The Clash: Classic or Dud

but listening to an entire album by them is fucking tiring.

-- Edward III

london calling??

especially london calling. by side 3 it's just fatiguing. woo hoo, stick around for "the card cheat"! the earnestness gets wearying, and frankly it's a mystery how they can make a 3:30 song feel like it's dragging on forever.

it's weird cause I'm not a clash hater, it's just that I can only take them in small doses.

its a mystery to me how you can feel like that (about LC)! the first half is a lot stronger, definitely (like, insanely, possibly unprecedentedly strong) but the 2nd half is still pretty great- its always been one of my favorite albums, & definitely my favorite clash album: there isn't the same degree of sameness as the first two or the schizophrenia of sandanista; maybe that's what you mean by 'earnestness' - they were definitely going for a beatles-like masterwork with this one, lots of mood & stylistic variance centered around seriously catchy songs.

so as far as the title track is conerned: are most of the haters here old-school punk fans who think LC was hypocritical, in that sense?

The Clash are the greatest band of all time

"Give 'em Enough Rope" tho, apart from Safe European Home, is a load shit.

Wrong.

The Clash are the greatest band of all time

-- admrl

quite possibly yeah

they were definitely going for a beatles-like masterwork with this one

fool's gold

as in impossible to replicate so dont try or as in not worth replicating because it sucks in the first place? i disagree 100% either way

that's cuz you haven't listened to enough johnny moped

I can imagine the clash sitting around thinking "man, let's go for the masterwork with this one" and then you sitting around listening to london calling thinking "man, what a masterwork this is" and that's a dynamic I can't really get wrapped up in but I'm glad you all are happy together

ive never listened to johnny moped (?!?) but will do

but in other words, youre mad because the clash mightve consciously decided to make a great album qua album? doesnt that seem kinda silly?

mad? no, just not that interested in an idea of greatness that never struck me as all that great in the first place. and it's not some intellectual exercise for me - the things that excite you about london calling seem to be the same qualities that instinctively make me reach for the eject button.

their girlfriends were making much more interesting music than they were at this point. one "newtown" is worth ten of "train in vain".

thing is im 100% a singles guy: i think whats remarkable about LC is that practically ever song is killer. THATS what it excites me about it - the fact that they all manage to somehow congeal while representing an astonishing kind of variety makes it all the more incredible to me. the accessibility of the album is ridiculous, i can play it for almost literally anyone & get a positive response. although its possible i guilt them into it w/ my enthusiasm.

xp id like to know more about that too! (btw i love 'train in vain', seems to get a bad rap as filler)

http://commercialzone.blogspot.com/2008/07/slits-cut-1979.html

Granted, some tracks (This is Radio Clash, The Magnificent 7) were really truly terrible.

'Combat Rock' hasn't aged well

CHALLENGING OPINIONS

Give 'em Enough Rope is just weak, man. Produced by someone out of Blue Oyster Cult for a start, and it also features 'Stay Free' - perhaps the most embarrasing song they ever recorded.

I can imagine the clash sitting around thinking "man, let's go for the masterwork with this one"

Yeah, that'd be why their producer threw chairs at them while they were recording. I believe George Martin employed the EXACT SAME TECHNIQUE on Sgt. Pepper.

Produced by someone out of Blue Oyster Cult for a start,

No, produced by BOC's producer, Sandy Pearlman. Do you hate the production, or just the association with (gasp!) BOC?

No, produced by BOC's producer, Sandy Pearlman. Do you hate the production, or just the association with (gasp!) BOC?

A bit of both to be honest. I dont hate BOC, just think it was a misjudged choice of producer, but maybe the same was thought about Guy Stevens producing London Calling. I can't say all of the production's to blame, as rickity as it is, it just sounds like a group who can't be bothered for the most part. Good album cover though.

Didn't one of BOC go out with Patti Smith?

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I wished they had attempted a dub crossover thing much sooner, rather than merely hinting at it on the first LP then pussying out.

I was meant to be seeing Johnny Moped next weekend but the fucker cancelled.

that sucks, but I'm in the US so my chances of seeing him here are slim to nil.

I was just blasting V.D. Boiler when I was doing the washing up the other night.

"Produced by someone out of Blue Oyster Cult for a start,"

Where I come from this is definitely a good thing.

Yes, BOC's guitarist/keyboardist/weirdo Allen Lanier dated Patti Smith. She wrote a lot of lyrics on some early BOC albums.

I can imagine the clash sitting around thinking "man, let's go for the masterwork with this one" and then you sitting around listening to london calling thinking "man, what a masterwork this is" and that's a dynamic I can't really get wrapped up in but I'm glad you all are happy together

I don't LOVE the Clash or London Calling, and the record's relentlessly promoted "greatness" does tend to keep me at arm's length -- but it's nonetheless very hard to deny. And I don't think it helps anything to throw Johnny Moped or Cycledelic up against the Clash/LC. Different bands, different visions of "punk". Both great, but neither eclipses the other.

This thread has encouraged me to check out Johnny Moped, thanks ILM.

Incidentally, about 4 days before this thread was revived, I had a dream that I was watching a film of The Clash live, some kind of I dunno...live film of them or documentary or something. I woke up really puzzled about that.

I can imagine the clash sitting around thinking "man, let's go for the masterwork with this one" and then you sitting around listening to london calling thinking "man, what a masterwork this is" and that's a dynamic I can't really get wrapped up in but I'm glad you all are happy together

This is the weirdest thing I've ever read on this site.

Yeah I had to read that one a few times, but I'm okay with it.

30 years ago yesterday I saw the Clash on their 2nd US tour at the University of Maryland Richie Colisseum. Awesome show.

I'm 100% envious. Love those guys, together, separately...love em. I always enjoyed that quote of Joe's about Mick: "He wouldn't show up, and when he did it was like Elizabeth Taylor in a filthy mood." Always made me LOL. Someone said WAY upthread about how funny they were...it's true, everyone thinks of them as boring bolshy swots, or Rik from the Young Ones.

What do you remember of the show? Feel free to wax lyrical...living vicariously etc

two weeks from now is the anniversary of my seeing them in '82! I was very young and impressionable. a reggae band called the Mighty Invaders opened. They played "The Prisoner". We had to drive a couple of hours to get there. The guy I got a ride with had a Bush Tetras poster on his wall.

x-post. I had missed their 1978 DC debut as high schooler at mom and Dad's me could not get a car and it was a snowy night and the show was in a kinda bad neighborhood, blah blah blah. Bo Diddley opened for them on that tour. So in September 1979 when then 18 year-old me was just starting at the U of Md outside DC and the Clash were coming (with Screaming Jay Hawkins opening). I was there. Early. I went there with friends and met others who would become my best buds to this day. The sound was horrible in that ancient 1,800 seat (?)concrete gym, but the Clash had so much energy and charisma. Joe had various stickers on his guitar. We stood up front jammed in with many on the floor. It was hot and sweaty there but that did not matter.

The show so impressed us that come December (I think) when the Clash returned for a US tour that did not include DC, we did a roadtrip to Philly to see them. There they played some of the soon to be or just released London Calling album, which aggravated some punkers there. We stuck around afterwards and met the band and Ian Dury who was touring with them. They did not want all the food spread that was there for them and told us to take some of it with us for our ride back to DC. We did (plus a bottle of rum--that we barely touched but treasured as "the Clash rum.").

That is really cool. Great story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EUVImnHr48

I've seen tons of gigs since then, I've read Simon Reynolds and others badmouth and critique the Clash for various reasons, but those 2 gigs, especially that first one I saw, still retain a mystical memorable quality to me. I remember us going back to a dorm and just sitting there on the floor drained but ecstatic. Also, context-wise, the Clash were far from being a band that would get played on the radio then.

OTM. Hard to overstate the impact of the early singles and the first album, which still sound shockingly raw to me, even when stacked up against the big names of the first wave of UK punk.

I'm about three feet away from being immortalized on the back cover of London Calling--that pic of them at the Agora in Atlanta. We were trying but couldn't get any closer to the stage. I've always wondered if that pic was cropped and I made the original photo. The band was like a runaway freight train. I'll always rank seeing them as a highlight.

September '79 is when I saw them, too -- St. Paul (MN) Civic Center, with David Johansen and The Undertones. 1,000 people (probably every punk and new waver in the Twin Cities at the time) in a 16,000 seat hockey arena made the sound simultaneously tinny and cavernous. I wish I had pushed up closer to the stage. I can really only remember "Bored With the USA" and "White Riot." Yeah, they were doing quite a few unfamiliar-to-me "London Calling" songs on that tour. Quite honestly I thought Johansen (doing basically the set that's on the "Live It Up" album) came across much better.

wow. curmudgeon and ellagru, Dan...thanks for sharing! I love hearing about that stuff. And curmudgeon, your story probably highlights one of the big reasons that Clash are so so C in my book: I never got to see them, or even Joe ever, but the stories I heard, and the stories I read from people about the way they were with their fans, those reams and reams of stories about them giving food to kids, letting them crash, giving them rides, hanging out and talking to them...that's what keeps them from being crusty punk cliches for me. Aside from the music of course. Because there's such a huge oral history that goes with those guys, because SO many people got close to them in those early years, and those people help them still feel, I dunno...real? Sorry. Waxing lyrical too much.

worst "2001 ilx" way to start off a thread ever

Only discovered "Bankrobber" last year but MY GOD, what a song, a parallel-universe "I Fought The Law".

Classic, easy. What I find most funny about this band is how my opinion has pretty much flip-flopped on the various sides of their work since I first heard 'em. When I got really into the Clash at age 14, I could only be bothered with the first three albums and couldn't stand Sandinista in the least. Now I tend to shy away from the more classic "punk" stuff (though its good at times) and really like the dubbier experiments. Listening to "Mustapha Dance" right now and loving it.

And as I understand it, "Sandinista!" was written almost entirely in the studio, as the members filtered in and out between NYC distractions. Talk about a band at the peak of its powers, spilling over with ideas. Rarely get credit for being early (white, British) hip-hop adopters, too.

revisiting the first album...this will sound mega-goofball of me but it gives me goosebumps. It's just so 'turn everything up, go for broke'. Love it.

ugh at all the 'strummer can't sing' comments on this thread.

i mean give me 20 hours of joe barking the phone book over two seconds of jeff fuckin' buckley.

joe would have loved jeff tho

classic! (ecxept cut the crap obv)

It's better than its rep.