Posts Tagged ‘The Clash’
“In comics, we’re all weird together”*…
Your correspondent is heading out into the middle of the Pacific for about 10 days, so (Roughly) Daily will be on hiatus. Regular service should resume on or around April 14…
To keep readers occupied in the meantime, via the ever-illuminating Warren Ellis, “this extremely 1998 webcomics index page.”
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As we dig for treasure (of which, there’s plenty), we might recall that it was on this date in 1977 that CBS Records UK began distributing the eponymously-titled first album from The Clash. (It was officially released four days later.) Featuring such anthems as “White Riot,” “Police & Thieves,” and “London’s Burning,” it is widely regarded as one of the greatest punk recordings of all time, and ranks high on essentially every “best album” list.
Deeming the material “not radio friendly,” CBS in the US refused to release it until 1979 (on their Epic label, but even then dropped some of the more virulent songs). Meantime, Americans bought over 100,000 imported copies of “The Clash”, making it the best-selling import album of all time in the U.S.
Cover of the UK release
“Make things as simple as possible but no simpler”*…
Botticelli, “The Birth of Venus”
Posters promoting the Masters and their masterpieces: From Sydney-based designer Nicholas Barclay, a ten classic works of art, reduced to their essences…
Peruse each of them (about half-way down the page), and check out his other distillations, on Barclay’s site .
* Albert Einstein
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As we wonder what the docent will make of these, we might recall it it was on this date in 1979 that The Clash played the Harvard Square Theater on the first leg of their first American tour, “Pearl Harbor ’79.”
The band, backstage, with their idol (and opening act on the tour), Bo Diddley
Wearing it in on the sleeve…
Ярослав Свиридов (yasviridov on LiveJournal) has gathered an extraordinary collection of, well… noteworthy album covers.
Browse dozens more here and here.
[TotH to reader MK and to Slipped Disc]
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As we true our turntables on this, Independence Day, we might recall that it was on this date in 1976– as we in the U.S. were beginning our Bi-Centennial Day celebrations– that the Clash gave their first public performance: they opened for the Sex Pistols at The Black Swan in Sheffield, England. As U2 guitarist The Edge later wrote, “This wasn’t just entertainment. It was a life-and-death thing….It was the call to wake up, get wise, get angry, get political and get noisy about it.”
The Clash, 1976
So it went…
In the late 70s, Tony Wilson— who would go on to co-found Factory Records (the seminal independent label that embodied “The Manchester Sound”) and The Hacienda (the warehouse-based club that was the birthplace of the rave)– hosted a tea-time television show called So It Goes.
A weekly arts/culture/music series, the program’s passion was emerging new pop music… which in those days meant Punk and New Wave.
The Way We Were is a Channel 4 (UK) retrospective first broadcast circa 1984.– a compilation of performances by bands performing on So It Goes– many of them making their TV debuts: Sex Pistols, Clash, Buzzcocks, Iggy Pop, The Fall, Elvis Costello, Blondie, Penetration, Wreckless Eric, Ian Dury, Tom Robinson, Magazine, John Cooper Clarke, XTC and Joy Division…
[TotH to Richard Metzger and his essential Dangerous Minds for the lead to TWWW]
As we slam dance down memory lane, we might recall that it was on this date in 1976– as we in the U.S. were beginning our Bi-Centennial Day celebrations– that the Clash gave their first public performance: they opened for the Sex Pistols at The Black Swan in Sheffield, England. As U2 guitarist The Edge later wrote, “This wasn’t just entertainment. It was a life-and-death thing….It was the call to wake up, get wise, get angry, get political and get noisy about it.”
The Clash, 1976 (source)
Summertime Blues…
50 years ago this Spring, Eddie Cochran died in a auto accident while on tour in England; he was 21. Cochran had burst onto the scene four years earlier in a Tom Ewell musical comedy, The Girl Can’t Help It, with “Twenty Flight Rock.”
Cochran went on to chart with hits like “Summertime Blues,” “C’mon Everybody,” “Teenage Heaven,” and “Nervous Breakdown.” He was one of the first rock & roll artists to write his own songs and overdub tracks, and he’s credited with being one of the first to use an unwound third string, in order to ‘bend’ notes up a whole tone – an innovation (imparted to UK guitarist Joe Brown, who secured much session work as a result) which has since become an essential part of the standard rock guitar vocabulary.
His influence was vast: he was covered– and imitated– by artists including The Who, The Rolling Stones, The Clash, and The Beach Boys, and as various as Buck Owens and The Sex Pistols. But perhaps most historically: it was because Paul McCartney knew the chord and words to “Twenty Flight Rock” that he became a member of The Beatles; John Lennon was so impressed that he invited Paul to play with his band, The Quarrymen.
ToTH to the good folks at The Selvedge Yard, where readers can find more pix of Eddie.
As we paise famous men, we might recall that it was on this date in 1981 that Bob Marley, who had become the very avatar of Reggae, died of cancer in a Miami hospital; he was 36.
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