Clash city shocker!

The punk holy grail or what? As reported a couple of issues ago in Hot Press, the 25th anniversary edition of London Calling comes out on September 20 with a bonus CD of demos, alternate takes and rarities that Mick Jones discovered earlier this year in his lock-up.

What we didn’t realise then is that the so-called Vanilla Tapes would run to a whopping 21-tracks, which include seven tunes that have never been heard before outside of the Clash inner circle.

Says band biographer Pat Gilbert: “There is very little unreleased Clash stuff. The idea that a whole album’s worth of material has come to light like this is absolutely incredible.”

Recorded at Pimlico’s Vanilla Studios in the run-up to the London Calling sessions, the tapes capture the Londoners at the start of their creative zenith.

“There was a point where punk was getting narrower in terms of where it was going,” Mick Jones reflects. “We thought we could just do any type of music.”

Total Clashaholics that we are Hot Press has managed to get a sneak preview of the lost songs which stack up as follows:

‘Lonesome Me’ – Jonesy handles vocal duties on this half-Johnny Cash/half-Joe Ely twangfest.

‘The Police Walkin’’ – An instrumental noodle which bears more than a passing resemblance to ‘Jimmy Jazz’.

‘Walkin’’ The Sidewalk’ – More instrumental meandering, this time in a bluesy John Lee Hooker wannabe vein.

‘Where You Gonna Go (Soweto)’ – A taste of Mescaleros-assisted things to come, this finds Joe going off on a world music tangent.

‘The Man In Me’ – A cover of London reggae group Matumbi covering the New Morning Dylan track. Third-hand or not, it proves that white boys can skank.

‘Working & Waiting’ – It’s easy when you’ve got Strummer and Jones dominating proceedings to dismiss Paul Simenon as a hired hand, but it’s his bass that drives this dubwise work-out.

‘Heart & Mind’ – Joe’s insistent vocals and a chorus that’s equal parts ‘Clash City Rockers’ and ‘Drug Stabbing Time’ make this the Vanilla Tapes’ ace in the pack.

Completing the line-up are embryonic – i.e. no horns, Hammond, piano or whistling – versions of all but four of London Calling’s 19-tracks and, curiously, a straightforward run through of ‘Remote Control’ from their debut album, which the band had pretty much disowned by then.

It’s also interesting to hear how Strummer tweaked his lyrics, with the “Don’t look to us/Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust” part of ‘London Calling’ starting life as “We’re the Kings of the South/Hated all over, Kings of the Mouth.”

“We only played these demos a few times,” Jones concludes. “We didn’t really go into the studio and slavishly copy them. We knew the basics, some of the lyrics came later. They were sketches, really. But I’m glad I found them. They tell you quite a lot about what we were like at the time.”

The Vanilla Tapes are just the tip of the extras iceberg, with a third disc featuring band interviews and documentary footage shot by band confidante and former Roxy Club DJ Don Letts.