October 1999
by John Robb
Every generation has its classic bands. Those groups that mark the times with sheer pop poetry and utter cool. The lineage is unbroken and endless. They usually come in pairs and they either sit tight and become massive or totally balls it up. You've got the Beatles and the Stones, the Roses and the Mondays Blur and Oasis and in the late Seventies the Clash and the Pistols. Being the coolest band of your generation doesn't always translate into endless stadium years. Just ask the Stone Roses. Usually the plodders become the kings... just ask U2 or the whole glut of Britpop wannabes that made their moolah after the Roses broke out.
And The Clash? Well they worked like crazy demented bustards, rattled a non stop debate of great rock 'n roll action, conquered America and then pissed it all away. They could have had the eighties but they left it all to the chancers who had been inspired by their late Seventies rallying cry. The lame, the weak, the plain shite all cashed in on the Strummer gang's powerfully exciting call to arms. And where were The Clash. Nowhere. Bastards!
From Here To Eternity is an awesome snapshot of a chaotic time. Now there is nothing worse than someone harping on about the good old days. So lets get punk into perspective. For a start it meant little to most people. Outside the mediaworld it made little impression on lives. In Blackpool there was a small clutch of us standing up to the aggro that the pissheads would deal out. Then like now people couldn't handle something slightly 'strange'... it was war on the streets, gettingat tacked was part of the deal. Punk wasn't an all encompassing mass movement like say, acid house, but the people it did touch it touched them fiercely. It made us hungry for information. For something else, a new sensation, a new feeling.
Where the Pistols were the battering ram The Clash opened up a whole load of possibilities. From that point we gobbled up reggae, dub. funk. soul, blues. jazz, rap...being into The Clash was a crash course into great music. They were going forward and backwards at the same time. From rockabilly to rap on one fucking record. From Punk rock to their own version of reggae on the first album. From here To Eternity reflects this for the sheer exhilarating rushes of rightous punk fury that made their name there are the superb dubbed workouts of 'Armagedion Time' or the haunting Apocolype Now soundcsapes of 'Straight To Hell'.
The Stones may have dabbled with reggae and Bob Marley may have been just breaking big but for the suburns it was The Clash that introduced the new generation to the space and melodic power of the new form.
I remember spending hours trying to learn that fucking bass line of Police And Thieves' I now what Simonon must have felt like at the time. From Here To Eternity underlines this savage eclectism. Far from being three chord tricks the Clash were dealing some great shit. They must have been the first whiteboy band bar none to get to grips with the nascent hip and electro scene in 1981 New York (where were New Order and the Factory set who normally get the credit for this!) with 'Magnificent 7,' a Magnificent Clash styled punk rokka take on rap, the twisted dubbed out menace of 'Guns Of Brixton, the classic rock n roll of the Who pilfering Zig Zag riff of 'Clash City Rockers' the Stones dribbling 'Should I Stay Or Should I go' and the Motown dripping Train In Vain. The music was an endless thunder of possabilties, a quest to grab all the rebel musics of the world and mash them into one whole.
And The band themselves were a walking talking contradiction. That was the beauty of it all. They were so honest you could tell when they were lying! we always loved them for that. Even as kids we could see through the spiel and that made them seem even greater. Before The Clash no one had ever really questioned groups. The punk climate changed that, the Clash's every move was scrutinised by the swiftly changing attitudes of the time. 'The Clash soul out' was the scream, but fuck who wouldn't! we would have sold out of Blackpool if there was just some way of doing it . Those contardictions are what made the band great.
There was Mick Jones rock star verses man of the people thing. Joe's rabid outbursts and Simonon's casual cool. And fuck! Topper was a great drummer what a tragic decline he's booked himslef into. Drug hell. See that programme on the TV last week. Fucking hell you wouldn't touch smack after checking Topper now! what a fucking waste. why get into that crap when you could play drums like that. the man had a gift and pissed it away. A bit like the band themselves. When they fell apart they had just gone huge worldwide. They could have had it all but they handed it over to U2. Thanks. A Lot.
If 'From here To Eternity' is just another nifty exercise in marketing the band. Then, thank fuck for that. Bands like the Clash deserve to be held up in esteem every five years or so. A live album as incendiary as this deserves to be released by anyone no matter who they are. The record spits passion. excitement and sheer adrenalised crazed revolution. Painfully unfashionable concepts in the current dullard mainstream and concepts generally sneered at by over paid music biz tossers who have been living off the fattened calf for far to long.
Clash gigs were utter mayhem. Wired crazed kids in provincial appropriation of the London punk look freaking out. Spewing in car parks, fighting in the dancehall, going berserk at the machine gun guitars and risking a beating on the way home for having their hair hacked above their ears. So nothing new then. Late nineties Britain is as dull and reactionary as it was in the punk days. A few freaks get into the mainstream and its wonderful.
The head of radio one used to sell me punk records in my local record shop and now he won't let any of this stuff through atall ...its criminal, man. fucking criminal. Rock n roll really matters I cant be arsed to stand behind the irony and the bullshit and the scaredey cat sniggering, when a band matters it feels great... tunes that make your life fell amazing a world to get lost in...
Punk was great. The media have tried for years to shove it into a corner claiming that it was only meant to last a few months but what were these people interested in? was it just a fad for them? 'something you grow out of?' you met the pundits of the time now and yhey all run a mile from the music that gave them the break. This is the only country in the world that ignores punk music. In America its massive albeit in its late nineties form over here its treated as a historical event 'something that happened a long time ago' But its sheer guttural power can't be denied. The Exploited and the Gary Bushell promoted 'oi' debacle may have killed it here but when you wack this album on the deck fuck it sounds great. What a lost opportunity!
When the same sort of visceral power and excitement are employed in music of anywhere it works. Just ask the Manics their early gigs were Clash inspired rushed of angry excitement, or The Roses who soaked up The Clash cool or The Primal's who understand that multi music rebel rock thing that Strummer would harp on about.
There is nothing wrong with now. There are great bands out there, but sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards just to get reminded just how amazing incendiary rock n roll really is. Maybe we are in a prog rock phase. a clutch of dreary college rock bands may hold the centre stage for the time being. maybe punk was a couple of years of fro this hippie stranglehold on the rock scene, maybe just maybe the mainstream will allow some of the starker musical spirits through again and create a maverick delicious music scene that spits sex. style. subversion in a new millennium style. Music that makes you want to fuck and fight that make you want to do anything apart from consume.
Punk rock for me has been a long and fucked up journey an ongoing battle against. well, everything. I still believe in a lot of that old shit. But I have no interest in a mainstream culture. sure those old punk records from that late seventies till sound great. They are etched on my youth they are bound to just like the early seventies glam records will always make me feel really good. But I'm into the now. 'From Here To Eternity' is a great blast from a great time and it sits neatly on my turntable in 1999 but it makes me want to go forward not backwards maybe that's what The clash always did,You can see Strummer talking mad interview shit, attempting to wave the rebel flag for some sort of humanity in rock n roll and some way to tie up a lot of disparate loose ends.
Punk in 1999 can be anything you fucking want it to be. From its origonal fast and furious three chord swagger to machine driven weirdness from space echoes dub to cutting edge club culture. The only rile is that there are no rules. Punk ok it really is from here to eternity...
To me punk as broad church in 1999 its Atari teenage Riot, Rancid. death In Vegas. Leftfield. Groop Dog Drill, The Make Up, Ragga, The Prodigy, drum and bass. Epitaph. The Hellacopters. Backyard Babies and a million other s lets wave a fag for the freaks...oh and the Clash live album as well that spits with a razor edge excitement and vicious switchblade sharpness that it pisses away the twenty years that have elapsed since it seemed to burst out of nowhere into our dull teenage lives.
The Clash were the coolest band to strut the post punk landscape. their debut album set the blueprint. 'Give 'Em Enough Rope' was stuffed full of great songs. 'London's Calling' was only rock n roll col and 'Sandinista' far from being the mess hat it had been painted as is actually a great record. especially the dub tunes. 'Combat Rock' is stuffed with the hits and 'Cut The Crap' is awful production ruining a clutch of petty good songs (check the bootlegs) All this and a version of 'Complete Control' that is even better than the original. Its The Clash's greatest song a vitriolic attack on their record label their utter naivete seems quite beautiful now in the five year career plans of dullard boy band mo marks.
Rock isn't dead. Far from it. The Clash were give their chance by a generation fed up with the dull mid seventies post glam talent recession. There are plenty of great things going on in the underground right now. Seize the oppertunity. stop moaning. Classic rock n roll is timeless... Now enough of this nostalgia. What's next?
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