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 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
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Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
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Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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The Clash
Charted: #23 in March 1980
The legacy of the Clash will probably live forever, since they are the band most responsible for providing punk rock with a purpose beyond nihilism and anarchy. At its onset in 1977, the Sex Pistols were the original figureheads of punk, but from America’s perspective, Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten were initially considered to be some kind of bad joke. Their ‘tour’ of the states might have created a bit of exposure through the media circus that greeted them whenever they arrived in some unsuspecting town, but it did little to further their careers. By the time the band reached California for its final dates, the riotous band-bashing and self-invoked controversy caught up with them and they broke up – acrimoniously, of course. The Sex Pistols offered America the opportunity to dismiss its own historic legacy, and - perhaps rightfully - we blew them off with a collective raspberry. The Clash were different, though. Although they maintained the do-it-yourself ethos that defined punk rock, they did not embrace the idea of destruction for its own sake. The Clash gave punk rock a purpose because they sang with passion about things that mattered to them. Joe Strummer ranted and raved, but self-respect, global awareness and humor informed each utterance, while Mick Jones provided a sense of style and melody. Because of the Clash, punk rock developed a political sensibility, full of righteousness, rage, and self-expression, but you could sing along.
Since America’s introduction to punk came via the Sex Pistols, we developed some type of national resistance to the changes it offered. The backlash caused by their tour pretty much destroyed any chance of America embracing punk as a popular style, which damaged things for the Clash. Their first album, although brilliant, was initially unreleased in this country. Even an avid music fan like myself barely knew anything about the band until 1978. My first exposure to the Clash came via a radio commercial for their second album (their debut album in America), called Give ‘Em Enough Rope. In the midst of the semi-predictable meanderings of groups like Supertramp, Fleetwood Mac and Foreigner, the thunderous drumbeats of “English Civil War” burst out of the speakers and nearly shocked me out of the state of banal submission that defined late-‘70s album-oriented-radio (AOR). For the first time in my life, I bought an album because of an advertisement. In retrospect, this is incredibly ironic, since the Clash were socialist critics of the music industry, and they despised the entire concept of music for money. Blissfully unaware of their politics, I slowly digested the album until I recognized that they offered me something truly different from the corporate swill I was being fed. Apparently, I wasn’t alone, either. Their debut album started to sell so well that it became the top-selling import album on record. Of course, this eventually resulted in its American release, with a substantially revised track list that would tempt import-buying fans to buy the record again.
Then, in late 1979, the Clash released the best album of the ‘80s (another irony) and the best punk-related album of all time. London Calling was a relentlessly perfect album, four sides of energetic entertainment with more stylistic shifts than could be imagined. In the space of one double album, the Clash proved that punk rock could incorporate virtually anything into its stylistic reach. The anthemic, apocalyptic title song opens the album with a huge bang, which then takes off on a journey that completely shatters the preconceived parameters of punk rock. It veers from rockabilly to reggae with virtually no sign of strain, and then pushes things even further. The reflective anxiety of “Lost in the Supermarket” betrays a vulnerable sensitivity that no self-respecting punk rocker would have admitted, while “Wrong ‘Em Boyo’s buoyant horn chart proved that punk did not have to be simple in order for it to be good. Most unusual, though, was the album’s method of closing out. As I implied earlier, the Clash were both mercurial and defiant when it came to commercialism, and this probably left them feeling awkward about how they ought to market a song as blatantly commercial as “Train in Vain”. Another band might have been able to build a career around a song like this, but to the Clash, it was a problem. As a means of reconciling their monetary politics with their artistic abilities, they did something that I doubt any other band would have done. At a time before CD’s, when ‘hidden tracks’ were virtually unheard of, the Clash dropped “Train in Vain” at the end of side four, and then made absolutely no mention of its existence on the album jacket. Such a maneuver could have made Karl Marx proud, but then came the ultimate irony. Radio played the song with some regularity, and a lot of people wanted to buy it. Since “Train in Vain” was not listed on any album, many fans naturally presumed that it was a single. Subsequently, the record company released “Train in Vain” on 45, and it quickly appeared on the singles charts at #23. Despite their best intentions, the Clash became commercially successful.
 
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