Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
The Bottom Line (1985)
After the Clash fired lead guitarist and co-lead singer Mick Jones in 1983, things really got weird. The band's appearance at the 1983 US Festival was Jones' last show with the Clash. Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon fired Jones that fall, replacing him with Nick Sheppard and Vince White. That Clash lineup released the album Cut the Crap in November 1985 and other than the single "This is England," it was an abysmal failure.
Meanwhile, after he left the Clash, Jones played briefly with General Public before forming the band Top Risk Action Company (T.R.A.C.) with former Clash drummer Topper Headon; after Jones fire Headon for being hooked on heroin and Lennard either left or was fired, the band split up. Jones and bassist Leo Williams from T.R.A.C. teamed with film director Don Letts, drummer Greg Roberts and keyboardist Dan Donovan to form Big Audio Dynamite in 1984.
The band released This Is Big Audio Dynamite in November 1985, introducing a post-punk sound that incorporated tons of movie samples (mostly from spaghetti Westerns) and sound effects, beatbox rhythms and Jones' unmistakable lead vocals. The single was 4:35, but the 12-inch version of the song, which clocks in at 8:45, is considered the definitive version.
"The horses are on the track/There's a new dance that's going around/When the hits start flying you gotta get down/All the young people dance round the square/That old time groove is really nowhere/When you reach the bottom line/The only thing to do is climb/Pick yourself up off the floor/Don't know what you're waiting for."
B.A.D. was definitely focused on the dance floor, far from the Clash's weighty role as spokespunks for a generation. But Jones would sneak some political commentary in between the beats and samples.
"A dance to the tune of economic decline/Is when you do the bottom line/Nagging questions always remain/Why did it happen and who was to blame?/When you reach the bottom line/The only thing to do is climb/Pick yourself up off the floor/Don't know what you're waiting for."
The song is catchy and anthemic, although it didn't really hit with the public. It only reached #97 on the U.K. Singles Chart (as opposed to "This is England," which hit #24), although it hit #33 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart in the U.S. But it got plenty of play on WBCN in Boston, where I first heard it; similarly, the album's other singles "E=MC2" and "Medicine Show" also got some play. Strummer and Simonon actually appeared in the "Medicine Show" video as police officers.
Strummer, who had disbanded the Clash by this point, helped Jones out on 1986's No. 10, Upping Street, co-producing the album and co-writing five songs. B.A.D. had a good rest of the '80s, releasing two more well-received albums, including 1989's Megatop Phoenix. But in 1990, Jones debuted a new version of the band called B.A.D. II in which he was the only remaining member from the original lineup. After releasing a U.K.-only album Kool Aid in 1990, B.A.D. II released The Globe in 1991 and scoring the hit "Rush," which hit #1 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. In the U.K., the song was released as a double A-side single with the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go," which went to #1; the accolade was given to the Clash. The title track from the album was also a rock radio hit in the U.S.
The band opened for U2 on the Zoo TV tour and then headlined an MTV 120 Minutes tour with Public Image Ltd., Live and Blind Melon. The rest of the '90s was a struggle for Jones and the band, however. In 1994, going as Big Audio, the band released Higher Power, which didn't do much; 1995's F-Punk did even less and the band's last album, Entering a New Ride, wasn't even released by the group's label, Radioactive Records. B.A.D. started releasing songs from the album online, but by 2001, the band split up.
Jones teamed with Tony James (Generation X, Sigue Sigue Sputnik) to form Carbon/Silicon in 2002. The group has been pretty prolific, releasing a ton of music (much of it for free online) but remaining fairly low profile. In 2011, the original lineup of B.A.D. reunited for a short tour; I saw them at Avalon in Boston and they were great. But that's the last we've heard from the group. Jones has also worked as a producer and has collaborated with Gorillaz, the Wallflowers, the Flaming Lips and the Avalanches.
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