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Unsung Forum » Cope vs. The Clash |
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Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Dec 14, 2009, 21:42
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IanB wrote: Strummer was memorable for (...)a couple of good haircuts... I thought he looked ridiculous with the mowhawk/mohican. Couldn't carry that look off at all.
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Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Dec 14, 2009, 21:47
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Possibly, but I missed it in earlier rounds. Kind of inevitable in a forum like this I suppose (like the "I've just got into Can, what krautrock should I listen to next?" quarterly threads.) I just bought it up cos I was intrigued by Cope's take on it in the AOTM review.
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Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Dec 14, 2009, 21:57
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Hahah! I love it!
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Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Dec 14, 2009, 22:47
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"And so, throughout 1978, exotic Post-Punk groups grew up totally in defiance of that Newly composed revisionist Punk Rock Rule Book (“Thou shalt not wear this… thou shalt not listen to that…” “I fucking will, mate, and with flares on if I wish.”). I ain’t gonna name, blame & shame anybody specific for what happened … oh, all right then, yes I will … it was Uncle Joe Stalin, sorry, Uncle Joe Strummer who caused the schism. Yup, once that posh too-old cunt had made his crass (memories of ‘Power in a Union’?) appeal to ‘Punk Rockers!’ on whichever Clash single it was, up sprang a whole new generation of newly-uniformed Strummer Jugen, all desperate to wear only the gear what Joe wore, to sing only of the subjects what Joe sang.3 Posh to the point of having been a public school educated diplomat’s son, and at least old enough to remember Woody Guthrie, Strummer reached out to the working classes in the manner all British Poshies still think best, i.e.: act macho, slurp your tea & and deny your past. And so, after 1977’s Jubilee chaos, the vivid Punk Vision of the Pistols/Clash/Buzzcocks was thereafter absorbed into so-called Punk Rock, a tweaked Men-Only, Shi-ite version of its original Vision, almost always thereafter to be comprised of obligatory 2-minute-hate songs, pub terrace anthems, 4 leather jackets, 4 pairs of scuffed 501s. And whatever Punk had done randomly during 1977, Punk Rock wished ritualistically to re-enact forever thereafter AND demand parity with the form’s originators." (...) "it (The Pop Group)showed up the newly-released second Clash LP GIVE ‘EM ENOUGH ROPE for precisely what it was: old-fashioned. So fucking old fashioned, it coulda been a biplane … or a Blue Öyster Cult Record, Sheesh; SECRET TREATIES certainly comes to mind. Sure, that sounds classic enough now but we’d all cut our hair and followed Foul-mouthed Johnny to get as far away from that shit as was possible. Old fashioned. Old fashioned fucking rock’n’roll they served us, and were shameless enough to try and pass it off as new… and – far worse still – succeeded in hoodwinking most suckers!!! The look of rebellion, that’s all the majority wanted. The look. I still remember standing in Probe Records the day that sad slab came out and thinking “You fucking sell-outs, with your fucking staccato BÖC drums and late Mott choruses. After the thrill of fucking off every adult in Jubilee land the previous year, who the fuck wanted this bloated & too-long-in-the-recording American FM brain-rot? That the LP’s reception in the USA gained the band Album of the Year awards from such arch-bastions of Kapitalism as ROLLING STONE and TIME magazines is all the evidence you need to see just how far Uncle Joe’s band would stoop to conquer. And after releasing that crock of old shite, ex-rockers everywhere seized their opportunity to come in from the cold, Strummer’s decision to Pearlmanize the Clash inevitably endorsing the return of all those hoary old ‘70s big rock riffs again, this time punked up not in any musical manner but by the simple donning of a motorbike leather. People didn’t even bother cutting their hair anymore. Was it punk, was it Thin Lizzy?" (...) "So rather than re-educating the UK masses as he’d blathered on about for so long, Strummer’s pro-US obsessions facilitated all those Fifth Columnists who churlishly wished only to prolong the Jubilee year’s Punk festivities, and – worser still – prolong it in a tart, bowdlerized form, all gesture and self-parody. So when Suicide – darlings of the UK Post-Punk scene from Day 1 – supported the Clash on their 1978 British tour, parochial meatheads to a man rained bottles down on them for providing no evidence whatsoever of being Punk Rockers (no geetars, no drums, no motorbike leathers, WTF?). What a tragic episode. A musical Holocaust. At the time, I was depressed as all hell and felt outrageously betrayed. Outrageously. And after all those fucking promises, all we got from the Clash were rock’n’roll bromides and Yank imagery. Remembering those Clash/Suicide shows, even today, surely nothing better illustrates the division between what Punk’s experiment coulda been, and what it was now forced to become: merely fast, angry rock played by J. Stalin’s proles." (...) "From the evidence contained within THE FUTURE’S UNWRITTEN, Julien Temple’s excellent Joe Strummer documentary profile, it seems to me that Joe’s abandonment of his role as Generalissimo of Punk in favour of popstardom in the USA was a decision that still baffled even him, poor sod. However, in the cold light of 2009CE, it must be remembered that J. Strummer was still only mid-late 20s when all these decisions had to be made. However decrepit he seemed to me at the time, that’s still young to shoulder such a heavy weight of Cultural Responsibility. That he’d had the sleight of hand and sheer personal Pol Pot-ness to blank all his Commune mates from the 101 house in order better to fit in with the much younger Punk scene suggests to me that Strummer would ultimately have demanded of himself a prime starring role in whatever next-big-thing transpired musically, and most serpently didn’t wanna have to take a worthy secretarial role – even as General Secretary, ha – in the greatest musical revolution since 1967, and who could blame him? Why play the important but temporary Trotsky to J. Rotten’s Lenin, when you could be off on your own with your heroic other being Stalin, re-writing the route as you go along, even assassinating your erstwhile ‘kamarad’ Mickhail Jonesky. Poor Joe S. Perhaps Tymon Dogg came back at the end as a kind of Beria figure. The jury’s still out on this one."
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Lord Lucan 2702 posts |
Dec 14, 2009, 23:27
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Shit! I love the fact that half this thread turned out to be about Eric Clapton, who I never had any interest in and have no real opinion of. Anyway, apologies to anyone who complained that this topic had been covered before. I wasn't aware of that. It must have been really annoying having to read this whole thread. I was intrigued by Cope's comments, and as someone who was shouted down regularly when I was younger if I ever questioned the godlike genius of Strummer and co by friends and fellow music lovers, I'm surprised to read that so many people here feel the same way I do. The people who shouted me down then did buy into the 'authenticity' trip, to the point of ridiculing me for liking music with nonsensical lyrics and stuff that went beyond using the guitar/drums/bass/vocals formula. But then some of these people were SWP drones, so what did I expect? Just want to make something clear about the 'authenticity' thing that I mentioned in my opening post. I personally don't need authenticity, whatever that may be, from a band. I think it's a totally overrated concept and can stifle a band's creativity as they tie themselves up in knots trying to achieve it. I'm quite happy for music I listen to to be made by people with imagination willing to use any means at their disposable. I'm not bothered if they're seen as poseurs, pseuds, 'actors' with a large dash of pretentiousness if it produces interesting music. Striving to be 'authentic' (an oxymoron, surely?) is just another pose anyway. I mean, look at Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. Actually, don't. That's another can of worms that really doesn't need opening any time soon.
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keith a 9576 posts |
Edited Dec 15, 2009, 00:22
Dec 15, 2009, 00:21
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Probably not that different, MYE. I didn't stop buying 'old fart' stuff overnight. I mixed and matched for a few years. As for Clapton, I'm too young (that's not a phrase I use often these days!) to have followed him at his peak, which is surely his Cream days. I bought the Layla dbl LP when I was about 15 as I was innocent enough to believe the critics who labelled it as a classic (Eric was, after all, 'God'!). Actually, I liked it at the time, well some of it anyway (the title track wasn't so over-familiar back then), but what has he done since I Shot The Sheriff? Hours and hours of soul-less pap, the so-called blues dressed in an unbecoming Armani suit. I remember watching a documentary on him in the 80's. He said he preferred his demo's to his finshed albums. Well I guess you could say that this was being refreshingly honest. On the other hand, if someone of his stature won't stand up the record company, what chance was there for anyone else? And if he doesn't think the album is as good as it could be, why should we waste our time listening to it? I agree that Brits are too eager to knock things, but other than Wonderful Tonight which might be sentimental shit but at least has a half decent tune, everything else I've heard by Clapton these past 35 yrs has been little short of a disgrace.
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anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
Edited Dec 15, 2009, 01:06
Dec 15, 2009, 01:05
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Heh. I completely misinterpreted the phrase "review of the month" and was looking in the Drudion
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Squid Tempest 8769 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 10:12
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I'll have to get the Bruford book. Lerrus know if the Wakeman one is any cop...
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Squid Tempest 8769 posts |
Dec 15, 2009, 10:16
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Lord Lucan wrote: I mean, look at Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'. Actually, don't. That's another can of worms that really doesn't need opening any time soon. Nah, keep opening them cans LL, I likes worms.
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IanB 6761 posts |
Edited Dec 15, 2009, 10:27
Dec 15, 2009, 10:22
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Squid Tempest wrote: I'll have to get the Bruford book. Lerrus know if the Wakeman one is any cop... The Wakeman book might be better as an audio book. It's a quick read of serial anecdotes. Very little about the making of the music. I imagine he dictated it verbatim and someone tidied it up rather than sitting down at a deak and writing it. Good fun though. The Bruford book is the polar opposite. Best music book I have ever read though a non musician or someone who still harbours fantasies about the joys of the rock n roll or jazz lifestyle might find it a wee bit too truthful.
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