This coming Sunday Cerys Matthews show on 6 Music is devoted to the Clash and includes an interview with all three surviving members of the band. Vive le Rock's Andy Peart was one of the lucky members of the audience at the Maida Vale recording of the show and reported back that it's well worth a listen and will contain at least a couple of things you probably didn't know about the Clash.
Full details below: Sunday 6 October Cerys on 6 Music 10am-midday Cerys Matthews hosts an audience with The Clash at the legendary BBC Maida Vale studios. In this exclusive, intimate and very special interview, the band talks candidly about their career and affection for the late singer Joe Strummer. The surviving members - Mick Jones, Topper Headon and Paul Simonon - reveal some of their long-held secrets, such as how they recorded the end of I Fought The Law in a public toilet and how some of the sounds on Guns Of Brixton were made by the band pulling bits of velcro apart in the recording studio. Recorded in the Bing Crosby studio at Maida Vale on 6 September, around 150 6 Music listeners successfully gained a place to be in the audience and were able to pose questions to the band. During the show, Cerys is also joined by Johnny Green, the Clash's tour manager from 1977 to 1980, who tells some brilliant anecdotes about his time on the road with the band. Cerys says: “Listening to the classic recordings after a re-mastering by Mick Jones threw up a slew of musical questions whose answers were things as random as urinals flushing and Velcro being pulled. The band were on top form, chatting about the early days, touring and Joe Strummer's under-piano lyric writing. Through the interview I played music by artists they love like Grandmaster Flash, Bo Diddley, Groundhogs and Bettye Layette. I also enjoyed talking with long-time fried and tour manager Johnny Green about the scrapes their open-door policy got them in to.”