Counter-Currents
Was Punk Rock For Sale?
The Clash at the 1983 US Festival
Spencer J. Quinn
The Clash at the 1983 US Festival.
2,812 words
On Memorial Day weekend, 1983, The Clash held their final concert. It was a meaningful one aside from that, given that it was part of a four-day festival in San Bernardino, California that featured some of the most popular music acts in the world at the time. The Clash headlined what was called New Wave Day on Saturday, May 28, and played to perhaps 100,000 people in the stifling heat. Organized by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the second US Festival (which is pronounced like the pronoun, and that reprised the inaugural event from September of the previous year) was an attempt to merge cutting-edge pop with cutting-edge technology, where concertgoers could listen to music as well play the latest video games in air-conditioned tents. It didn’t quite work out that way, since the majority of the fans just wanted to get high and party.
It was not exactly The Clash’s scene, and front man Joe Strummer tried to make everyone aware of this between songs during his band’s brilliant, if somewhat petulant, set. This performance was memorable not merely for the music — which included some the band’s best work — but also for Strummer’s tone-deaf attempts at lecturing the crowd out of its hedonism and apathy. What might work in front of unemployed, disaffected youths in a working-class pub in England is probably going to harsh a few buzzes in sunny California. But Strummer didn’t seem to care. Before launching into “London Calling,” he told the audience:
All right, then. Here we are in the capital of the decadent US of A! This here set of music is now dedicated to making sure that those people in the crowd who have children, there is something left here for them later in the centuries!
Well, all right! This is exactly what a young customer wants to hear after shelling out his parents’ hard-earned cash for an evening’s pop music entertainment. Then again, this is The Clash. They never were mere entertainers, were they?
After a haunting, frenetic rendition of “Somebody Got Murdered,” sung by Mick Jones (an ironic moment given that someone did get murdered at the festival the following day), Strummer pontificated:
I know the human race is supposed to get down on its knees in front of all this new technology and kiss the microchip’s circuits, but it don’t impress me overmuch when there ain’t nothing but a “You buy! You make! You buy! You die!” That’s the motto of America! . . . And I tell you those people out in East LA, they ain’t gonna stay there forever. And if there’s anything gonna be in future, it’s gonna be from all parts of everything, not just one white way down the middle of the road. So if anybody out there ever grows up, FOR FUCK’S SAKE!
So Joe Strummer was not happy. Why? The band hadn’t wanted to play at the festival to begin with, but were somehow roped into it. They were originally promised that the ticket prices would be $17, and were annoyed when that figure got bumped up to $25. Also, they were not pleased that Van Halen, who would headline Heavy Metal Day the following evening, were getting paid $1.5 million to perform. This is perhaps one reason why The Clash went on stage beneath a big banner which read, “THE CLASH IS NOT FOR SALE.”
And you know who else wasn’t happy? Mick Jones — but he seemed most unhappy with Strummer. After chugging through “Guns of Brixton,” Strummer was about to launch into another tirade (at 19:48 in the video) when Jones simply cut him off with the opening chords of “Know Your Rights.”
Strummer then shut up and sang for the next 15 minutes or so, and even at one point urged some “hostility” from the audience — but in a heartfelt, friendly kind of way. “I need some feeling of some sort! Yeah! Some collective, you know, hey, we’re all alive at the same time at once, you know?”
One high point comes at 33:58, when Strummer segued into The Clash’s unreleased song “Jericho,” which is a hop-stepping, power-chord spiritual, complete with a Chuck Berry solo from Jones. It’s a strikingly unique tune, even by The Clash’s high standards.
Perhaps this is why Strummer returned to the pulpit moments later:
I suppose, uh, you don’t want to hear me going about this and that and what’s up my ass, huh? Try this on for size. “Well, hi, everybody! Ain’t it groovy?” Ain’t you sick of hearing that for the last 150 years? Look, I know you’re all standing there looking at the stage. But I’m here to tell you that the people that are on this stage, and are gonna come on, and have been on it already, we’re nowhere! Absolutely nowhere! Can’t you understand that?
Got it? Everyone performing at the second US Festival, including The Clash, were apparently nowhere. I’m sure the concert organizers and other performers — to say nothing of the paying customers — loved to hear that little piece of advertising.
Then, as if to prove himself wrong, Strummer and The Clash ripped through the remainder of what was a brilliant set: “Safe European Home,” “Police on my Back,” “Brand New Cadillac,” “I Fought the Law,” “I’m So Bored with the USA,” “Train in Vain,” “Clampdown” — a selection of their best work, faultlessly performed. Despite Strummer’s abrasive attitude, the crowd cheered mightily when it was over and waited in vain for an encore. They had to be told over the intercom that, like Elvis, The Clash had left the building.
With nearly 40 years of hindsight, we can see that Strummer did have a point, however. Who were the acts preceding The Clash on New Wave Day? It was Divinyls, INXS, Oingo Boingo, Wall of Voodoo, The Stray Cats, The English Beat, and Men At Work. Anyone remember them? There’s some tolerably good pop music in there, I’m sure, but nothing with The Clash’s urgency and staying power. And the same could be said for the heavy metal acts the following day: Quiet Riot, Mötley Crüe, Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpion, Triumph, and Van Halen. If you’re into metal, I’m sure this lineup was about as good as you could get in 1983, but nobody would have gone to these bands for insight on what was happening in the world back then, let alone now.
Rock Day that Monday had some more substantial acts, including Los Lobos, The Pretenders, Joe Walsh, Stevie Nix, U2, and David Bowie. Calling these people “nowhere” might be a bit harsh, since many of them did make lasting music. But with the possible exception of U2, which had just released its hit record War, none of them could compete with The Clash when it came to piss and vinegar, when it came to screeching truth to power, and all that. None of them were punks. The Clash had been geniuses at keeping that seething outsider attitude while maturing as a band. They ended up being as musically eclectic as the Rolling Stones, yet maintained their subversive edge. They never turned their backs on melody, harmony, and all that other stuff that makes music so nice. But with them, it was more than all that, wasn’t it? As Lester Bangs pointed out, “The Clash are authentic because their music carries such brutal conviction, not because they’re Noble Savages.”
What other rock band could we say that about?
In many ways, we can look at The Clash at the US Festival as the last, dying gasp of the 1970s, when most of the Rock n’ Roll Overton window could still appeal to mainstream audiences. Remember in 1979, when The Ramones appeared on Sha Na Na? By 1983, however, corporate rock had more or less taken over. It seemed that most popular acts were competing with each other to see who could be the shallowest or most irrelevant while moving the most units with their polished pop music. Meanwhile, the new wave/alternative scene, the classic 1970s punks’ inheritors, began repelling mainstream audiences with music designed to appeal only to their snooty, college-educated cliques. Bands like Fugazi, Dinosaur Jr., Hüsker Dü, and Sonic Youth were a hard sell for people who admired the production values and tonality of The Beach Boys and The Beatles. After The Clash, the only 1980s band that had the potential for artistic integrity and mainstream success, The Replacements, just couldn’t be bothered, it seemed, to take their work to that level.
You can buy Spencer Quinn’s novel White Like You here.
The only person who seemed aware of all this back then was Joe Strummer. He acted like a humorless, self-important scold, and said a few cringy things — but he wasn’t wrong, was he? Peering back 40 years through the Internet, one can appreciate his concerns about the future, which were quite prescient. We can appreciate his loathing of degeneracy and commercialism, which are bad for one’s soul, despite his strident Left-wing moralizing. Seriously, has degeneracy and commercialism in our mainstream culture gotten any better since then? Joe Strummer deserves credit for noting the rot before almost everyone else had.
We can also appreciate Strummer’s emphasis on race, which made him and The Clash suis generis in the rock world. I wrote about this very thing in relation to The Clash’s terrific “Safe European Home,” which might be the greatest racial rock song of all time. “Those people out in East LA” didn’t stay there forever, did they? These days, they’re effectively running California. And as for that “one white way down the middle of the road,” whites today are beginning to see what it feels like to be on the gravelly shoulder. It’s no fun, is it? Perhaps if the concertgoers at the US Festival in 1983 had paid more heed to Joe Strummer and less to David Lee Roth the following evening, when he chugged a bottle of Jack Daniels and stumbled around the stage while forgetting the lyrics to his songs, then maybe things would be a little better today.
At the very least, the legions of Clash fans can point to Joe Strummer’s ghost and say, “I told you so.” The Clash was never for sale.
Only, they were.
I’d like to end this essay here, vindicating one of my all-time favorite bands on a triumphant, if somewhat melancholy, note, but something happened during The Clash’s performance that night which deserves mention. Unfortunately, no photographs or video evidence of it exists on the Internet, so we have to rely on word of mouth from people who were actually there.
In response to one of Strummer’s rants, the festival organizers decided to do something clever. On the screen behind the band while they were still playing, they projected a photo of the $500,000 check written out to The Clash in return for their services that evening. That’s $125,000 per band member for what amounted to one hour and 15 minutes of work. $100 grand an hour — and excuse me, but who is not for sale? Yeah, I know, there were roadies, agents, and management to pay. There were taxes, transportation, food, hotel, and the like as well. Would it be wrong to assume that each band member pocketed $70,000 that evening? That’s over $208,000 in today’s money.
Yet, Joe Strummer was still pissed off.
Of course, I don’t begrudge my boys financial success. I hope the surviving Clash members and Strummer’s widow are set for life and then some. And if Strummer had simply kept his socialist yap trapped that evening, no one would have said anything. But lecturing an unwilling audience about the evils of decadence and commercialism while sitting on top of a $500,000 paycheck is what the kids today call a bad look. You cannot get around that.
I don’t think any of this harms The Clash’s musical legacy, or that of the band members themselves. This is little more than a droll anecdote when compared to their music’s timeless quality. There’s also the irony that the biggest loser in all of this (aside from the poor bastard who got murdered) was Steve Wozniak, who blew around $25 million putting on both festivals. The fact that some of the biggest acts in the world were able to play in one place and at one time for an affordable price because of the poor business sense — or neglectful munificence — of a Silicon Valley billionaire does rather shed a whole new light on this “decadent US of A” business, doesn’t it?
This affair also reminds me of The Clash’s main competition in the United Kingdom’s punk scene back in the 1970s. In 1977, The Sex Pistols released their classic album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, and then famously disbanded the following year. (Coincidentally, their last performance was in California as well.) If it didn’t quite predict The Clash’s downfall, which was well in progress during the US Festival, Never Mind the Bollocks does offer brilliant commentary on the things that were torturing Joe Strummer’s soul six years later.
Never Mind the Bollocks can be described as a superheated, boiling mixture of contempt, derision, outrage, and disgust aimed at all things complacent and bourgeois about Western culture at the time. England has no future; there’s anarchy in the UK; the Queen ain’t no human being — you know the drill. Who wants holidays in other people’s misery while the Berlin Wall is still standing? Who can’t scream their bloody fucking heads off when there are so many liars and vacant people lying around? And don’t get Johnny Rotten started on what he thinks about abortions.
And then . . . and then! As if they were about to run out of things to bash, The Sex Pistols decided to devote the final song on the record to abusing their record label. Why not? And the lyrics are right out of the Joe Strummer playbook. They complain that EMI is concerned only with profits, and are so cocksure in their power and their “unlimited supply” that they can afford to exploit an innocent band like The Sex Pistols. But, as Mr. Rotten informs us so indignantly, The Sex Pistols are not for sale. “We are ruled by none!” he snarls:
And you thought that we were faking
That we were all just money making
You do not believe we are for real
Or you would lose your cheap appeal
Don’t judge a book just by its cover
Unless you cover just another
And blind acceptance is the sign
Of stupid fools who stand in line
Like EMI!
“EMI” is an exquisite rock song, perhaps the best on the record and one of the greatest of all time. It’s edgy, energetic, catchy, and it gets better the louder you play it — the sign of any great rock song. It’s also sung impeccably by Rotten, who could roll his R’s better than Hitler. But that ending! In perhaps the most powerfully ironic moment in the history of recorded music, Johnny Rotten ends his anti-capitalist, anti-commercialist diatribe with uncharacteristic open arms and a very characteristic Bronx cheer:
Hello EMI!
Good-bye, A&M!
At first, a baffling conclusion. Who or what is A&M? And then it sinks in. A&M is a competitor of EMI — as in A&M Records. But why say hello EMI and goodbye to A&M? Haven’t The Sex Pistols been reviling EMI along with pretty much everything else all this time? Why the sudden reverse?
Then it sinks in again: money. EMI finally offered The Sex Pistols enough money, and so kept them from going to A&M, who presumably could not match’s EMI’s offer. And what does that mean? It means the entire “EMI” song is a lie. All this talk about unlimited supply and stupid fools was just nonsense. EMI isn’t such a bad company after all. Despite what they claim, The Sex Pistols had been faking and moneymaking all along.
You can extrapolate from the whole record in the same way. If “EMI” is bullshit, then so is “Anarchy in the UK,” “God Save the Queen,” and the rest. All that profane indignation was just an act. When it’s over, Never Mind the Bollocks unravels like no other record or work of literature I’ve ever encountered. It completely discredits itself by artfully stating (or, really, not stating) that nothing means anything when compared to the bottom line!
This is what Joe Strummer meant when he said that everyone performing on stage during the US Festival 40 years ago was “absolutely nowhere.” He was appalled by the crass commercialism of the music industry, which was fueled by the all-too-human weaknesses of greed and narcissism. Despite the splendid music his band continued to produce, most people couldn’t tell the difference.
And there was nothing he could do about it — not least because he and his $500,000 check were part of the same system. All he could do was gripe, and come to the regrettable conclusion that all artists must face sooner or later: When the money is right, everything is showbiz.
* * *
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40 comments
The word ‘punk’ has pretty much lost all of it’s meaning as few can agree on what it means anymore, especially whether it’s a style of music or an attitude. As a style of music goes, The Clash were punk for (maybe) their first album, and the band was on major labels their whole career. Nonetheless I think they were a great band, especially the first 3 records. “Safe European Home” excepted, they were pretty much a left wing band and one of very few who could nod to reggae and not sound lame or pandering.
The limits of punk as a “style of music” have been the encouragement of a zillion lame bands who fancy they’re as good as the Pagans, Buzzcocks or the first Wire album. Wore yet is punk as a “fashion style”. How many times have you met someone in a mohawk and an Exploited jacket and think, “If they had only not sniffed all that glue maybe they would like better music”.
But punk as “attitude” may be the nadir. Bands that don’t even sound punk claim the title because they are ‘do it yourself’ in production. Nowadays it often means the mixing of left wing politics and inability to play instruments. It used to mean outsiders who had been ignored by the system, right down to prison ‘punk’ if you consider Dee Dee Ramone’s “53rd and 3rd”, a semi-confessional about turning tricks for drug money. Bands like Crass deserve the blame for inspiring generations of anarchists thinking that mediocre music would be elevated by ultra left leanings. The Ex might have been the best of that movement, quickly getting bored with the punk sound and incorporated a variety of ethnic, improvisation and folk music into their palette. As they are now wizened and grey I’d have to wonder if they wince a little at what their movement has promulgated, especially as a modern leftist would lambast their experiments as ‘cultural appropriation’.
Excellent comment.
However, I do think the first two Clash albums could be considered punk, before they went all reggae and world music.
Give ‘Em Enough Rope is great.
They had reggae on their first album—an incredibly boring six-minute cover of Junior Murvin’s “Police and Thieves.”
That’s true, though I don’t mind that song.
I guess I’m thinking in terms of the band’s entire discography. Sandinista is rife with lousy, foreign-sounding filler tracks. The debut is comparatively punk-sounding.
I never understood how Punk Rock was able to gain a following. It makes a little more sense considering that (((people))) like (((Steve Wozniak))) were willing to write big checks to promote it.
Hi Bob. I’m pretty sure Wozniak is a gentile.
Hi Spencer. I’m not saying you’re wrong but do you have any links to back up your claim? He looks like a rabbi and professes to be an atheist. If he’s not an Ashkenazi perhaps he should be.
He says he is Polish and that his uncle is a priest.
http://www.woz.org/letters/about-your-last-name/
The Forward could have mentioned Woz being Jewish below and didn’t:
https://forward.com/culture/184862/the-secret-jewish-history-of-steve-jobs-and-apple/
Jews aren’t claiming him as far as I can see. If he is Jewish he is keeping it hid. But I doubt it. I think he is a gentile.
I used to think he was of the tribe, but always puzzled how a non-tribsman like Jobbs could maneuver him out of his ownership of Apple. Now I believe I have the answer! Eventhough he looks like a Chosen, he is perhaps telling the truth that he is not.
His uncle being a priest would not be conclusive proof that he’s not Ashkenazi since many jews in the Pale Settlement converted to Christianity to gain more freedom of movement.
Jews may not claim him but they sure like to portray him in movies. I think his Ashkenazi heritage is inconclusive.
I always thought there were two camps of punk. You were a Sex Pistols fan or a Clash fan. Kind of like the Beatles and the Stones. Clash fans gravitated more towards Leftist politics and Pistols fans represented the middle finger aspect of punk. It’s true by 1983 the big names in punk had run out of steam and either cashed in or fizzled out but punk never really died, it just morphed into other things. There was a thriving “hardcore “ punk scene in America with a lot of different regional flavors. Songs like “White Minority “ by Black Flag or “Guilty of being White “ by Minor Threat while not as sophisticated as The Clash, were much more gut level and easier to relate to. There were actually a lot of racially charged pro-white punk songs and bands in the late 70s and early 80s but the right-wing at the time ignored it and dismissed the scene as a bunch of freaks etc. It was a missed opportunity because it left a huge opening for the left to come in and usurp punk and claim it , which they did. There was also a huge racially charged Rock Against Communism scene flourishing in England at the time led by Skrewdriver and many others. Very interesting article though, never been a huge Clash fan although “Guns of Brixton” is great song ( played loud!) especially
I think the division was between how you like to ‘dance’. You had skankers (Clash) and mosh-pitters (Pistols). There was overlap, but that was one obvious ‘cultural’ difference.
I totally understand the anti-bourgois appeal of the Clash but maybe I just don’t get their music, if we can call it that. The fact that their music was heavily promoted (for a relatively minor subculture) has always been a warning sign … Also the fact that some band members had Whos blood (in the case of Strummer one-eighth) was a preventative factor. I know we can’t always listen to classical music but Punk was never a good alternative for me.
We talk & we talk, we write & we write, however, what matters is what is happening on the ground.
Rishi Sunak will be the first prime minister of Britain who is non-British. Congratulations to the British People on their self-induced replacement.
When a person or a people are determined to commit suicide there is little that can be done.
Let Nature take its course.
Britain is following America’s example.
This isn’t suicide. It’s murder.
It’s assisted suicide.
Assisted genocide, perhaps.
During the Woodstock festival in 1969, activist Abby Hoffman got on stage to give a speech and social commentary about the politics of the day. The crowd did not want to hear it and he was basically thrown of the stage by Pete Townshend of the Who. If memory serves me correctly, the Clash complained about Van Halen getting paid more money than them to perform at the US festival. One of the things that I remember about the festival was that the news reported that the heavy metal day drew the biggest crowd attendance.
The Clash- one of my all-time favorite groups- complained that they were only getting one third of what Van Halen were getting ($1.5 million).
IIRC The Clash were mocked by David Lee Roth and others who asked why a band of socialists would protest that their pay wasn’t generous enough.
A lot has changed in less than 40 years. A music festival with a rock day, metal day and new wave day! An almost all white lineup of bands. Today it would have to be a hip hop day, R&B day and reggae day with an almost all-black lineup.
You are correct.
One of the things that they are trying to do is to diversify both country and metal, two types of music that I consider white. Germany has a big metal festival every year called Waken. The audience is almost exclusively white. They have had Ice T perform, who I don’t at all consider metal. They have also had metal bands from Africa perform, that few people have ever heard of.
Surprisingly, the most hardcore festival every year is Hellfest in France. Check out the lineups and crowd photos. No hip hop or r&b day there.
The promoters flashed the half million dollar check on screen? Ooh burn! This is exactly the kind of trolling we need.
Gosh, I forgot to source that.
Here is an excellent rundown of the entire concert. The $500k check burn appears at the 11:43 mark. I enjoyed this recap immensely.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vhpaSDYvwaE
I love The Clash. When I was 13 I begged my dad to take me to see them. We went to the concert at Shea Stadium, fantastic concert. My dad was dressed for a typical might out wearing khakis, a polo shirt and loafers, surprisingly nobody there gave him any shit, although he was a little freaked out by all the pot smoking, two guys snorting coke in plain sight in front of us and a guy behind us being taking out by paramedics after an apparent heroin overdose . I didn’t mind some of Micks music with BAD either
I saw The Clash live in 1980 at the Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA right after the release of “London Calling.” General admission—we got there early, so I was planted with my elbows on the stage right in front of Joe Strummer’s mic. It was, by galaxies, the most powerful live performance I’d ever seen. I was in awe and still am.
Then I saw them about two or three years later after the abysmal “Rock the Casbah” became a hit and they were MTV stars and Joe Strummer had his teeth fixed. A limp, lifeless show and a tremendous disappointment.
I became familiar with that music about ten years later, by a guy in a park selling his albums out of a trunk. Then it may have had more power, as music became less authentic in the 1990s.
‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ was released on Virgin, not EMI. The single ‘Anarchy in the UK’ was released on EMI in late 1976, but EMI dropped the Pistols following their swearathon on live TV. The band then signed with A&M and recorded ‘God Save the Queen’ in early 1977, but this contract was also terminated after A&M got cold feet. The band were then immediately signed by Virgin, who released all the Pistol’s material thereafter.
I don’t need music to be “pro white”. But there should be more pushback to the never ending drone that rock music is entirely an offshoot of R&B. Rockabilly derived a great deal from country music and so much rock and folk music lies on an extended continuum back to the Carter Family and Jimmy Rodgers. Plenty of people have argued that scrappy rural strings bands of the 20s-30s (Skillet Lickers, Charlie Poole and many others) are on a continuum with back to basics punk. The buzzsaw guitar of right winger Johnny Ramone is probably the best musical contribution of the punk era. As he himself described it, “Pure white rock ‘n’ roll with no blues influence” and set a new bar for immediacy and speed for countless others to adopt.
I’d rank the Sex Pistols as much more influential than good. They showed (or should be blamed) that you need not be a good musician to be in a band. The Damned released music slightly beforehand and the Buzzcocks a hair later, both more listenable, though Sid Vicious’s sneering take of Sinatra’s ‘My Way’ is a great mix of humor and fire. Both The Fall (Mark E. Smith) and Public Image Ltd (Sex Pistol’s John Lydon) were led by insufferable megalomaniacs with roots in punk. With both bands shuffling members endlessly, every now and then some great group chemistry would emerge (mostly for the Fall), but Public Image Ltd “Metal Box” is still one of the most unique and otherworldly albums in rock. It was another example of notable punk bands doing t heir best work after broadening their style (Wire, Fall, Husker Du, Replacements, Minutemen).
A few years ago the LA Times and Village Voice duked it out about which town had more punk ‘cred’. They are fun reads that unsurprisingly did not lead to any Tupac/ Big E bloodshed about west coast vs. east coast. Both arrogant US coasts (and the UK) overlook the middle – the warped Cleveland punk of the Electric Eels, Pagans or Pere Ubu, who all started in 1972-77. While I was never a huge Black Flag fan, I admired that such ferocity could come from mostly average looking white guys who didn’t dress in punk costumes. The average CC writer/reader probably looks a little like everyman Greg Ginn. I’d give the edge to LA as NYC hardcore is a bore and the NY Dolls, Blondie, Patty Smith and Dictators aren’t very punk.
https://www.laweekly.com/why-l-a-is-more-punk-than-new-york/
https://www.villagevoice.com/2014/08/08/why-new-york-is-more-punk-than-l-a/
Yes. You just need to ask yourself whether any black bluesman could have recorded ‘Stairway to Heaven’ or ‘Thick as a Brick’. Saying blacks invented rock is like saying Newcomen invented the steam turbine.
My take on EMI (the song) and the integrity of the Pistols is somewhat different, Mr Quinn. This is an imperfect understanding, but didn’t they get signed (and advanced by EMI) who then booted them after the Bill Grundy “Filth And The Fury” incident (with them coming out way ahead financially) to be signed by yet another shallow, opportunistic and likely (((rapacious))) label, A&M and dropped two weeks later with yet another teeming advance? “And blind acceptance is a sign of stupid fools who stand in line.”
If that’s the case, seems the band had integrity (at least Rotten did) throughout the cheapening of it with the booting of Matlock and addition of Vicious. Hence Rotten’s bitter close at the Wintergarden: “Ah ha hah. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” Him and the fans.
PS: Jim Goad? Hermano. I saw the Clash in ’79 at the Hollywood Palladium with Joe Ely opening. (I was 15 and LOVED them.) The LA punks did nothing but spit loogies at both acts. Weirdly, I think, as an act of love. It was horrible and awe inspiring at the same time. Paul Simonon kicked some kid in the face a couple times (multiple units of spit dangling from the neck of his bass) as he tried to climb on stage.
Hi Chase,
Thanks. I suspect the actual history of TSP and EMI/A&M is less important than the text of the song. When I first heard the song many years after it was released, I knew none of the history, yet still felt its power. 99.999% of the people listening to this song from now until the end of time will be in this camp. For them, the song will be about a band ragging on their record label until something happens in the end, which causes them to gleefully reverse their position. TSP didn’t have to include the switcheroo in the end. If they hadn’t, then I would suspect that *in the song* TSP were taking themselves seriously as maligned actors being exploited by a rapacious label, perhaps in an autobiographical sense.
But they had. This makes TSP more like characters in a song about a fictitious band ragging on its label. This gives them what Keats called “negative capability.” And once you go there, the song opens up to more interpretations than merely autobiography and/or a screed against greed.
My interpretation: the reversal in the end means TSP are playing the same dishonest game as EMI. It’s all showbiz. It’s all about the bottom line, despite what either of them say. If words mean nothing, then life doesn’t mean much, does it? I can honestly say that I have never experienced anything as terrifyingly ironic as the ending of this amazing song.
Complaining is part of the job description for rock musicians. The Pistols being pissed at EMI along with everything else isn’t a news flash. Epochal indie Rough Trade records also took a drubbing from Northern Ireland’s Stiff Little Fingers, who shared the Clash’s musicianship and dynamics. With defamation lawsuit worthy accusations, “Rough Trade” was a highlight from what was a great debut album for both the band and the record company. Whether posturing or not, the label weathered the blow up and went on to release many watershed artifacts of the punk-post punk explosion… and without too many people figuring out what the name meant.
Better yet was the contemporaneous “Suspect Device” (1978) one of the most shit-hot songs of the era, invoking the Sus-laws, rage, paranoia and deadly incendiary bombings of Troubles-era Northern Ireland. Its no suburban punk posturing, and maybe they once actually suffered an actual fire lit under their assess with hands playing like they were aflame. It’s a key song to revisit on this site, cautioning the non-romantic side of nationalist yearnings. By comparison, there’s no actual TNT to the charge of “Anarchy in the UK”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on6DxBgfsDY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP2g-4_feh8
‘Inflammable Material’ was the punk LP as far as I was concerned. SLF never recorded anything else to match it. I found it curious that they seemed so respectful of their mainland contemporaries (e.g. The Clash).
JFC, the Clash have got to be one of the most overrated bands, at least in rock n roll (though I will admit the first album is a banger). And, how anyone thinks they were a “punk band” is beyond me. The band formed well before punk as a pub band and glommed onto punk for an album or two before moving on. Musically, they were dilettantes who experimented with many styles, but never mastered any. If I want to hear preachy, commie propaganda from limeys of the era, I’ll stick with Gang of Four. At least, they paired their awful politics with interesting music.
Admitting you liked the Clash back in the day is a bit like admitting you identified with Holden Caulfield. Hopefully, you grew out of both. Being a preachy douchebag doesn’t mean you have integrity; it means you’re a preachy douchebag.
As for the US Festival, I would have loved to be at the “New Wave Day,” but could only afford to be at one day and chose the “Rock Day.” U2’s performance was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. I know it is hard to believe, but there was a time when Bono was not insufferable. Though it took forever for Stevie Nicks to leave the stage (despite being booed), Bowie’s performance also was worth the wait.
My brother still has his cassette bootlegged collection of all these bands 🙂
An expose on Dead Kennedys would be great.
This was an eye-opener. The US Festival was in Devore, California, some distance from San Bernardino, Memorial Day weekend 1983. We found some locals and parked in their yard. Until now I was unaware, or had forgotten, that the festival went on for more than one day. So I missed the “Punk” day with The Clash. What I recall from “Rock” day is The Pretenders, Stevie Nicks, David Bowie (singing “China Girl” and “Let’s Dance,” after midnight…when the crowd had thinned out and we could actually get close to the stage and dance, before we could look for my car and drive back, bleary-eyed, to Santa Barbara).
The Clash played on the previous, “Punk” day, and I have no idea how I ended up on the following “Rock” day. Just as I’m not sure how I was listening to J. Krishnamurti’s homily in Ojai two years earlier. People drag you to places.
Rock and especially punk rock is a young person’s game. Few acts are still releasing vital music 10 years into their rock careers, though folk, blues, jazz and classical musicians, writers, filmmakers, and artists can still have an important “mature” phase when they aren’t playing with the same fire. Those genres have more of a nuance of interpretation that isn’t so dependent on speed and energy. The problem for punks is that at that age they are basically kids, and without the same level considered thought that comes later. While Henry Rollins and Jello Biafra were frequently insufferable navel gazers with their spoken word escapades, at some point Biafra came to the realization that releasing spoken albums from Noam Chomsky was more intellectually meaningful than solely relying on the Dead Kennedy’s proposals of “Let’s Lynch The Landlord”.
Returning to the Stiff Little Fingers “Suspect Device”. You needn’t listen to all of these clips, but flipping a few seconds of each shows the loss of fire when a band starts getting on in years. Why do we still listen to “kid’s music” as our tastes develop more subtlety as we age? As the body withers we do still remember our volatile, hormone driven youth and such music speaks directly to our primitive lizard brains that fuck and fight, not so much think.
1978: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBYoNYuUVk0
1978: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUS-XJBELSE
1979: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on6DxBgfsDY
1979: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXbIJ7Qnf3Y
1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEuvDvuYQsA
1980: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDNIyN0IWpI
1991: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5CcEgvq6GI
2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir6Bk97QAv4
2006: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJRZ-s6Lq-o
2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiToT9Gqq-I
2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1GNPYTL3CZw
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