Today I’m rockin’ the Casbah with a band that came out of Punk but was much more than punk – they had a social/political edge and a big dose of Reggae. My type of band.
I first heard the Clash when their first album came out. I was teaching at the time and running a record club at lunch-time. I’d take my stuff in and they’d bring theirs. We were playing Doors, Roy Harper, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Captain Beefheart and Velvet Underground – then, suddenly, overnight there was a revolution. All the kids cut off their hair, spiked it up, narrowed their trousers and were festooned with razor blades.
One night there was a knock on my front door. A bunch of them had come around with a carrier bag of Punk albums. One of them said: ‘Right, you boring old fart we’ve come round to play you some good stuff!’.
We spent the evening playing Sex Pistols, Stranglers, Damned and Clash. It was quite an education.
So today I’ll think about those great times and play my Clash albums real loud!!