1000 Day Album Challenge (#14) The Clash: The Clash (1977) [14.01.24]
we're a garage band we come from garageland…
while we’re on the subject of great debut albums, I want to talk about one of the very finest ever, The Clash’s eponymous opening salvo. I don’t think I bought a Clash record until London Calling came out in early 1980, but by the time I bought the import version of Sandinista! in late 1981 I owned all of them. I was all-in on The Clash. for me, they really were, “The Only Band That Matters.”
The Clash, both the band and the album, are pure energy. listening as I write this I feel a bit like a kid again. I might be sitting on a chair at a table in front of my laptop, but in my head I’m bouncing around playing air guitar. the ringing guitar sound strikes deep for me as fo the words. “I’m so bored with the USA / now what can I do?!” the pace is relentless - one terse ball of fire followed by another. there’s barely enough room to catch one’s breath.
The Clash was import only in the U.S. until a reconfigured version appeared in 1979, eight months after Give ‘Em Enough Rope (1978). I guess the record company thought we weren’t ready for The Clash. Deny, Cheat, Protex Blue and 48 Hours were replaced by five single-only songs, a-sides and b-sdes. even though two of the replacements, Complete Control and (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais might both rank among the five best Clash songs ever, I tend to be a purist about these things. I prefer the original version as the band intended.
I highly recommend Lester Bangs’ Six Days on the Road to the Promised Land (http://bit.ly/3vwrkhH), a three part series he wrote about The Clash for NME in late 1977. I read it years ago and plan on reading it again later today. for those who are unaware of Lester Bangs, he was one of the greatest music writers ever. he was also the character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous (2000).
