SIMPLEMENTE THE CLASH. "The Only Band That Matters,"

The Clash were an English punk rock
band who were active from 1976 to 1986. They were one of the most
successful and iconic bands from the original wave of punk rock in the
late 1970s, and went on to incorporate punk with reggae, rockabilly, dance, jazz, ska, and eventually many other music styles into their repertoire. The Clash were legendary for their intense stage performances.

From their earliest days as a band, the Clash stood apart from their
punk peers with their musicianship, as well as their lyrics; the
passionate, left wing political idealism in the lyrics of frontmen Joe Strummer and Mick Jones contrasted with the nihilism of the Sex Pistols and the three-chord simplicity of the Ramones.
Although they were a major success in the UK from the release of their
first album in 1977, they did not become popular in the US until 1980.

Their third album, the late 1979 release London Calling
is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest albums in the
history of rock music; it was released in the US in January 1980, and a
decade later Rolling Stone
magazine declared it the best album of the 1980s. Rolling Stone also
placed it at #8 on their list in 2003 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All
Time.

The Clash's attitude and style, as much as their music, strongly
influenced countless other bands. In 2003 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked The Clash ^[1] #30 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[2]
Their record company once dubbed them "The Only Band That Matters," a
phrase which caught on with their fans, and has since become closely
associated with them. Epic Records Director of A&R, Bruce Harris,
came up with the phrase. He is credited with convincing the company to
release The Clash in the USA. His wife, Marion(Bernstein) Harris, was
the product manager.She is credited with convincing Joe Strummer to
include lyrics in the sleeve.

History

[edit] (1976-1978) Formation and British success

Originally composed of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Keith Levene and Terry Chimes (credited, as a pun, on their first LP as "Tory Crimes"), the Clash formed in Ladbroke Grove, west London in 1976, during the first wave of British punk. Levene (later of Public Image Ltd.) was a friend of Mick Jones and served as guitarist and songwriter with The Clash, but never recorded with the band and, according to Mick Jones in the 1999 Clash documentary Westway to the World, was kicked out for never showing up to practice.

Strummer had previously been in the pub rock act The 101'ersLondon SS. At the behest of their manager Bernie Rhodes,
Jones, Levene, and Simonon recruited the slightly older Strummer from
the 101'ers. "You're great," they told him, "but your group is shit". [1]
Rhodes then allegedly gave Strummer a couple of days to think about
joining. Strummer agreed, and the group became The Clash, the name
being supplied by Simonon after seeing the word repeatedly in the Evening Standard.
(his stage name at this point was Woody Mellor; soon he would rename
himself "Joe Strummer" after his rudimentary strumming skills on the
ukulele as a busker in the London Underground); Jones, Simonon, and
Tony James (later of Generation X) were (briefly) in legendary
proto-punk band

The new band had their first gig on July 4, 1976, supporting the Sex Pistols, and that autumn the band was signed to CBS Records.
In early September, Levene left. Chimes left in late November (briefly
replaced by Rob Harper for the Anarchy Tour in December 1976) but was
soon drafted back to enable the band to record their debut album. The
band released their first singleWhite Riot/1977") and first album (The Clash) in 1977 to considerable success in the UK. However, CBS initially declined to release either in the United States,
waiting until 1979 before releasing a modified version of the first
album in the US, after the UK original had become the best-selling
import album of all time in the United States. (

Following the release of their first album, Chimes left amicably due
to personal differences with the remaining members. In the documentary Westway to the World,
Mick Jones referred to him as one of "the best drummers around". But
Chimes, who had no great wish to make a career from music, said, "The
point was that I wanted one kind of life - they wanted another, and why
are we working together, if we want completely different things?"
Chimes later joined the glam punk group Hanoi Rocks.

The band experienced a period of changing drummers. Mick Jones recruited Nicholas Bowen Headon,
who was nicknamed "Topper" by the band, due to his resemblance to a
cartoon monkey, and "The Human Drum Machine" by the producer of Give 'Em Enough Rope, Sandy Pearlman,
due to his impeccable timing and skills. The musically-gifted Headon
was planning to stay only briefly with the band in order to gain a
reputation so that he might find a better group. In the process, the
band's potential became apparent to him and he changed his plans and
decided to stay.

Initially, The Clash were notable for their strident leftist political outlook and distinctive clothes, self painted with Jackson Pollock-style paint splashes and revolutionary
slogans, such as "Sten Guns in Knightsbridge," "Under Heavy Manners,"
and "Heavy Discipline". Throughout 1977, Strummer and Jones were in
trouble with the police for a range of minor crimes ranging from petty vandalism
to stealing a pillowcase, while Simonon and Headon were briefly
arrested for shooting racing pigeons with air guns from the roof of
their rehearsal studio.

[edit] (1978-1982) US success

The band's second album, the Sandy Pearlman-produced Give 'Em Enough Rope,
was the first to feature Headon on all cuts. It was released in 1978
and debuted at number two on the British charts, though it failed to
enter the Top 100 in the United States. In the UK, it met with a
disappointing reaction from critics, who felt it was too over-produced
and slick in comparison to the raw excitement of the debut album.
However, it was still received well by the British public.

Give 'Em Enough Rope was the first Clash album officially
released in the U.S., and the Clash went on their first tour of the
U.S. to support it in early 1979. Their first album eventually got an
official release in the U.S. in July 1979, in a changed form, dropping
the tracks: "48 Hours", "Cheat", "Protex Blue", "Deny" and instead
including some singles released between its original 1977 release and Give 'Em Enough Rope. These included a version of Sonny Curtis's "I Fought The Law" (later released on their Cost Of LivingEP), "Clash City Rockers", "Complete Control" and "White Man in Hammersmith Palais".

The third album London Calling, a double album sold at the
price of a single album at the insistence of the band, was released in
1979 and marked the height of their commercial success. Initially, it
was greeted by their original fans in the UK with suspicion, since
double albums were associated with prog rock groups. It featured a wider array of musical styles and influences than the earlier albums, including American-style rockabilly and Jamaican reggae works that resonated with the dub and ska styles popular in Britain. The album is considered one of the best rock albums ever produced, appearing at #8 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 albums of all time." It was also named #1 on Entertainment Weekly 's "Top 25 Albums of the last 25 Years". Tracks such as "Train in Vain", "Clampdown" and "London Calling"
show up regularly on rock stations to this day; "Train in Vain" also
became the band's first American Top 40 hit, although it was initially
an uncredited extra track at the end of the original vinyl release. The
lettering font on the album cover is an homage to Elvis Presley's self-titled debut RCA LP, while the photo is of Simonon smashing his malfunctioning bass guitar in frustration at a show at the Palladium in New York, 1979, taken by renowned rock photographer Pennie Smith.
According to Simonon, who initially was reluctant to have the picture
used as the album cover, it was the only time he smashed a guitar on
stage. He still has the pieces; the bass guitar is currently on display
at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in an exhibit entitled
"Revolution Rock: The Story of the Clash." The exhibit is open from
October 28, 2006 until April 15, 2007.

In late 1980, The Clash followed the double London Calling with a triple album entitled Sandinista!, (with the catalog number FSLN1, from the Spanish initials of the Sandinista political movement, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional).
Again, the band insisted it should be released at the same price as a
single album - paying the difference out of their own royalties.

Titled after the Nicaraguan political movement, Sandinista!
was stylistically varied, and was met with a more mixed reaction by
critics and fans, some of whom felt the album was messy, unfocused and
very self-indulgent. Despite this, it still topped The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop
list of the best albums of the year. Recording every idea they had, the
band became less interested in the traditional punk stance as they
delved further in their experimentation with reggae and dub ("One More Time") and expanded into other musical styles and production techniques that included jazz ("Look Here"), hip-hop ("The Magnificent Seven"), chamber music ("Rebel Waltz"), gospel ("Hitsville UK" & "The Sound of the Sinners"), vocals by keyboard player Mickey Gallagher's baby son, and "Mensforth Hill" is track 6, "Something About England," played backwards.

"That's why it had to be a triple album," says Strummer in a interview in Westway to the World, which devotes twice as much screen time to Sandinista! as it does to London Calling.
"Even though it would have been better as just a double album...or a
single album...or maybe an EP! Who knows? The fact is that we recorded
all that music, in one spot, at one moment. In a single three-week
blast. For better or worse, Sandinista! is the document."

Although fans were confused and sales were down, they fared better
in the U.S. than in the past, mainly on the back of the previous
success of London Calling. Following the release of Sandinista!, The Clash went on their first world tour, including venues in eastern Asia and Australia. The combination of an exhaustive tour schedule and the recording of a new album saw escalating friction between band members.

Tensions and conflicts within the band lead to considerations of
disbanding, especially since drummer Topper Headon was rapidly becoming
unreliable due to heroin addiction. However, the band managed to record
more, while touring and their next album Combat Rock turned out to be the best-selling worldwide of all of their records. Featuring the singles "Rock the Casbah" and the double a-side "Should I Stay or Should I Go/Straight to Hell", it broke into the American and British top ten. "Ghetto Defendant" featured beat poet Allen Ginsberg, and "Red Angel Dragnet" referenced the film Taxi Driver.

[edit] (1982-1984) Tensions and disintegration

After Combat Rock, the Clash began to slowly disintegrate.
Topper Headon was asked to leave the band just prior to the release of
the album. The band was unable to cope with his ongoing heroin
addiction, which had a disastrous effect on both his health and
drumming. The true reason for Headon's departure was covered up by
manager Bernie Rhodes as a "political difference". The band's original
drummer, Terry Chimes, was brought back for the next few months. (For a
period, Headon sank into severe depression, only to resurface with a
solo album, then entering prison briefly for fraud, before finally
cleaning up and kicking the addiction by the end of the decade.)

The loss of Headon brought much friction, as he was an essential
part of the band and well-liked by the others. Jones and Strummer began
to feud, although it is often said that some of the friction between
the two arose because manager Bernie Rhodes disliked Jones and thought
him arrogant, and was promoting Strummer against him. The band,
although still touring arenas and opening up for The Who
in stadiums on their tour in 1982, barely spoke to or even glanced at
each other, both during the concerts and backstage. Indeed, the
original dates for the UK leg of the Combat Rock tour were
cancelled when Strummer disappeared on the eve of the gigs. The band
continued to tour but by 1983, after years of constant touring and
recording, the strain took its toll. They were growing as musicians and
individuals, but as said in interviews were still quite young - Simonon
and Jones were still only 26 and 27 respectively and Strummer was 30 -
and inexperienced to cope with such difficult and tension-plagued
situations. Simonon, a long-term friend of Jones, felt inclined to side
with Strummer because he became frustrated with Jones' musical
experimentation.

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Chimes left the band after the 1982-1983 Combat Rock
tour, convinced that the band could not continue with in-fighting and
turmoil. In 1983, after an extensive search for a new drummer, Pete
Howard was recruited and performed with the trio at several low-key US
dates and finally at the US Festival in San Bernardino, California. The Clash were one of the headliners of this festival, along with David Bowie and Van Halen.
The crowd of roughly half a million was by far the biggest of the
Clash's career. This was Jones' last appearance with The Clash.

In September 1983, prompted by Rhodes, Strummer and Simonon sacked
Jones from the band, citing his problematic behaviour and divergent
musical aspirations. (Jones went on to found Big Audio Dynamite (BAD) with Don Letts, and both Strummer and Simonon collaborated with BAD at various times.)

After a series of auditions, the band announced Nick Sheppard, formerly of the Bristol-based Cortinas, and Vince White
would be the band's new guitarists. Howard continued to be the drummer,
although there were rumours that Headon or Chimes might return to
replace him. The band played its first shows in January 1984 with a
batch of new material and launched into a self-financed tour, dubbed
the Out of Control tour.

The band toured heavily over the winter and into early summer. At a
striking miners' benefit show ("Scargill's Christmas Party") in
December 1984, it was announced that a new record would be released
early in the new year.

[edit] (1984-1986) Cut the Crap and the final demise

The recording sessions for Cut the Crap were chaotic, with manager Bernie Rhodes and Strummer working in Munich, Germany.
Most of the parts were played by studio musicians, with Sheppard and
later White flying in to come up with guitar parts. Struggling with
Rhodes for control of the band, Strummer wiped his hands of the project
and returned home.

Around this time the band went on a busking
tour. Applying strict rules that allowed them to carry only 10 pounds
and one change of underwear, the band travelled separately or in pairs
and met at public spaces in cities throughout the UK where they played
acoustic versions of their hits along with covers like "Twist and Shout" and "Stepping Stone".

After a gig in Athens, Strummer fled to Spain to clear his mind.
When he returned he effectively broke up the band. While Strummer was
gone, the first single from Cut the Crap, "This is England" was
released to mostly negative reviews. The song, much like the rest of
the album that came out later that year, had been drastically
re-engineered by Rhodes, with synths, drum machines, and football-style
chants being added to Strummer's incomplete recordings. Other songs
played on the tour remain unreleased to this day: "Jericho", "Glue
Zombie", and "In the Pouring Rain". Although Howard was an adept
drummer, virtually all of the percussion tracks were produced by drum
machines.

[edit] Post-Clash careers

[edit] Joe Strummer

In 1986, Strummer collaborated with ex-bandmate Jones on BAD's second album, No. 10 Upping St., co-producing the album and co-writing seven of its songs. Strummer acted in a few movies, notably Alex Cox's Walker, and Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (film), as well as a cameo in Aki Kaurismäki's I hired a Contract Killer, in which he sings "Burning Lights/Afro-Cuban Be-Bop". He became known in this period for his work on movie soundtracksSid and Nancy), and later for co-producing the successful Grosse Pointe Blank soundtracks with John Cusack)
and experimented with different backing bands with limited success. In
1989, he resurfaced in the music scene, releasing the first of his solo
albums. Earthquake Weather was neither a commercial nor critical success. He did however tour with a new backing band, The Latino Rockabilly War, and released the single, "Trash City". In 1991/92 Strummer joined The PoguesShane MacGowan for a series of concerts across Europe. (notably "Love Kills" for the film after their split with former frontman

Finally in the late 1990s, Strummer gathered top-flight musicians into a backing band he called The Mescaleros. On November 15 2002
Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros performed a benefit gig for the
striking Firefighters of London (FBU) at the Acton Town Hall, London
(later referred to as "The Last Night London Burned"). For the encores,
Mick Jones joined the band. They were: "Bankrobber", "White Riot" and
"London’s Burning". There is a popular myth that this was the last
concert Joe Strummer played, but in fact his final gig was at Liverpool
Academy on 22 November2002.

In December 2002, Strummer died suddenly of a congenital heart
defect at the age of 50. The Mescaleros’ album he was working on at the
time, Streetcore,
was released posthumously to critical acclaim in 2003. It was very
unfortunate for The Clash, as Jones commented in the press that after
the brief reunion on Westway to the World in 2001 the foursome were seriously considering reuniting for a tour, and that it looked likely to happen.

[edit] Mick Jones

After his expulsion from The Clash, Jones formed Big Audio Dynamite (often shortened to B.A.D.) in 1984 with film director Don Letts who directed various Clash videos and Westway to the World. The band's debut album, This is Big Audio Dynamite, was released the following year with the song "E=MC²" receiving heavy rotation in dance clubs. The next album, No. 10 Upping St.,
reunited Jones with Strummer. Jones released three more albums with Big
Audio Dynamite before reshuffling the line-up and renaming the band Big
Audio Dynamite II. The band was later renamed Big Audio in the mid-90s.
Jones featured on the two studio albums by The Libertines as producer and also produced the debut Babyshambles album. Jones is currently touring and recording with his new band, Carbon/Silicon.

[edit] Paul Simonon

Following the break-up of The Clash, Simonon formed a group called Havana 3am,
which recorded only one album in Japan and quickly folded. Then Simonon
returned to his roots as a visual artist, mounting several art-gallery
shows and contributing the cover for Jones' third BAD album, Tighten Up Vol. 88.
Simonon's reluctance to play music again has largely been cited as the
reason why The Clash were one of the few 1970s British punk bands that
did not reform to cash in on the punk-nostalgia craze of the late
1990s. Bruce Springsteen reportedly offered to stand in for Simonon for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
but the performance never materialized. It is widely speculated that
Simonon has not played the bass in more than a decade and he was quoted
in Westway to the World as saying that The Clash are over and that "suits him fine". He is currently collaborating with Damon Albarn, of Blur and virtual band Gorillaz, Simon Tong of The Verve, and Tony Allen, main founder of the afrobeat and drummer of Fela Kuti to form The Good, the Bad and the Queen. Their first gig took place on the 26 October 2006 at the Roundhouse.

[edit] Topper Headon

Headon's contribution to The Clash was by no means limited to his
drumming for the band; he composed and performed the music for "Ivan
Meets G.I. Joe" (which he also sang) and "Rock The Casbah"
almost entirely by himself, the latter becoming the band's biggest hit
in the U.S. when it reached #8 on the Billboard charts in 1982. By this
time, however, Headon had been dismissed by the rest of the band due to
the heroin addiction which has dogged him for most of his adult life.
His addiction stood in the way of any musical alliances he tried to
form, and eventually landed him in jail for supplying a user who later
overdosed and died. Except for forming a short-lived R&B band (in 1986 he recorded a LP called Waking Up as well as a 12" E.P. titled Drumming Man), Headon disappeared from the music business until the filming of Letts' retrospective documentary about The Clash, Westway to The World,
where he sincerely apologised for his addiction. Headon also attended a
subsequent presentation to Strummer, Jones, Simonon, and Headon of a
Lifetime Achievement British Music Award. After many years of
unsuccessfully trying different forms of rehabilitation, he has now
apparently kicked his habit and is performing live again. It was after
one of his live performances that he heard the news of Strummer's
death, in 2002.

[edit] Other members

Terry Chimes

Chimes played with various other bands between and after his stints with the Clash. He was Black Sabbath's drummer for a couple of years in the mid-1980s. He eventually retired from the music industry to become a chiropractor. Since 1994, he has had his own practice in London's South Woodford neighborhood.

Pete Howard

Howard was in the Fiction Records band Eat, before forming Vent 414 with Miles Hunt in 1996. He joined Queen Adreena in 2002.

Keith Levene

After he left the Clash and shortly after the Sex Pistols disintegrated, Levene co-founded Public Image Ltd (PiL) with John Lydon
(a.k.a. Johnny Rotten). His guitar work was much imitated by several
punk rockers and others, including The Edge of U2. On later PiL
recordings, Levene would often forgo his guitar for synthesizer. He
left PiL acrimoniously in 1983 following a fall-out with Lydon.

Nick Sheppard

From 1986 to 1989 he collaborated with Gareth Sager (formerly of The Pop Group and Rip Rig & Panic) in Head, but their three albums made little impact. Sheppard next worked with Koozie Johns
in Shot, which signed with I.R.S. Records in 1991, with Copeland as
manager; however the band's recordings were never released. Sheppard
moved to Australia in 1993, and played in Heavy Smoker and the New
Egyptian Kings. In July 2002, it was suggested Sheppard would be guest
guitarist on a Japanese tour with Johns' new band, Sinnerstar. The tour
was cancelled.

[edit] Discography

Main article: The Clash discography

Studio albums

1. The Clash - (April 8, 1977) #12 UK, #126 U.S.^{[3] [4]}
2. Give 'Em Enough Rope - (November 10, 1978) #2 UK, #128 U.S.
3. London Calling (2LP) - (December 14, 1979) #9 UK, #27 U.S.
4. Sandinista! (3LP) - (December 12, 1980) #19 UK, #24 U.S.
5. Combat Rock - (May 14, 1982) #2 UK, #7 U.S.
6. Cut the Crap - (November 4, 1985) #16 UK, #88 U.S.

[edit] Politics

Like many early punk bands, The Clash protested against monarchy and aristocracy. However, unlike many early punk bands, The Clash rejected the overall sentiment of nihilism, which led them to be criticized by influential punk bands such as CrassAngelic Upstarts.
Instead, they found solidarity with a number of contemporary liberation
movements. Their politics were expressed explicitly in their lyrics, in
early recordings such as "White Riot," which encouraged disaffected
white youths to become politically active like their black
counterparts, "Career Opportunities,"
which expressed discontent about the alienation of low-paid, production
line style employment and the lack of alternatives, and "London's
Burning," about political complacency. and

In 1978 at a Rock Against Racism show organized by the Anti-Nazi League, Strummer wore a controversial t-shirt bearing the words "Brigate-Rosse" with the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof) insignia in the middle. He later said in an interview that he wore the shirt not to support the left-wing terrorist factions in GermanyItaly, but to bring attention to their existence. In the song "Tommy Gun" his stance was ambiguous. Caroline Coon
stood up for what The Clash were doing during this period: "Those
tough, militaristic songs were what we needed as we went into
Thatcherism". (Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash, p. 190) and

The group also supported other musicians' charity concerts, most notably at the December 1979 Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, presented by Paul McCartney. The benefit album released from the concerts features one song by The Clash, "Armagideon Time."

The Clash offered some support to the Sandinista and other Marxist movements in Latin America (hence the title of their 1980 album, Sandinista!). They were also involved directly with the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism.

By the time of the December 1979 album London Calling,
the Clash were trying to maintain punk energy while developing
musically. They were especially wary of their own emerging stardom:
they always welcomed fans backstage after shows and showed
open-mindedness, genuine interest and compassion in their relationships
with them.

The title of London Calling evokes American radio newsman Edward R. Murrow's catchphrase during World War II,
and the title song announces that "...war is declared and battle come
down..." It warns against expecting them to be saviours — "... now
don't look to us / Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust..." — draws a bleak picture of the times — "The ice age is coming, the sun's
zooming in / Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin" — but
calls on their listeners to come out of their drugged stupor and take
up the fight without constantly looking to London, or to The Clash
themselves, for cues — "Forget it, brother, we can go it alone... Quit
holding out and draw another breath... I don't want to shout / But
while we were talking I saw you nodding out..." — finally asking,
"After all this, won't you give me a smile?"

The Clash are generally credited with pioneering the advocacy of
radical politics in punk rock, and were known as the "Thinking Man's
Yobs" by many simply for voicing a political slant other than
anarchism. They were never driven entirely by money;
even at their peak, tickets to shows and souvenirs were reasonably
priced. The group insisted that CBS sell their double and triple album
sets London Calling and Sandinista! for the price of a
single album each (then £5), succeeding with the former and
compromising with the latter by agreeing to sell it for £5.99 and
forfeit all their royalties on its first 200,000 sales. These "VFM" (Value For Money) principles meant that they were constantly in debt to CBS, and only started to break even around 1982.

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