothing against synthesizers and programmed drums, but they just sound cheap and ugly here. I know that its demos are floating around, and some people have suggested that they show a promise not achieved on the finished album.

"We Are The Clash" is a great read and helps fill in the blanks for this weird period in The Clash's history!

A few years ago, Crooked Beat Records released two compilations of covers from "Cut the Crap" and their associated demos--and they make a strong case that there could have been a good record in there, had Strummer not stepped back (due to personal reasons: the death of his parents and birth of his first kid) and let Bernie Rhodes produce/ruin it. Check out my reviews of both records: Duff Review: V/A "Recutting the Crap, Volume 2" and "The Future Was Unwritten" (RSD 2018 Release).

If anyone is looking for these LPs, Rock and Soul on 37th Street in Manhattan has copies. (If you want to mail order the LPs from them, get in touch--they have great customer service...)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/13/2021 09:55AM by Familyman.

Also, in Clash-related news, Don Letts has selected a bunch of tracks for the latest Late Night Tales compilation. It features dub covers of songs by Aaron Neville, Jefferson Airplane, The Clash, Joy Division, Stevie Wonder, The Beach Boys, Lou Rawls, Marvin Gaye, Kool & The Gang, Bill Withers, Althea and Donna, Randy Newman, Merle Travis, The Bee Gees, War, The Beatles, and others.

I reviewed the comp here: Duff Review: Various Artists (Selected by Don Letts) "Version Excursion".

‘85 was an interesting year. You had the implosion of some of the punk/new wave mainstays: Sting solo lp, Arcadia vs Power Station, BAD vs ‘cut the crap’. It made room for bands like Jesus and Mary Chain and the Smiths to make inroads, no?

I bought this album when it came out because it was on sale (I think I got the new lp for $5.99 in Toronto) but I’ve never loved it. And I ADORED the Clash. I really wish Joe and Paul would’ve given this project a new band name. When they sang “We are the clash”, I never thought so.

I just gave it a cursory listen since it’s been awhile, hoping to find hidden gems. I’m with you on this one Steevee… just not good. (Save this is England…a Strummer beauty).

The “80s sound effects” in a track like ‘are you red y” just don’t add anything good. And I had liked how they had expanded their sound on the previous three albums.

I DID like Mick’s B.A.D. debut. I wish he could’ve done that with the Clash.

I moved on to Doug Yule's "Velvet Underground" album SQUEEZE today, which I had never heard. It's better than CUT THE CRAP! Rather generic early '70s rock, but there are 3 or 4 songs I'd return to, and I can see how Yule got there from LOADED. Yule himself dislikes it, but there are some contrarian "this is actually a great album" takes out there. Next up: the album Funkadelic made without George Clinton!

I've shared on this board a few times before about how Steve Sesnick, in his doomed quest to make the Velvets a commercial success, turned poor Doug Yule into a villain, when he was nothing of the sort. By inflating Doug's credits on Loaded after Reed had left, and by insisting on Squeeze being a Velvet Underground album instead of a Yule solo album, Sesnick made sure Yule was seen as a villain by what would've otherwise been his natural audience. VU fans would've thought Squeeze was perfectly acceptable as a Yule solo album and would've happily owned a copy of an okay but not remarkable record. But as a Velvets album, it elicited a reaction of that asshole!!!, and doomed poor Doug to a reputation he doesn't deserve, is probably what kept him from being inducted into the RRHOF with the band, and why he reportedly is reduced to a footnote in the Haynes documentary (I'll see for myself tomorrow night.)

Anyhow, Squeeze is neither a lost masterpiece nor a complete disaster. It's a perfectly okay album by a perfectly okay musician, both of which got destroyed by a legendary jackass of a manager.

I recently picked up a copy of Cut the Crap that I found in the cut-out bin. Like Bip, I hadn't heard it since the '80s; when I saw the cut-out copy, I wondered if it was as shabby as I remembered.

Yep. To reiterate something else Bip said, "We Are The Clash" sounds like they're trying to convince themselves. The most charitable things one can say about the album is that (a) It's awfully hard for any band to come up with a good album when the member who'd handled half the songwriting and half the lead vocals has been given the boot, and (b) "This Is England" is the standout track ... although in this company, that ain't saying a lot.

Still, I may include a track from Cut the Crap in next Friday's show, just for the fun of it. Maybe a block of songs from albums that are almost universally panned.

Delvin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Still, I may include a track from Cut the
> Crap in next Friday's show, just for the fun
> of it. Maybe a block of songs from albums that are
> almost universally panned.

Don't forget anything from ABC's "Beauty Stab!" “If I Ever Thought You’d Be Lonely” is an interesting deep cut that reeks of Roxy Music.

Oooh ooooh that’s a good idea Delvin… maybe albums that had a missing prominent member ( like Aerosmith ‘rock in a hard place’ or the Doors sans Morrison or J Giels without Peter wolf)

Or the VU's/Doug Yule's Squeeze, or Genesis' Calling All Stations ... or any number of post-Eighties Ultravox albums.

Delvin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> or any
> number of post-Eighties Ultravox albums.


For what's it's worth, I'm fine with the ones without Midge Ure! I still maintain "Ingenuity" is the one decent Ultravox album past 1983.

And Delvin, perhaps a tune from The Skyhooks' Hot for the Orient album.

> Still, I may include a track from Cut the
> Crap in next Friday's show, just for the fun
> of it. Maybe a block of songs from albums that are
> almost universally panned.

>Don't forget anything from ABC's "Beauty Stab!" “If I Ever Thought You’d Be Lonely” is an interesting deep cut >that reeks of Roxy Music.

I can't be the only one out that likes "That Was Then, This is Now", can I? (Though I'll be darned if I can remember anything else from said LP)

>For what's it's worth, I'm fine with the ones without Midge Ure!

You mean the ones featuring that John Foxx guy? ^_^

Delvin, you could probably include stuff from Bad Religion's "Into the Unknown" (Jack Rabid aside, I don't think the "misunderstood masterpiece" tag ever managed to stick to said release) and Discharge's "Grave New World". (Somewhere in YouTubeLand there's an audio-only vid of their show at the Farm in '8? with their New Sound and the, ahem, resulting audience response). Don't remember much love for 7 Seconds' "New Wind" either.

I've always dug it.

HEY LOOK - IT'S NOSEPAIL!!!!

Welcome back, old friend.