The band are certain how they feel about playing in a rain of bottles. Strummer lurches off stage and tries to sort out those responsible . . . personally.
The Clash style has been set. It’s a straight case of being ruthlessly certain about how you feel and what you want to do and making sure that no one gets in your way. Like the man said, “We ain’t looking for trouble but if someone starts it, it ain’t gonna be us that’s gonna be on the losing side.”
Remember, this is back in ’76 when punk was still seen overwhelmingly as being political. More than anyone else it was the Clash that everyone held responsible for putting down a party line. Now they’re all pretty much retreated from that position (except the Clash, they just smile Highway 61 smiles) and say aw, we’re really only into having fun, ma-a-an. But then, you’ve no idea what a relief it was to have songs about something else other than falling in love with some acne-infested adolescent or what a drag it is to be slogging our guts out “on the road” and staying in all these faceless hotels (when most kids in England have never even stayed in a hotel) or pathetic dirges about let’s have a little more rock ’n’ roll.
I know rock ’n’ roll is supposed to be about the banalities of the pubescent dream, but it had pretty much got to the stage where the average rock ’n’ roll song was indistinguishable from moon/June bilge. If the Clash have done nothing else, they’ve given a big help to kicking out all that garbage (of course, many others have been working to the same end).
Strummer certainly didn’t come from any poverty-stricken background (on the other hand, he never really pretended to), but his songs were like a well-aimed boot plonked straight into the guts of an overfed and complacent music business.
And Mick Jones was no slouch either. “Career Opportunities” for example:
They offered me the office, offered me the shop
They said I’d better take anything they’d got
Do you wanna make tea at the BBC?
Do you wanna be, do you really wanna be a cop?
Career opportunities are the ones that never knock . . .
Every job they offer you’s to keep you out the dock
Career opportunities, the ones that never knock.
Okay, so it ain’t gonna cop him a poetry prize (who wants one?), but it displays both a savage understanding of the demands for immediacy in a rock ’n’ roll song and a large helping of witty comment on what it’s like to be given the choice of one shitty job or another shitty job. Of course, the Clash never thought they could really change things. They’re only (only!) a rock ’n’ roll band, not a political party. But if you’re gonna sing about something, you might as well sing about something that doesn’t usually make it onto pop singles. Unfortunately, while they handled it, lesser talents came along and decided that they’d have to write “political” songs and mostly came up with insulting simplicities like Chelsea’s “Right to Work.”
And then, of course, there was the music. Even early on (and especially after Small Faces addict Glen Matlock got the boot) the Pistols were very fond of heavy metal drones. I don’t think the Clash even listened to HM. Joe only cared for ’50s rockers (especially bluesman Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, believe it or not) and reggae. Jones was deeply into Mott, which shows in the Clash’s attitude toward their fans both in their songs and in their stage demeanor. And Paul Simonon was into football (listen to the chant on “Janie Jones”) and painting (look at the clothes, stage backdrops, and all their visual presentation).
By the time they’d done the Anarchy Tour with the Pistols, the Clash were in an unrivaled second position. They began to get the kind of press eulogies and fan worship that’d turn anybody’s head. How could music fans fail to react to them?
Onstage, Strummer is so obviously a natural star, forcing his body and Telecaster to ever greater heights of pain/pleasure, grabbing the mike and screaming lines like he really does care.
Mick Jones bopping around like a younger Keef (yeah, that comparison again) doing a military two-step and sending out shards of steely guitar licks.
And Paul lumbering around looking looser and more relaxed but thumping his bass while indulging in perverse, arcane calisthenics.
And the paramilitary-style clothes—zips and slogans featured very heavily. But whoever heard of an army splashing paint all over their tunics?
All this combines to make sure the Clash, even at their worst, are never mere music. I am absolutely convinced that I’m not the only one who feels that they’re the ’70s answer to the Stones. If asked, Clash fans will say they love ’em so much because “They’re good to dance to” or “I fancy Mick Jones” or “I just like ’em, that’s all.” If that is all, why do they shout out for “White Riot” all the time at gigs? It’s not one of the Clash’s best songs, but it is the one that most represents where they’re coming from, what they stand for, and what particular fantasy they’re enacting for their audience. If the kids just wanted to dance or screw, they could go to a disco or go home to bed. They want and get more but their lack of articulateness prevents them explaining what. Success and even the music are subordinate to the stance—they’re saying not we play rock ’n’ roll but we are rock ’n’ roll. If Chuck Berry represents for me an idealized adolescence I never had, and the Stones were an adolescence that I lived through once removed because, like so many kids, I was too busy studying, the Clash are as good an excuse as any for me to live out a perfect adolescence ten years late. Hell, why else be a rock ’n’ roll writer—there’s more to it than just freebie albums.
Which is also why the Clash will fire imaginations, but they’ll never become a grandiosely successful band. Some reckon they won’t make it in the States at all. I don’t agree with that. Judging by the recent Rainbow shows, they’ve got enough classic big stage rock ’n’ roll choreography worked out to handle any auditorium. And their newer songs, like “City of the Dead” and the as yet unissued “(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais” are played at a pace that even ears used to the Eagles can handle. Also, by slowing matters down a trifle, they seem to have upped the energy level—too much speed becomes nothing but a fast train blur. They learned their lesson on the first English tour. The set started out at forty-five minutes. By the end of the tour it was down to twenty-nine minutes and that included all the album plus “1977,” “Capital Radio” (only available on a limited edition giveaway—which is a pity because it’s one of their best songs), their truly awful version of Toots and the Maytals’ sublime “Pressure Drop,” and “London’s Burning” twice. It gave their roadies something to boast about but if you wanted to keep up with it, you had to snort at least two grams of amphetamine.
This falling tempo and rising intensity is obviously a result of smoking a lot of dope and listening to a lot of very spliffed-out rasta roots reggae. They realized you ain’t gotta run at full throttle to give out the necessary power.
Nonetheless, the Clash have come in for a lot of criticism. Ignoring the early jeers about unmusicality, the most hurtful has been that they’re a kind of punk Bay City Rollers, programmed to do whatever their manager tells them to do. Quite simply, that’s like saying the Stones were Oldham’s puppets. Of course, Bernie being some kind of weird conceptual artist accounts for a fair share of the ideas, but at the last resort it’s Mick, Paul, Joe, and Topper who cut the cake on stage and record.
Anyway, all that carping is just more proof of the Clash’s importance. Nobody gets into the same kind of polarizations about, say, Slaughter and the Dogs or 999. People only get into heavy-duty arguments about bands that really matter.
Look. If you already like the Clash, you’ll like ’em even more live (if they play a good show—which admittedly, they don’t do as often as they should). If you hate the Clash, you’ll either learn the error of your ways when you realize what great little pop songs they write or continue to hate ’em. The choice is yours.
All I can say is that any band that can bring a relatively cynical scribbler like myself
to gush like a besotted fan, has got to be one of the most special things to have ever happened.
_____________________
Originally appeared in Trouser Press, February 1978.
THE CLASH
Anger on the Left As Punk Leaders Set Sights on America
By Mikal Gilmore
“Never mind that shit,” says Joe Strummer, the thuggish-looking lead singer of the Clash, addressing the exultant kids yelling “Happy New Year” at him from the teeming floor of the Lyceum. “You’ve got your future at stake. Face front! Take it!”
In a sleepy London town, during a murky Christmas week, rock ’n’ roll is being presented as a war of class and aesthetics. At the crux of that battle is a volcanic series of four Clash concerts—including a benefit for Sid Vicious—coming swiftly on the heels of the group’s second album, Give ’Em Enough Rope, which entered the British charts at number two. Together with the Sex Pistols, the Clash helped spearhead the punk movement in Britain, becoming known as the most intellectual and political new wave band. When the Pistols disbanded, the rock press and punks alike looked to the Clash as the movement’s central symbol and hope.
Yet beyond the hyperbole and wrangle that helped create their radical myth, the Clash brandish a hearty reputation as a rock ’n’ roll band that, like the Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen, must be seen to be believed. Certainly no other band communicates kinetic, imperative anger as potently as the Clash. When Nicky “Topper” Headon’s single-shot snare report opens “Safe European Home” (a song about Strummer and lead guitarist Mick Jones’s ill-fated attempt to rub elbows with Rastafarians in the Jamaicans’ backyard), all hell breaks loose, both on the Lyceum stage and floor.
Like the Sex Pistols, the Clash’s live sound hinges on a massive orchestral drum framework that buttresses the blustery guitar work of Jones, who with his tireless two-step knee kicks looks just like a Rockettes’ version of Keith Richards. Shards of Mott the Hoople and the Who cut through the tumult, while Strummer’s rhythm guitar and Paul Simonon’s bass gnash at the beat underneath. And Strummer’s vocals sound as dangerous as he looks. Screwing his face up into a broken-tooth yowl, he gleefully bludgeons words, then caresses them with a touching, R&B-inflected passion.
Maybe it’s the gestalt of the event, or maybe it’s just the sweaty leather-bound mass throbbing around me, but I think it’s the most persuasive rock ’n’ roll show I’ve seen since I watched Graham Parker rip the roof off a San Francisco nightclub almost two and a half years ago.
I try to say as much to a reticent Joe Strummer after the show as we stand in a dingy backstage dressing room brimming with a sweltering mix of fans, press, and roadies. Strummer, wearing smoky sunglasses and a nut-brown porkpie hat, resembles a roughhewn version of Michael Corleone. Measuring me with his wary, testy eyes, he mumbles an inaudible reply.
Across the room, Mick Jones and Paul Simonon have taken refuge in a corner, sharing a spliff. “You a Yank?” Jones asks me in a surprisingly delicate, lilting voice. “From ’ollywood? Evil place, innit? All laid back.” According to the myth encasing this band, Jones (who writes nearly all of the Clash’s music) is the band’s real focal nerve, even though the austere Strummer writes the bulk of the lyrics. In the best Keith Richards tradition, fans see Mick as a sensitive and vulnerable street waif, prone to dissipation as much as to idealism. Indeed, he looks as bemusedly wasted as anyone I’ve ever met. He’s also among the gentler, more considerate people I’ve ever spent time with.
But the same evening, sitting in the same spot, Mick declines to be interviewed. “Lately, interviews make me feel ’orrible. It seems all I do is spend my time answering everyone’s charges—charges that shouldn’t have to be answered.”
The Clash have been hit recently with a wide volley of charges, ranging from an English rock-press backlash aimed at what the critics see as reckless politics, to criminal charges against Headon and Simonon (for shooting racing pigeons) and Jones (for alleged cocaine possession). But probably the most damaging salvo has come from their former manager, Bernard Rhodes, who, after he was fired, accused the band of betraying its punk ideals and slapped them with a potentially crippling lawsuit. In a recent interview, Jones railed back. “We’re still the only ones true to the original aims of punk,” he said. “Those other bands should be destroyed.”
The Clash formed as a result of Joe Strummer’s frustration and Mick Jones’s rock ideals. Both had been abandoned at early ages by their parents, and while Strummer (the son of a British diplomat) took to singing Chuck Berry songs in London’s subways for spare change during his late teens, Jones retreated into reading and playing records by Mott the Hoople, Dylan, the Kinks, and the Who. In 1975, he left the art school he was attending and formed London SS, a band that, in its attempt to meld a raving blend of the New York Dolls, the Stooges, and Mott, became a legendary forerunner of the English punk scene.
Then, in early 1976, shortly after the Sex Pistols assailed London, Mick Jones ran into Strummer, who had been singing in a pub circuit R&B band called the 101ers. “I don’t like your band,” Jones said, “but I like the way you sing.” Strummer, anxious to join the punk brigade, cut his hair, quit the 101ers, and joined Jones, Simonon (also a member of London SS), guitarist Keith Levine (now a member of Public Image Ltd), and drummer Terry Chimes to form the Clash in June 1976. Eight months later, under the tutelage of Bernard Rhodes, the Clash signed with CBS Records for a reported $200,000.
Their first album, The Clash (unreleased in America; Epic, the group’s label stateside, deems it “too crude”), was archetypal, resplendent punk. While the Sex Pistols proffered a nihilistic image, the Clash took a militant stance that, in an eloquent, guttural way, vindicated punk’s negativism. Harrowed rhythms and coarse vocals propelled a foray of songs aimed at the bleak political realities and social ennui of English life, making social realism—and unbridled disgust—key elements in punk aesthetics.
But even before the first album was released, the punk scene had dealt the Clash some unforeseen blows. The punks, egged on by a hysterical English press, began turning on each other. Weary of ducking bottles, spit, and the band’s politics, Drummer Chimes quit. Months passed before the group settled on Nicky Headon (also a member of Mick Jones’s London SS) as a replacement and returned to performing. By that time, their reputation had swelled to near-messianic proportions.
When it was time for a new album, CBS asked Blue Oyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman to check out the Clash’s shows. “By a miracle of God,” says Pearlman, “they looked like they believed in what they were doing. They were playing for the thrill of affecting their audience’s consciousness, both musically and politically. Rock ’n’ roll shouldn’t be cute and adorable; it should be violent and anarchic. Based on that, I think they’re the greatest rock ’n’ roll group around.” Mick Jones initially balked at the idea of Pearlman as their producer, but Strummer’s interest prevailed. It took six months to complete Give ’Em Enough Rope, and it was a stormy period for all concerned. (“We knew we had to watch Pearlman,” says Nicky Headon. “He gets too good a sound.”)
But nowhere near as stormy as the album. Give ’Em Enough Rope is rock ’n’ roll’s Stage of Siege—with a dash of Duck Soup for comic relief. Instead of reworking the tried themes of bored youth and repressive society, Strummer and Jones tapped some of the deadliest currents around, from creeping fascism at home to Palestinian terrorism. The album surges with visions of civil strife, gunplay, backbiting, and lyrics that might’ve been spirited from the streets of Italy and Iran: “A system built by the sweat of the many/Creates assassins to kill off the few/Take any place and call it a courthouse/This is a place where no judge can stand.” And the music—a whirl of typhonic guitars and drums—frames those conflicts grandly.
The day after the Clash’s last Lyceum show, I meet Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon at the Tate Gallery. Simonon leads us on a knowledgeable tour of the gallery’s treasures until we settle in a dim corner of
the downstairs café for an interview.
We start by talking about the band’s apparent position as de facto leaders of punk. Strummer stares into his muddy tea, uninterested in the idea of conversation, and lets Simonon take the questions. Probably the roughest looking member of the group, with his skeletal face and disheveled hair, Simonon is disarmingly guileless and amiable. “Just because I’m up onstage,” he says in rubbery English, “doesn’t mean I’m entitled to a different lifestyle than anyone else. I used to think so. I’d stay up all night, get pissed, party all the time. But you get cut off from the workaday people that way. I like to get up early, paint me flat, practice me bass. I see these geezers going off to work and I feel more like one of them.”
But, I note, most of those same people wouldn’t accept him. They’re incensed and frightened by bands like the Clash.
Strummer stops stirring his tea and glowers around. “Good,” he grunts. “I’m pleased.”
This seems a fair time to raise the question of the band’s recent bout with the British rock press. After Give ’Em Enough Rope, some of the band’s staunchest defenders shifted gears, saying that the Clash’s militancy is little more than a fashionable stance, and that their attitude toward terrorist violence is dangerously ambiguous. “One is never sure just which side [the Clash] is supposed to be taking,” wrote Nick Kent in New Musical Express. “The Clash use incidents . . . as fodder for songs without caring.”
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