What About "CUT THE CRAP" ? 1985--The Clash--POLL:

Hear ya, I know many of my friends at the time felt the same way you do. It has grown on me a little, because after 31 plus years after its release I accept Cut The Crap as a Strummer solo effort.

 

Yes it is

 

Listening to "Cut The Crap" a few days ago; I ended up understanding that in the particular case of this album. one can easily understand how a manager can destroy a band.
As Mick Jones said in an interview about the time of the manager's return: "Yes! Bernie returned but returned with his vengeance".
If you go looking for information about what happened after the departure of Topper Headon and then Mick Jones, you will find much of Bernie's influence on those decisions and how he manipulated Joe Strummer during the reform of the band. Finally he achieved the creative control and destroyed the legacy producing "Cut The Crap".

Although during the UK Tour it seems that the chemistry worked with the "new guys", but it was not enough. A few years later, Joe Strummer, in a TV interview, apologized for not giving them the chance that the project would work. But it was clear that the member who wrote the songs and the counterbalance to Strummer's ego was not there: Mick Jones.

It is known today that even Bernie Rhodes took the tapes and it was impossible to prevent him from doing the disaster that today one can hear in those recordings... then Strummer disappeared
The best of those sessions was recorded with all the members of the band together in the studio and paradoxically did not appear on the album!
Sad !

 

I wasn’t able to cast a vote for none, so consider my votes enthusiastically absent.

 

It really was an incredible lie and a cash-grab crime against a great band’s integrity and history to call this an album by The Clash. No musical ends justify those means.

 

A music tragedy Crap is indeed. The last hurrah for the Clash was Combat Rock. With that I will say "This is England" is a tremendous effort.

 

C'mon people saying there are no good songs on this. The record is crap, but This is England is a great, great song. An absolute classic.

 

A classic and so sad in a way.

 

ShoutFactoryTV : Watch The Rise and Fall of the Clash

This doc tells a lot of the Cut The Crap story in it's last half.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

Dirty Punk is a good song.

 

Hi to all the Hoffmanites who participated in my Cut The Crap thread. Go ahead and fire away on the NONE OF THE ABOVE selection. Thanks for contributing.




Joe Strummer performs with his solo project, The Latino Rockabilly War, in 1989. The Clash frontman died of heart failure in December 2002.

R.I.P JOE

 

File under Velvet Underground - Squeeze

 

Just spinning this cd now Friday early evening. Enjoying it as a Strummer solo effort, that makes me miss The Clash all the more. Like I posted earlier there is a NONE OF THE ABOVE choice.

 

While CTC is a truly awful album, more Bernie Rhodes the scheming, talentless slavedriver than an actual Clash album, Clash II could be really good live, as proven by many bootlegs - Barrowlands, the Brixton Academy boots, etc. North And South, This Is England, The Dictator, The Three Card Trick and Glue Zombie were all great live, as were several of the other new songs, and some of the takeson oder songs were also really good, especially the James Bond Theme take on One More Time from Brixton Academy, English Civil War, and many of the early songs.

I saw them live in 1985, and it was strange to see them trying to be "relevant" and be an independent punk band, when 1) they clearly weren't, and 2) punk (in the '77 sense) was stone dead since several years back. Paul's attempt at break dancing didn't help - it was probably one of the most cringe inducing moments of my entire life...

They should have followed the original plan and released a string of singles instead, and of course they should have kicked Bernie Rhodes out - and not have treated the new members like indentured servants. The bootleg containing the band's rehearsal tapes if also a fun listen, with several embryonic songs that were neither played live or released:


It would be fun to have a poll that includes all the Clash II songs, e.g. Ammunition, In The Pouring Rain, Glue Zombie, Galliano, etc.

Hopefully, the CTC tapes will emerge from Bernie's stash one day, and be properly re-imagined.

 

I'll give Crap another spin tonight or tomorrow on the road. Lucky me.

 

Cut The Crap rocks!
All of the above for me.

 

Given what the Clash has achieved Cut the crap is nothing but a sad joke. When I first heard this album at day of release me and some friends literary smashed the disc. Seems a bit weird today but in those days the Clash really mattered.

 

WOW!!

 

I have no idea. I’m a huge Clash , but somehow I have always considered this album as a Joe solo effort. I only own the This is England 7”, but that’s it. It is really worth buying?

 

I think there is some decent material here many will feel differently.
Buy it as a Strummer solo album than you might enjoy it for what CTCI is.

 

Just finished reading the new book We Are the Clash - an excellent overview of the Clash 2 time period. Highly recommended. Made me very nostalgic

I have a soft spot for Cut the Crap and listen to it still regularly. Some of these songs are corny but catchy as hell.

I must agree that many of these songs sounded better live. Caught the band at the 1984 Hofstra University show and they were pretty fired up.

I blame both Bernie and Joe for the way the album turned out.

Imagine if Mick could gain access to the master tapes. I bet he could whip a pretty good album up.

 

Definitely or at least give it a try.

 

I bought the album back in 1985..still have it, I do recall a measure of disappointment, perhaps I was expecting too much.

This thread has actually inspired me to give it another chance, it will be the first listen since 1985.