Uh_huh_him
Well-known member
- Sep 28, 2011
- 14,245
Agreed.
I was furious at Sandinista! when it came out.
But is now my favourite Clash album.
[Music] British v American Punk
- Thread starter SeagullsoverLondon
- Start date
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I was furious at Sandinista! when it came out.
But is now my favourite Clash album.
Took me a while to like it, I still skip some tracks though.
Seagull58
In the Algarve
This is total nonsense wrt the Clash.
Uh_huh_him
Well-known member
- Sep 28, 2011
- 14,245
I know what you mean.
Side 6 rarely got played back in the day, but i let it play all the way through on Spotify now.
Crispy Ambulance
Well-known member
Another vote for British although cap doffed to The Ramones, who significantly influenced a number of UK bands including The Undertones (best gig I’ve ever been to!).
Punk’s ‘explosion’ in 1977 -(yeah, I know it started the year before)- had a profound effect on me in that IT (the music, clothes, Do It Yourself mantra, etc) became (Albion aside) everything I was interested in, to the extent that studying at school became non-existent. I’d eagerly be first in the queue at the newsagents every Thursday (?) to buy that week’s NME which I’d then take to school and go through with Steve Johnson who, although the same age, was allowed to go to gigs in London, whereas my church going parents wouldn’t dream of letting me go, least of all funding it. I therefore had to make do with buying the records and listening to Steve’s experiences of whichever gig he’d been to the previous night. He was the first kid who came to school with dyed green hair! I tried to emulate him using mum’s green food dye but went out in the rain and it trickled pathetically down my face!
As far as I know, Steve was the only kid at our school who got twatted for saying he hated 4 eyed, ginger haired mods (by, funnily enough, a 4 eyed, ginger haired mod!).
For me, The Clash were the best band to come out of it in that they (mostly successfully) covered many different genres and also became an important influence for bands that followed. There was clearly a battle going on behind the scenes between Malcom Maclaren and Bernie Rhodes as to which of their protégés were first, best, etc and both were highly pissed off that New Rose beat them to it as the first ‘punk’ single.
I’d recommend Jon Savage’s excellent England’s Dreaming as a great guide and first hand account as to understanding how the whole scene, with its roots in the US, came about.
Punk’s ‘explosion’ in 1977 -(yeah, I know it started the year before)- had a profound effect on me in that IT (the music, clothes, Do It Yourself mantra, etc) became (Albion aside) everything I was interested in, to the extent that studying at school became non-existent. I’d eagerly be first in the queue at the newsagents every Thursday (?) to buy that week’s NME which I’d then take to school and go through with Steve Johnson who, although the same age, was allowed to go to gigs in London, whereas my church going parents wouldn’t dream of letting me go, least of all funding it. I therefore had to make do with buying the records and listening to Steve’s experiences of whichever gig he’d been to the previous night. He was the first kid who came to school with dyed green hair! I tried to emulate him using mum’s green food dye but went out in the rain and it trickled pathetically down my face!
As far as I know, Steve was the only kid at our school who got twatted for saying he hated 4 eyed, ginger haired mods (by, funnily enough, a 4 eyed, ginger haired mod!).
For me, The Clash were the best band to come out of it in that they (mostly successfully) covered many different genres and also became an important influence for bands that followed. There was clearly a battle going on behind the scenes between Malcom Maclaren and Bernie Rhodes as to which of their protégés were first, best, etc and both were highly pissed off that New Rose beat them to it as the first ‘punk’ single.
I’d recommend Jon Savage’s excellent England’s Dreaming as a great guide and first hand account as to understanding how the whole scene, with its roots in the US, came about.
Seagull58
In the Algarve
I first heard Attila on John Peel, 77 or 78.
- Jul 10, 2003
- 29,229
Funnily enough, I saw both of them in the early 70's as a result of my older sister taking me. I must have done my 'punk' thing back then, because by 1976/77 I was listening to the Mahavishnu, Weather Report, Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea etc (always out of step with fashion
).I always had a soft spot for Pub Rock with the Feelgoods, Kilburn and the highroads, Nick Lowe etc so when punk finished and Ian Drury, Elvis Costello, Police etc and Ska came through I was back listening to (and watching) British acts
Yours,
Never a Punk, Wz
- Oct 12, 2022
- 3,190
I have not (and in true punk spirit am not going to) read the rest of this thread, but just wanted to put on record that the Clash sound nothing like a punk band should sound, and that the Minutemen were the glorious pinnacle of American Punk.
I gave up on side 3, and never went back.
Uh_huh_him
Well-known member
- Sep 28, 2011
- 14,245
Indeed.
I agree there are some experimental fillers on the album.
But a cut down Sandinista would have made a better double album than London Calling, IMO.
It would definitely have been a "better" album if they'd lost a couple of sides, but it'd be much less interesting/funny to talk about.
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 74,150
Pretty sure I read something somewhere that said The Clash were doing double and triple albums because they wanted to extricate themselves from their CBS contract asap and that for purposes of fulfilling a contract of n albums, a double album counted as two albums and a triple album counted as three albums
I got heavily into bands like Crass, conflict, Flux of pink Indians and Brightons own poison girls by that stage , as far as I was concerned The clash had bugged off to the USA to become rock stars.
Uh_huh_him
Well-known member
- Sep 28, 2011
- 14,245
I get that.
My guess is that you may be a few years older than me and were involved at the beginning of Punk.
I was 8 at the time and during my teens, i was more interested in the bands inspired by punk, than punk itself.
The clash's output didn't feel like selling out to me, as I wasn't really there at the beginning.
But New Order's evolution into a dance music, felt like the greatest betrayal of Ian Curtis's legacy.
Took me a long time to come around.
59, my sister was good friends with members of Johnny moped and the drummer from the uk subs so I was exposed to punk from about 13/14 in quite a big way.
happypig
Staring at the rude boys
He did you a favour there.
I never used earplugs and, after several hundred gigs between 78-90 my ears are properly f**ked.
the kids singing for example
I absolutely love the Timon Dogg tracks. There was some comment yesterday, may have been on this thread, about how Strummer stitched up the 101ers by leaving for Rhodes' siren call. Dogg was part of the 101ers set up, so the falling out can't have been a big deal.
'Should'?
The first accessible punk was New Rose, released late 76. Then White Riot and other stuff. I bought pretty much every punk single for a year.
Looking back, it is hard to distinguish what makes them 'punk' now. The first Clash and Damned LPs ticked a certain box and are, in my view, originals. By contrast NMTB, enjoyable as it is thanks to Steve Jones, sounds like straightforward rock to my ears these days. The Banshees were probably the most unique and distinctive of the bands, especially when John and Kenny were in the line up. The guitar sound was so brilliant and original that John McGeoch pretty much pinched it when he became the Banshees' guitarist. But they are very much a thing of their own that transcended punk.
I would now class 'classical' punk, which means things like: outside view (Eater) emergency (999), right to work (Chelsea), incendiary device (Johnny Moped) development corporation (The Now) etc as the one aspect of punk that does not fare well over the years.