A LONG WAY FROM MANY PLACES

Montreal Calling

Forty years ago this month the Clash released their third album. London Calling was a double set for the price of a single LP. Its cover paid homage to Elvis’s first RCA release, pink and green type over a black and white performance picture that was worth a thousand chords – even if only one or two were played. London Calling was punk’s Exile on Main St. in that it dove into all sorts of musical styles and did not belly-flop.

I owned two copies of the Clash’s debut album because the British and American versions featured different artwork and different songs – think of early Beatles and Stones albums. The second album, Give ‘Em Enough Rope, was slicker and should have been radio massive. But they, along with the Boomtown Rats and the Del-lords, never happened. The appalling irony is that corporate commercial radio now considers the Clash ‘classic rock,’ right up there with Toto – oh, please fuck off.

The Clash was not my big brother’s Beach Boys nor my older sister’s Beatles. They hit when I still required fake I.D. to buy a tavern beer. The Clash were my band. Their label Epic promoted them in the music press as ‘The only band that matters.’ That tag line did not read as hyperbole. And the minor miracle still lay ahead: a few years on I witnessed the Clash re-enact the legend of the walls of Jericho in Montreal’s Verdun Auditorium.

So.

I was intrigued to learn about a mini-festival tribute to the Clash and London Calling to be staged in my old hometown. ‘Montreal Calling’ would feature some of my favourite local bands who were active during the Clash’s heyday and my last years in the city including Three O’Clock Train, the Asexuals and Ripcordz. Various members of Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, current bands I’ve only heard of, were set to participate. The headliners included New Jersey punk darling Jesse Malin, Tommy Stinson from the Replacements (and Chinese Democracy Guns n’ Roses) and the legendary Alejandro Escovedo.

My Montreal brother in law Al and I have attended a few notable shows together through the years. I recall a spring visit, my mother hosting Easter dinner. Al and I were seated across the dining room table from one another. He said, “Do you know who’s playing tonight?”

I said, “Yep.” I’d read the weekend edition of The Gazette.

“Do you wanna go?”

“Yeah!” We hastily excused ourselves and speed-walked 40 blocks to catch Wilco and Nick Lowe in a club on Ste-Catherine near The Main.

I conferred with Al about ‘Montreal Calling.’ I said, “If you decide to go, get me a ticket, please. I’ll fly east. I haven’t travelled for a rock ‘n’ roll show in eons. This one will be a lot fun; it could even be great.”

The Corona Theatre is just a little east of Atwater on rue Notre-Dame. Its capacity is maybe 900 souls. The ceiling murals and gilt balcony railings have been refreshed. It is a majestic, palatial vaudeville relic. Cineplex doesn’t make ‘em like this anymore. The only chairs in the venue are in the balcony. We hustled downhill from Sherbrooke Street in time for the doors; we wanted seats: I’ll be 60 in February and Al’s got seven or eight years on me. After we’d settled I offered to buy him a beer.

“No, no, thanks. I’ve switched to the hard stuff for concerts and events because otherwise I spend all night in the toilet.” I laughed. I bought him a Scotch. I bought myself the first of three beers. I used to be able to drink for hours without breaking the seal. Funny, my three trips up and then down stairs to the men’s room this night weren’t hilarious at all.

The evening’s biggest disappointment was stale news. Three O’Clock Train had pulled out of the gig a week earlier. This turn of events for whatever reason did not please me because I maintain that Three O’Clock Train was one of the most important bands to gestate and grow in Montreal, ever. I’d never heard a noise like theirs before – that is until I discovered them in eighties barrooms and, dear me, the fantastical ‘Montreal Calling’ prospect of leader Mack MacKenzie thrashing cow-punk with Alejandro Escovedo was worth the price of a flight.

Still, a bill with some dozen acts provides a traveler with some assurance: I mean, they can’t all not turn up. The bands played short sets, about three songs. Segues, coiling wires, were filled by an onstage deejay spinning reggae and dub. The live music was obviously heavy on the Clash’s catalogue. Artists played their own material too and sometimes stretched things out performing punk anthems by the Stooges, Patti Smith, Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers.

When Slaves on Dope ripped through ‘Anarchy in the U.K.’ I looked around and laughed at the pensioners singing along and shaking their fists. The band’s front man complained, “I’m too fucking old for this!” In that moment I remembered I was wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt under my pullover and realized that anarchy in any form would be very bad for my investments with Raymond James and TD Bank. I had to go to the men’s room again.

When The Clash was released, either one, green or blue border, Eddie Money was positioned to be sold as the business-as-usual-next-big-thing by the North American record industry. He had more hits than the Clash did, catchier too. The future is unwritten. Ultimately Money, who died this year, devolved into a generic idol out of time, already dismissed in last month’s Hit Parader as savvy music fans tweaked and twigged to the authenticity of punk and its lyrics (provided you could make them out) which rang as true as Bob Dylan’s chimes of freedom.

Huffing after my much fitter brother in law as we strode uphill underneath the expressway and the train tracks, I paused to puff on my cigarette and look back into the slushy darkness behind us. Forty years ago the Clash sang to me about big, important stuff, capitalism, civil rights, consumerism, fascism and racism and the like, but God help me, I found myself singing Eddie fucking Money: “I wanna go back ‘cause I’m feeling so much older but I can’t go back, I know.” And I suppose that is the tragic flaw of tribute concerts no matter how well intentioned.  

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