"Flood Page, Mike. 'A trashy white rock 'n' roll band dealing with oppression.' Album Tracking, no. May 1977, 1977, pp. 14-15."
Album tracking May 1977 - The Clash feature
— Mike Flood Page profiles The Clash at their explosive 1977 peak, capturing punk's generational revolt against rock establishment complacency, Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon detail their confrontational ethos: "We're dealing with oppression" through raw tracks like "1977" and "White Riot", Jones declares "we're a trashy white rock band"
— Reveals chaotic recording of debut album after rejecting CBS producer who demanded proper pronunciation, eventually self-producing with Mickie Foote, Notting Hill Carnival riot inspiration for "White Riot"
— Punk's "amphetamine-fast" energy with Fleetwood Mac and Eagles' polished sound, The Clash as 'heirs' to Eddie Cochran and The Who, predicts punk's brief lifespan ("maybe just two years") while asserting its necessity to revitalize stagnant rock scene
— Visual aesthetic: army fatigues, paint-splattered shoes, and "a brick through the window" attitude
ALBUM TRACKING - May 1977 – 25p
The easy reference guide to the month's albums Rock, Soul, Country, Reggae, Bues, Folk and Jazz
The Clash are alright - Page 14
ALBUM TRACKING | May 1977 | Page 14 & Page 15
'The only thing the older fans have to do is they have to attempt to understand. You have to be very brave to break out of your decade'
ROCK and roll has always aroused hostility from its elders and betters. Accord ing to them. It has always been badly played, the crea tion of some manipulative manager, a publicity hype, and lots more besides. What’s unusual about punk is that the people making these well-worn attacks are rock V roll fans themselves.
Me for one. Oh, I tell you: the onset of old age is a terrible thing to experience.
Then one evening, as I launched into a vitriolic attack on the Sex Pistols (whom I’d only seen once on the box), I suddenly got a nasty sense of Dcja vu, and stopped short. This, 1 thought, won’t do. How come you know you don’tv like it, if you haven’t tried it.
I tried it. I like it. But I have to admit that like a lot of people, I was caught on the hop. As usual, when you have the advantage of hindsight, it all looks obvious, but at the time it’s not so easy to see.
At 30, as Detroit rocker Bob Seger ruefully admits, a lot of us “just don’t seem to have so much to lose”. These new lads do though. And right now Clash are about the most exciting, of the new bands, and they are taking the risks, and that’s one of the things rock V roll has always been about.
The reasons for the rise of punk, or the new wave, or what ever you want to call it, are, in retrospect obvious: the cult of tech nical and musical perfection result ing in what Simon Frith has called Hip Easy Listening e.g. the Eagles; the accession of rock to the domi nant position in showbiz, now out- grossing the cinema; the ‘maturity’ of the lyrics; the general air of complacency and boredom, the ‘business’ orientation all these factors have in true dialectical fash ion generated their own opposite.
This negation has the following characteristics: it’s rough, it’s young, it’s poor, and it has a lean and hungry look about it. Com pared with the rich sheep like Elton John or Peter Frampton these boys are wolves. They arc also an -age group — too old for teeny wimps and too young for old farts — with nothing really exciting in music to get their teeth into ...
Ok, you say, but can they play? Can they cut the mustard when it comes to cutting grooves?
Which is where the audience divides. Because if the last thing you listened to is Fleetwood Mac and the next is Clash you are going to hate Clash ... or the Damned, or Eater, or the Pfstols, or who ever. It took these ageing ears a while to get what Clash are up to; but they are very fine indeed, and what is more they stand right in line with Eddie Cochran, early Who, and the Kinks.
A trashy white rock 'n' roll band dealing with oppression
And furthermore, a band who are prepared to get up and do it right.
By MIKE FLOOD PAGE
A tough quartet fronted by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones with Paul Simeon on bass and a collection of harsh, honest songs about apathy, boredom, the dole queue, about standing up for yourself, about being young and poor, about the clash between the rulers and the ruled. Clash come like a brick through the window of the musical establishment.
Their first album was produced by their own sound operator, Mickie Foote, after an attempt at recording with a CBS-nominated producer failed abysmally when he told Joe to pronounce the words right. The album also features drummer Terry Chimes but he has been a constant problem within the band, and after some 200 other drummers had been auditioned, they have just found someone to replace him.
The reasons why I think they arc good have to do with music, the reaons why they may well become very successful are only partly so. That’s because, as guitar ist Mick Jones says: “To a certain extent we are a reflection of the times we live in. The way we look is a plus. The way we sound*is a plus. Our lyrics are a plus.”
The way Clash look is immedi ately threatening to anyone over 25: the army fatigues with slogans stencilled on. the unfashionable shoes liberally spattered with paint, the spiky short hair ... but that’s nothing to compare with their per formance.
Guitarist and singer Joe Strummer. the one from the 1O1ers sounds more like a kid on the ter races who wants to strangle the ref than a rock ’n’ roll vocalist: the guitars are amphetamine fast, the songs short sharp two minute shards of aural graffiti. The vio lence of their delivery is like a series of staccato attacks with a dentist’s drill. And when you finally get to make out the words, say to “1977”, they turn out to be un compromising and stark: “Ain’t so lucky to be rich,/Sten guns in K nightsbridge,/Danger stran ger./You better paint your facc,/No Elvis. Beatles or the Rolling Stoncs,/In 1977.”
The way Clash look is immediately threatening .... the army fatigues with slogans stencilled on, the unfashionable shoes liberally spattered with paint ....
No wonder the over 25s feel threatened. But then for how long have we been going around com plaining that the old gods have gilded feet of clay and that they see the world from the inside of a limousine?
The difference is that Clash, among others, are prepared to get up and do it right. Mick Jones is aware of the antipathy this has generated among older fans: ’‘They feel straightaway alienated by it, and they feel they can’t get in volved.
“The only thing they have to do is they have to attempt to under stand. You have to be very' brave to break ut of your decade. Every body has a decade, and you have to be brave to make the transition. Like a lot of people don’t want to do it. A lot of people would like to stay, like you say, an old fart.
“Everybody knows it’s hap pened. right? Everyone knows that it’s the next thing that’s going to have any kind of real force, and it’s up to people to get involved. Like EMI now. they’re trying to save their face after the Pistols thing, otherwise they’re fucked for the next ten years of rock V roll — which is what we’re involved in. “I dunno, everything goes so quickly, everything gets speeded up. The media gets hold of things and ... it may not be ten years this time, it may just be two."
The wider movement — the bondage clothes, (he new clubs like the London Roxy, the new drugs like glue and amphetamine sul phate. represent a new configuration of social forces. And of course 1977 isn’t 1963 or 1956 tor that matter. The anti authoritarian, up yours! stance of the new music is set in a different context, al though it's an element that has always been vital to rock’V roll. It has a parallel in reggue. to which Clash owe an obvious debt — they even include Junior Murvin’s "Police And Thieves” on the album.
But as Mick says. Clash are "a trashy white rock and roll band. Basically we are dealing with op pression, which is what we have in common. I should say we’re prob ably a lot more interested in what they’re doing than they are in what we’re doing.”
PAUL Simenon, bassist with Clash, explains the context in which “White Riot" arose. During the Notting Hill Carnival riot: "We was down one end of the road, and the coppers at the other, and wc were with the black kids, throwing bricks' and all that. And the coppers come whizzing round the corner and pushed us up against the wall and searched us. Then they told us to piss off. Then these coloured kids come up to us and wanted to see if we had any money or anything so they started searching us. Wc had the con frontation with the coppers, and then with the black kids, so we was completely on our own ...”
Which is not to say Clash are racist. The reverse in fact, they’ve done benefits for anti-racist groups, but what they do represent is a group of kids whose experience has effectively been denied a voice in rock V roll. Until now!
The predominance of musicians who. by virtue of being around for 10 or 15 years, arc technical vir tuosi, even if they have little to say with all that technique has inhibited and intimidated kids who are just beginning. Just like Sniffin’ Glue’s Mark P believes everyone should start their own fanzine, so Clash believe anyone can play. Paul hap pily admits he's only been playing bass a year: "I’m playing away, and there’s a kid watching me. and he’s going to feel ..
Joe Strummer: “. .. I can do that!”
Paul: “Yeah, right. Anybody can do it. The thing is to be creative.” Joe: “That’s the healthy thing, innit? When you see Yes or some body, you never feel that.”
There are some indications in the way they talk, that Clash are trying to avoid some of the failures of the heroes of the ’60s. Joe Strummer feels that "Pete Townshend and all these geezers who we used to really dig when we were kids, they’re sort of washed up now. If we can’t learn by their mistakes, then there isn't any point in their making them.
"I know it’s gonna happen, but I’m just on the watchout for that. Whatever songs I write. I want to make sure that I ain’t degenerating into some kind of stinkin’ self in dulgcnt egotistical thing. I mean, if I can’t do what I really want to do, I ain’t going to do nothing. 1 hope I’ve got enough courage to say one clay: I quit.''
Which is easy enough to say as your first single bounces into the charts and you have 10 years before anyone can call you to account. But what it shows is the terms of comparison Clash have set for themselves.
From outside of London, the punk phenomenon may have the appearance of the response of a few jaded rock journalists with dec adent taste to the publicitjrhype of some very rough, young and arro gam bands. But there is more sub stance to it than that.
Rock ’n’ roll never was just about good music, and if that becomes the sole criterion, at the expense of having something vital to say, then the way is paved for some tough newcomers with more hunger than complacency to blast in and turn the rules of the game upside down.
Clash and bands like them have divided the rock audience. So did Elvis, so did the Stones, so did Leenon and Bowie. Perhaps, as a friend said recently, rock V roll just doesn’t mean that much any more. If so it won’t be 10 years this time.
But when you see Clash you’ll see a band that still believes it does, and like rock ’n’ roll, they- aren't just going to go away.
Mick Jones
ALBUM TRACKING, MAY 1977