Journey Through The Past : The Clash : London Calling

We were punks alright.  Well not really, we were five middle class white boys (plus Marshall) away from home for the first time, in a smelly flat (we cultivated mould on the kitchen wall - marmalade was better than marmite!) and probably with smelly clothes as well.


However we embraced what was left of punk rock by 1979.  We had the Ramones first album, we had an album called Punk Rock (which is a collectors item now).  Truth be told we were more new wave than punk and had albums by Television, Talking Heads, Devo, the Jam, Public Image Ltd, Elvis Costello and XTC among others.

We also had The Clash's Give'em Enough Rope - which really did not capture our imagination.  We liked the drums in Tommy Gun and social and political perspective that came with Stay Free.  However like many we thought The Clash may have been spent.

So at the end of the year before Christmas when London Calling was released (a specially priced double album) I would normally have let it pass.  But the combination of the price and that magnificent cover meant I could not resist it.  Got it the week it was released.  My original copy (along with Wreckless Eric's Big Smash and Devos's Are We Not Men) was lost when the Mark III was stolen (again) and ended up in the Wairarapa.  I did not wait long to get another copy. By then I had to have it.  In 1980 it was the album to have along with Scary Monsters, Remain in Light, Unknown Pleasures, The River and Searching For the Young Soul Rebels.

Years later it became one of those albums that the whole family enjoyed (and still do).  I have not ever got sick of it as an album - sure some tracks are now over familiar but still with four great sides and no real filler (some of the tracks I like the least are other people's favourites).   Neither punk, nor new wave - just a solid reggae infused rock - remember having some arguments with people at the time that that they were more reggae than punk - seems hard anyone could have argued any different now. Topper Headon and Paul Simonon's rhythm section oozes the reggae and of course they went on to songs like Bankrobber.

Within a year they had released a triple album, the sprawling and slightly shambolic Sandinista! but this is their pinnacle (apart from maybe the single White Man In the Hammersmith Palais).