Hear The Clash’s Vanilla Tapes, Demos of Nearly Every Song From London Calling — openculture.com

Every creative work begins with a draft—or two, or three, or four. Great American novel, iconic painting, generation-defining poem, album of the decade… each represents a palimpsest of sketches, blind alleys, dead ends, demos, and outtakes. So it’s no great surprise to learn that London Calling, the Clash’s double-album masterpiece, exists as an earlier version, recorded by the band themselves on four-track tape machines at their rehearsal space in central London. What is maybe surprising is how good these early recordings are, and that they exist at all. Called The Vanilla Tapes, after the name of their studio, the tapes—though certainly rough—represent what The Guardian calls “a collection of demos and rehearsals that still manage to sound more focused, intelligent and relevant than most of today’s young pretenders.” No need to name names; it’s not much of a stretch to say that no rock and roll band today sounds as interesting as the Clash did in their practices 25 years ago.

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