ROBERT HILBURN : STRUMMER SAYS HE WAS BEHIND CLASH COLLISION

What happened, Joe?

After helping build the Clash into one of the most compelling British rock groups, Joe Strummer booted partner Mick Jones out of the group in 1983 and spent weeks telling everyone that he’d done it because Jones no longer lived up to band’s original idealism.

“Mick was my best friend at one time,” Strummer told me in London in January, 1984. “We were partners and I don’t dispense with my partners easily . . . but he became indifferent. He didn’t want to go into the studio or go on tour. He just wanted to go on holiday. He wasn’t with us anymore.”

So, Strummer’s dramatic interview in a recent issue of New Musical Express, a leading English pop weekly, is nothing short of a public retraction--and apology.

The villain really wasn’t Jones after all, but--in large part--Strummer’s own ego.

Noting that he has been talking again with Jones and that the two may even be writing together again soon, Strummer added:

“I did him wrong. I stabbed him in the back. Really, it’s through his good grace we got back together and we’re going to write together in the future. We cover completely different areas so we’re not (cramping) each other’s style. That’s a good thing, a rare thing and in the last two years I’ve learned just how good and rare that is.”

So what did cause the downfall of the Clash, whose challenging, socially conscious albums like “London Calling” and “Combat Rock” expanded the artistic horizons of punk and helped open the door for such other idealistic outfits as U2?

Strummer seconds the version Jones has generally given in interviews, pointing to tension revolving around the reinstatement in 1983 of Bernard Rhodes as the Clash’s manager.

“Mick and Bernie had never got on . . . and Bernie sort of coerced me into thinking that Mick was what was wrong with the scene. That wasn’t hard because, as Mick will admit now . . . he (Jones) was being pretty awkward. Plus my ego . . . was definitely telling me, ‘Go on, get rid of (him).’ ”

At the time of the 1984 interview, Strummer seemed upbeat and eager to get on with reviving the spark that once surrounded the Clash--which headlined the opening night of the 1983 US Festival. But it wasn’t to be. The group’s subsequent album, ironically titled “Cut the Crap,” was a flop last year. Embarrassingly, it was far less interesting than the album Jones made with his new group, Big Audio Dynamite.

Strummer called it quits with the Clash and dropped out of sight.

He’s now back with his first solo single, a tune called “Love Kills” that is featured in the film “Sid & Nancy,” which is about the tragedy surrounding former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious and girlfriend Nancy Spungen, both of whom died in 1978. She was found dead in a New York hotel room and Vicious--who was charged with her murder--later overdosed on heroin.

The single, which features the livelier but similarly spirited “Dum Dum Club” on the flip side, retraces some of the Clash’s funk-accented instrumental territory while describing the dangers of obsessions. The record, which is available here as an import on CBS Records, is more of a holding action than a sign of new direction.

Though Strummer doesn’t talk much about the single in the magazine interview, he does reflect on the last Clash LP: “Some of the tunes were fair, but really I hated it (the album). I fell out with Bernie (Rhodes) before the final mix--I didn’t hear (the album) until it was in the shops. . . . I hadn’t heard my tunes since the demo stage.”

Did he think about giving up the music business after the Clash breakup?

“Are you kidding? Have you ever thought what it would be like to be Joe Strummer driving a cab around London?” he responded. “To have people in the back go, ‘He used to be Joe Strummer’? I’ve had a fair taste of hasbeenness and it’s been deserved. The worst part is when people ask ‘Are you Joe Strummer?’ and then they go, ‘Oh, I used to be a fan of yours.’ ”

MORE BAD NEWS: The debate surrounding the Jesus and Mary Chain, the British band whose “Psychocandy” album topped my midyear list of best albums, is whether its intriguing mix of relentless guitar feedback and rather delicate melodies is a gimmick that is going to wear out or the sign of an inventive pop-rock imagination.

The immediate answer is “Some Candy Talking,” a single that has just been released by the band in Britain. The record is moving up the charts nicely (No. 9 this week in the New Musical Express), but it isn’t the kind of embracing work that makes you feel the band is moving to greater heights. It does away with the “feedback” issue by removing it in favor of a rather straightforward tale of obsession (is that all anyone writes about these days in rock?) that has appealing elements, but mostly seems rather commonplace in its post Velvet Underground moodiness.

LIVE ACTION: Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Stevie Nicks will join in a “Get Tough on Toxics” benefit concert on Aug. 28 at the Long Beach Arena. Tickets are on sale now. . . . Steve Winwood will be at the Universal Amphitheatre with Level 42 from Oct. 18 to 20. Tickets go on sale Sunday. . . . Tickets also go on sale Sunday for Ted Nugent’s Aug. 30 date at the Santa Monica Civic and for Trouble Funk’s return to town Aug. 29 for a show with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Hollywood Palladium. . . . With the Nov. 7 to 10 shows at the Pantages sold out, the Pet Shop Boys have added a Nov. 6 date. Tickets available Monday. . . . New Edition, Morris Day and the Jets will be at the Forum on Aug. 31. . . . Timex Social Club will be at the Palace on Aug. 27, while Chris Isaak is due there Sept. 12. . . . Carl Perkins headlines the Palomino on Sept. 6, while Karla Bonoff and J.D. Souther team up Aug. 27 at the Kono Hawaii in Santa Ana. . . . Plus: Lone Justice at the Coach House on Aug. 22-23 and Cruzados at Bogart’s on Aug. 31.