Paul Simonon, bass player for the long-defunct Clash, couldn`t care less about nostalgia.
He has a new band, Havana 3 A.M., which headlines Friday at Cabaret Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., and isn`t much interested in talking about his past in one of the most famous groups of the British punk era.
But he still has the scraps of a bass guitar he once shattered onstage in New York more than a decade ago, while the Clash was still burning its way toward the top.
The moment is immortalized on the cover of ”London Calling,” the 1979 double album that is one of rock`s masterpieces. In true punk fashion, Simonon didn`t even wait until the encore to perform the execution.
”It was pretty spontaneous,” Simonon says. ”I felt the show needed something. I was getting a bit frustrated, so I said, `(Expletive) it, I`ll smash the bloody guitar.”`
A few years later, the Clash was in splinters, too.
”It`s something that had to come about,” he says. ”It was more than just Mick (Jones) and Joe (Strummer) not getting along, it was everybody. If you`re not happy, why continue? It wouldn`t have been a good thing
artistically or emotionally.”
After taking a few years off to concentrate on his two polar-opposite hobbies, oil painting and motorcycling, Simonon caught the itch to make music again in late 1987 when he hooked up in London with singer-guitarist Nigel Dixon, a pal from the Clash era. Dixon was in a band called Whirlwind that used to open for Simonon`s more famous group.
The bassist suggested they travel to El Paso, Texas, go motorcycling and round up a band.
”The Clash had done a show there once a long time ago,” Simonon says.
”It`s in the middle of nowhere for me. Back in London, I had a lot of people asking me questions about the Clash and why they broke up. In El Paso, nobody knew me. I thought I could become a new person, rebuild myself and start fresh.”
The two began writing songs, then migrated to Los Angeles, where they stumbled upon former Sex Pistols guitarist and fellow biker fanatic Steve Jones.
”Before I knew, it had escalated to 50 people riding around together,”
including actor Mickey Rourke and rocker Billy Idol, Simonon says. ”That`s when I decided to drop it.”
But before returning to London, a lead guitarist was enlisted: Gary Myrick.
”I had a cassette player and a bunch of tapes I`d made that were basically a compilation of all the records I`d been collecting,” Simonon says. ”It`s all quite varied, from spaghetti Westerns to the Ventures, reggae, Latin, Mexican.
”Gary and I went out one night, got drunk and I played him this stuff. He told me the first record he`d bought was by Duane Eddy and he really got into that sort of music. So I figured we found a guitarist.”
The result is Havana 3 A.M., a band whose self-titled debut album on IRS Records blends rockabilly guitars, mariachi horns and reggae bass lines with trash-can drumming by Travis Williams, who has since been replaced by Steve Klong for the band`s U.S. tour.
”It`s a pretty conscious mix of styles,” Simonon says. ”I`ve got quite a big collection of Latin music, which I heard for the first time when I toured America with the Clash. I started by watching spaghetti Westerns and it made me curious to check out more. Nigel loves rockabilly, and Gary can play anything because he was a session guy in Los Angeles.”
Although the album has a contemporary edge, it has few stylistic precedents on commercial radio in the last few years.
”We`re a bit out of sync with the times,” Simonon acknowledges frankly. ”But then again, that makes us a bit more interesting. Essentially we`re a rock `n` roll group, which in some ways makes us a bit old fashioned these days. But it`s my background, it`s what I do best.”
– One of the freshest talents in blues, guitarist John Mooney, will be appearing Thursday at BLUES Etc., 1122 W. Belmont Ave., and Friday at Fitzgerald`s, 6615 Roosevelt Rd., Berwyn.
A disciple of the late Mississippi legend Son House, Mooney migrated from Rochester, N.Y., to New Orleans a few years ago.
The new location has since pervaded Mooney`s music, as heard on the recent ”Late Last Night” (Rounder).
Mixing Cajun rhythms with his chilling slide guitar, Mooney has made the type of album Eric Clapton should have made years ago: spare, understated yet biting. The title track rolls in like the mist over a bayou, with Mooney`s slide hovering over John Cleary`s Hammond organ and the rattle of a tambourine. On ”It Don`t Matter,” Mooney shows he has mastered the art of the fill, playing tight, taut phrases over a ferocious, chugging rhythm laid down by drummer Ken Blevins.
In contrast, on ”Travelin` On,” he lets notes linger and corrode.
With a gruff growl that ably suits his half-past-midnight material, Mooney`s authority as a singer and guitarist belies the fact that he is only in his mid-30s.
– Lonnie Pitchford is another blues guitarist in his mid-30s, but unlike Mooney, he doesn`t seek to update the past so much as re-create it.
And he couldn`t have picked a more daunting figure to emulate than Robert Johnson. But Pitchford`s raw, acoustic blues, which includes performances on one-stringed guitars he builds himself, are as close to the genuine article as we are likely to hear in this era.
The Mississippian learned the Johnson songbook and technique from the master`s stepson and playing partner, Robert Junior Lockwood.
He`ll play Friday through Sunday at Rosa`s, 3420 W. Armitage Ave., performing three sets each night: solo acoustic, solo electric and with a band.
– The enigmatic avant-garde English group Soviet-France has released more than a dozen albums, yet has performed live only a few times.
”I believe they`ve done something like five live performances in obscure locations,” is how Chicago music journalist Scott Lewis describes it. Lewis has previously interviewed and reported on the group and will be contributing an entry on the band to the upcoming edition of Ira Robbins` Trouser Press Record Guide.
But the group is launching its first tour ever this month with 30 dates around North America, including a performance Wednesday at Club Lower Links, 954 W. Newport Ave.
It`s uncertain how many members are even in the group, because its albums contain only song titles with no mention of instrumentation or personnel, though Lewis guesses there are at least three musicians.
A 1990 release on the group`s Charrm label, ”Look Into Me,” contains 14 tracks, each an insidious example of how so-called ambient music need not be lulling.
Lewis says the group uses old analog synthesizers, flutes, percussion and non-traditional guitar sounds to create their hypnotic sonic pastiches, which hint at influences as wide-ranging as the German experimental group Can and Celtic mythology.
”They`re different,” Lewis understates. ”They used to make their own record covers by hand, once individually wrapping their albums in tin foil.” Such a heightened sense of individuality deserves a large audience.
