50 The hisTory of aLTernaTive rocK

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The Clash was part of a new wave of punk bands inspired by the Sex Pistols.

The clashThe Clash was no stranger to the hardships experienced by musical misfits. Formed in London in 1976, the Clash was part of the new wave of punk bands inspired by the Sex Pistols. The group, formed by singer-guitarist Joe Strummer and lead guitarist Mick Jones, was signed to a major label and had several hit singles on Britain’s Top 40 charts in the late 1970s.

Although the public perceived Strummer and Jones to be major rock stars, both lived with Jones’ grandmother in an apartment in a public housing complex. They could not afford their own apartments because the Clash was in debt to its record company, CBS, for recording and touring ex-penses. The money was deducted from record sales and the band members received almost nothing.

Before making the album London Calling in 1979, Strummer and Jones, along with Clash bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Nicky “Topper” Headon, could barely afford

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indie is a way of Life 51

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to buy clothes. According to Simonon, the Clash rehearsed in a garage “with one light and filthy carpeting on the walls for soundproofing. We felt that we were struggling, about to slide down a slope or something, grasping with our finger-nails. And there was nobody there to help us.”48

Despite the group’s precarious financial situation, the Clash was at its creative peak in late 1979. When London Calling was released in the United States in 1980, it was hailed by critics as a major step forward for punk rock be-cause of its innovative melding of musical styles. On “Brand New Cadillac,” Strummer sings in the quivery, quaking style of 1950s rockabilly star Gene Vincent, as Jones plays twangy lead guitar riffs straight out of a 1960s surf song. On “Rudie Can’t Fail” and “Wrong ’Em Boyo,” the Clash

During the 1950s and 1960s, waves of Jamaican immigrants moved to the United Kingdom to work in factories. They brought from home the sounds of ska and introduced them to white musicians. The style has since been incorporated into various forms of alternative rock in the U.K. and the United States. The Jamaican sound is described by British music journalist Simon Reynolds:

Ska began at the end of the fifties as a Jamaican twist on black American dance music from New Orleans, “upside-down R&B,” as guitarist Ernest Ranglin put it. The term “ska” is most likely derived from the char-acteristic ska-ska-ska-ska attack of the rhythm guitar stressing the “afterbeat” [or backbeat], which intensi-fies the music’s choppy, chugging feel. The [Clash] took the staccato pulse of sixties ska and amped it up with punk’s frenetic energy.  .  .  . The sixties source invari-ably sounds sluggish in comparison, less aggressive.

Simon Reynolds. Rip It Up and Start Again. New York: Penguin Books, 2005, p. 231.

ska’s “Upside-down r&b”

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