The Vanilla Tapes

Phelim O'Neill goes digging for golden nuggets

So Mick Jones' little bit of spring-cleaning in his lockup has unearthed the Clash fan's holy grail: The Vanilla Tapes - a collection of demos and rehearsals that still manage to sound more focused, intelligent and relevant than most of today's young pretenders.

Digging around, it's surprising that this kind of serendipity isn't more frequent. Chat to people from all strata of the music industry, wade through the hyperbole, apocrypha and expense-account-enabled slurring and you'll find some nuggets. For instance, at a pleasant lunch at an exec's house it came to light that Suicide's Alan Vega had made an album with Afrika Bambaataa. My unwanted diatribe about how evil record companies hide these things away was mercifully cut short with a casual, "Oh, I think there are some tapes in the shed". So, the collision between new wave and hip-hop - perhaps the most New York recording ever - is nestled among compost and bicycle parts in Putney. Eat that, NY-LON.

Another time, ex-Blondie bassist Nigel Harrison revealed that he'd once played on an album of "unbelievably heavy psychedelic rock" with Iggy Pop and the surviving members of the Doors. Yes, you read that right. Blondie. Iggy. The Doors. All on one record. Sounds great, doesn't it? But would it actually sound great? As whispers and drunken ramblings, these mythic recordings get built up beyond all reason. Until, of course, you actually hear them.

Take Prince's Black Album. Before it was eventually released it was widely thought that it could cure cancer with its extended funky jams. Upon hearing, it became apparent that the sex dwarf was floundering amid name changes and paranoia without anyone daring to say, "Hey, Victor, how's about something with a tune?" It's not just the big names either. Grandaddy delivered a "hilarious" ribald LP called The Arm Of Roger - sample track: The Pussy Song - to their incredulous record company, prompting the terse answerphone message: "OK motherfuckers, where's the real album?"

Even albums you already own often have a dark past: Oasis' Definitely Maybe is the third attempt. Richard Ashcroft's debut has a beautiful John Leckie version still locked away. The "definitive" Mike Hedges version of the La's album was also strangled at birth.

There's all kinds of stuff floating around: Blur's Parklife was originally started with XTC's Andy Partridge. A producer friend has a stack of DATs of The The's Matt Johnson - creator of lost legend The Pornography Of Despair - jamming with Johnny Marr. It's hardly monkeys with typewriters: there's bound to be some good stuff on there. Marr, again, also recorded with Bunnyman Ian McCulloch, but the tapes vanished under the considerable weight of expectation - although that Spice Girls football song was allegedly culled from these sessions, so don't get too excited.

It's not all doom and gloom though. Sure, Brian Wilson's Smile, Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy and the new My Bloody Valentine are still AWOL. But so is Caprice's album. Perhaps Mick Jones can keep it safely under lock and key for us.