Some time last year – I received an email out of the blue – commenting on my original “Strummercaster” project build… “was I interested in quoting for doing another?” The email was from Sam Smith – the front man, or “Joe” of “Death or Glory ★ Tribute To The Clash“. Being Manchester-based… he’d seen my bio page… the picture of Agecroft Power Station… and naturally assumed I’d be based, conveniently, “just around the corner“. When I pointed out the actual, real distances involved – and how that might affect, or complicate, the necessary communication of ideas and feedback, (not to mention the co-ordination of any subsequent hand-over) – the most important thing to him remained that, with my previous effort – “I had the look spot on” and that it was somehow “…more true to Joe’s original” than other alternatives…
As it is – I’d actually been looking at revisiting Strummer’s iconic… almost totemic Telecaster for a while, previously – and had already, separately, been looking deeper into the evolution of it – as well as a couple of other guitars, which have become directly associated with Joe’s career. (The Butterscotch “Know Your Rights” Tele, and the white, “1st May…” Esquire). I’d done my original build, both as a gift for a close pal, (and lifelong Clash fan) – but also as something of a personal excuse… A starting-out point for, what I considered to be, almost a purely artistic venture. When creating art – it’s sometimes enough to get lost in the means… the process… the actual act of creation – but there are also, sometimes, even deeper connections, which the act of creation enables. With many of my “inspired by” builds – putting an instrument together has led to me revisiting, and sometimes completely reappraising, my relationship with the original music. Re-listening… reminiscing… even separating some of the individual parts, and trying to study the technical production and interplay of the various instruments… What contributed to make things sound the way they did…
I was certainly interested in looking at another build – but, for me, it also had to be for the right reasons…
First – I didn’t want to be complicit in, “just another Strummer rip-off“. One of the very first things we found agreement on – was that we both thought that the “official” Fender “Artist Signature” guitars, (MIM, from 2007/9), fell a bit short of the mark. Unlike me – Sam had actually had the opportunity to play one, and although he thought the sound was “OK” – for him, it was the look and feel which didn’t quite match up. I’d simply say it simply lacked “authenticity“. (A term I’ll now have to explain what exactly I think I mean…)
Don’t get me wrong – I love Fender stuff. I’m Fascinated by Fender guitars, and all of the custom, “hot-rod” modification possibilities their workable, modular designs enable. And Joe certainly loved his Tele’s too… but – for me – a lot of the problem with Fender’s own mass-produced “Artist Signature” Strummer replica Tele, was to do with the “clearly reproduced” look of the thing. Of course – any, kind of commercially produced, reliced, “replica” guitar has to go through standard production processes – most of which are designed to quickly, and cheaply, “approximate” subtle natural ageing processes. Accretion and erosion over time… Honest wear and tear… The Fender design just looked too much like what it actually was – a stencilled, or even screen-printed, applied design – where simplicity, (for obvious, expeditious production means), factored-out a lot of subtle contextual detail, which might, otherwise, begin to suggest the, somewhat nebulous, quality I’d tend to call “authenticity“.
I also had real trouble, at the time, with the link-up with the Shepard Fairey visuals… The whole “Be like Joe… apply your own stickers, (so long as they’re from our handily pre-printed selection)” approach. Now I like some of Shep’s prints, and I’ve even bought, framed and enjoyed a few on my walls, in the past. I know he was a huge Strummer fan, and I know that he was probably responding to a particular creative brief – with his own, personal summation of the image and style of Joe’s Tele, through the years – up-to and including the Mescaleros period. It’s not a simple objective task by any means. There’s a lot of ground to cover in all that. Joe was certainly always changing the look of his guitars with different – sometimes obscure – stickers, stylings and other subtle visual references… It’s just that Fairey’s “equivalents,” in my opinion, just looked way too “anodyne” and “corporate“. And what was it the man once said about “…turnin’ rebellion into money“??… Joe was a DIY sort of guy, (“play what you got”) – and if you ask me – Fender’s first Strummer “Signature” Telecaster probably didn’t quite manage to capture the right spirit…
If I was going to do another Strummer inspired build of my own – it not only had to look right… sound right… it also had to be for the right reasons. If I was going to do it – I wanted to be doing it mainly for the art of it. I believe it was Captain Beefheart who once said, (when asked about people bootlegging his music)… “why not? – where I got it from – it didn’t cost me anything“. I certainly didn’t want this to involve a business fee for my personal input – deriving directly, as it would, from Strummer’s original inspiration. Just going through the research and building process, would be payment enough.
Nevertheless – you can’t escape money issues entirely. It was implicit in building a quality, playable, Strummer inspired “replica” – that the meat of it would have to comprise of all-genuine Fender components. So – this wasn’t necessarily going to be a cut-price operation. My job was to find ways to keep costs down, wherever possible – while I worked to get the main details right. But – with certain other technical aspects, and functionality to consider – some dictated in order to achieve elements of the desired “authenticity” – (others requested by Sam as personal, “custom” preferences, from a “playability” aspect) – another part of the job was to research, organise and coordinate whatever creative and organisational input was required – beyond merely bolting the thing together. (Although I’d do that too, since that’s where I derive a lot of the creative pleasure. Besides – it‘s more practical that way. I can either teach, or I can do – and I sometimes find I’ve got a better grip on “quality control” if I do things myself). The full scope eventually widened to combine additional elements of research… sourcing… costing… keeping tabs on a rough budget. I suppose it all amounts to a kind of “art direction” or “design management” role. I tend to call this sort of thing “curating” a project build. It’s all the stuff where I can immerse myself in the sort of questions which get me closer to the source… “how did this get like that?“… Then – finding a way to build, (and in this particular case, reproduce), something of the original essence.
When I was a kid – I used to take things apart to see how they worked. If I understood that – then I could usually manage to get things back together again. I still recall the look of horror as my parents realised that the brand new cassette recorder they’d just bought me, had been “disassembled” within days of it’s purchase. (It was, eventually, fully restored – and worked fine for years after… Even functioning for a while as a make-do guitar amplifier, although it was certainly quite an introduction to some of the intricacies of 70’s miniaturisation…). Here – since I obviously can’t strip Strummer’s actual Tele down, to study in the required detail – I’ll just have to compile a sort of virtual simulacrum… one which is a composite of all the photos I’ve ever seen of the original… all the sounds I’ve heard it make… the way it obviously changed over time… the way I’ve seen Joe play it in video… the way it looked when he started out… the way he left it…
Whenever I hear “Complete Control” – I’m always transported back to when I’d bunk off from the odd school lesson, to hang around various record shops, and wait to hear something new across the in-shop speakers. (We couldn’t always afford to buy back then… collecting came later… But from this end of the telescope – I still now remain convinced that each 7 inch single produced is a simple, but highly effective time machine – capable of utilising vibrations and sound waves to transport the listener, simultaneously, in space and time…) The opening riff still never fails to excite… However – born in 1962 – I was just a year or two too young to have actually witnessed the, (certainly most exciting version of), The Clash – first hand. And I have to admit… I never actually saw them play live. (Too late to the party. It’s a huge regret – but then I had the fortune to be able to watch The Fall, Joy Division and Buzzcocks at first hand, far more than most…)
My particular idea of “The Clash” at the time, was therefore a kind of personal construct – assembled from various bits of tracks I heard in record shops and on the John Peel Show… From pictures in the NME, and from the odd snippet of film on the TV. From slogans, and statements, and from other people’s myths and legends. I’d seen the stencilled, sloganised shirts… collected the badges… read the interviews, (if I could find the words written down)… pored over what was said on the “Listen” recorded interview, on that impossible to get, if you missed it, early EP… (and the quality of some of the bootleg tapes at the time, was simply appauling). Getting involved with another Strummer Tele build came with the benefit of an opportunity to re-visit some of those aspects, all over again… and I was more than OK with that. Starting work, and re-reading some early “Sniffing Glue” interviews – I came across a typical early quote:
"What I would like to see happen is, very much... I realise a lot of people are quite happy, you know, at that market down the road from here. All them people, they're as 'appy as sandboys and I'd just like to make loads of people realise what's goin' on. Like, all those secrets in the Government and all that money changing hands and every now and then it comes to light and someone gets sacked and someone else comes in the back-door, know what I mean? I'd just like to get all that out in the open and just see what's goin' on. I just feel like no one's telling me anything, even if I read every paper, watch TV and listen to the radio!"
Joe Strummer - (Interview with Steve Walsh) - "Sniffin' Glue" #4, October 1976
I’ve been around this star sixty-one times now, (forty-seven times since the above quote), and reading it again – it shakes me that nothing at all seems to have changed since then. If anything – the very same sentiments are, even now, becoming mainstream concerns amongst large sections of a population – which increasingly finds itself somehow “unrepresented“. The Clash were always about politics… that is, aspects of the everyday experience of millions – in cities all over the UK. When I first heard them – as a teenager in “provincial” Manchester – it was all too easy to dismiss them as being too “London-centric” (and therefore a very real example of “alien orders”at the time – hailing from a, somehow separate, regionally different experience – which, as Joe’s sticker would remind us… is exactly the sort of thing we should completely ignore. I had to broaden-out – move there and live there for a while, to discover the real, common nature of some of the broader issues. Understanding comes with change).
At the time, us Manchester folk had our own, more accessible, local heroes to inspire us. Some of us may have had times when we began to doubt the motives of Strummer and the band, as they signed to a major – headed off West to the (previously boring) USA, and became real, bona-fide, rock and roll legends – (and in an, apparently, particularly commercial way… “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and Levi’s anyone??) And yet, as time will tell, Joe’s artistic legacy covers a whole lot more ground than that – and so much of it is basically about people, and the real issues they face. Human stuff… It’s difficult to imagine Strummer, if he were alive now, not being directly involved in some kind of transformational politics. Basically – if working on another Strummer build can help, in just some small way, to light a flame from the original source and carry it forward – then I’m happy to do it “for the cause“.
“Death Or Glory” is a relatively new project – but what immediately struck me, when Joe introduced me to it, was that this certainly wasn’t just about Clash “karaoke” – nor is it a few, sixty-odd year old baldies, reliving the thrills of their youth while later generations watch on. (No offence intended. These days I have to figure myself amongst those self-same baldies). This is a younger generation – rediscovering the original music for themselves – and finding that it still has just as much relevance and power today, as it did back then. The energy and urgency of the performance is certainly on-point, and that’s the essential fuel which propels the original messages anew. This isn’t a tribute in the sense of simply “running through the old favourites“… It’s an honest attempt to (re)present the songs, with their original sense of urgency and importance. In that – details of the instrumentation, production, presentation and stagecraft have to convey some of that authenticity… In a way – it’s a continuation of the old “word of mouth” way music used to spread… passing ideas from generation to generation. A linear, analogue, human, “spoken-word” means – which, (some of us continually worry), may well have died out with the advent of AI, digital distribution, random playlists and “recommended tracks you might like“…
“I think we’re going to have to forget about the radio and just go back to word of mouth." - JS
Physical instruments are a truly analogue, and essential aspect of “real” music production. They have a tradition, and an evolution, which is closely related to the particular genre, and type of music they produce. They’re also, by that nature, intensely personal – reflecting the times, responding to subtleties of touch from the player – whilst simultaneously ageing, due to the sum effects of use. A well-played instrument, over time, takes on some of the character of it’s owner, (and vice versa)… Retaining the potential to create, often well beyond the span of one owner’s lifetime. In doing so – it carries onward, a physical and metaphysical history of it’s past… The music that made it, and that it made. Vintage instruments, (and especially visually distinct ones – like Strummer’s), may therefore act as lexicon and guide book… manifesto… eulogy… encyclopedia and diary. All the attitude… all the ideas. All the good times in-between… (and bad).
Authenticity. No-one can replicate an instrument faithfully enough. Not even Fender, at £19,000 a pop. (Coincidentally – while I was working on this Strummer tribute – it turns out Fender were working on their latest version of a “Signature” build… Only recently announced… Funny – the same thing happened when I was working on my Jimmy Page Dragoncaster!). With my efforts – I try to balance both the look and the sound, against playability and affordability. Results have to be practical and achieveable. Naturally – there are compromises all round. My sleight of hand has to rely on attracting attention to the right details, in the right places. I have to make the way I do things work pragmatically towards the finished piece. Hopefully – in doing so – the spirit of the finished instrument is in the right place… If so – that’s half the battle won.
Beyond that… In building a replica guitar – I get to both read the story again, and also, somehow, contribute some of my own personal reading and interpretation of things. I get the opportunity to immerse myself in the research and representation of myriad tiny details, and set them against my own, research, personal timeline and recollection. The result isn’t, by any means, a direct, “scratch for scratch” replica – but it hopefully has something of the real essence of Joe’s original – and a hand-made, time-made quality – which will hopefully convey enough of the image, sound and spirit of Joe’s original. However – this time round – instead of the finished guitar just languishing in a case, unplayed – I can hand it on to become part of the future of something else. While replicating Joe’s original, it will continue to relic and age naturally, with it’s new owner. In doing so – it will become personalised beyond it’s original intent – but as part of an appreciation, and ongoing story(telling), of Strummer, The Clash, and their legacy.
That all just adds to the satisfaction…
See the finished result in action, (and, just as importantly, hear it) here.
Better still – keep an eye on Death or Glory’s live listings, and catch them live yourself…
Garageland 