When it comes to the worst-ever rock’n’roll botch jobs, The Clash’s 1985 death rattle “Cut the Crap” deserves special mention, it turns out that the “Cut The Crap” songs were actually good songs horribly produced as you can hear in the video below. And there were about 30 songs from those “Out of Control” sessions. Might have been a great double album had the boys recruited a quality producer and begged Mick and Topper to return to the fold.
Largely concocted by Joe Strummer and Clash manager Bernie Rhodes, Cut the Crap spat up a queasy gumbo of amateur-hour punk guitar and football chants laid atop a mess of inept drum programming, wedding-band funk bass, and cornball 80s synths. And as if that racket weren’t bad enough, the pair then overdubbed ‘found sounds’ like arcade noises and short-wave radio broadcasts at random, often overpowering the vocals.
What they forgot to include, however, were any actual members of Strummer’s post-Mick Jones Clash, most unforgivably their powerhouse new drummer Pete Howard. Not even original bassist Paul Simonon made the cut.
But for many Clash fans who saw or heard recordings of the ‘84 line-up incendiary shows, the album was utterly inexplicable. “Cut the Crap” scrapped the live arrangements, then replaced the new band with synths and beatboxes, the very machines Strummer had publicly denounced partner Mick Jones for dicking around with in 1983. Henceforth, fans would have to content themselves with bootlegs of varying audibility to hear the original versions of Strummer’s Clash II songs.
Cover versions of songs from The Clash’s Cut The Crap (Out of Control) sessions. Songs: This Is England (The Strummers) 00:00 Fingerpoppin (El Quatro) 04:43 Three Card Trick (The Crap Cutters) 08:24 Are You Ready (The Crap Cutters) 11:34 Play To Win (Winterdrinks) 15:24 Life Is Wild (The Crap Cutters) 18:52 Dirty Punk (Basenji) 21:21 Movers and Shakers (The Violets) 24:46 Pouring Rain (Indio Bravo) 27:35 Backwoods Drive (Sussed Out With Sol Roots) 31:55 Jericho (Ammunition) (Crap Cutters) 34:28 Galleani (Don Zientara) 37:33 We Are The Clash (Too Much Joy) 41:12 Glue Zombie (The Crap Cutters) 43:58 Blues On The River (The Crap Cutters) 46:21 Dictator (Silverado) 50:59 Out of Control (Do It Now) 53:35 Before We Go Forward (The Crap Cutters) 56:49 Sex Mad Roar (Dom Casual) 1:00:00 Are You Ready (Scotch Bonnets) 1:03:05 Play To Win (The Crap Cutters) 1:06:14 National Powder (Sussed Out) 1:09:10 Cool Under Heat (The Violets) 1:12:57 Pouring Rain (The Crap Cutters) 1:16:19 Jericho (Ammunition) (The Delarcos) 1:21:32 Rock ‘n Roll City (Space Giants) 1:24:36 Life Is Wild (Don Zientara) 1:27:00 North and South (The Crap Cutters) 1:30:54
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German musician Gerald Manns (of punk/metal outfit Mutant Proof set about to put modern technology to better use, undergoing one of the most ambitious fan remix projects ever attempted. And with his restoration, Mann has given long-suffering fans the nearest thing they will ever have to a Great Lost Clash Album.
Mann digitally stripped Strummer’s vocal tracks from “Cut the Crap”, pasted them into his meticulous recreation of the band’s live arrangements, and created what is for all intents and purposes an entirely new work of art (retitled “Mohawk Revenge“, after a Clash t-shirt design).
Nick Sheppard, the only member of Strummer’s new Clash actually invited to the “Cut the Crap” sessions?. Nick has heard the remixes, and cited the stunning reggae revamp of the heretofore-unlistenable “Play To Win” as “genius,” and his personal favourite. He also gave special praise to Gerald’s drum programming and cited his arrangements of “Are You Ready for War” and “This is England” as being “ridiculously close” to what the band had originally intended, though he felt the guitars “would have been more aggressive” on the Clash album.
Sheppard said, “All in all it’s a great and noble endeavour,” but also lamented that it was “a bittersweet listening experience for me, as it definitely confirms that ‘what could have been’ would have cut the mustard.”
Shorn of all the inept studio scuzz, even the weaker tracks like “Dirty Punk” and “Cool Under Heat” sound more like classic British power-pop than 80s
The Fat Angel Sings 