Kinda OT: The Clash

[slap-pop-karl]

Hey I finally got my issue of Bass player and I have read a bit and had a flick through. There was a bit with a song by the clash and it spoke about them being punk. Really I couldn't consider them punk as I find them to be...None punk. They don't sound punk at all to me. There far to good. Does anyone else think like this?

 

SPK

[...]

No.

[slap-pop-karl]

Wow...That was blunt...Erm...If you come here ignore the thread and don't post...Damn this was stupid.

[...]

I tell it like it is.

 

Wikipedia - The Clash also explains more about the band and their history.

 

They were the first "pop punk" band. A modern equivalent would be Green Day or any of the host of other bands who sound exactly like Green Day but call themselves something else.

[kenfxj]

The only band that ever mattered...

 

White Riot

I'm So Bored With the U.S.A

London's Burning

 

 

[ABGBrian]

If the only songs you know by The Clash are 'London's Calling' and 'Rock the Casbah' then I could understand your presumption.

[jeremy c]

What else would you call them, if you don't think they are punk?

 

Do you think your age group invented the style?

[ZZ Thorn]

I think the more accurate term regarding the Clash is 'hugely overrated,' but that's just my humble opinion.

[slap-pop-karl]

If the only songs you know by The Clash are 'London's Calling' and 'Rock the Casbah' then I could understand your presumption.

No, I got the greatest hits so I heard them on that. Not many of them sound punk.

 

What else would you call them, if you don't think they are punk?

 

Do you think your age group invented the style?

 

Of course my age group didn't invent it . I don't know what I would call them I just wouldn't call them punk. I don't think they sound anything like the sex pistols or the only ones. They seem more...rock like, but saying that I didn't think till I read bumpcity's post saying pop punk, they could well be a sub-genre of punk...

[kenfxj]

When I was your age they were definitely considered punks.

 

For comparison here are a few clips from some of their contemporaries who were unquestionably considered punk rockers all those years ago:

 

Dead Boys - Sonic Reducer

The Damned - New Rose

 

Admittedly, it ain't Green Day, but still...

 

 

[slap-pop-karl]

I would call them punk, They don't sound anything like the clash.

[kenfxj]

ok

[The Bear Jew]

The really cool thing about the early punk scene was that there wasn't a super-easy way to define what was punk.

 

The Clash did something kind of interesting--the boys mixed reggae, rockabilly and pop/rock music with politics and a strong songwriting sensibility. They were very different from The Pistols and The Ramones, and yet they still had a punk energy and vibe. They managed to create radio-friendly music with real punk credibility.

[josh a]

I tell it like it is.

 

Wikipedia - The Clash also explains more about the band and their history.

 

They were the first "pop punk" band. A modern equivalent would be Green Day or any of the host of other bands who sound exactly like Green Day but call themselves something else.

 

a modern equivalent would not be green day, IMO.

The Clash mixed punk ideology with I guess you could say rock music and reggae, as well as having some fairly original tunes.

 

For example, Complete Control is undeniably punk, and the lyrics reflect punk idealogies "They said release remote control" etc.

Then again, there is The Guns of Brixton and Whiteman in Hammersmith Palais which are basically dub/reggae.

[slap-pop-karl]

The really cool thing about the early punk scene was that there wasn't a super-easy way to define what was punk.

 

The Clash did something kind of interesting--the boys mixed reggae, rockabilly and pop/rock music with politics and a strong songwriting sensibility. They were very different from The Pistols and The Ramones, and yet they still had a punk energy and vibe. They managed to create radio-friendly music with real punk credibility.

I get what you mean with all the mix genre but I still can't hear the Punk. I do like the Clash but when it gets called punk I don't know what to say. I am going to take your word for it that it is punk as you guys have all been around music a lot longer than me and understand how to tell a genre but still I can't see the punk in them. Defiantly I can't see it in the recorded tracks, I haven't seem any live shows but would I see the punk there?

[The Bear Jew]

Karl, I think part of the issue here might be your definition of punk. It's not all three chords, yelping and anarchy.

[slap-pop-karl]

Karl, I think part of the issue here might be your definition of punk. It's not all three chords, yelping and anarchy.

Ha, I know that. I've been defining it on punk bands that I have heard. So I really compare them and I do not see the similarities in them when I compare them with the Clash. Its been bothering me for ages.

[jeremy c]

Punk nowadays seems to be a specific musical style.

 

But when it started it was an attitude which lead to new approach to music.

 

So "sounding like punk rock" to me doesn't really mean that much to me...the groups all sounded different to me when I heard them.

 

In addition, British Punk and NY Punk and LA Punk were all different musically but the attitude was what linked them all together.

 

Green Day was another generation and they dropped their punk attitude pretty quickly.

 

Blink 182 and all the current stuff seems to have no punk attitude at all, punk has become another marketing word.

[slap-pop-karl]

Ahh, So punk is attitude?

[Phil W]

First a disclaimer, punk's never been my thing (despite a soft spot for the Ruts and an respect for Iggy and the Clash and the like).

 

From the outside it seems that punk as a genre has narrowed over the years. In the 70s, it was a movement with a wide musical remit and more about the attitude and a reaction to the music business in the 70s.

 

Karl's poat is interesting as it shows how a younger, less experienced listener/musician might experience or view a genre outside of a knowledge of its historical context. Let's face it, that must be how most young listeners see it until they go on to explore punk history.

 

It seems the punk, more than any genre has narrowed its remit. I wonder if this is partly because, despite its anti-commmercial origins, punk is inheritently marketable to young people and the lead of McLaren and the Pistols was later followed by a commercialisation of punk.

 

I wonder if this has happened to other genres. I think it relates to some experinces of people who think jazz is only a kind of instrumental soul/rnb or certain narrow stereotypical views of other genres such as country . . . hmmm - interesting!

[Phil W]

Oh yeah, in all those years I never realised the lyrics were 'Sharif don't like' until the BP.

[jeremy c]

Ahh, So punk is attitude?

 

Yes.

[kenfxj]

Ahh, So punk is attitude?

 

In the opinion of us old farts, yes. My kids would disagree, thinking it's more of a fashion thing.

[...]

Ahh, So punk is attitude?

 

In the opinion of us old farts, yes. My kids would disagree, thinking it's more of a fashion thing.

 

You mean it's not what $100 jeans someone wears or their hair style!?!? Please do not let MTV know this.

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

I get what you mean with all the mix genre but I still can't hear the Punk. I do like the Clash but when it gets called punk I don't know what to say.

 

Say that you've never heard either their first album or "Give 'Em Enough Rope".

[ABGBrian]

SPK, if you don't think the Clash are punk then tell us who you think of when you think of true 'punk rock' bands?

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

No, no... not a punk band at all...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9eLeZS9OeY

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZk-mq8IUsY&mode=related&search=

[Davo-London]

Give SPK some slack - we know what he means when he states he cannot hear punk. London's Calling is a great song and if that was typical we would not be discussing this. But the reggae and rockabilly songs demonstrate the confusion of the period. Many bands were labelled punk due to their coincidence with the birth of punk. For some this made sense and for others it didn't. Let's think of the Stranglers. Definitely a punk name, definitely a punk origin and intent with songs like Peaches. But they were real musos and listen to Golden Brown and the harsichord sound. Anyone listening now would be thinking pop.

 

Attitude and timing is what it was all about. Too much rationalisation does not help. If, like me, you were in a rock band when punk broke you had a choice. Carry on as you were or adopt a harder/rougher/seedier edge to join the bandwagon. We did the former and never made it. The drummer who had punk aspirations left and formed a band called The Meat. I saw them play at the Chislehurst Caves. Yes caves as in a natural caves underground - used as a shelter in WWII. Bu**er me. What a noise. They were PUNK.

 

Davo

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Give SPK some slack - we know what he means when he states he cannot hear punk. London's Calling is a great song and if that was typical we would not be discussing this. But the reggae and rockabilly songs demonstrate the confusion of the period. Many bands were labelled punk due to their coincidence with the birth of punk.

 

And, of course, many bands simply moved on from punk. By the early 80s, things had changed a lot, as had the Clash's music.

 

If you want to buy a good encyclopaedia on the music of the period, you could do worse than buy "London Calling", where they do songs in so many different styles.

[Max Valentino]

Not to knock the music of the current generation, but I have yet to hear a single contemporary "punk" band which does anything for me. On the other hand.....

.....growing up I never really "got" rock. I didn't like it..well, 'cept the Beatles and a couple of other things. When I was 7, during the course of a three day period, I heard the music of Miles Davis and Beethoven. Not only did I listen to that music...I "heard" it. My course in life was set (six weeks later I began trumpet lessons..)

So, in my youth I listened to alot of classical music, and a lot of jazz (and since my mother was an ethnologist specializing in the Balkans...a lot of Balkan folk music). Miles, Coltrane, Bird, Ellington, Basie, Mingus....that's what I listened to.

By High school that was augmented with Ornette Coleman, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Tower of Power, JB, and a bunch of R&b.

Never got rock. Tried to...peer pressure in HS and all. Never got Zeppelin...found Sabbath, Cheap Trick, Nugent and the host of other 70s rock acts to be atrocious.

Then a friend took me to see the Clash on the "give 'em enough rope" tour. I got it. I finally understood what rock was all about (and from that day on, all those bands were not so atrocious...) I don't know about punk attitude, fashion or style...but those guys were playing music, in the words Herman Hesse, "with all the passion and energy that one could muster". Yep..."the only band that matters". I will say that the attitude, energy, style and swagger of contemporay bands is in pale and shallow in comparison to what I saw/heard that night.

 

Max