The Clash

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Background information
Origin	London, England
Genre(s)	Punk rock Rock Reggae Alternative
Years active	1976–1986
Label(s)	CBS Records
Associated acts	The 101ers London SS Big Audio Dynamite Havana 3am Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros Carbon/Silicon The Good, the Bad and the Queen
Website	www.theclashonline.com
Members
Joe Strummer (deceased) Mick Jones Paul Simonon Topper Headon
Former members
Nick Sheppard Keith Levene Pete Howard Terry Chimes Vince White Rob Harper

The Clash were an English punk rock band who were active from 1976 to 1986. They were one of the most successful and iconic bands from the original wave of punk rock in the late 1970s, and went on to incorporate punk with reggae, rockabilly, dance, jazz, ska, and eventually many other music styles into their repertoire. The Clash were legendary for their intense stage performances.

From their earliest days as a band, the Clash stood apart from their punk peers with their musicianship, as well as their lyrics; the passionate, left wing political idealism in the lyrics of frontmen Joe Strummer and Mick Jones contrasted with the nihilism of the Sex Pistols and the three-chord simplicity of the Ramones. Although they were a major success in the UK from the release of their first album in 1977, they did not become popular in the US until 1980.

Their third album, the late 1979 release London Calling is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest albums in the history of rock music; it was released in the US in January 1980, and a decade later Rolling Stone magazine declared it the best album of the 1980s. Rolling Stone also placed it at #8 on their list in 2003 of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

The Clash's attitude and style, as much as their music, strongly influenced countless other bands. In 2003 they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked The Clash ^[1] #30 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.^[2] Their record company once dubbed them "The Only Band That Matters," a phrase which caught on with their fans, and has since become closely associated with them. Epic Records Director of A&R, Bruce Harris, came up with the phrase. He is credited with convincing the company to release The Clash in the USA. His wife, Marion(Bernstein) Harris, was the product manager.She is credited with convincing Joe Strummer to include lyrics in the sleeve.

[edit] History

[edit] (1976-1978) Formation and British success

Originally composed of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Keith Levene and Terry Chimes (credited, as a pun, on their first LP as "Tory Crimes"), the Clash formed in Ladbroke Grove, west London in 1976, during the first wave of British punk. Levene (later of Public Image Ltd.) was a friend of Mick Jones and served as guitarist and songwriter with The Clash, but never recorded with the band and, according to Mick Jones in the 1999 Clash documentary Westway to the World, was kicked out for never showing up to practice.

Strummer had previously been in the pub rock act The 101'ers (his stage name at this point was Woody Mellor; soon he would rename himself "Joe Strummer" after his rudimentary strumming skills on the ukulele as a busker in the London Underground); Jones, Simonon, and Tony James (later of Generation X) were (briefly) in legendary proto-punk band London SS. At the behest of their manager Bernie Rhodes, Jones, Levene, and Simonon recruited the slightly older Strummer from the 101'ers. "You're great," they told him, "but your group is shit". [1] Rhodes then allegedly gave Strummer a couple of days to think about joining. Strummer agreed, and the group became The Clash, the name being supplied by Simonon after seeing the word repeatedly in the Evening Standard.

The new band had their first gig on July 4, 1976, supporting the Sex Pistols, and that autumn the band was signed to CBS Records. In early September, Levene left. Chimes left in late November (briefly replaced by Rob Harper for the Anarchy Tour in December 1976) but was soon drafted back to enable the band to record their debut album. The band released their first single (White Riot/1977") and first album (The Clash) in 1977 to considerable success in the UK. However, CBS initially declined to release either in the United States, waiting until 1979 before releasing a modified version of the first album in the US, after the UK original had become the best-selling import album of all time in the United States.

Following the release of their first album, Chimes left amicably due to personal differences with the remaining members. In the documentary Westway to the World, Mick Jones referred to him as one of "the best drummers around". But Chimes, who had no great wish to make a career from music, said, "The point was that I wanted one kind of life - they wanted another, and why are we working together, if we want completely different things?" Chimes later joined the glam punk group Hanoi Rocks.

The band experienced a period of changing drummers. Mick Jones recruited Nicholas Bowen Headon, who was nicknamed "Topper" by the band, due to his resemblance to a cartoon monkey, and "The Human Drum Machine" by the producer of Give 'Em Enough Rope, Sandy Pearlman, due to his impeccable timing and skills. The musically-gifted Headon was planning to stay only briefly with the band in order to gain a reputation so that he might find a better group. In the process, the band's potential became apparent to him and he changed his plans and decided to stay.

Initially, The Clash were notable for their strident leftist political outlook and distinctive clothes, self painted with Jackson Pollock-style paint splashes and revolutionary slogans, such as "Sten Guns in Knightsbridge," "Under Heavy Manners," and "Heavy Discipline". Throughout 1977, Strummer and Jones were in trouble with the police for a range of minor crimes ranging from petty vandalism to stealing a pillowcase, while Simonon and Headon were briefly arrested for shooting racing pigeons with air guns from the roof of their rehearsal studio.

[edit] (1978-1982) US success

The band's second album, the Sandy Pearlman-produced Give 'Em Enough Rope, was the first to feature Headon on all cuts. It was released in 1978 and debuted at number two on the British charts, though it failed to enter the Top 100 in the United States. In the UK, it met with a disappointing reaction from critics, who felt it was too over-produced and slick in comparison to the raw excitement of the debut album. However, it was still received well by the British public.

Give 'Em Enough Rope was the first Clash album officially released in the U.S., and the Clash went on their first tour of the U.S. to support it in early 1979. Their first album eventually got an official release in the U.S. in July 1979, in a changed form, dropping the tracks: "48 Hours", "Cheat", "Protex Blue", "Deny" and instead including some singles released between its original 1977 release and Give 'Em Enough Rope. These included a version of Sonny Curtis's "I Fought The Law" (later released on their Cost Of Living EP), "Clash City Rockers", "Complete Control" and "White Man in Hammersmith Palais".

The third album London Calling, a double album sold at the price of a single album at the insistence of the band, was released in 1979 and marked the height of their commercial success. Initially, it was greeted by their original fans in the UK with suspicion, since double albums were associated with prog rock groups. It featured a wider array of musical styles and influences than the earlier albums, including American-style rockabilly and Jamaican reggae works that resonated with the dub and ska styles popular in Britain. The album is considered one of the best rock albums ever produced, appearing at #8 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 albums of all time." It was also named #1 on Entertainment Weekly 's "Top 25 Albums of the last 25 Years". Tracks such as "Train in Vain", "Clampdown" and "London Calling" show up regularly on rock stations to this day; "Train in Vain" also became the band's first American Top 40 hit, although it was initially an uncredited extra track at the end of the original vinyl release. The lettering font on the album cover is an homage to Elvis Presley's self-titled debut RCA LP, while the photo is of Simonon smashing his malfunctioning bass guitar in frustration at a show at the Palladium in New York, 1979, taken by renowned rock photographer Pennie Smith. According to Simonon, who initially was reluctant to have the picture used as the album cover, it was the only time he smashed a guitar on stage. He still has the pieces; the bass guitar is currently on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in an exhibit entitled "Revolution Rock: The Story of the Clash." The exhibit is open from October 28, 2006 until April 15, 2007.

In late 1980, The Clash followed the double London Calling with a triple album entitled Sandinista!, (with the catalog number FSLN1, from the Spanish initials of the Sandinista political movement, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional). Again, the band insisted it should be released at the same price as a single album - paying the difference out of their own royalties.

Titled after the Nicaraguan political movement, Sandinista! was stylistically varied, and was met with a more mixed reaction by critics and fans, some of whom felt the album was messy, unfocused and very self-indulgent. Despite this, it still topped The Village Voice's annual Pazz & Jop list of the best albums of the year. Recording every idea they had, the band became less interested in the traditional punk stance as they delved further in their experimentation with reggae and dub ("One More Time") and expanded into other musical styles and production techniques that included jazz ("Look Here"), hip-hop ("The Magnificent Seven"), chamber music ("Rebel Waltz"), gospel ("Hitsville UK" & "The Sound of the Sinners"), vocals by keyboard player Mickey Gallagher's baby son, and "Mensforth Hill" is track 6, "Something About England," played backwards.

"That's why it had to be a triple album," says Strummer in a interview in Westway to the World, which devotes twice as much screen time to Sandinista! as it does to London Calling. "Even though it would have been better as just a double album...or a single album...or maybe an EP! Who knows? The fact is that we recorded all that music, in one spot, at one moment. In a single three-week blast. For better or worse, Sandinista! is the document."

Although fans were confused and sales were down, they fared better in the U.S. than in the past, mainly on the back of the previous success of London Calling. Following the release of Sandinista!, The Clash went on their first world tour, including venues in eastern Asia and Australia. The combination of an exhaustive tour schedule and the recording of a new album saw escalating friction between band members.

Tensions and conflicts within the band lead to considerations of disbanding, especially since drummer Topper Headon was rapidly becoming unreliable due to heroin addiction. However, the band managed to record more, while touring and their next album Combat Rock turned out to be the best-selling worldwide of all of their records. Featuring the singles "Rock the Casbah" and the double a-side "Should I Stay or Should I Go/Straight to Hell", it broke into the American and British top ten. "Ghetto Defendant" featured beat poet Allen Ginsberg, and "Red Angel Dragnet" referenced the film Taxi Driver.

[edit] (1982-1984) Tensions and disintegration

After Combat Rock, the Clash began to slowly disintegrate. Topper Headon was asked to leave the band just prior to the release of the album. The band was unable to cope with his ongoing heroin addiction, which had a disastrous effect on both his health and drumming. The true reason for Headon's departure was covered up by manager Bernie Rhodes as a "political difference". The band's original drummer, Terry Chimes, was brought back for the next few months. (For a period, Headon sank into severe depression, only to resurface with a solo album, then entering prison briefly for fraud, before finally cleaning up and kicking the addiction by the end of the decade.)

The loss of Headon brought much friction, as he was an essential part of the band and well-liked by the others. Jones and Strummer began to feud, although it is often said that some of the friction between the two arose because manager Bernie Rhodes disliked Jones and thought him arrogant, and was promoting Strummer against him. The band, although still touring arenas and opening up for The Who in stadiums on their tour in 1982, barely spoke to or even glanced at each other, both during the concerts and backstage. Indeed, the original dates for the UK leg of the Combat Rock tour were cancelled when Strummer disappeared on the eve of the gigs. The band continued to tour but by 1983, after years of constant touring and recording, the strain took its toll. They were growing as musicians and individuals, but as said in interviews were still quite young - Simonon and Jones were still only 26 and 27 respectively and Strummer was 30 - and inexperienced to cope with such difficult and tension-plagued situations. Simonon, a long-term friend of Jones, felt inclined to side with Strummer because he became frustrated with Jones' musical experimentation.

Chimes left the band after the 1982-1983 Combat Rock tour, convinced that the band could not continue with in-fighting and turmoil. In 1983, after an extensive search for a new drummer, Pete Howard was recruited and performed with the trio at several low-key US dates and finally at the US Festival in San Bernardino, California. The Clash were one of the headliners of this festival, along with David Bowie and Van Halen. The crowd of roughly half a million was by far the biggest of the Clash's career. This was Jones' last appearance with The Clash.

In September 1983, prompted by Rhodes, Strummer and Simonon sacked Jones from the band, citing his problematic behaviour and divergent musical aspirations. (Jones went on to found Big Audio Dynamite (BAD) with Don Letts, and both Strummer and Simonon collaborated with BAD at various times.)

After a series of auditions, the band announced Nick Sheppard, formerly of the Bristol-based Cortinas, and Vince White would be the band's new guitarists. Howard continued to be the drummer, although there were rumours that Headon or Chimes might return to replace him. The band played its first shows in January 1984 with a batch of new material and launched into a self-financed tour, dubbed the Out of Control tour.

The band toured heavily over the winter and into early summer. At a striking miners' benefit show ("Scargill's Christmas Party") in December 1984, it was announced that a new record would be released early in the new year.

[edit] (1984-1986) Cut the Crap and the final demise

The recording sessions for Cut the Crap were chaotic, with manager Bernie Rhodes and Strummer working in Munich, Germany. Most of the parts were played by studio musicians, with Sheppard and later White flying in to come up with guitar parts. Struggling with Rhodes for control of the band, Strummer wiped his hands of the project and returned home.

Around this time the band went on a busking tour. Applying strict rules that allowed them to carry only 10 pounds and one change of underwear, the band travelled separately or in pairs and met at public spaces in cities throughout the UK where they played acoustic versions of their hits along with covers like "Twist and Shout" and "Stepping Stone".

After a gig in Athens, Strummer fled to Spain to clear his mind. When he returned he effectively broke up the band. While Strummer was gone, the first single from Cut the Crap, "This is England" was released to mostly negative reviews. The song, much like the rest of the album that came out later that year, had been drastically re-engineered by Rhodes, with synths, drum machines, and football-style chants being added to Strummer's incomplete recordings. Other songs played on the tour remain unreleased to this day: "Jericho", "Glue Zombie", and "In the Pouring Rain". Although Howard was an adept drummer, virtually all of the percussion tracks were produced by drum machines.

[edit] Post-Clash careers

[edit] Joe Strummer

In 1986, Strummer collaborated with ex-bandmate Jones on BAD's second album, No. 10 Upping St., co-producing the album and co-writing seven of its songs. Strummer acted in a few movies, notably Alex Cox's Walker, and Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (film), as well as a cameo in Aki Kaurismäki's I hired a Contract Killer, in which he sings "Burning Lights/Afro-Cuban Be-Bop". He became known in this period for his work on movie soundtracks (notably "Love Kills" for the film Sid and Nancy), and later for co-producing the successful Grosse Pointe Blank soundtracks with John Cusack) and experimented with different backing bands with limited success. In 1989, he resurfaced in the music scene, releasing the first of his solo albums. Earthquake Weather was neither a commercial nor critical success. He did however tour with a new backing band, The Latino Rockabilly War, and released the single, "Trash City". In 1991/92 Strummer joined The Pogues after their split with former frontman Shane MacGowan for a series of concerts across Europe.

Finally in the late 1990s, Strummer gathered top-flight musicians into a backing band he called The Mescaleros. On November 15 2002 Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros performed a benefit gig for the striking Firefighters of London (FBU) at the Acton Town Hall, London (later referred to as "The Last Night London Burned"). For the encores, Mick Jones joined the band. They were: "Bankrobber", "White Riot" and "London’s Burning". There is a popular myth that this was the last concert Joe Strummer played, but in fact his final gig was at Liverpool Academy on 22 November 2002.

In December 2002, Strummer died suddenly of a congenital heart defect at the age of 50. The Mescaleros’ album he was working on at the time, Streetcore, was released posthumously to critical acclaim in 2003. It was very unfortunate for The Clash, as Jones commented in the press that after the brief reunion on Westway to the World in 1999 the foursome were seriously considering reuniting for a tour, and that it looked likely to happen.

[edit] Mick Jones

After his expulsion from The Clash, Jones formed Big Audio Dynamite (often shortened to B.A.D.) in 1984 with film director Don Letts who directed various Clash videos and Westway to the World. The band's debut album, This is Big Audio Dynamite, was released the following year with the song "E=MC²" receiving heavy rotation in dance clubs. The next album, No. 10 Upping St., reunited Jones with Strummer. Jones released three more albums with Big Audio Dynamite before reshuffling the line-up and renaming the band Big Audio Dynamite II. The band was later renamed Big Audio in the mid-90s. Jones featured on the two studio albums by The Libertines as producer and also produced the debut Babyshambles album. Jones is currently touring and recording with his new band, Carbon/Silicon.

[edit] Paul Simonon

Following the break-up of The Clash, Simonon formed a group called Havana 3am, which recorded only one album in Japan and quickly folded. Then Simonon returned to his roots as a visual artist, mounting several art-gallery shows and contributing the cover for Jones' third BAD album, Tighten Up Vol. 88. Simonon's reluctance to play music again has largely been cited as the reason why The Clash were one of the few 1970s British punk bands that did not reform to cash in on the punk-nostalgia craze of the late 1990s. Bruce Springsteen reportedly offered to stand in for Simonon for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the performance never materialized. It is widely speculated that Simonon has not played the bass in more than a decade and he was quoted in Westway to the World as saying that The Clash are over and that "suits him fine". He is currently collaborating with Damon Albarn, of Blur and virtual band Gorillaz, Simon Tong of The Verve, and Tony Allen, main founder of the afrobeat and drummer of Fela Kuti to form The Good, the Bad and the Queen. Their first gig took place on the 26 October 2006 at the Roundhouse.

[edit] Topper Headon

Headon's contribution to The Clash was by no means limited to his drumming for the band; he composed and performed the music for "Ivan Meets G.I. Joe" (which he also sang) and "Rock The Casbah" almost entirely by himself, the latter becoming the band's biggest hit in the U.S. when it reached #8 on the Billboard charts in 1982. By this time, however, Headon had been dismissed by the rest of the band due to the heroin addiction which has dogged him for most of his adult life. His addiction stood in the way of any musical alliances he tried to form, and eventually landed him in jail for supplying a user who later overdosed and died. Except for forming a short-lived R&B band (in 1986 he recorded a LP called Waking Up as well as a 12" E.P. titled Drumming Man), Headon disappeared from the music business until the filming of Letts' retrospective documentary about The Clash, Westway to The World, where he sincerely apologised for his addiction. Headon also attended a subsequent presentation to Strummer, Jones, Simonon, and Headon of a Lifetime Achievement British Music Award. After many years of unsuccessfully trying different forms of rehabilitation, he has now apparently kicked his habit and is performing live again. It was after one of his live performances that he heard the news of Strummer's death, in 2002.

[edit] Other members

Terry Chimes

Chimes played with various other bands between and after his stints with the Clash. He was Black Sabbath's drummer for a couple of years in the mid-1980s. He eventually retired from the music industry to become a chiropractor. Since 1994, he has had his own practice in London's South Woodford neighborhood.

Pete Howard

Howard was in the Fiction Records band Eat, before forming Vent 414 with Miles Hunt in 1996. He joined Queen Adreena in 2002.

Keith Levene

After he left the Clash and shortly after the Sex Pistols disintegrated, Levene co-founded Public Image Ltd (PiL) with John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten). His guitar work was much imitated by several punk rockers and others, including The Edge of U2. On later PiL recordings, Levene would often forgo his guitar for synthesizer. He left PiL acrimoniously in 1983 following a fall-out with Lydon.

Nick Sheppard

From 1986 to 1989 he collaborated with Gareth Sager (formerly of The Pop Group and Rip Rig & Panic) in Head, but their three albums made little impact. Sheppard next worked with Koozie Johns in Shot, which signed with I.R.S. Records in 1991, with Copeland as manager; however the band's recordings were never released. Sheppard moved to Australia in 1993, and played in Heavy Smoker and the New Egyptian Kings. In July 2002, it was suggested Sheppard would be guest guitarist on a Japanese tour with Johns' new band, Sinnerstar. The tour was cancelled.

[edit] Discography

Main article: The Clash discography

Studio albums

The Clash - (April 8, 1977) #12 UK, #126 U.S.^[3] ^[4]
Give 'Em Enough Rope - (November 10, 1978) #2 UK, #128 U.S.
London Calling (2LP) - (December 14, 1979) #9 UK, #27 U.S.
Sandinista! (3LP) - (December 12, 1980) #19 UK, #24 U.S.
Combat Rock - (May 14, 1982) #2 UK, #7 U.S.
Cut the Crap - (November 4, 1985) #16 UK, #88 U.S.

[edit] Politics

Like many early punk bands, The Clash protested against monarchy and aristocracy. However, unlike many early punk bands, The Clash rejected the overall sentiment of nihilism, which led them to be criticized by influential punk bands such as Crass and Angelic Upstarts. Instead, they found solidarity with a number of contemporary liberation movements. Their politics were expressed explicitly in their lyrics, in early recordings such as "White Riot," which encouraged disaffected white youths to become politically active like their black counterparts, "Career Opportunities," which expressed discontent about the alienation of low-paid, production line style employment and the lack of alternatives, and "London's Burning," about political complacency.

In 1978 at a Rock Against Racism show organized by the Anti-Nazi League, Strummer wore a controversial t-shirt bearing the words "Brigate-Rosse" with the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhof) insignia in the middle. He later said in an interview that he wore the shirt not to support the left-wing terrorist factions in Germany and Italy, but to bring attention to their existence. In the song "Tommy Gun" his stance was ambiguous. Caroline Coon stood up for what The Clash were doing during this period: "Those tough, militaristic songs were what we needed as we went into Thatcherism". (Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash, p. 190)

The group also supported other musicians' charity concerts, most notably at the December 1979 Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, presented by Paul McCartney. The benefit album released from the concerts features one song by The Clash, "Armagideon Time."

The Clash offered some support to the Sandinista and other Marxist movements in Latin America (hence the title of their 1980 album, Sandinista!). They were also involved directly with the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism.

By the time of the December 1979 album London Calling, the Clash were trying to maintain punk energy while developing musically. They were especially wary of their own emerging stardom: they always welcomed fans backstage after shows and showed open-mindedness, genuine interest and compassion in their relationships with them.

The title of London Calling evokes American radio newsman Edward R. Murrow's catchphrase during World War II, and the title song announces that "...war is declared and battle come down..." It warns against expecting them to be saviours — "... now don't look to us / Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust..." — draws a bleak picture of the times — "The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in / Engines stop running, the wheat is growing thin" — but calls on their listeners to come out of their drugged stupor and take up the fight without constantly looking to London, or to The Clash themselves, for cues — "Forget it, brother, we can go it alone... Quit holding out and draw another breath... I don't want to shout / But while we were talking I saw you nodding out..." — finally asking, "After all this, won't you give me a smile?"

The Clash are generally credited with pioneering the advocacy of radical politics in punk rock, and were known as the "Thinking Man's Yobs" by many simply for voicing a political slant other than anarchism. They were never driven entirely by money; even at their peak, tickets to shows and souvenirs were reasonably priced. The group insisted that CBS sell their double and triple album sets London Calling and Sandinista! for the price of a single album each (then £5), succeeding with the former and compromising with the latter by agreeing to sell it for £5.99 and forfeit all their royalties on its first 200,000 sales. These "VFM" (Value For Money) principles meant that they were constantly in debt to CBS, and only started to break even around 1982.

[edit] Trivia

For the first 3 years of their career The Clash were based in what is now 'The Stables' Market in Camden Town, London. "Guns On The Roof" (from the band's "Give Em Enough Rope" album) was written about an incident which took place here.

Babyshambles, The Paddingtons, Dirty Pretty Things, Guillemots, The Kooks and around 20 other artists released a cover of "Janie Jones" for the Strummerville Music Charity.^[5]

Martin Munsch, American producer, talent manager and owner of PunkRockRecords, had worked with Strummer on a final dub version mix of "Revolution Rock". The mechanical version was acknowledged in 2002. [2]

The Clash recycled the riff from The Who's classic single "I Can't Explain" at least 5 times during their career, most notably with "Guns On The Roof". Slight variations on the same riff appear as the backbone of "Capital Radio" and "Clash City Rockers", and two tracks only available on live bootleg from 1976, "I Know What I Think About You" and "Deadly Serious".

Clash members appear in the 1983 Martin Scorsese film "The King Of Comedy" (starring Robert De Niro). Strummer, Jones and Simonon can be glimpsed during a crowd scene. The movie's credits bill them as "street scum".

Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon, along with others, are credited on the 1981 CBS recording "Spirit of St. Louis" by Mick Jones' then girlfriend, Ellen Foley. The producer credit is attributed to "My Boyfriend".^{[citation needed]}

During the production of "Armagideon Time" the voice that interrupts the song at 2:59 was (according to the Clash on Broadway booklet) Kosmo Vinyl telling them the song was running long. Strummer's response "Don't push us when we're hot" was improvised and the recording continued.

New Orleans-based rockers Cowboy Mouth released a song called "Joe Strummer" on their latest album 'Voodoo Shoppe'. The song tells the story of a man who had to break up with his girlfriend because "...she didn't know who/Joe Strummer was." The popular track is a tongue-in-cheek salute to Strummer and the Clash that received significant radio play in 2006.

[edit] Members

Main lineup

Joe Strummer - vocals, rhythm guitar (1976-1986)
Mick Jones - lead guitar, vocals (1976-1983)
Paul Simonon - bass, vocals (1976-1986)
Topper Headon - drums, percussion (1977-1982)

Other members

Terry Chimes - drums (1976-1977, 1982-1983)
Keith Levene - guitar (1976)
Rob Harper - drums (1976-1977)

Appeared in "New Clash" or "Cut The Crap Clash", after Jones and Headon quit

Nick Sheppard - vocals, guitar (1983-1986)
Vince White - guitar (1983-1986)
Pete Howard - drums (1983-1986)

[edit] Filmography

Rude Boy (1980) (directed by Jack Hazan and David Mingay)
Westway to the World (2000) (directed by Don Letts)

[edit] Bibliography

Gilbert, Pat. 2004. Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash, Aurum Press Ltd. Hardback: ISBN 1-84513-017-0. Paperback: ISBN 1-84513-113-4. US Paperback: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81434-X.
Gray, Marcus. 2001 Return of The Last Gang In Town, Helter Skelter Publishing. ISBN 1-900924-16-1.
Gray, Marcus. 1995. Last Gang In Town: The Story and Myth of The Clash, Fourth Estate Limited. ISBN 1-85702-146-0.
Green, Johnny; Barker, Garry; & Lowry, Ray (Ill.). 1999. A Riot of Our Own: Night and Day with The Clash, Indigo. ISBN 0-575-40080-3.
Smith, Pennie. 1980. The Clash: Before and After / photographs by Pennie Smith ; with passing comments by Joe Strummer...[et al.], Boston : Little, Brown. ISBN 0-31680-169-0
Yewdall, John Leonard. 1992. Joe Strummer with the 101'ers and the Clash, 1974-1976, Image Direct. ISBN 0-9519216-0-6

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

^ The Who. The Edge. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
^ The Immortals: The First Fifty. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
^ The 1979 USA release of the debut album was significantly different from the original 1977 UK release. See The Clash for a discussion of those differences.
^ All of The Clash's albums and singles were originally issued on CBS Records; subsequent re-issues and CD releases have been through Epic.
^ "Barat and Doherty reunite", Yahoo, 19 September, 2006.

[edit] External links

The Clash

Joe Strummer | Mick Jones | Paul Simonon | Topper Headon

Nick Sheppard | Keith Levene | Pete Howard | Terry Chimes | Vince White

Discography

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