Forty Minutes Of Paul Simonon

This happened last night- Paul Simonon and Dan Donovan DJing at The Golden Lion in Todmorden. They were both lined up to play in August 2023 but Paul had to pull out and Dan played solo, a set of reggae, ska, rockabilly, punk and Clash songs. I wrote this post in advance of the show so can't report back yet but will do so soon. 

In the meantime here's a forty minute mix of Paul Simonon songs, presented roughly in chronological order, featuring the dulcet tones, reggae inspired bass and beating heart of The Clash, Paul Simonon, the coolest man to ever wear and play the bass guitar, the sharpest dressed man in punk.

Forty Minutes Of Paul Simonon

• The Crooked Beat
• The Guns Of Brixton
• Robber Dub
• Red Angel Dragnet
• Hey Amigo!
• Kingdom Of Doom
• The Good, The Bad And The Queen
• Plastic Beach
• Hero
• Lonely Town

The Crooked Beat was Paul's song on Sandinista!, a bass- led groove celebrating the blues parties and shebeens of his youth in South London with Mikey Dread at the controls. One of Sandinista!'s hidden gems. 

The Guns Of Brixton was written by Paul, initially titled Paul's Tune, and worked into the song we all know during the London Calling sessions at Wessex. Paul had realised during 1978 that the real money was in songwriting and elbowed his way into the Strummer- Jones partnership. Live Paul would sing/ shout the song with Joe switching to bass. Paul's bassline, instantly recognisable, was borrowed for Beats International's Dub Be Good To Me, a 1990 number 1 single. CBS released a 12" of Guns Of Brixton shortly after to cash in with some club friendly remixes by Jeremy Healy. I was going to include both Dub Be Good To Me and return To Brixton on this mix but wanted to keep the running time down to under forty five minutes. I still think Dub Be Good To Me is a great record and should have put it in this mix.

In 1980 The Clash appeared live on American TV on ABC's Fridays, playing four songs including this paring of Guns Of Brixton and Clampdown. You don't need me to tell you that this is the stuff that dreams are made of. 

Bank Robber was a 1980 single, recorded at Manchester's Pluto studio, produced by Mikey Dread, and originally released on import. When it charted by import sales alone CBS put out a UK release in August 1980. According to Paul in the Westway To The World documentary at first CBS executives didn't want to release it, saying it sounded like 'David Bowie backwards'. Bank Robber is a Clash classic, heavy, reggae inspired bass and drums. The Robber Dub first the light of day on Black Market Clash. 

Red Angel Dragnet is from 1982's Combat Rock, Paul on vocals on a song about the New York Guardian Angels with a Taxi Driver quote section narrated by Kosmo Vinyl. The free association lyrics in the end section are bewilderingly brilliant- 'Hands up for Hollywood/ Hooray/ I hear you/ Snappy in the air/ Hang in there/ Wall to wall/ You saved the world/ What else? You saved the girl/ Champagne on ice/ No stranger to Alcatraz...'

After The Clash 2 eventually split Paul formed Havana 3am with Nigel Dixon, Gary Myrick and Travis Williams, naming themselves after a 1956 Perez Prado album Paul was fond of. They played a cut and shut mix of rockabilly, Latin, dub and Spaghetti Western. Nigel died of cancer in 1993 and the rest of the band split. Paul lived in LA for a while in the late 80s/ early 90s, riding his motorbike with Steve Jones. During this period Paul and Steve found themselves in a studio with Bob Dylan- Dylan had been looking for a band to record with and somehow they got the gig. Paul recounts Dylan playing them a song, them playing along, then another, and another. After six songs Dylan said they'd go back to the first and record it and then the others. By this point Paul had forgotten the first song and the others too. This became Down In The Groove in 1988, which is nobody's idea of a great Bob Dylan album. In fact it may be his wrost. I don't have a copy any more (I once had it on cassette) and therefore can't include any of the Simonon- Dylan songs. Paul moved back to London, put his bass away, and began painting again- he'd been at art college in 1976 when he met Mick Jones and started The Clash. 

In the early 21st century there were rumours and rumblings that The Clash were going to re- unite to play at the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame to celebrate their induction. The Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame is an awful idea and I imagine a terrible place too. Joe apparently was up for it, Mick was in Topper was clean. Paul kiboshed it saying if they did reform it wouldn't be for a bunch of people paying hundreds of dollars for a ticket but for real fans. He also said what he took from punk was not looking back- 'I never wanted to go back and relive the glory years; I just want to keep moving forward'. Joe tried to persuade Paul to do it by saying he had Mani on standby. It was the last time Paul spoke to Joe. He died in 2002, just days after the conversation. 

In 2007 Paul made an unexpected return to bass playing as part of The Good The Bad And The Queen, a Damon Albarn supergroup with Tony Allen on drums and Simon Tong from The Verve. Paul first met Damon at Joe Strummer's wedding in 1997 and although some friends advised him not to work with the Blur singer, he went ahead. The debut album was a low key, melancholic state of the nation, urban Victoriana set of songs. Kingdom Of Doom seems to sum up the end of the Blair years, pubs, the Iraq war and Damon's general dissatisfaction with things. The title track to the group and album is frenetic, with constantly building tension and Tony Allen's drumming finally unshackled at the end of the album.

Paul continued with Damon on Gorillaz's 2010 album Plastic Beach, playing on the title track with former- Clash bandmate Mick Jones. Both of them then joined the full Gorillaz live band touring in 2010, the entire band in nautical and naval inspired wear. Paul Simonon just looked like Paul Simonon. Plastic Beach featured a wealth of guest stars- Snoop Dogg, Kano, Mos Def, Bobby Womack, Gruff Rhys, De La Soul, Mark E. Smith, and Lou Reed- and played Glastonbury in June 2010, a performance instantly memorable for the moment Mark E. Smith wandered onto the Pyramid Stage in a leather jacket and approached the microphone...

Hero was an internet only single in 2014 from a series of pump/ trainer related musical tie ins from Converse called Three Artists One Song. The three artists on Hero were Frank Ocean, producer Diplo and one half of The Clash, Paul and Mick (plus the West Los Angeles Children's Choir). The result of this unlikely origin story is a song that does more in two and a half minutes than some bands manage over the course of an album. I made it the Bagging Area Song Of The Year 2014 (I mean, what accolades come higher??) and I stand by that ten years later. Mick's guitar prominent in the mix and Frank's lyrics and voice at the peak of their powers as he dissects the experience of being a young black man in modern America.

Lonely Town is from the album Paul made with Galen Ayres last year, Can We Do Tomorrow Another Day?, a collection of charming acoustic guitar and twin voice songs that began with Paul busking with some locals in Mallorca after Covid some folk, some sea shanties, some Nancy and Lee vibes, some Spanish songs. Imagine how funny it would be to be walking down the street in Palma, on holiday, enjoying some Balearic sun, and there's Paul Simonon playing songs in the street.... 

Streets Are All Quiet

Simon Tong joined The Verve as guitarist when Nick McCabe left and then stayed on when he came back (awkward! as the youngsters say). When in 2006 Damon Albarn put together a supposedly nameless band around himself, Paul Simonon (coaxed out of painting to pick up his bass again) and Afrobeat drumming legend Tony Allen, Tong came on board too. The Good, The Bad And The Queen was a very English sounding album (despite Tony Allen on drums)- Dickensian almost, songs summoning up London murk, dark, damp streets and noise coming out from behind half closed doors. This song, the album closer also called The Good, The Bad And The Queen, opens with pub style piano and closes with all of the players racing each other to get to six minutes plus ending. The album was produced by Dangermouse but doesn't really sound like it.

The Good, The Bad And The Queen

Music For People On Oil Rigs

...is how Mick Jones once described Sandinista. Paul Simonon recently spent two weeks in a Canadian jail having been part of a Greenpeace team who stormed an oil rig in protest and refused to leave. Paul joined the crew of a Greenpeace ship as ' the assistant cook' and wasn't recognised by anyone until a guard sussed him during his stay in captivity. You can read the whole story here, including a video where The Good, The Bad And The Queen played on the new Rainbow Warrior ship on the Thames just the other night.

Fellow Clash activist Mick has announced a short tour entitled Justice Tonight, raising awareness for the Hillsborough Families Justice campaign. Mick promises a set of Clash songs and is supported by Pete Wylie (yay!) and The Farm (gulp!). More info from John Robb's website here and a link to get tickets. I've already got mine.

The Bandits were a Liverpool blues rock band, from that rush of scouse bands a decade ago (The Coral, The Zutons et al). This is a spirited run through of Paul Simonon's best loved song.

The Guns Of Brixton (The Bandits)

Back In The Day

I've had an uneasy relationship with Damon Albarn from the off, starting with splashing his desert boots at a trough urinal in Liverpool when Blur toured to support their debut single She's So High. While quite liking some Blur singles I rarely bought them, and Damon seemed a prickly, arrogant, off-putting figure for much of the 90s. I like some of Gorillaz records but got tired of the cartoon characters thing. In fact thinking about it, some Gorillaz songs are top notch and I loved the two recent ones but I only bought the first two albums long after they came out. The Good, The Bad And the Queen appeared to be a different kettle of fish and appealed to me much more. It brought Bagging Area hero Paul Simonon out of musical retirement and to good effect, and Damon seemed a bit humbler and less overbearing. The music, described somewhere as 'Dickensian dub' was more up my alley, and the whole project was both out of step with the times and reflecting the times (references to war, drinking, city life etc). He was criticised for underusing Tony Allen's drumming but it wasn't really an afrobeat album was it? Recently I read a reappraisal of the album so I went back to it and was struck by the number of good tunes on it- the title track, Kingdom Of Doom, Three Changes, Herculean, Green Fields... As someone mentioned on a comment thread, it is a London album but also a great record for listening to driving around English towns late at night. This song was the B-side to the Herculean single.

Back In The Day