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Monday, November 16, 2020

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2099 - "PLAY THE CLASH!!" - Musical Monday for 2011.16

A Sense of Doubt blog post #2099 - "PLAY THE CLASH!!" - Musical Monday for 2011.16


INAUGURATION COUNTDOWN


65 DAYS to inauguration



This quote below is from yesterday's blog, but it is too good not to repeat.
 

"It's just math. And math doesn't care about your feelings."

~ Liz Dye, Wonkette

https://www.wonkette.com/trumps-bs-pennsylvania-claims-dropkicked-by-demon-math

https://theartsdesk.com/new-music-tv/rise-and-fall-clash-now-tv-review-london-falling



I love the Clash. I am playing them tomorrow in class and wearing my CLASH t-shirt. I am reprinting here the t-shirt blog post I made of the Clash back in 2013, almost seven years ago to the DAY, which was a total coincidence (or is it?) as that post published November 14th, 2013.

I won't repeat the content in that post because one of my favorite Clash stories is detailed there.

Though the Clash come from punk roots, they were more than punk, which often (though not always) was limited in scope.

What amazes me is how relevant their music is still today, in fact even more so this year with songs like "I Fought the Law" and "White Riot" taking on new meaning in the dumpster fire events of 2020.

And, since 2013 when I wrote that Clash post for the 365 T-shirts blog, new books and documentaries have come out about the Clash.

The Clash started in 1976 and existed in some form until 1986.

John RichardsKEXP radio personality, created International Clash Day on 7 February 2013

I just ordered Cut The Crap, the Clash's last album, missing two of its founding members (Mick Jones and Topper Headon). By Christmas, I will have the last Clash studio album I never owned.


IMPORTANT BIT

 Before M.I.A. had an international hit in 2008 with "Paper Planes", which is built around a sample from "Straight to Hell", she referenced "London Calling" on 2003's "Galang".[129]

I will play the Clash in class tomorrow.

The Clash are more relevant in 2020 than ever before. Just check out "Know Your Rights" and "Police On My Back."

Here's the mix. And yes,  I made a Clash mix without any fucking versions of "Should I Stay or Should I Go?"

Fuck that song.



[1] London Calling (Official Video)
[2] Lost in the supermarket
[3] Magnificent Seven - Tom Synder Show 1981
[4] Death Or Glory (Video)
[5] Clampdown 1980
[6] Straight To Hell, live on a certain tv show! Remixed with awesome interview clips.
[7] White Riot (Remastered)
[8] Clash City Rockers [Single]
[9] This is Radio Clash (Official Video)
[10] English Civil War (live 1979)
[11] POLICE ON MY BACK (HD)
[12] Train in Vain (Live at the Lewisham Odeon)
[13] "Hitsville UK" (1980)
[14] Know Your Rights (with lyrics) police protests, 2015, 2020
[15] The Clash (1985)
[16] Rudie Can't Fail
[17] Ivan Meets G.I. Joe (Remastered)
[18] Rebel Waltz
[19] If Music Could Talk 
[20] Rock the Casbah (Official Video)









http://www.citypages.com/music/the-band-is-gone-and-we-are-the-only-clash-that-remains-writer-mark-andersen-on-the-lasting-legacy-of-the-clash/489529101






The Clash - Interview with Tom Snyder 1981



The Clash interviewed on the Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. June 1981.


The Clash - bbc4 documentary 2014
685,075 views•Jan 2, 2015


A long time ago there were Pirates...

THIS IS THE ONLY CLASH ALBUM I DO NOT OWN.





T-shirt #238 - The Clash

T-shirt #238 - The Clash

After pushing the warp engines to 139% capacity and shedding excess molecular waste which will shorten the longevity of the unit, Grading Robot has powered down to half power.

It has been a rough week for Grading Robot. Other classes queue up now, but time opens like a flower blooming.

How do you spell relief?

It has been a while since I featured some music on the blog. It has been exactly ...

a week.

A week ago today, I showcased T-shirt #231: my CBGB shirt dedicated my post to Lou Reed.

Okay, true enough, a week is not a very long time.

Before that, although I snuck in some music content in T-shirt #209 after my wife discovered Lucius, a great band, the last blog entry with a shirt that featured a musical artist on the actual shirt front was T-shirt #190 for Stereolab. Forty-one days is a long time between music-themed T-shirts. Partially, the reason for the gap is my fear of running out of music shirts. I have fewer music shirts than ultimate-themed or comic- book-themed shirts. Also, I have been holding back some of my music T-shirts because the love letter I want to write will take time and research. Though I have been thinking, perhaps I need to dispense with writing lengthy love letters for EVERYTHING. Right now, I am trying to create an extended posting once a week. With that in mind, this post will not be too elaborate or long. Though how I define "not too long" may be different than how others define it.

Today's shirt, quite obviously, features ONE OF THE GREATEST BANDS EVER: The Clash.

I could write a HUGE entry about the Clash, my experiences with their music, basics on their history. But I will restrict myself to a couple anecdotes and connections.

Every time I think of the Clash, I think about how when I was in college, I met a guy named George Constas, better known as "γιώργος" or "yiorgos" in Greek (which are both Greek for George). He was from Greece (obviously). He could drink like a fish, and he only liked The Clash and the Psychedelic Furs, of which he would remind us frequently when drunk by yelling "Play the Clash!" or "Play the Furs!" George's English was all right but not fantastic. I never spoke down to him or tried to simplify things so that he might understand them (or talk louder or slower, which is what some people stupidly do with people who do not know English well). I just spoke normally, at my normal speed, with my normal vocabulary, which in my early years of college was extra-pretentious. George always responded with the same one liner: "you stupid fucking Americans; you don't know shit." George was a classic. And he loved the Clash.

These pictures are a bit of a cheat, but I like props. I don't really play the guitar, but my wife and step-son do, and so we have a lot of guitars around the house.

THE CLASH ON WIKI

The Clash was one of the greatest bands ever and certainly one of the greatest punk bands of all time. I would argue that the Clash is the single greatest punk band ever and one of the top five greatest bands of all time (Beatles, Stones, Who, Led Zep, the Jam... I know that's six then and leaves out Radiohead, Talking Heads, Pink Floyd, and so many others... I may need to work on this list.)

After starting in 1976, the Clash disbanded in 1986. The band's lead vocalist and spiritual center, Joe Strummer, died in 2002, dashing forever the hope of a Clash reunion and robbing the world of a musical giant.

The Clash are best known for their third album London Callingwhich by unanimous agreement sits at eighth place on Rolling Stone's Top 100 Albums of all time list. It's great. Though I love dozens of Clash songs, in picking some videos to share (I was going to just share three and it grew to five before I cut myself off), four of the five are from London Calling.

I saw The Clash in 1984 in Chicago after Mick Jones had left the group.

The music speaks for itself.

The Clash are amazing. I am sure that most of my readers already know their music well.

Last comment on today's shirt: Like my memory of George, which is an instructive anecdote, I always remember Rule of Chris Number Two when talking about the Clash, as I did each semester when I made them one of the featured artists in my women's studies course. I have only written about the Rules of Chris twice before: T-shirt #64: Embrace Uncertainty and T-shirt #103: Aloha. Rule of Chris #1 is the Golden Rule because it's the abiding principle of life and living. But Rule of Chris #2 is "always have a book." Before the modern age when I gained the ability to carry around a computer that fits in the palm of my hand with five times more computing power than my first two computers combined (at least), I needed a book more desperately. Now, I carry a Kindle, which is a computer containing many books, though I often have an old-fashioned, paper book anyway.

I was reading Gravity's Rainbow for a class when I saw the Clash in concert, and I toted a huge, trade paperback sized tome in the pocket of my Army fatigue cargo pants and read many pages while standing in line to get in to the concert. I wanted to get a picture of the book, but I can't find it. If I ever do, I may update here. On a side note, I read Moby Dick between Santana and the Rolling Stones at the Pontiac Silverdome. There was a two hour wait in the three act concert (Iggy Pop, Santana, and the Rolling Stones). This was in 1981. I spent a lot of time reading that damn Moby Dick book.

Hence...

RULE OF CHRIS #2: Always have a book to read; one never knows when one has to wait a long time for someone or something.


Here are my five favorite Clash songs (though  it was a close call with "Straight to Hell" and "Clash City Rockers" and several others... basically the entire London Calling album).

The Clash - London Calling


THE CLASH - "LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET"



The Clash - Magnificent Seven - Tom Synder Show 1981



The Clash - Death Or Glory


The Clash - Clampdown 1980



COUNTDOWN TO THE END OF THE YEAR: 127 shirts remaining

- chris tower - 1311.14 - 18:46

PHOTO GALLERY

https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/music/the-clash-stage-punk-rock-pop-up-in-soho-8777931.html

https://consequenceofsound.net/2017/04/how-the-clash-can-lead-to-a-great-record-collection/

https://www.npr.org/2020/01/28/799345169/london-calling-at-40-greil-marcus-revisits-his-original-review

http://www.ianhurd.com/blog/2018/2/9/everything-i-know-about-human-rights-i-learned-from-the-clash

https://spectrumculture.com/2020/03/31/hot-takes-for-the-apocalypse-is-the-clash-overrated/

https://classicalbumsundays.com/album-of-the-month-the-clash-london-calling/

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/clash-fire-mick-jones/

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/clash-playlist-punk-rock-london-calling-album-a9241971.html

https://www.nme.com/news/music/london-calling-inside-clashs-new-brilliant-exhibition-2574622

https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/clash

https://observer.com/2017/04/the-clash-first-album-anniversary-review/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/may/23/the-clash-mick-jones-paul-simonon

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/clash-london-calling-rare-demos-vanilla-tapes/


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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2011.16 - 10:10

- Days ago = 1963 days ago


- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.

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