Fucking Long Innit? The Sandinista Poll

actually I might have voted Street Parade

I'm probably going to get clowned but I never listened to this album until about two weeks ago. I know most of their other stuff, but I read somewhere (maybe here!) that this album was considered a dud and just never got around to checking for myself.

It's so fucking long it's really hard to digest, but there is great stuff on here that's as good as any of their other albums and if you paired it down to a single or double it would be amazing. But what to cut?!

Love the first six or so songs, Somebody Got Murdered (damn), Police on My Back, Sound of Sinners, Charlie Don't Surf. Lol @ the end of Broadway.

The more you listen, the less you’ll want to cut.

Yeah, the album's awesome and full of surprises. One of my favorite Xgau reviews, especially the first line, which sums up a smart way to approach this album.

At $9.99 discounted, figure sides five and six as a near-freebie sweetened by great cuts from Timon Dogg and a grade-school duo. Compare "Apple Jam" (you know, on George Harrison's All Things Must Pass triple, now there was a prophetic title) invidiously to the run of their dub ramble. Listen to Sandinista Now!, the promo-only one-disc digest Epic has thoughtfully provided busy radio personnel, and note that you miss (in my case) "Rebel Waltz" and "Let's Go Crazy" and "Something About England" (and who knows what in yours). Note that you also miss the filler and assorted weirdnesses which provide that heady pace and/or texture. Then note as well that the many good songs aren't as consistently compelling as on previous Clash albums, though God knows "The Sound of Sinners" is a long-overdue Christer spoof and words about reading are always apt and the romanticization of revolution is an inevitable theme. And conclude that if this is their worst--which it is, I think--they must be, er, the world's greatest rock and roll band. A-

lol at this from wikipedia, on the decision to release a triple-LP

Mick Jones said, "I always saw it as a record for people who were, like, on oil rigs. Or Arctic stations. People that weren't able to get to the record shops regularly."

it's all so good, you really need everything but I guess you could cut a few things from sides 5 & 6 combined if you really wanted to

like, even "The Equalizer" is an all time favorite of mine

Iirc they had to fight to keep the price down. Maybe took a smaller cut in return? Anyway, it's very White Album/Exile in Main Street, in that iirc some of the songs don't feature all four members, or at least all four were rarely in the same room at the same time. I think they were in and out of the studio at all times, a habit they kept up til the end, which is how Topper managed to write and record so much of "Rock the Casbah" himself.

they had to forgo any royalties on the first 200,000 copies sold in the UK and a 50% cut in royalties elsewhere.

for reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinista!

I think this is my favorite album of theirs tbh

"Lose This Skin" makes a great case for bands to fill out long albums by letting their friends come in with something and be their backing band.

Don't remember this thread at all, but lots of otm comments. Also glad to see mentions of The Sandinsta! Project, which I briefly reviewed for the Voice:

The Sandinista! Project , commissioned and assembled by long-game rock journalist Jimmy Guterman (The Self-Portrait Project may someday follow) is a two-CD, four-year, complete urban renewal of the Clash's 36-track, three-LP sonic cosmopolis. Released in late 1980 (when punk could seem as old and established as Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, though rather less successful politically), the original Sandinista!
implicitly addressed and sometimes sounded stressed by the clash of identity and adaptability. Most of the many various artists on TSP tap into the achievement and potential of this driving, driven undercurrent. The Mekons' Jon Langford and Sally Timms (with Ship And Pilot) get New Orleans street song "Junco Partner" higher, lighter, and tighter than the Clash can; blue notes are bluer too.
More clearly than ever, these songs embody the risks and payoffs of conflict. On "One More Time/One More Dub," ex-Voidoid Ivan Julian tilts galaxies of guitar through rippling immersions of Iranian-American chanteuse Haale, as his bass pushes notes almost deeper than feeling, with constant harassment from ex-Lounge Lizard Dougie Bowne's drums. Julian also plays guitar on "The Call Up," one of the original set's strongest tracks. Here, re-tuned voices still keen warnings to "young people down through the ages," while The Lothars' ancient Space Age theramins swoop like patrols of lost souls pressed into service over grinding post–Oil Age reggae beats. Project only stumbles when it stays too close to original versions—unlike Wreckless Eric, rattling and wailing, "Stepping out a rhythm that can take the tension on/Stepping in and out of that crooked, crooked beat." Now I get it!

Dug the rabbit hole with it in that year's Nashville Scene ballot comments, but what an awesome album:

I've just gone a little further afield than usual. For instance, The
Sandinista! Project: produced by Jimmy Guterman: covers of the
entire 3-LP set on 2 CDs, by Jon Langford & Sally Timms, Katrina of
Katrina And The Waves, Wreckless Eric, Camper Van Beethoven, Amy
Rigby, Jason Ringenberg & Kristi Rose, Steve Wynn, Willie Nile, Mikey
Dread, Sid Griffith's Coal Porters, Ruby On The Vine (featuring
Myrna Marcarian of Human Switchboard), and a lot of people I never
heard of, many of whom also do some startlingly good stuff, so it's
not just Indie Big/Heard Of Name Placebo Effect, I don't think
(Although some of the no-name people are a little too reverent to the
wordiness of the texts or slowness of The Clash's own performances,
so it's not just lower case no name placebo effect either.) Feeling stuck in the spotlight and the perfectly sealed over image of rebellion,The
Clash tried to break on through to the para-punk world, much of it in living color, but they did so with the limited skill sets of themselves and their tiny coterie, for whole teeming subcontinents of soundmasses, dub etc. The Project's bands wisely delve into one song each. But such rich material, and it's not just,. maybe not mainly the writing, but the groove too, implied and/or realized, to whatever degree: The Clash's version of post-punk goes past the bounds of the recent trend,
yet loops through the experiments of Wilco and The Mekons, back
through the studio-as-instrument stuff to the country and punk phases,
back to Englishmen who were kids in the 60s, and their take on
skiffle, ska, various New Orleans (incl urban cajun), and rural parade
beats, and yeah nascent hip-hop, dub; but where The Clash's vocals and
production could blur into an atmosphere too thin and thick at the
same time, and too tenuous, technically(at least on the original vinyl
and cheap speakers), other artists have picked up where they left off,
without surpassing the basic strengths of these songs, which are
mostly rejuvenated here, and fairly often in a countryoid way. Not
just in terms of energy, or different drugs, but the Clashian
combination of stylistic elements, with transitions in and between
tracks, and the way the album loops back to pick up an earlier
approach, and develop it further (true in the original, but this trib
makes it clearer to me), and their characteristic combination of
seriousness and humor, linear development and dubwise ricochet,
kinetic mass and leaves of grass, as honored here in spirit and
appropriate adaptation, makes them sound at least as right and ripe
for the Double 0s as for the 80s. (Maybe not if this album had come
out in the 90s, which seemed like Austin Powers' preferred memory of
the 60s, at least for lucky millions; sucked to be other billions, but
there you go-go.) Example of how one track builds on another: was
thinking I'd like to hear more of that bluesy fiddle bouncing along
under Jon Langford and Sally Timms's "Junco Partner." Which is a much
better track, all the way through, than the perky-on-cue rhythm, I
mean "riddim" mocking Strummer's dry, take-it-or-leave-it emphasis got
to be (too conceptual, after more than a few minutes, it seems; we get
it already). But in a much quicker already, I'm wanting more from
Langford and Timms, cos this new version is so good, that they've
shown me could be even better.(After writing this, I realized that
the point is in the degree of restraint: the sly old partner knows
he'll never get out of his street beat alive). But then the very next
track does bring out the fiddle's blues and fun more, as Jason
Ringenberg and Kristi Rose get a lot more subtle than they usually do,
by winding with the fiddle, through the long lines of "When Ivan Meets
G.I. Joe," way after the pinball machines have been shut down, no
attempt to improveon 80s sound EFX here, just ease us through the
shadows, til we reach the international tough guy stuff , on passing
posters and screens, and start another turn. (This really seems like
the centerpiece of the whole Project, speaking of those time/style
loops, even though it's only Track 4.) Wreckless Eric's "Crooked
Beat" combines modern technology and 25 years of practice for inspired
woodshed electronics (which sound Orwellian in Bee Maidens' "Mensforth
Hill", like what's probing Winston and Julia's love nest, back in
1984, but also turns out to be the old man's story from "Something
About England," just recognizable as it [life and history] disappear
backwards over said hill, sucked in like spaghetti, or like gristle
between teeth, all of which is country enough for me.) The Lothars'
name might come from 60s' group Lothar And The Hand People, in which
Lothar was a theramin, because a whole patrol of are we not theramin
keep patrolling "The Call Up, " which is a bit like Devo's version of
"Workin' In A Coal Mine" and Neil Young's Trans, but eerier (and more
foregone, far-gone rural-industrial) than either. Speaking of
versions, Tim Krekel's "Version City" is the post-alt.country
mainstream-accessible triumph, pop train song with doppler shift
horns, like Mr. Krekel, an expert Kentucky-to-Music Row commuter,
probably is familiar with (being, for inst, leader of the Octaves octet,
sensibility neighbors of the nascent NRBQ, back when they all started
in Louisville), and fans of Tim McGraw's rusty-vocodered
"Fly Away" really really should hear it too. Sally Timms & Jon
Langford return with "Version Pardner," which seems like mostly
acoustic dub, until tape Sallys sally back again, and one of her has
one hand waving free ("He-e-ey," even if she's still falling forward
and around with that ol' Partner man again).And that's just one more
upside down moment folded into a bouquet of dub, which is still just
trying to take country's ID crisis on a seismic cruise, oowee baby.

nice, thanks, never heard of that tribute comp and I've always got time for Jon & Sally

Yeah, definitely not advocating for cutting anything, just saying that it's so sprawling it is overwhelming. As someone pointed out, it's similar to the White Album in some regards in that the sprawl is part of the journey.

that iirc some of the songs don't feature all four members, or at least all four were rarely in the same room at the same time.

The lineup on much of the album is Joe, Mick and Topper, with Blockheads Micky Gallagher on organ/piano and Norman Watt-Roy on bass. But Mick Jones played the bass on earlier records as often as not, even when Simonon wasn't off starring in Ladies & Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.

(Mick put coloured stickers on Paul's frets and taught him the basslines by colour to play live, and even by the time he was writing songs, Joe would have to play bass onstage because Paul couldn't sing and play at the same time.)

Gallagher was already m/l in the band at this point, so it made sense to bring in someone he already played well with (and was great). Those are Gallagher's kids singing the reprises of Career Opportunities and Guns Of Brixton, too. A third Blockhead, Davey Payne did saxophone in addition to regular Clash sax session bloke Gary Barnacle (who brought his dad for trumpet parts! A real family affair).

Tymon Dogg was hanging around the sessions generally iirc - Joe had played in his backing band and they'd squatted together in the mid-70s, and I think a random bump-into in the street led to Joe inviting him to come along.

The bump-into/come-hang-out could act like a sacred message for Strummer. Tymon joined the Mescalaroes full-time after an unplanned meeting two decades later, and Joe and Mick made up when Don Letts bumped into Strummer on the way to the studio during B.A.D.'s second album sessions and said to come with. Joe was anxious that Mick wouldn't want to see him (having told him the first album was shit and he should bin it and rejoin the Clash), but ended up co-writing most of the album, co-producing, and moving into the studio to sleep under the mixing desk for the duration.

My copy doesnt have the insert with any credits so all the players have always been mysterious to me, which seems as it should be for this weird record. Whenever I think of it I always remember Joe's delivery of a line in the Westway to the World doc where hes talking about making Sandinista and he says something like "it was outrageous - it was DOUBLY outrageous... it was TRIPLY outrageous!"

For me the fun game to play with this wasnt trying to edit it down to a double or single LP, but trying to get a perfect triple album out of this and London Calling.

"Lose This Skin" makes a great case for bands to fill out long albums by letting their friends come in with something and be their backing band.

Took me a long time to find out that Den Hegarty (from out of The Darts) is the voice that does the "key to big Ben" bits

An impossible task that broke my brain, but I ranked these tunes in April.

I wonder how Combat Rock would have been received if it had been released as another double album, as planned. The information overload might have been too much for even the biggest fans.
I can only think of Chicago as a pre-CD act that released 3 multi-disc studio recordings in a row, also on CBS.

Umm, Eric Burdon/Animals?

Alfred, you break my heart calling Hitsville UK "meh". It might be partly a novelty, but sign me up for The Clash do Motown any day.

Combat Rock is already a pretty weird record. I have a couple of outtake boots and iirc the unreleased stuff leans pretty hard on more atmospheric experiments.

I only see Love Is by Eric Burdon and the Animals as a double. Then a single album by Burdon and War, then another double by them, so almost. Same with Todd Rundgren.

The Sandinista thread is obviously the best place to discuss Eric Burdon-related releases.

The Sandinista thread is obviously the best place to discuss Eric Burdon-related releases.

new board description.

There was an interview (in Creem, I think) where Jones said one reason for the triple was that the label considered London Calling a single album, contract fulfillment-wise, so they were like, "Fuck it, let's put everything we got out at once." And they hoped it would be considered at least a double.

It might be partly a novelty, but sign me up for The Clash do Motown any day.

Ditto. Headon nailed that groove like few (if any) of his UK "punk" contemporaries could have. Rick Buckler took a decent stab at it on "Town Called Malice," but you could tell it just wasn't in his wheelhouse.

Combat Rock is already a pretty weird record. I have a couple of outtake boots and iirc the unreleased stuff leans pretty hard on more atmospheric experiments.

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, January 1, 2021 11:24 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

A bunch of stuff came out as b-sides, and on Super Black Market Clash (CD-era comp). It does lean towards the atmospheric, but there's still nothing in the b-sides/unreleased stuff as weirdly un-Clash-like as "Death Is A Star."

Sometime in the mid-'00s, Jones was approached about overseeing a 2CD Combat Rock deluxe edition, with the idea of recreating the Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg mix and track listing. He turned it down, saying it didn't feel right to release the original mix -- which was all Jones' doing, and which he and Joe fought about -- without Joe around to approve it.

I forget where they ended up, but stuff like "Cool Confusion," "Kill Time"/""Idle In Kangaroo Court" and the instrumental "Walk Evil Time" would have been pretty solid additions to Combat Rock. Was it on ILX that I learned there were versions of some Combat Rock stuff with Ranking Roger on vocals? Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nSrKBFWviU

And this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UEQu6wkS28

Which is to say, if they wanted to get as goofy as Sandinista! they probably could have padded it out with some leftover great tracks, weird experiments and other odds and ends to at least get it to a double.

There are comments on the "Rock The Casbah" youtube clip from Ranking Roger (who I'd forgotten had died in 2019):

Well we used a studio i think in notting hill.
Mick Jones was with me and a couple of engineers.
We took the original 24 track and took the lead vox out.
Anyway,it was not allowed to be let out to anyone,althouh i gave the late John Peel a copy of it (R.I.P.)
but......yes,I guess you could say it was a demo waiting approval i guess.
Thanks for letting people hear what could have been a remix,if it was finished.
Better some than none!
Respect!
RR :)

Nice to see this cut up here.
I recorded this for the Clash in London around 82-3 when the clash and the beat toured quite a bit in the U.S.A together.
I also did a toast/rap over red angel dragnet which i have
not heard since.
I did it as a one take in the studio.The Clash split up shortly afterwards so it was never released.
What you guys are hearing here was just a rough mix for us to go away and listen too.
it was never finished.

Hello again,I do not have a digital copy of a 24 track master no. Those backing tracks were and still are,very well protected,i was invited as a guest just to freestyle and see what happened. A lot of it came from the top of my head and I think you can sort of hear it in the track. It was just a guide vocal so I could get more ideas. Then The Clash broke up but we still kept in touch. For the people who saw The Clash and The Beat or The English beat in America on the same bill,would have seen a

Jealous that there are people who saw the Beat and the Clash on the same bill.

I listened to that Clash podcast narrated by Chuck D., and my favorite episode was about the making of Sandinista! — just the whole sense of this kind of non-stop party in the studio in Manhattan, with people dropping in at all hours and somebody always messing around putting something on tape. It made sense of the album for me and made me appreciate it even more.

That sounds awesome. I'm finishing up Life and Death on the New York Dancefloor and the references to "The Magnificent Dance" led met to that track, then to Sandinista! I am just fascinated by this whole period in NY.

those Ranking demos are lovely to hear, ta Josh

Alfred, you break my heart calling Hitsville UK "meh". It might be partly a novelty, but sign me up for The Clash do Motown any day.

― Jimi Buffett (PBKR),

Too compressed, which doesn't help Ellen Foley's non-singing.

yeah hitsville's weird muddy mix has always made it hard for me to love. 'the card cheat' does a better job with that sound imo

u ppl have no heart, "Hitsville UK" is fab and unique

("The Card Cheat", which I love, has a way louder and more triumphant sound imo)

Hitsville is all about that stiff drumbeat

also extra love for

"when lightning hits small wonder
it's fast rough factory trade"

so good to listen to on a long drive. see also Songs In the Key Of Life and just about every double, triple, etc album.

"The Card Cheat" is an homage to Phil Spector, not Motown, right down to the "Be My Baby" drums, multiple pianos and the wall of saxes playing the same lines.

listened to this on my walk today. "up in heaven" is my favorite clash song of all time

I always thought The Card Cheat was a nod to Springsteen (in his Spectorian mode).

yeah i hear card cheat as spector-via-springsteen, but idk i guess i compare them bc they both have a ton going on in the mix, and i think card cheat pulls off sounding grand and urgent without being too busy, while hitsville has always just sounded like a plodding soupy mess to my ears, with the xylophone and doubled monotone vocals and everything else all taking up space in the middle. when i think of motown, before i even think of specific beats i think of really great mixes with every instrument in just the right place, which i dont get from hitsville

btw those ranking roger demos are fucking great! his rock the casbah remix should have been the b side, crazy that never saw the light of day. (although the bside that happened, "long time jerk", is also one of my fav combat rock outtakes)

listened to this on my walk today. "up in heaven" is my favorite clash song of all time

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

Rob Sheffield's too

It shows how capitalism has seeped down to the "Another Brick in the Wall" level.

Kid: "Ah-ah, The guns of Brixton, ah-ah! The guns of Brixton." Still gets me.

"Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone." Word to Prof Lord S.

"That's enough now! I'm tired of singing."

a lot of the little interlude parts of this record are so great, I sure used them on a lot of mixtapes back in the 80s and 90s (the kid singing 'Guns Of Brixton', "who holds the key that winds up Big Ben", etc)

"I'd just like to say, let's have some music now, eh?"

"who holds the key that winds up Big Ben" - Den Hegarty, ex The Darts
"I'd just like to say, let's have some music now, eh?" - Strummer, obv.