London Calling Exhibition

If you’re in London over the next month or so, you could do far worse than taking a tube to Barbican and heading for the Museum of London, where there’s an exhibition celebrating that classic album of forty years ago, London Calling by The Clash. It’s hard to believe that it’s forty years since it was released, the realisation came as something of a shock to me towards the end of last year. As a musical, lyrical and social statement, it still feels so contemporary.

Approach the museum and there are the posters on the wall, in black, white, pink and green proclaiming “London calling to the far away towns”, “the ice age is coming the sun’s zooming in” and the rest. Head inside and you’re greeted by a display cabinet containing the stage wear the band sported back in the day, caps, strides, battered up brothel creepers and shirts adorned with politically sloganized patches.

The whole event is packed with memorabilia. Pride of place is given to Paul’s smashed bass guitar that features on the cover of the album, encased for posterity. There’s a quote from legendary rock and roll photographer, Pennie Smith, who took the cover photo – “being on the road with the Clash is like a commando raid performed by The Bash Street Kids”. Then there are other guitars used during this period, both in the studio and on the road, along with Topper Headon's drum sticks and pictures of the band and the road crew on tour.

There’s plenty of art work, such as early examples of the London Calling single and Armagideon Time, as well as ideas for the track listing, adorned with doodles of aeroplanes and space ships and original posters proclaiming “two for a fiver on album or cassette”. Then there’s a Vanilla studios cassette tape of early demos and headed paper. The band’s influences are in evidence, such as the copy of the original forty-five of Brand New Cadillac by Vince Taylor on Chiswick records, along with picture of him accompanied by a certain Mr Strummer.

One of my favourite items is the first verse of Lost In The Supermarket, written on the back of a packet of Ernie Ball “made in USA, custom gauge .052” guitar strings. Hand written lyrics to various songs abound, including Death Or Glory, Working For The Clampdown (originally “Working For The Breakdown”) and The Guns Of Brixton and a notebook of lyrics entitled “Ice Age”. There’s also a typewriter owned by Joe, as per the Jack Kerouac On The Road inspired NME front cover of 3 January 1981. Not forgetting ad hoc items that record day-to-day life of the time, such as the note for “football training, meeting Gt Portland Street, Sunday 5th August, 3 o’clock”.

The exhibition acknowledges the key role and vision of the album’s producer, original mod Guy Stevens. There’s a display dedicated to him along with copies of a Montgomery Clift biography, by Patricia Bosworth and The Crack-up, by F Scott Fitzgerald, which he gave to Joe and Mick respectively. There’s also a quote from Clift, handwritten by Stevens in July 1979.

On your way out, there’s a mixing desk, where you can re-mix the title track, with the bass, guitar, drums and vocals separated out. It’s a lot of fun and gives an insight into the different possibilities available when mixing an album. What becomes clear, is the quality of each individual component. Joe, Mick, Paul and Topper were at the top of their game on this record. The Clash were very much a fusion of each of its parts, accentuated for maximum effect.

This is essential for anyone who grew up with the band, whose vision influenced their world-view then, and continues to do so. Get the tube to Barbican. Pretend that forty years haven’t really passed since this record first hit the shelves. And immerse yourself in the world of London Calling. The exhibition runs until 19 April.