Post by Fuggle on Oct 3, 2004 7:23:12 GMT -5
London Calling, Pt. 2
The Clash saved rock ’n’ roll
Ottawa Citizen
Friday, October 01, 2004
Cover art from the Clash's
groundbreaking album, London Calling.
Last Saturday, Citizen arts editor Peter Simpson looked at the 25th anniversary edition of the Clash classic London Calling, and we asked readers to write to us about their favourite tracks.
The response was so overwhelming that we’ve decided to give away two copies of the new London Calling anniversary set, instead of just the one we promised.
Our winners are Adele and Meaghan Morris of Ottawa, for their mother-daughter shared love of the album, and Mike Hendrigan of Orleans, for his guerrilla tactics to Clash-ify parties.
Now read an edited sample of the responses from Citizen readers and Clash fans in Ottawa and beyond.
---
Christopher O’Toole, Kanata: Elvis was dead. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were fighting the good fight but they had the entire weight of America on their shoulders. At the height of disco and bubblegum rock, The Clash emerged spitting and swearing and gave us back what Elvis and Jerry Lee had intended. The Clash saved rock ’n’ roll. Best tracks: Train in Vain, The Guns of Brixton, Spanish Bombs.
---
Bruno Nardone, Cambridge, MA: The entire album is a journey through the world of a young single male’s complex relationship with his environment: he cares about the world and the decisions being made around him, but he’s frustrated by having little actual influence on them; he wants to rock ’n’ roll and party and get girls but is dealing with never having enough money or even finding the girl; and most of all wanting to live out the rock-outlaw mystique, and hang with his buddies for a good time. I got turned on to this record when I was 20 and in college and starting to grow on my own finally and it all gelled.
Seventeen years later it is still one of my favorites. My favorite track is Guns of Brixton, which sums up one of the major themes with the line "when they kick out your front door/ how you ganna come/ with your hands on your head or on the trigger of your gun."
---
Mike Hendrigan, Orleans: Listening to the Clash in the 1980s defined who my five friends and I were and how we differed from our peers. As we made our way to high school parties in suburban Vancouver, we’d arrive later than most and immediately hear the straight laced songs of Springsteen’s Born in the USA or the Police’s Synchronicity. We “Five” would quietly move over to the stereo and pop in the Clash. Heads would turn in irritation, but as the opening driving beat of London Calling started, heads started boppin’, shoulders rolling, people moving and the party picked up. The Five had arrived.
---
David Hedley, Richmond, Ont.: Picking one song as my "favorite" was tough. I pulled out my CD and listened to it as I drove my sons (12 & 14) to school. I chuckled as I realized that we were all quietly singing along with the songs. It is one of the few bands I enjoyed that my teenage sons will sing along with.
I was fortunate enough to see the Clash in concert. From the moment they ran on stage to their final encore they played hard and gave a great concert. Oh ya, and that was me dancing next to Joe Strummer, thanks to the Clash’s tradition of letting fans on stage at the end of the concert.
I’ve traded in my leather for khaki’s and loafers, but I still love listening to the Clash. As for the best song, I’d have to say Clampdown.
---
Fernand Comeau, Ottawa: My favourite track is Brand New Cadillac. Over the course of two minutes, it’s as if Mick Jones was Elvis and Johnny Rotten at the same time. The music underneath comes off like a kind of ’50s drive-in snarl raked over the history of punk rock - what comes out the other side is a track that’s kicking and screaming into the future with glee, and I willingly get dragged off with it every time I hear it.
---
Brian Hayes, Nepean: I would have to pick London Calling, as a pure rock anthem with biting lyrics. But I wore out side two of the album, which had a strong suite of songs including my co-favourite Clampdown. Obviously an anti-fascist song, it always made me think of Pinochet in Chile.
I saw them in 1980 in Nice, France touring on this album. There was, I recall, some controversy around the album as some hardcore fans looked at it as a sellout - not punk enough. In fact, it signalled the band’s maturation.
---
Roland Stieda, Ottawa: I played the album endlessly, particularly in the summer of 1981 when I was working on a strawberry farm to raise money for a Grade 10 exchange to Austria the following year. My favourite has to be Clampdown. Slaving away in the hot sun, pulling weeds, spreading fertilizer, putting up with my boss and his comments about my long hair and slow pace - I felt as if I was working for the clampdown. Joe Strummer et al took me away from that three-acre plot of hell on a daily basis.
---
Derrick Deans, Ottawa: My favourite has always been Clampdown, although it’s always been difficult to put it above others on the album. It rings clearest for two reasons: I first heard it in 1978 when the Clash played with the Undertones at the Saint Denis Theatre in Montreal. The song soon became an anthem to some of us who were young and working at the Post Office. It’s lyrics spoke directly to what we experienced working there every day. Those lyrics were written on the washroom wall numerous times, only to be painted over again. That song melded music, politics and our working day into a shared shout at the world. But it was also a testament to the fact that revolution is not about ripping things down, but about building something better, or different, from what has gone before.
---
Christine Keess, Ottawa: With the release of London Calling, the Clash initiated my political activism and changed my life forever.
My love of ska endeared me to Rudie Can’t Fail, and the chorus of Death or Glory always gets me bopping, but my favourite song is Spanish Bombs. The song gave me a lesson about the Spanish Civil War that I had never heard in history class. It was the first time I had heard a band sing in Spanish. It was also the first time I heard about individuals, like the poet and playwright Federico Lorca, who became the "disappeared."
I would be a different person today if it had not been for the Clash. With London Calling and the subsequent set Sandinista, I started on a path working with peace and social justice groups that continues to this day. I still play my vinyl LPs of London Calling and remember some of the best years of my life.
---
Charles Ethier, Ottawa: London Calling is one of my favorites of all time - Brand New Cadillac, London Calling, Clampdown, Jimmy Jazz, Rudie Can’t Fail. The Clash revolutionized the whole music scene that was to come. It will be around forever in my music collection.
---
Chrys Tindale, Ottawa: When I was 16 in 1979 and a young aspiring punk in Montreal, I had the great fortune of purchasing front-row-centre seats to the Clash’s first North American tour. At the end of the show my buddy and I jumped on stage (with a little help from Joe and Mick). I jumped up onto the drum riser and looked out at the madness as the Clash kept playing and people rushed the stage . The show featured all sorts of new material, including a new ditty called London Calling that blew everyone away. Little did anyone know that someone was taking photos to be included with the upcoming LP: Imagine my shock and glee when it was released I was shown that one of the pictures on the LP was of me standing on the drum riser. It was just about the best music show I ever saw. The B-Girls and the Undertones opened.
---
Kathleen Brimacombe, Venosta, Que.: My favorite is Death or Glory. It is one of those songs where the performance is so good, you don’t even have to hear the words to understand what it is about. It is perfection.
---
Ian Muff, Deep River, Ont.: One of the things that made London Calling great is how it stretches beyond the boundaries of punk, not just in terms of the different musical styles, but in how the music and lyrics place it in a broader historical context. Along with references to the Staggerlee legend, the Hundred Years War, the Spanish Civil War, songs like Death or Glory and The Card Cheat place the Clash as the latest in a long line of outlaws, rebels and revolutionaries.
---
Daryl Shanks, Ottawa: I was born in 1979, the year London Calling was released, and I don’t think there has been a more influential contribution to rock music in the 25 years since. The album was revolutionary in it’s sound, selection of songs, politics and style. The Clash broke out of the confines of punk that had suffocated many of their peers to become the lasting voice of substance in the movement. My favourite tracks are Clampdown, Brand New Cadillac and the amazing Lost in the Supermarket. In those three songs you can see the wide breadth of music the Clash put to vinyl, and 25 years later they are still among the best songs ever written.
---
Kevin Ledlow, Ottawa: This album defined the punk movement. The Clash incorporated so many styles - reggae, rock, ska, pop - into one beautifully made record. My favourite would be I’m Not Down or Rudie Can’t Fail - possibly the catchiest song of all time.
---
Mark Roman, Ottawa: Rabid Clash fans knew every single word from every single song on the album. More importantly, they knew the meaning of every song. The album was the point of no return for the transition from disenfranchised punk to change-the-world rock.
---
The Clash saved rock ’n’ roll
Ottawa Citizen
Friday, October 01, 2004
Cover art from the Clash's
groundbreaking album, London Calling.
Last Saturday, Citizen arts editor Peter Simpson looked at the 25th anniversary edition of the Clash classic London Calling, and we asked readers to write to us about their favourite tracks.
The response was so overwhelming that we’ve decided to give away two copies of the new London Calling anniversary set, instead of just the one we promised.
Our winners are Adele and Meaghan Morris of Ottawa, for their mother-daughter shared love of the album, and Mike Hendrigan of Orleans, for his guerrilla tactics to Clash-ify parties.
Now read an edited sample of the responses from Citizen readers and Clash fans in Ottawa and beyond.
---
Christopher O’Toole, Kanata: Elvis was dead. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were fighting the good fight but they had the entire weight of America on their shoulders. At the height of disco and bubblegum rock, The Clash emerged spitting and swearing and gave us back what Elvis and Jerry Lee had intended. The Clash saved rock ’n’ roll. Best tracks: Train in Vain, The Guns of Brixton, Spanish Bombs.
---
Bruno Nardone, Cambridge, MA: The entire album is a journey through the world of a young single male’s complex relationship with his environment: he cares about the world and the decisions being made around him, but he’s frustrated by having little actual influence on them; he wants to rock ’n’ roll and party and get girls but is dealing with never having enough money or even finding the girl; and most of all wanting to live out the rock-outlaw mystique, and hang with his buddies for a good time. I got turned on to this record when I was 20 and in college and starting to grow on my own finally and it all gelled.
Seventeen years later it is still one of my favorites. My favorite track is Guns of Brixton, which sums up one of the major themes with the line "when they kick out your front door/ how you ganna come/ with your hands on your head or on the trigger of your gun."
---
Mike Hendrigan, Orleans: Listening to the Clash in the 1980s defined who my five friends and I were and how we differed from our peers. As we made our way to high school parties in suburban Vancouver, we’d arrive later than most and immediately hear the straight laced songs of Springsteen’s Born in the USA or the Police’s Synchronicity. We “Five” would quietly move over to the stereo and pop in the Clash. Heads would turn in irritation, but as the opening driving beat of London Calling started, heads started boppin’, shoulders rolling, people moving and the party picked up. The Five had arrived.
---
David Hedley, Richmond, Ont.: Picking one song as my "favorite" was tough. I pulled out my CD and listened to it as I drove my sons (12 & 14) to school. I chuckled as I realized that we were all quietly singing along with the songs. It is one of the few bands I enjoyed that my teenage sons will sing along with.
I was fortunate enough to see the Clash in concert. From the moment they ran on stage to their final encore they played hard and gave a great concert. Oh ya, and that was me dancing next to Joe Strummer, thanks to the Clash’s tradition of letting fans on stage at the end of the concert.
I’ve traded in my leather for khaki’s and loafers, but I still love listening to the Clash. As for the best song, I’d have to say Clampdown.
---
Fernand Comeau, Ottawa: My favourite track is Brand New Cadillac. Over the course of two minutes, it’s as if Mick Jones was Elvis and Johnny Rotten at the same time. The music underneath comes off like a kind of ’50s drive-in snarl raked over the history of punk rock - what comes out the other side is a track that’s kicking and screaming into the future with glee, and I willingly get dragged off with it every time I hear it.
---
Brian Hayes, Nepean: I would have to pick London Calling, as a pure rock anthem with biting lyrics. But I wore out side two of the album, which had a strong suite of songs including my co-favourite Clampdown. Obviously an anti-fascist song, it always made me think of Pinochet in Chile.
I saw them in 1980 in Nice, France touring on this album. There was, I recall, some controversy around the album as some hardcore fans looked at it as a sellout - not punk enough. In fact, it signalled the band’s maturation.
---
Roland Stieda, Ottawa: I played the album endlessly, particularly in the summer of 1981 when I was working on a strawberry farm to raise money for a Grade 10 exchange to Austria the following year. My favourite has to be Clampdown. Slaving away in the hot sun, pulling weeds, spreading fertilizer, putting up with my boss and his comments about my long hair and slow pace - I felt as if I was working for the clampdown. Joe Strummer et al took me away from that three-acre plot of hell on a daily basis.
---
Derrick Deans, Ottawa: My favourite has always been Clampdown, although it’s always been difficult to put it above others on the album. It rings clearest for two reasons: I first heard it in 1978 when the Clash played with the Undertones at the Saint Denis Theatre in Montreal. The song soon became an anthem to some of us who were young and working at the Post Office. It’s lyrics spoke directly to what we experienced working there every day. Those lyrics were written on the washroom wall numerous times, only to be painted over again. That song melded music, politics and our working day into a shared shout at the world. But it was also a testament to the fact that revolution is not about ripping things down, but about building something better, or different, from what has gone before.
---
Christine Keess, Ottawa: With the release of London Calling, the Clash initiated my political activism and changed my life forever.
My love of ska endeared me to Rudie Can’t Fail, and the chorus of Death or Glory always gets me bopping, but my favourite song is Spanish Bombs. The song gave me a lesson about the Spanish Civil War that I had never heard in history class. It was the first time I had heard a band sing in Spanish. It was also the first time I heard about individuals, like the poet and playwright Federico Lorca, who became the "disappeared."
I would be a different person today if it had not been for the Clash. With London Calling and the subsequent set Sandinista, I started on a path working with peace and social justice groups that continues to this day. I still play my vinyl LPs of London Calling and remember some of the best years of my life.
---
Charles Ethier, Ottawa: London Calling is one of my favorites of all time - Brand New Cadillac, London Calling, Clampdown, Jimmy Jazz, Rudie Can’t Fail. The Clash revolutionized the whole music scene that was to come. It will be around forever in my music collection.
---
Chrys Tindale, Ottawa: When I was 16 in 1979 and a young aspiring punk in Montreal, I had the great fortune of purchasing front-row-centre seats to the Clash’s first North American tour. At the end of the show my buddy and I jumped on stage (with a little help from Joe and Mick). I jumped up onto the drum riser and looked out at the madness as the Clash kept playing and people rushed the stage . The show featured all sorts of new material, including a new ditty called London Calling that blew everyone away. Little did anyone know that someone was taking photos to be included with the upcoming LP: Imagine my shock and glee when it was released I was shown that one of the pictures on the LP was of me standing on the drum riser. It was just about the best music show I ever saw. The B-Girls and the Undertones opened.
---
Kathleen Brimacombe, Venosta, Que.: My favorite is Death or Glory. It is one of those songs where the performance is so good, you don’t even have to hear the words to understand what it is about. It is perfection.
---
Ian Muff, Deep River, Ont.: One of the things that made London Calling great is how it stretches beyond the boundaries of punk, not just in terms of the different musical styles, but in how the music and lyrics place it in a broader historical context. Along with references to the Staggerlee legend, the Hundred Years War, the Spanish Civil War, songs like Death or Glory and The Card Cheat place the Clash as the latest in a long line of outlaws, rebels and revolutionaries.
---
Daryl Shanks, Ottawa: I was born in 1979, the year London Calling was released, and I don’t think there has been a more influential contribution to rock music in the 25 years since. The album was revolutionary in it’s sound, selection of songs, politics and style. The Clash broke out of the confines of punk that had suffocated many of their peers to become the lasting voice of substance in the movement. My favourite tracks are Clampdown, Brand New Cadillac and the amazing Lost in the Supermarket. In those three songs you can see the wide breadth of music the Clash put to vinyl, and 25 years later they are still among the best songs ever written.
---
Kevin Ledlow, Ottawa: This album defined the punk movement. The Clash incorporated so many styles - reggae, rock, ska, pop - into one beautifully made record. My favourite would be I’m Not Down or Rudie Can’t Fail - possibly the catchiest song of all time.
---
Mark Roman, Ottawa: Rabid Clash fans knew every single word from every single song on the album. More importantly, they knew the meaning of every song. The album was the point of no return for the transition from disenfranchised punk to change-the-world rock.
---