It's almost as if Arnold Schwarzenegger teamed up with Ray Davies and The Kinks to make an "album," just to be playful while scoring a hit or two.
The members of The Clash, though, were almost at war with each other when they recorded and released Combat Rock (1982), an eclectic assortment of tracks loosely strung together.
There are two memorable tracks (let's be real: a lot of the rest, including Allen Ginsberg's Voice of God imitation, feels somewhat underdeveloped): "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay Or Should I Go?" And, as with some of the Kinks' patchier records, these two big hits were enough to carry the whole thing toward the top of the pop charts.
I got to see The Clash play during the Combat Rock tour (College of William and Mary, in Virginia). Very nicely done. Their overall body of work is impressive, too, when you go back to the beginning and follow their arc. I was a frenetic Clash enthusiast and snapped up every record I could as they came out, even the UK vs. US variations. Now I've got the CD versions, mostly.
Sadly, Joe Strummer died in 2002. Mick Jones still lives, though, and plays with Carbon/Silicon, having also produced The Libertines and Babyshambles.
Today's Rune: The Self.
Hasta la vista, baby!
6 comments:
Ah! I love that song... Should I Stay or Should I Go. Totally cool. Although... that's the only song I ever heard of theirs.
I love this band.
Did you go to William and Mary? Dude, I grew up in Hampton Roads - Portsmouth, to be exact.
Thanks everybody for the comments. Sheila, there are a handful of others you might like, too. Bobby, one of my sisters, the archaeologist, got her master's degree at W & M (I was visiting); but I worked for two years in Newport News, too.
Remember the hype about how The Clash would be bigger than The Beatles. My favorite Clash song is "Train in Vain."
Jim -- wasn't that Oasis? I do remember the Clash being set to be "bigger than the Rolling Stones."
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