Re: Clash Game
Dwaine Hawke
The Clash were an English rock band that formed in London in 1976 and were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they used elements of reggae, dub, funk, ska, and rockabilly, and they contributed to the post-punk and new wave movements that followed punk. For most of their recording career, the Clash consisted of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Joe Strummer, lead guitarist and vocalist Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon, and drummer Nicky "Topper" Headon.
In 1982, Headon left the band due to internal friction surrounding his increasing heroin addiction, and Jones departed the following year. With a new lineup, the band released their final album Cut the Crap in 1985 before disbanding a few weeks later.[1]
In January 2003, shortly after the death of Joe Strummer, the band, including original drummer Terry Chimes, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Clash number 28 on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time".[2]
Before the Clash's founding, the band's future members were active in different parts of the London music scene. Joe Strummer, whose real name was John Graham Mellor, sang and played rhythm guitar in the pub rock band The 101ers, which he had formed in 1974 with Alvaro Pena-Rojas.[3] Mellor later abandoned his original stage name "Woody" Mellor in favour of "Joe Strummer", a reference to his rudimentary strumming skills on the ukulele while he was a busker in the London Underground.
Mick Jones played guitar in protopunk band London SS,[3] who rehearsed for much of 1975 but never played a live show and recorded only one demo. London SS were managed by Bernard Rhodes, an associate of impresario Malcolm McLaren and a friend of the members of the Sex Pistols, whom Mclaren managed. Jones and his bandmates became friendly with Sex Pistols members Glen Matlock and Steve Jones, who helped them as they auditioned potential new members.[4] Vocalist Paul Simonon and drummer Terry Chimes auditioned for London SS but were rejected,[5] and Nicky Headon drummed with the band for a week then quit.[6][7]
The band were still searching for a lead singer. According to Chimes, Billy Watts, who "seemed to be, like, nineteen or eighteen then, as we all were", handled the duties for a time.[11] Rhodes was watching Strummer, with whom he made exploratory contact; both Jones and Levene had seen Strummer perform and were impressed.[12] In April, Strummer had seen the Sex Pistols, the opening act for one of his band's gigs. Strummer later said:
On 30 May, Rhodes and Levene approached Strummer after a 101ers gig and invited him to meet up at the band's rehearsal location on Davis Road. After Strummer turned up, Levene played "Keys to Your Heart", one of Strummer's own tunes.[15] Rhodes gave Strummer 48 hours to decide whether to join the new band that would "rival the Pistols".[citation needed] Within 24 hours, he agreed.[a] Simonon later said: "Once we had Joe on board it all started to come together".[9] Strummer introduced the band to his school friend Pablo LaBritain, who sat in on drums during Strummer's first few rehearsals with the band. LaBritain left the band shortly after and joined 999 and Terry Chimes, whom Jones later referred to as "one of the best drummers" in their circle, became the band's regular drummer.[16]
In Westway to the World, Jones said: "I don't think Terry was officially hired or anything. He had just been playing with us."[b] Chimes did not like Strummer at first, saying: "He was like twenty-two or twenty-three or something that seemed 'old' to me then. And he had these retro clothes and this croaky voice."[11] Simonon thought of the band's name; they had briefly named themselves the Weak Heartdrops and the Psychotic Negatives.[17][18] According to Simonon: "It really came to my head when I started reading the newspapers and a word that kept recurring was the word 'clash', so I thought 'the Clash, what about that' to the others. And they and Bernard, they went for it."[17]
After rehearsing with Strummer for less than a month, the Clash made their debut performance on 4 July 1976, supporting the Sex Pistols at the Black Swan nightclub in Sheffield.[3] The Clash wanted to appear on stage before their rivals The Damned, another London SS spinoff, made their own scheduled debut two days later. The Clash did not play in front of another audience for five weeks.[19][20] Levene was becoming disaffected with his position in the group. At the Black Swan, he approached the Sex Pistols' lead singer John Lydon, whose stage name was Johnny Rotten, and suggested they form a band together if the Pistols broke up.[21]
Hours after their debut, the Clash, most of the Sex Pistols and much of London's "inner circle" of punks attended a performance by New York City's leading punk rock band the Ramones at Dingwalls; according to Strummer: "It can't be stressed how great the first Ramones album was to the scene ... It was the first word of Punk, a fantastic record".[22] Afterwards "came the first example of the rivalry-induced squabbling that was to dog the punk scene and undermine any attempts to promote a spirit of unity among the bands involved".[23] Simonon fought with J.J. Burnel, the bass player of The Stranglers, a slightly older band who were publicly identified with the punk scene but were not part of the "inner circle", which centered on the Sex Pistols.[23]
Rhodes insisted the Clash should not perform live again until they were much tighter so they intensely rehearsed the following month. According to Strummer, the band devoted themselves to creating a distinct identity, saying:
The day I joined The Clash was very much back to square one, year zero. Part of Punk was that you had to shed all of what you knew before. We were almost Stalinist in the way that you had to shed all your friends, or everything that you'd known, or every way that you'd played before.[22][24]
Strummer performed lead vocals on the majority of songs but he and Jones sometimes shared the lead. Once the band began recording, Jones rarely had a solo lead on more than one song per album, though he was responsible for two of the group's biggest hits. On 13 August 1976, the Clash, wearing paint-spattered "Jackson Pollock" outfits, played in their Camden studio before a small, invitation-only audience,[28] which included Sounds magazine critic Giovanni Dadamo, whose review described the band as a "runaway train ... so powerful, they're the first new group to come along who can really scare the Sex Pistols shitless".[29]
On 29 August, the Clash and Manchester's Buzzcocks opened for the Sex Pistols at The Screen on the Green; it was the Clash's first public performance since 4 July.[3] The triple-bill show is seen as pivotal to the consolidation of the British punk scene into a movement;[30] New Musical Express reviewer Charles Shaar Murray wrote: "The Clash are the sort of garage band that should be speedily returned to the garage, preferably with the motor still running".[31] Strummer later credited Murray's comments with inspiring the Clash's song "Garageland".[32]
In early September, Levene was fired from the Clash. According to Strummer, Levene's dwindling interest in the band was due to his use of speed, a point Levene denied.[33][34] On 21 September 1976, the Clash performed publicly for the first time without Levene at the 100 Club Punk Special, sharing the bill with the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Subway Sect.[35][36][37] Chimes left in late November; he was briefly replaced by Rob Harper as the Clash toured in support of the Sex Pistols during December's Anarchy Tour.[38]
The Clash promoted a left-wing message in their songs and interviews, and sang about social problems, such as career opportunities, unemployment, and the need for a backlash against racism and oppression. Joe Strummer said in 1976: "We're anti-fascist, we're anti-violence, we're anti-racist and we're pro-creative".[39] Strummer also said: "I don't believe in all that anarchy bollocks!"[40][41] According to the Clash guitarist Mick Jones: "The important thing is to encourage people to do things for themselves, think for themselves and stand up for what their rights are".[40][41]
A confrontation between Black youth and police at the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival was important in the development of the Clash's political stance and inspired Joe Strummer to write "White Riot". Images of the riots were used as The Clash's stage backdrop and as the back cover of their first album, and was reprinted on badges and Clash t-shirts.[42]
Mickey Foote, who worked as a technician at the band's concerts, was hired to produce their debut album, and Terry Chimes was drafted back for the recording. The band's first single "White Riot" was released in March and peaked at number 34 in the UK Singles Chart. The album The Clash was released the following month and peaked at number 12 on the UK Albums Chart;[3] with lyrics criticising the ruling establishment, bosses and the police and addressing themes such as alienation and boredom.[50][51]
The Clash presaged the band's future works with their cover of the reggae song "Police and Thieves". The band had been influenced by the subject matter, slogans and lyrics of reggae, which they often played in rehearsals but recording "Police and Thieves" was an important step that was only taken after a lot of discussion within the group.[52][53]
According to music journalist and former punk musician John Robb: "Amidst the Sex Pistols' inertia in the first half of 1977, the Clash found themselves as the flag-wavers of the punk rock consciousness".[54] Though The Clash quickly rose to number 12 in the UK, CBS refused to give it a US release, believing that its raw, barely produced sound would make it unmarketable there.[55] A North American version of the album with a modified track listing released in the US in 1979, after the UK release, became the US's best-selling import album of the year.[56]
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