The Clash: Early 1980

I think though that rejection of the old guard was an essential and very much needed aspect of the movement, in the UK at least (I can't talk with any authority about the US scene, and you had guys like Bruce who were punk like in attitude and the aspect of taking rock back to its roots). Its like the slash and burn idea of farming, getting rid of the old to make room for the new.

 

Ha ha. Yeah, just like 1980 all over again: Who's better the Clash or the Jam.

 

I was around for London Calling. A critic's darling and it did get some FM play...but bands like Pink Floyd, Kansas, Styx, Pink Floyd, the Stones and others still ruled the airwaves. Queen was really big. My point is that it was not as popular as it should have been. Combat Rock sort of made them main stream with the two hits on that one. More kids were listening to the Doors in 1980 in my high school than the Clash. Way more.

Johnny Fever had them on his wall on the TV show WKRP but that was an effort for them to get recognized.

Oh you are not from the colony my apologies!

 

NME top 20 albums of 1980 (courtesy of rocklists)

1. Closer - Joy Division
2. Get Happy - Elvis Costello
3. I Just Can't Stop It - The Beat
4. Sinsemilla - Black Uhuru
5. Movies - Holger Czukay
6. Remain In Light - Talking Heads
7. Crocodiles - Echo And The Bunnymen
8. Borderline - Ry Cooder
9. Scary Monsters - David Bowie
10. Searching For The Young Soul Rebels - Dexys Midnight Runners
11. Sound Affects - The Jam
12. The River - Bruce Springsteen
13. Signing Off - Ub40
14. The Correct Use Of Soap - Magazine
15. Songs The Lord Taught Us - The Cramps
16. Laughter - Ian Dury & The Blockheads
17. Night Passage - Weather Report
18. Grace And Danger - John Martyn
19. Empires And Dance - Simple Minds
20. Suicide - Suicide

 

I think it is on the 79 list. But it does not matter really does it?

 

It was the only time I saw them, 1980.

 

Yes it is (a lowly no. 8) Just posted the list for their well thought of contemporaries at the time.

 

Hey Purple Jim,I was at both of them.It was so fricking great !

 

Recycling what, exactly? I don't know in what universe the NWOBHM was recycling anything, when it pretty much re-invented heavy metal and made it faster and heavier, and made it what Metal is today. In terms of recycling, I could make the case they Punk WAS recycling the Dolls, and, more prominently, the Stooges much more so than Iron Maiden did Black Sabbath. Punk pretty much stalled by the mid-80s. Either split up, or moved on to Post-Punk while NWOBHM bands like Def Leppard and Iron Maiden were on top of the world and in America gested Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth etc. which carried that torch (yes they all cited NWOBHM bands as major inspirations). Yes, they also cited a few punk bands but the majority were metal bands.

Where was Punk in 1985? Ramones were long past their prime (though still good live), the Pistols were long gone,so were the Kennedys. The Clash had long since moved on from pure Punk but even they were ready to call it a day.

 

Recycling the same style of music that had been going on since the late 60s/early 70s - hard rock as exposed by Sabbath, Deep Purple, Budgie, Uriah Heep, Mountain, Aerosmith, Foghat,...

Read my post again, I said "Punk at least had the merit of being built on a type of music that had been very marginal previously (Velvets, NY Dolls,...)", so you don't need to make the case. I didn't cite The Stooges or the MC5 as they were more like Hard Rock with all those psychedelic guitar solos which were stricly a no-go area in what became labelled "punk rock". However those two Detroit bands' stance certainly gave punk its attitude.

Well we never felt that punk should have gone on for years and years. We even felt that it was wrong that punk bands released albums! The Damned got sneered at by the first generation of punks for "selling out" to a major record company. We wanted The Sex Pistols to remain a singles band. There was almost a feeling that it was all over when Never Mind The Bollocks" appeared, complete with all the previous singles on it. Sell out.
Punk was an explosion, a short-sharp-shock and it did shake up the cultural landscape and forced a lot of the old guard to seriously review their appraoch or go into hiding for a while. That is why the metal bands looked so hilariously absurd to the hipper percentage of youth who were into punk and "new wave".
Any punk bands who tried to keep it all going eventually looked just as absurd but the spirit remained in The Smiths, The Cure, The Stone Roses, Oasis, Blur, Pulp, Suede, The Pixies, The Strokes,... (none of which I'm really mad on as it happens).

 

It's the Clash so it's f***in' awesome.

 

I've always rejected this "year zero" thing and that's even as a fan of a pretty wide cross-section of UK music. Where punk had a viable impact, it was down to making the average "non-muso" feel they could get into music and start playing with sound. Punk had a few decent bands, but was musically pretty boring. Post-punk, on the other hand, blew the doors off and I'm eternally grateful that the way was made for it. The "punk orthodoxy" though, along with its uniforms in attire and attitude, I have little time for.

You may want to be careful citing "what Metal is today." At least in the US, we ain't got much going on in that arena.

I'm just trying to figure out why this has to be some zero-sum partisan conflict. Did the old guard really need to be shaken up? As others have pointed out, there were plenty of "legacy" bands at the time still making compelling music. Arguably, there were some that attempted to streamline their sound to the detriment of their music. If we're laying credit at the feet of punk, I think I'd like to put some blame there as well.

Punk was like a wild roll in the hay that led to the birth of the next child. Even if you're really enamored with the child that came out of the proverbial union, you can't really say the bang outranks the previous kids.

 

I've said it before, but punk wasn't a rupture (at least in the U.S.) so much as it was a continuum that took everything that had gone before it and moved it forward. Like open heart surgery that increases blood flow it made music healthier and kept the beat strong.
By the way, I love the Clash, but I saw them and the Jam within weeks of each other in 1979, and the Jam wiped the floor with them. Trumped 'em in songs, power, energy and style.

 

A really amazing moment for the band ... with good music, a great album released (London Calling) and one better to come (Sandinista) In full creative expansion with dub, reggae, ska, punk, rockabilly, rap ....

Killers Shows, great songs and a nice vibe ... with Mikey Dread as a guest.

 

An incredible show, one of my favorites!

 

Shall we just say that you found it boring. Which is of no importance.

Apart from some interesting rock things from Rainbow, Boston, Ted Nugent, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Patti Smith for example, "rock" was getting kinda tired and bloated at the time. The Stones, Pink Floyd and Led Zep were past their best. Bolan had lost it and Bowie had turned to soul and disco. Yes, Genesis, Jethro Tull, ELP, ELO, Rick Wakeman… were very popular for prog lovers but lovers of raw rock 'n' roll (like me) hated them. The New York Dolls were gone, as was Iggy and the MC5. Clapton had gone soft and Rory had done album after album of the same thing and weakened his sound with the addition of keyboards. Etc., etc.
Punk was like a breath of fresh air (well, it stank of beer, sweat, pee, weed and fish and chips in fact).

 

Iggy was not gone. He did some of his best records around that time.

 

Dear, dear. Here is your foot. Take a shot.

 

By the late 70's and early 80's (precisely in the range 1979 to 1981) I was a kid and began to define my musical tastes, I had grown up listening to the music of my older brothers (The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, Genesis, Yes and other bands)
When Punk appeared in our lives, Just listen to my older brothers and friends with a lot of negative criticism towards the punk ... I seemed to me something amazing and new. The first band to capture my interest was The Clash (and so far is one my favorite bands)

There was a lot of bad vibes towards the punk in the generation before me ... and that was evident in every way. However it seemed to me that with punk and what came after with the new wave, ska, post-punk, dub, etc was so interesting and innovative that even believe that without the revolution punk all this maybe would not have been the same.


Since then I realized that I do not care to belong to any musical Tribe ... I was interested in everything I liked, until today.

 

No he didn't. The last Stooges album was Raw Power in 1973. The following albums were Kill City, The Idiot and Lust For Life in 1977!
So in 1975-76 when punk began, Iggy was not to be seen.

 

totally agree but missing from the equation:

dragons + beer + motorcycles + wizards + devil + leather

 

DEFINITELY YES !

 

I remember that movie!

 

You kind of destroyed your own argument in your first rejoinder to mine. At no point did I say that there was nothing to be enjoyed in punk. I said I didn't particularly dig it beyond the Sex Pistols or The Clash. If you dig the lot, more power to you. If you don't dig the legacy acts of the time, more power to you as well.

Where you lose me is when you claim that me being bored by punk is inconsequential but you being bored by everything else isn't. "Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords," and all that.

Also, lest we forget since Bowie got slagged for turning to soul and disco... He dropped Station to Station in '76 and was about to release Low during punk's heyday. If that's "tired and bloated" to you, I'm afraid we'll never achieve a meeting of the minds on this one.

 

Interesting discussion but London Calling is definitely not a "punk" album.