Ooh Ooh Ooh, Complete CLASH POLL (that's a laugh) - ILX Artist Poll #41 (?) - Voting Ends July 9th at Midnight (EST)

"White Man" and "Complete Control" are so powerful, I have to say Tipsy OTM on the US/UK versions.

"White Man" and "Complete Control" are so powerful

The sound of those songs. Even after 35 years of Sonic Youth, Swans, NIN, Atari Teenage Riot, Wolf Eyes, whatever, they're so ferocious and enveloping. They were by far the noisiest punk band -- at least in the studio -- but also the one that best understood dynamics and sonic space.

Like the break on "Complete Control" -- "I don't trust you, why should you trust me?" -- how everything falls out and you get the dubby echo, and then comes roaring back like a tank division.

I would have loved to have seen them live, but I still prefer their studio recordings over live recordings because of that. xpost

Looking at the debut cover art in blue instead of green is turning my world upside down right now.

objectively, the UK version probably does flow better, but the US version's what i heard first and i can't imagine the album not beginning with 'clash city rockers,' and not including 'complete control' and 'white man.' that said, i'd happily exchange 'jail guitar doors' for '48 hours.'

When they rereleased the UK and the US versions They were both green, but I think "The Clash" was on opposite sides.

The U.S. version of the debut is their best comp.

xp yeah UK version = "the clash" text at the bottom, US = text at top.

London's Burning is on both versions. those four US songs stand out too much, the UK version makes more sense.

They were by far the noisiest punk band

You must have some narrow parameters of what is a punk band?

I got the US version first cos that's what they reissued on CD even in the UK, tbh I agree with both sides of this argument, the UK version is better sequenced but the US version has more good songs, Complete Control is one of the best songs ever, etc.

Hated that Chris Salewicz biog of Strummer; like most bad biographers he tries to second guess his subject's motivations and sometimes lapses into thinly disguised envy

You must have some narrow parameters of what is a punk band?

Of that era, first-wave punk or whatever you want to call it, I don't know anyone whose records made such a racket.

It's hard to really measure what makes a band "Noisy" but try Small Wonder or Raw records for a start

I'd probably even think the Damned were noisier at this time. I'm not knocking the Clash at all, I am a fan and all, just never really thought of them as noisy before, I guess it might be a new perspective on them even?!

I got the US version first cos that's what they reissued on CD even in the UK,

both versions got remastered and reissued in all territories at the same time

though as per posts upthread you had to know a) this fact and b) the differences to know what you were getting

I'm talking about the first CD issues, not the late 90s ones when they did do both (unless you mean they did both in the late 80s as well? I am not claiming to be an authority on the subject)

ha yeah, i had just gotten into the clash and gotten the first album like a year before they issued both the US and UK versions in remastered form -- like the obsessive fool i was i ended up rebuying both.

ah I dunno about the late 80s

In re noise, the Damned and the various small-label punks were all noisy in (what seems retrospectively) very conventional ways. Basically just a lot of fuzztone and shouting. Which the Clash had too, but they valued noise as a disruptive aesthetic that I don't think anyone else of that vintage really got. I don't know how they got the sounds they got on the first album and subsequent singles, but those recordings explode in a way that nothing else from that era does. Everything else to me sounds sort of lo-fi and tinny by comparison, or murky like the Pistols. I love lots of that stuff, but the Clash just crackle like no one else. I think they were always very aware of sound as a vehicle. They got more sophisticated about it as they went, but they started out thinking about it a lot.

OK, actually X-Ray Spex was arguably as noisy, between Poly and the saxophone. Probably why they're my other favorite band of that time.

discogs.com says the us version was released on cd for the first time in 1990, the uk version in 91.

tipsy otm -- maybe 'noisy' isn't the right word, but the clash just used sound in such an in-your-face and confrontational way, more like public enemy than the damned. those early singles have so much going on in them, they're kind of dizzying. and there's something so harsh and cutting about the guitar sound -- 'clash city rockers' might have the same riff as 'i can't explain,' but it just sounds so much meaner and more shocking.

The story about Mick bashing in the amplifier in the studio to get the right crackle might be mythology, but it's what those songs sound like. Like they wanted more, they wanted a riot on the stereo.

discogs.com says the us version was released on cd for the first time in 1990, the uk version in 91.

It does say that, but it also lists the version I've got at the bottom with no year on it (cos there is no year on the CD or booklet I guess) and it's definitely an 80s CD. I found some forum post that seems to suggest it came out in '88 or '89.

why exactly is From Here to Eternity undervalued -- cuz my generation was unfortunate enough to get a corporation-approved live album instead of buying a bootleg (before the Internet?). Only a couple of the Terry Chimes numbers sound canned; otherwise the versions of "Complete Control," "London's Burning," "White Man...," and "What's My Name" are as ferocious -- Strummer's practically biting down on the mic -- as the studio versions.

btw before he died Strummer was pushing for Sony to let him do a sequel/companion to FHTH, released only on cassette, of his favourite picks from audience boots ppl had given him over the years

"Train in Vain" is one of the best singles ever, to my thinking. I don't even know what kind of music it is; it has sort of disco drums, I guess, and it's bubblegum, but what kind of bubblegum? The Clash had some kind of deep musicality that I've just never really figured out.

The pacing of the song with the way the lyrics appear is so tight, so dynamic.

I don't think they ever had time to figure out their musicality either. A lot of their music is hard to say what it is beyond the first two albums, because they were absorbing so much and spitting it back out so quickly.

"Train in Vain" has a rhythm that a band could only get to after they'd learned reggae well enough to not have to think about it anymore, and then layered Sun Records rockabilly over the top, along with disco guitar that they maybe picked up from Blondie? Who knows.

http://thisiheard.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-clash-train-in-vain-1979.html

I believe the US CD version came out first, to alacrity over here, and a vague promise was made by CBS/Sony that they would do the right thing at some point..

My kids got into a Jam vs Clash argument, which seemed like a fair fight to me. I looked to see if ILM had actually done this one, but was disappointed with the level of debate on the thread. it's official The Jam are 10 times better than The Clash

tipsy otm -- maybe 'noisy' isn't the right word, but the clash just used sound in such an in-your-face and confrontational way, more like public enemy than the damned. those early singles have so much going on in them, they're kind of dizzying.

Yeah one thing that always struck me about Clash records was how weirdly the songs were sometimes mixed, things like backing vocals being unexpectedly loud or little guitar parts jumping out of the mix. It's obviously prominent on Sandinista! but it was right there from the beginning I think.

Tipsy otm about the musicality too - I mean what genre is 'London Calling' as a song? It's got a reggae-ish arrangement but the rhythm is very much rock.

All over London Calling too - see eg the number of hooks that burst out of Rudie Can't Fail

Guy in Tim Hortons (50-ish, maybe a bit younger) wearing a London Calling T-shirt this morning.

Not to take anything away from the Clash--and I don't expect agreement on their poll thread--but I think there were noisier and wilder punk bands on things like the Streets compilation. I understand what Tipsy means by noisy-in-a-conventional-way, but for me, Slaughter & the Dogs' "Cranked Up Really High" is a purer distillation of that moment. The Sex Pistols, too, on "Anarchy" and "Holidays in the Sun." That doesn't make them inherently better or worse. Didn't critics--maybe because of their adeptness with reggae--tend to write about the Clash as being more musicianly than other punk bands at the time?

Yeah, was it Lester Bangs who said something early on about wanting them to slow down a little and explore their grooves? But the thing there is, they were all obviously decent players but (maybe Topper aside) they didn't start with serious chops the way that, e.g., the Police did. You can hear them learning things as they go. Paul says he really didn't know how to play his instrument until London Calling.

Paul doesn't play his instrument on the first album

(or lots of Sandinista, but he could by then)

Townshend's brief stint as their drummer didn't pan out.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lg6rbtIqvq1qb6i1fo1_1280.jpg

xpost

That's an exaggeration, isn't it? I know Mick wrote the parts early on and I know Paul didn't play on "Magnificent Seven," but I think it's him on most of the recordings.

He didn't play on "Magnificent"!?

They had some of Ian Dury's guys in aiui, who then claimed to have written it. Certainly it's very slick.

the "bit fucking long, innit?" at 4:59 makes me lol

Norman Watt-Roy (bass player): "There was Topper, me, Micky (Gallagher) and Mick (...) Jonesy says 'We need something really funky 'cos Joe says he wants to do a rap.' So we started that riff and looped it, and Joe wrote the words there and then. Totally spontaneous, a couple of hours and it was in the can."

C. Sandanista, wasn't the band in and out of the studio at all hours in all sorts of groupings and pairings? It's like the making of Exile on Main Street. But I think Paul meant that he couldn't play his instrument well. My fave Clash story may be the tale of Joe writing in the chalkboard of the studio two columns, one that said "musicians" and other that said "not musicians" (or something like that). Mick and Topper were under the first column, Paul and Joe under the second.

Was always struck by how much more hi-fi "I Fought The Law" is compared to anything else in that early salvo of recording.

I think it was the first thing they recorded with Bill Price (along with the rest of the Cost of Living EP).

I don't think they ever had time to figure out their musicality either. A lot of their music is hard to say what it is beyond the first two albums, because they were absorbing so much and spitting it back out so quickly.

this is very well said, and kind of sums up what i love about the clash -- there's no other band like them, and not because of the 'last gang in town' mythology stuff, but because no one else SOUNDS like them.

Despite nearly two decades of the Clash being my default answer to "what's your favourite band," I had never actually listened to the UK debut in sequence until this poll came up. Its impossible for me to assess it on its own terms, I find; I miss "I Fought The Law," "White Man In Hammersmith Palais," etc too much and the four songs that were cut are no substitute (even "1977" > "Deny," "Cheat," etc). Never realized that the "White Riot" that's on here is a different version than what made the US cut, though again I prefer the latter.

Will say that, as far as opening tracks go, "Janie Jones" > "Clash City Rockers," though I'm so used to hearing JJ follow "I Fought the Law" that even that feels weird.

Paul literally couldn't play at all when he joined the band, Mick put coloured stickers on the frets as cues for him to remember lines when they started, and Mick played the bass on the first album

on Sandinista!, Paul was off making The Fabulous Stains for a large part of the sessions - I think Mick and Topper both play some bass in addition to Watt-Roy (and eventually Paul), and Micky Gallagher stuck around for most of the recording and some touring.