Clash Crests on New Wave Punk Wave

Even with Elvis Costello's five previously announced concerts, February promised to be an exciting period for rock in Southern California. But now we can look forward to a bonus: The Clash has just been signed for a Feb. 9 appearance at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

Tickets for the Clash concert - part of the English band's first U.S. tour - will go on sale Monday. Tickets also go on sale that day for two of Costello's shows: Feb. 14 at the Long Beach Arena and Feb 18 at San Diego's Fox Theater.

Carl ("Blue Suede Shoes") Perkins will open both days for Costello, while another rock pioneer - Bo Diddley - will be with the Clash. Tickets for Costello's show at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara go on sale Jan. 29. Tickets for his two Palomino shows on Feb. 16 won't be available until next month.

With the breakup last year of the Sex Pistols, the Clash became the most formidable of the British punk/new wave outfits. The group - featuring singer-guitarists Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon - reflects much the same aggressive, socio-political drive as the Pistols.

But there's a difference. While the Sex Pistols paired confrontation onstage and offstage to an ultimately self-destructive degree, the Clash reportedly operates from a more stable base. The music is just as independent and intense, but there's not the same 24-hour obsession with a notorious image.

The Clash's first album is among the most dynamic rock LP's of the '70's, but the production work was considered primitive by even the band's own U.S. record company. Thus , the label, Epic, didn't even release the album in this country.

Epic, however, has released the Clash's second album, "Give 'Em Enough Rope." Despite priduction assistance from Sandy Pearlman (who has worked with the commercially viable Blue Oyster Cult band), the new album has met with much of the same radio resistance that kept the Pistols largely unheard here.

So, the Clash's only way to convince the American rock audience that it offers a vaild alternative to such lumbering best-sellers such as Boston and Foreigner is to tour. That begins Jan. 31 in Vancouver B.C.

Hilburn, Robert. Los Angeles Times January 20, 1979

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