I remember exactly where I was when I first saw the Clash’s Cut the Crap.

I was in the back room of Camelot Music, checking in the week’s shipment. When I pulled this one from the box, I ran to the front counter and threw it on the turntable. New Clash? Come on!

For the next month or so I tried really hard to like it. This was my band, after all. Learning to like Cut the Crap was analogous to sticking with your team through a cruddy season. Here’s what I learned during that month: I’m not a guy who roots for team jerseys. No matter how hard I tried to convince myself otherwise, I had to admit that the album sucked.

The sad thing is that it didn’t have to. Thanks to bootlegs, we know that some of the Cut the Crap songs were pretty good live — it was the horrible production that did them in. And who was responsible for that horrible production? Read all about it on Diffuser.