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The History of The Clash

There are good bands, there are successful bands, and there are the bands who perfectly capture the mood of the time. The Clash were all three. Every utterance, every performance, every record had to be great and it had also to reflect the aspirations of their audience. And if it didnt, they would be placed under intense scrutiny by a fanatical press intent on determining whether they were really did mean it, maan.

The Clash were formed when Joe Strummer was accosted by Mick Jones and Paul Simonon after hed finished a show with his band the 101ers. Youre okay, declared the brutally honest West Londoners, but youre bands shit. Unlikely as it now seems, Strummer agreed, and promptly split the 101ers. Not that Strummer needed much of an excuse. In early 1976, the 101ers had been supported by the Sex Pistols whose sarcastic, confrontational, Punk Rock had blown the simple, honest, r n b of the 101ers to pieces. While the rest of his band stood at the bar laughing at the antics of Johnny Rotten and co., and giggling at the rudimentary attempts to get to grips with their instruments, Strummer decided there and then to form a Punk Rock band of his own.

Strummer (guitar, vocals), Jones (guitar, vocals) and Simonon (bass) immediately went to work on The Clash. They recruited Keith Levine (later to turn up in Public Image Limited) as third guitarist and drummer Terry Chimes. Levine played with the band on their debut appearence but left shortly after, while Chimes lasted long enough to supply the beat on the bands storming and eponymously titled first album.

Strummer and Jones quickly gelled together and began to write a set of songs that were each going to be interpreted as manifestos for the new Punk Rock generation. Londons Burning with its images of lost, alienated youth, consumed by boredom, tearing round the capital in a stolen car looking for a good time, remains one of the most enduring of the time. Career Opportunities angrily listed the jobs that were available in a country headed into permanent decline. But it was White Riot, the song that went on to become the bands debut single, that best articulated the blind rage felt by the Clash and their audience.

Alongside the Sex Pistols, the Clash quickly became the leading spokesmen of their generation; looked up to by a young audience desperate for a way out of the birth-school-work-death cycle. Now the heat was on. When the Clash signed with the major record label, CBS, and not with one of the host of new, independent labels that released the first Punk records, there was a howl of protest and loud cries of sell-out.

Not to matter, the band's first album, The Clash (April 1977), was instantly recognised as a classic that struck familiar adolescent chords up and down Great Britain and around the world.

~Omnimedia

From Omnimedia