Residency
Joe Strummer | Facebook
The Clash Official | Facebook
Sandinista fliers were dropped from above in mid-show at Bonds
The Boston Globe, Clash worth the wait
The Los Angeles Times, Clashing of The Clash in New York
The Los Angeles Times, Strummer LP Freed from the vaults / Elgin Avenue Breakdown
../Tour assets/Articles/Regional Newspapers/untitled folder/The Los Angeles Times Sat Jun 6 1981/The Los Angeles Times Sat Jun 6 1981.jpg
The Los Angeles Times / Elgin Avenue Breakdown
The News. The Clash: An invasion turned fiasco
Daily News, Clash: New 'heroes' live up to old principles
Clash Contre Mafia French Mag Bonds
Melody Maker, Rappin' with the Clash
2nd week.
Catching the clash by JBloch
page 2 missing but good read - text version / or Link
Blister Fanzine. The Clash at Bond's International
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VOICE The Clash at the Clampdown
The Herald News, Clash concerts among 1981 rock highlights
The Ottawa Citizen, Clash rock N.Y., Southside on TV
Clash blasts new romantics
NME How the Clash Fed the Wonderbread (and cancelled US Tour)
text version / or link
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How The Clash Fed The Wonderbread Generation, Made The Mountain Come to Mohammed - And Other Miracles
Mick Farren, NME, 20 June 1981
The winner of NME's Flatter The Clash competition checks out the ramifications when an English band's world is at Bonds.
KOSMO VINYL shoots both fists heavenward, for all the world like a man who had just scored for West Ham at Wembley.
"I got the news on every channel! I got the news on every channel! I conned them all. I told them all that they were going to get an exclusive and then I stitched them all up!" ... Read the full article ...
How I called Joe Strummer A Prat - And lived to See His Lullaby on Broadway
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Boston Rock Summer 81 No 19
Bonds In depth
Face NO 16 August 81 Bonds & US Tour
MOJO CLASH SPECIAL BONDS
Link / multiple pages
The Clash on Broadway
Chris Salewicz, Mojo, August 1994
IF THERE WAS ONE PIVOTAL EVENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE Clash's assault on the USA it was the season of 17 shows they played at Bond's, a tacky former disco on Broadway and Times Square, New York, New York in May and June 1981.
They had already achieved cult status; the London Calling album had made the US Top 30. But after these extraordinary shows, large-scale American stardom was theirs for the taking. The Top 5 chart placing of Combat Rock the following year can be traced back to this springboard. And therefore we might say it also marked the beginning of the end, the apex of The Clash, who in Manhattan in the summer of 1981, simply seemed like the most perfect rock and roll group in the world, and these two weeks the perfect rock and roll time. ... full text version ...
French Magazine The Clash in New York feature
BONDAGE AT BONDS!
By Michael Barnard
from Cream - September 1981
NEW YORK -- The word first got out in I chilly February; the Clash on Broadway. Neon lights, skyscrapers and everything. We've all heard how these New York clubs fight it out over the English bands, but for Bond's, reputed to be the world's largest disco, this was a coup.
In their desperation to beef up their bills with big English names, the handful of nightclubs on the New York circuit catering to the rock 'n' roll genre offer outlandish sums and operate at a loss. Naturally there had to be some casualties and the first to fall, ironically, was Hurrah's, a pioneer in the movement. Others will follow. Bond's is a comparative newcomer to the circle of clubs who compete for the rockers from across the Atlantic. Originally exclusively a discotheque and serving a disco crowd, it's branched out into "crossover." Its futuristic interior has a numbing effect and its huge expanse can hold up to 1800 people. It's rather like a shopping mall with bars and a dance floor... and telephone in the men's room. ... Read the full article ...
The Clash Sandinista! From Clash City Rockers to New York City Rebels
VIVE LE ROCK / #76 / 2020 / 16 pages /
1. Sandinista, Bonds, Kris Needs
2. Ross Sinclair (Soup Dragons) Busking Tour Glasgow photos
RUDE BOYS - An Interview with Joe Strummer and Robert Fripp
by Vic Garbarini
Musician Magazine, June 1981
The basic idea was fairly simple: you get the two foremost proponents of the idea of music as a force for personal and social change, sit 'em down together for a few beers, and see what happens. Now let's look at the potential problems: on the surface, polite, articulate Robert Fripp and acerbic, street-wise Joe Strummer don't appear to be the most compatible duo in rock history. I mean, you wouldn't expect them to bunk together at summer camp, would you? As musicians they seem to follow widely divergent paths, with the classically trained Fripp exploring the oceanic textures and laser-like solos of Frippertronics, or the fractured, geometric etudes of -The league of Gentlemen-, while Strummer the street poet and musical innocent bashes out three chord symphonies, or heads further up the river into the dark, sensual heartland of reggae and dub.
Sounds Police & Fireman
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06 21
JONATHAN LETHEM : WRITER
http://www.jonathanlethem.com/index.html
The Clash
.... This you're likelier to remember: in 1981 the Clash played a seven-night stand at Bonds International Casino at Times Square (now the Virgin Megastore, if you're curious). In one of those acts of passionately awkward idealism which characterized the Clash's career, they booked opening acts against punk type: rappers Grandmaster Flash and the Treacherous Three, Texan bard Joe Ely, and a forgotten horn-section-and-skinny-tie band called the Nitecaps. And, plucked fresh off the stage of CBGB's, Miller Miller Miller & Sloane. ...
Bonds It's The 40th Anniversary Of The Clash's Legendary Times Square Concerts
BY JEN CHUNG
PUBLISHED JUNE 3, 2021
...The Clash, while anti-establishment, were still a very fan-focused group, and since all of the other shows were similarly oversold, the band decided to play a total of 17 shows, so anyone who bought tickets could potentially see them or they could opt for a refund.
"Everybody who has a bonus ticket has got to wait a few days," their manager said on a 1981 news segment. For those who couldn't go, "they'll get their money back, that we promise."...
The Clash on Broadway - Revolution Rock
81 05
PUNK ROCK HEART - Joe Strummer 1952-2003
By Annie Toone
The first time I met Joe was late '78 in San Francisco. I was 20 years old. The Clash were in town to play an actual paying gig at Kezar Stadium when they heard we'd set up a Rock Against Racism chapter in SF.
Joe immediately offered to do a free concert for RAR at the Temple Beautiful for all us real punx who couldn't afford the other one. Word of mouth spread like wildfire and the Temple was heaving by the time The Clash arrived.They rocked so hard. I still have my RAR USA t-shirt. Joe often said, "not above me or below me, always with me". He meant it. He NEVER changed. ...
Photo
A SHORT FILM ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF FUTURA 2000
The Clash Futura 2000
12ozProphet, “the largest graffiti, street art and pop culture community online”, collaborated with film maker Justin Hogan in the creation of this short documentary on graffiti legend and pop culture icon Futura 2000. Leonard (Futura) talks about the early days of being a street art pioneer, his experiences with The Clash, Madonna, life in Brooklyn and his current projects.
THE CLASH MEET FUTURA 2000 AND A RIOT THEY DIDN’T OWN
New York graffiti legend Futura 2000 is one of the immortals, a spray can slinging Jesse James. Starting out in the 70s thru the 80s and beyond, Futura’s subway and wall murals were distinctive for their tight clean lines and wild but precise abstract lettering. They jumped out with a stunning clarity. He and Dondi White were the kings of Krylon.
When The Clash arrived in New York in 1981 to do their series of gigs at Bonds, they embraced the hip hop scene much in the same way they had absorbed reggae into their music. Joe, Mick, Paul and Topper hooked up with some of the major forces in rap and graffiti, including Futura. At the time Mr. 2000 knew nothing about The Clash but accepted their invitation to join them on stage and paint graffiti backdrops as the band played. He eventually joined them on tour.
During their 2 1/2 week residency at Bonds, The Clash took some time off to go into Electric Lady Studio with Futura, Fab Five Freddy and Dondi. As The Clash layed down rhythm tracks for “The Escapades of Futura 2000,” Fab, Dondi and Strummer sang background while Futura did his best to compress the history of graffiti into a 6 minute rap. His rapping skills leave alot to be desired; off the rhythm and with lyrics that are rudimentary at best. However, his mission statement and celebration of street art makes up in solidarity what it lacks in dexterity. “Escapades Of Futura 2000” may not endure as a rap classic, but it was one vital element in the hybridization of punk and Black street culture. White/Black, we were all living in the ghetto, whether it be a council flat, the Lower East Side or the South Bronx. We were united by poverty, anger, music and art and looking for a riot of our own.
The coming together of the uptown rap scene with the downtown punks was the beginning of a melding of musical movements that had previously just observed each other from a distance. Uptown and downtown innovators started collaborating in New York and on an international scale. Bands like The Beastie Boys, Gang Of Four, Rip Rig Panic, The Slits, Bush Tetras, Liquid Liquid and PIL fell under the influence of dub, reggae, funk and disco. Even college kids like Talking Heads got into the action. Suddenly The Clash were being played in the discos and white hipsters were dancing to Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa at the Mudd Club.
The quintessential and most seamless marriage of punk to reggae and funk to hardcore was by a former jazz band from Washington D.C.: Bad Brains. The Damned had turned The Clash onto the Brains and were invited by the band to be an opening act at Bonds. The Clash/Bad Brains double bill was one of those seminal moments when the music really came together, in theory and action, and for those in the audience who were open to it (sadly, not many were) there was the realization that punk was more than a fashion statement or hip stance. It was part of a struggle that reached way beyond white suburbia or the enclaves of pale-skinned rock and rollers in Alphabet City. The White Riot was Black as well. And the beat was everything, the common ground, the heart. And it belonged to everyone. A riot of your own might give you a momentary sense of empowerment, but it won’t win the big battles. When punk met rap, the seeds of a cultural revolution began. We just didn’t follow through. As the 80s and 90s rolled around, music became commodified once again along racial lines, urban or classic, hip hop or punk, rap or hardcore. And New York City has never been as musically segregated as it is today.
Here’s a video mashup of “Escapades Of Futura 2000” with excerpts from Manfred Kirchheimer’s Stations Of The Elevated. The Clash are rocking it as Futura invokes the gods of Rustoleum in his mission to change the world.
FDR statement
Joe Strummer in photos by Lisa Haun in New York in 1981
Joe Strummer in photos by Lisa Haun in New York in 1981, when the Clash played a series of gigs at Bonds International Casino. The Underestimator
