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

it faffs a bit towards the end, saved only by the kiddie version of "Career Opportunities."

it is "triple album" honed to a cliche. it's too long and there's a bunch of stuff on there that doesn't need to be, especially the kiddie career opportunities. i wouldn't follow the line that they should've cut it down to a single album because the material suits a record that takes its time, but it would've been a significantly better double album, and as a back to back pair with london calling, such different records, it would have been really remarkable.

reviewing it for my college newspaper a long time ago as part of a "classics" series, I said the kiddie version was the band's utopian dream fulfilled: leftism absorbed by children demonstrating their solidarity by singing a Clash song.

I don't think it needs honing. I'm less and less a fan of perfect albums. After their biggest selling album, they needed to sprawl. Let it sprawl.

^^^ otm -- it's my favorite of theirs by far

"Mensforth Hill" may make my ballot.

I'm curious to see which Sandinista tracks will place, aside from the obvious ones. "Sound of the Sinners," "Lose This Skin," "Hitsville UK" and "Charlie Don't Surf" are my faves from that record.

Oh, and I suppose when we are voting we should specify which version of "Career Opportunities" we're voting for.

"Up in Heaven."

"Midnight Log"

Managed 2 from CTC, one other just failed to make the cut.

Are there any interviews out there (during or post-Clash) that get into their songwriting process? I've always assumed the songs Mick sings are full-on Mick songs, but less clear about the rest. I know in general Joe was more the lyrics guy and Mick more the music guy, but from Joe's solo work you can pretty much tell which musical influences he brought to the band.

it wasn't that clear-cut, as you'd imagine, and for ex Joe specifically wrote Lost In The Supermarket for Mick to sing. when they wrote same-room together it would often be Mick at guitar or piano and Joe sitting at a typewriter.

Rock The Casbah was written and recorded in a couple of hours - Joe came to the studio early to find Topper inspired, already there and racing back and forth playing (and possibly engineering?) all the parts himself; iirc the vocal and a bit of barrel-house piano is the only thing Joe contributed per his telling of the story.

Are there any actually good books on The Clash? Trying to read Marcus Gray's Last Gang in Town but its a sloggy info dump.

xps reading the Sandinista backstory, releasing it cut-price, the legend about them tricking the record company into letting them press up a triple - if you were already a fan of the band, you'd absolutely die for them after that. They could've got away with just releasing an album, but they give you an encyclopaedia.

Seems like their more overt followers learned the lesson well btw, the Manics delivering The Holy Bible, the Libertines issuing all those outtakes.

yeah i tried to read the marcus gray book years ago but got frustrated by his pedantic style and wound up skipping through most of it. if i recall he didn't even seem particularly enthusiastic about their music. i have the chris salewicz bio of joe, but haven't cracked it yet.

Voted.
30 songs, 1 album.
I don't think I know any live tracks. I'd have voted for my Top 5 lolposts on ILM by Alex in NYC about ver Clash if that had been on offer though. ;-)

Trying to read Marcus Gray's Last Gang in Town but its a sloggy info dump.

You need "Return of the ...", a lot of the sloggy has been removed.

Highly recommend 'A Riot of our Own'

This is the perfect opportunity for me to promote my unpopular love of Combat Rock and (especially) all the great B-sides from that record -- Cool Confusion, First Night Back in London, etc.

While we're on it, I hope everyone has bought that DVD with the videos and that CRAZY b/w super 8 gangster film "Hell W10" that someone discovered in a car boot sale.

i forgot about Hell W10. Man.

I think that was the last Clash related thing that Mick was involved in.

Can't believe there's cold water on Rock The Casbah upthread. It's an all-time monster.

from Sandinista: Junco Partner and Kingston Advice are the biggest sleepers for me.

The Clash were my road into reggae, and especially dub. At this point, I like the best at their most bluntly punk or most elaborately electronic. Black Market Clash has ended up my favorite, one side of each. Wish they left Bankrobber on SBMC, but I love all the rambling b-sides.

Tonight's listening brought back a really shitty moment in my life that felt like it had been transformed into some kind of triumph when I got home at 1am, threw open the windows and blasted and danced to Rock The Casbah loud. Eternal <3 to these guys for that alone.

The Clash meant a great deal when I discovered them between 1996 and 2000, but like sixties Dylan I've barely listened since. It's been revelatory hearing the likes of "1977," "Gates of the West," and the From Here to Eternity versions of "The Magnificent Seven" and "Complete Control" and catch my breath again for the first time since the first Bush administration.

People like to hate on From Here to Eternity, but that "Complete Control" is epic. Also the "Straight to Hell".

Can anyone make the case for the original version of the debut being better than the US version? I'm biased because I grew up on the US one, but it basically comes down to:

Deny
Cheat
Protex Blue
48 hours

vs.

Clash City Rockers
Complete Control
(White Man) in Hammersmith Palais
London's Burning
I Fought the Law

and I just don't see how that's even a contest.

We got the British version in Canada, with the same green cover. It was released here in '77; I bought it in '79. The blue American one I bought many years later.

"Complete Control" would be enough in and of itself to make the choice easy for me, but I guess the original is more revered simply because that's the album as it was meant to be.

I can understand a sort of purist position that the US one is not actually their first album -- and in the US, it wasn't. But as a collection of songs, imo it's one of the best things ever made by anyone, which the real debut is not quite.

Also my US vinyl version was a green cover, don't think I ever saw it with a blue cover.

When the American reshuffle came out here, they gave it a blue cover...The whole story on Discogs:

http://www.discogs.com/Clash-The-Clash/master/24371

Ah. Never seen that.

See, it's like they dropped "little child", "devil in her heart" and "not a second time" and replaced them with "She loves you", "From me to you" and "I wanna hold your hand"

from "With the beatles"

.. it may be better, but it's not the album..

Yeah, and that's a fair analogy. But as collections of songs, taking the "real" one on any grounds except chronological fidelity seems crazy.

(Not that we actually have to choose, especially these days. Dump it all onto an ipod and it doesn't matter.)

I was never crazy about the first album until I heard the UK version, which is now my second-favorite next to Sandinista!. The song sequencing is better than the U.S. (which was hugely important to the Clash, obviously), the sound-world it explores more obviously of-a-piece. "Janie Jones" has to be the opener, for me. It's such a warm, humane, pure, angry record.

I think my favorite Clash song is "Street Parade," which I had a chance to tell Joe in person. He just sort of chuckled and nodded, "Really." It's like the emotional flipside of "White Riot," epitaphic for a guy who turned from persons to the people for love again and again. I read that Topper was just learning steel drums. Totally second what Tipsy said about their recordings. My favorite band of all time.

Then again, I'm just getting into the Stranglers.

"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.