Simonon knew Brixton Road was not cobbled
By Bee
In 1963 the Beatles exploded on the international stage with back to back albums “Please, Please Me” and “With the Beatles”. In the year that Beatlemania entered the world’s lexicon an ex-spy, Emil Shallit, wandered London’s streets holding a battered red suitcase emblazoned with the words “Danger: High Explosives”.
Concealed beneath the lid was a mess of cash plus demo recordings that would introduce Jamaican music to Britain and spawn a chaotic collective of musicians and song writers who would give the middle finger to class and everyday embedded institutional discrimination.
Together with Siggy Jackson, Emil founded “Blue Beat Records” and England was introduced to artists such as King Kitchener and fellow musical royalty Prince Buster.
Here is Prince Buster’s iconic “One Step Ahead”. In this track you can hear an emergent “rock steady” beat that inspired a generation of British artists such as Madness https://bit.ly/3FzT8DB.
This growing British love of black music juxtaposed a growing tide of racist dialogue led by seedier elements of the mainstream media. In an orgy of fact free reporting they racialised and radicalised ideas of predatory Black sexuality and the risk of interracial transmission of veneral disease.
Inevitably this four-on-the-floor beat of misinformation spawned political opportunity. As attitudes hardened, life became hard for young black people and the areas they lived suffered high unemployment and disadvantage which in turn gave ammunition to these opportunists.
Paul Simonon grew up in the epicentre of this fever swamp - Brixton. Brixton Road was built by the Romans and the River Effra once flowed past its cobbled surface. By the time Thatcher came to power in 1979 the river was a sewer and cobbles long gone, covered by bitumen.
Simonon loved art and fashion and quickly gravitated to the ‘mod’ movement which in his own words was “pro-black music”. He witnessed the rise of racism spray painted on the walls of his neighbourhood.
Simonon met guitarist Mick Jones when his friend auditioned to be a drummer in Jones’s band. Even though Simonon had no musical skills, manager Bernie Rhodes saw opportunity and in a move reminiscent of the “Great Rock and Roll Swindle” suggested Jones start a new band with Simonon. The musical circle was complete when they met Joe Strummer and “The Clash” was born.
Mick was patient and taught Simonon bass. He soon found his own sound gouging out notes with his thumb or a pick. Famously brutal with his instruments, it’s Simonon smashing his instrument on the sleeve of “London Calling”.
Perhaps it was Thatcher’s claim that the UK “might be rather swamped by people of different culture “ that inspired him to pick up his pen and write “When they kick at your door/ how you gonna come?/ With your hands on your head/ or on the trigger of your gun?” and reach for his bass and pluck an iconic riff that was sampled first by Fat Boy Slim and then again by Cyprus Hill.
His song “The Guns of Brixton” was released in 1979. In the song he references the 1972 Jamaican film “The Harder they Come” that documents the descent an aspirational reggae singer (Ivan Martin) who is sucked into corruption and becomes a gangster, however, his words eerily predict what exploded two years later when his Brixton home erupted into riot and chaos following a prolonged brutal police operation where residents were subject to ongoing everyday harassment and detention.
The song’s reggae rhythm completes this two toned story of white and black artists recognising what they share, and their common commitment to social justice and expressing their commitment through their work.
History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme. Like Simonon and Strummer we live in a time where lazy politicians and febrile segments of the media take the easy route and rather indulge in tough conversation, choose instead to wallow in self indulgent dichotomy. As creatives, let’s talk to someone we don’t know, who doesn’t say the same things we say, find something in common and create some amazing art to celebrate it!
I wrote this article because I went and witnessed a local punk band “Anna and Morphics” play at one of my local bars “The Cave Inn” last night. The band began their set stating their commitment to Aboriginal sovereignty and trans-rights, two issues close to my heart.
BTW I wrote this blog listening to Taylor Swift’s “Lover” album. Contrast hey!
Want to read some more about this stuff? Here’s some places to go!
Simonon in his own words: https://www.bigissue.com/culture/paul-simonon-the-clash-never-had-a-holiday-we-were-on-a-mission/
More about Shallot and Blue Beat Records: https://www.thebluebeatlabel.com/about
More about attitudes toward race and VD: https://academic.oup.com/hwj/article/doi/10.1093/hwj/dbac018/6674608
About the photo:
The incredible David Hoffman allows the planet access to low resolution copies of his amazing photos. David, thank you for sharing your life’s work. It’s important that these stories are remembered.
More from David
