The Clash opening for The Who, 13th October 1982 at Shea Stadium, New York City.
Terry Chimes back on drums, Topper Headon having had the old heave-ho due to his heroin addiction (though officially due to 'exhaustion').
Kosmo Vinyl Introduction, London Calling, Police on My Back, The Guns of Brixton, Tommy Gun, The Magnificent Seven, Armagideon Time, The Magnificent Seven (Return), Rock the Casbah, Train in Vain, Career Opportunities, Spanish Bombs, Clampdown, English Civil War, Should I Stay or Should I Go, I Fought the Law
All I can add to the billions of words written about the greatest band ever are my personal recollections of the way in which their music brought a bit of light into a gloomy adolescence in the late 70's and early 80's.
I've always held Combat Rock by The Clash in the very highest esteem. The release of London Calling was the high point in my life as a consumer of music- everything being perfectly right at the time - the eager anticipation, the discussion of the songs on the schoolyard, the sense of belonging to some huge gang whose members were spread across space and time.
I know that a lot of 'purists' felt that The Clash lost their way (and Sandinista was a bit of an effort) but I was absolutely bowled over by the lyricism and funky groove of Combat Rock.
Here's the album as produced by Mick Jones in 1981, a famous bootleg.
http://d01.megashares.com/dl/h94Pl7s/The Clash Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg.rar
Futura 2000 (Leonard Hilton McGurr) is a graffiti artist from New York City. In 1982 he provided a rap on Overpowered by Funk on The Clash album Combat Rock. At this time The Clash (on the verge of break up) were experimenting with the new urban sounds of hip hop. Always image conscious The Clash also embraced other elements of this relatively new proletarian culture.
In the 70's Futura 2000 was dodging the cops painting subway trains, by the time this record was released he was a respectable gallery artist and graphic designer.
The movie Style Wars is well worth a watch- it's on YouTube of course...
I've been listening to this record for two thirds of my life now- and a fair number of low grade stylii have ploughed their way around it. This is a vinyl rip of the Epic Nudisk USA 10" import.
Rambling thoughts...The coolest band of all time appearing on US TV in 1981.This is a bit of a lazy post- three Youtube videos- but there's something refreshing about it. No, I'm just kidding myself, being nostalgic. I'm 45 years old and I still like the things I liked when I was 15... Come to think of it how cool was Tom Snyder himself? Very cool... he was 45 when he conducted the interview...
Quintessential Englishmen?
Well, we're a class riven society and I suppose they fall into two categories:
Apparent toffs like Basil Rathbone, Terry- Thomas, Stephen Fry and Boris Johnson are undeniably quintessentially English. But then again so are Michael Caine, Stanley Holloway, Johnny Vegas and John Terry.
Suggs bridges the gap here...
Madness were undoubtedly one of the major successes of the eighties. Maybe they did appeal to kids who idolised Tucker off Grange Hill but they turned out a succession of catchy and humorous hits. The ‘Ska revival’ also missed out on a sartorial coup, with faux market stall pork pie hats and sta pressed trousers that were more like pantomime costumes replacing the authentic fashions of the late sixties. It was all a bit fake.
However, as their enduring popularity testifies, Madness had a place in the hearts of millions of working class Britons.
When frontman Suggs appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2002 there was also something quintessentially English about a number of his selections: The Kinks, Sir John Betjeman, Ian Dury and The Clash.
Despite the Englishness of her name Julie London was, of course, American- Suggs chose Cry Me A River (younger readers may know it from V for Vendetta) and you can't argue with that as a selection of a timeless classic. Ian Duryrepresents a proletarian flavour of risque entertainmnet that dates back to the music hall era. It's easy to imagine Dury as a carachter from Dickens or the ragamuffin cabman providing Sherlock Holmes with some tipoff. On London's Burning from their self titled debut The Clash give us a hefty chunk of urban dissaffectation from the western suburbs of London.
In terms of fogeyishness the genuine article here is Sir John Betjeman, the betweeded poet laureate who , in the words of Auden was so at home with the provincial gaslit towns, the seaside lodgings, the bicycle, the harmonium. (We'll be having more from Sir John in the near future). Prince Buster pops up with the obligatory 'ska' number- Al Capone. I've nothing against Peggy Lee and actually have a few of her albums (Black Coffee is highly recommended) but I don't really go for the number that Suggs selected (Is That All There Is?). The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society has been described as a concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions.
There is also something very British about Van Morrison's Cleaning Windows- the disaffected grammar school boy trapped in mundane labour whilst immersing himself in American beatnik culture of jazz, blues and Kerouac.
Sugg's overral choice was the Peggy Lee record. A book of Italian Verbs was his literary choice and a nucleus of bees was his luxury item.
Here are the records, but not the full programme:
Sadly gone from Rapidshare and I haven't got a clue what I did with the original file- never mind, worse things happen at sea.
When we came to the U.S., Mick stumbled upon a music shop in Brooklyn that carried the music of Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, the Sugar Hill Gang...these groups were radically changing music and they changed everything for us. —Joe Strummer
The American novelist Thomas Wolfe made the distinction between putter inners and leaver outers. (Wolfe was a putter inner; he died leaving a stack of unsorted manuscripts almost two meters tall). By the time they reached the Sandinista era The Clash had definitely become putter inners.
1977’s The Clash was 35 minutes long, carrying no excess weight. Three years down the road they gave us a three disc 144 minute sprawl. This rather funky single was released in 1981. The bass was provided by Norman Watt- Roy of The Blockheads and Joe Strummer composed the lyrics on the spot.
This is worth downloading just for the authentic pub-jukebox vinyl crackle…
A lifetime serving one machine is ten times worse than prison… The towering genius of The Clash- a paean to bank robbery and jailbreaks set against a spaghetti western dub reggae track. Flip it over and you’ve got a toasting version by the late great Mikey Dread.
The 7" ep Capitol Radio, recorded on April 1, 1977, was given away on receipt of a coupon printed in the NME, plus the red sticker found on the album The Clash , which was released that month.
There are two songs and two portions of an NME interview conducted on the Circle Line of the London Underground.
The interviewer is erstwhile hip, young gunslinger, and now novelist and Daily Mirror columnist, Tony Parsons.
The Clash:
Mick Jones − guitars,vocals
Joe Strummer − guitars, vocals
Paul Simonon-bass
Terry Chimes-drums
The need for freedom, which spontaneously appears in social revolution as an old need, is stifled in the capitalist world. In a society such as ours, in which pacification has been achieved up to a certain point, it appears crazy at first to want revolution. For we have whatever we want. But the aim here is to transform the will itself so that people no longer want what they now want. Herbert Marcuse
In time and place this was the perfect object. If I could choose just one record to represent the impact that music has had on my life this would be it. Stylistically the four songs, represented everything that I wanted at the time. They have the energy of true punk, but here we are also hearing the signs of the eclecticism of the later Clash. as an artefact the record epitomises punk style; the loud Pop Art imagery, reminiscent of Jamie Reid’s designs for the Sex Pistols, the terrace scene which relates to the bands romanticised notion of a literate revolutionary proletariat. The Clash was the band that appealed most to my escapist side. Whereas they may have initially presented themselves as realists, they soon created a parallel world of gangsters, freedom fighters, bank robbers, gamblers and poets, which gained its ultimate realisation against the suitably diverse musical backdrop of the London Calling LP of late 1979. In the dark winter evenings in a provincial village I bought into this world, and dreamed ofthis mythical , pulsating Clash City as I swaggered through the quiet streets in my oversized boots and half mast drains thinking 'I know something that you don't know'
In case you'd forgotten:
Joe Strummer- guitar vocals Mick Jones- guitar vocals harmonica Paul Simonon- bass Topper Headon- drums
