Why forget about the only band that matters? September 25
Because I am a high school teacher and continuously made aware of what kids are doing and listening to, I am constantly in a state of shock and dismay at what has endured throughout the last 30 years. I know this makes me old, and I know that it means I’m losing my edge. My parents and elders said the same things about the stuff I listened to, and they were wrong for disliking Nirvana and Pearl Jam. However, they were correct for hating Def Leppard, and getting sick of Houses of the Holy. Thankfully, I evolved (Spencer, who loves Led Zeppelin, should note that I’m essentially calling him a homo erectus to my homo habilis. Take that.) And maybe that is the eightfold path for all teenagers; that it is part of human development to embrace the mainstream before rejecting it, to love what is shitty before understanding what is refined. Of course there are many who never go through this process, and reject the mainstream from the start, partially because the mainstream rejected them. The point is that those of us who are paying any attention move on from the music that we liked in Middle School/High School and ultimately appreciate something of a higher order. And yes friends, there is genuinely quantifiable aesthetic value to music. Personal preference only gets you so far.
Where was I going…so, by my ears measure, today’s “artists” of choice are Lil’ Wayne and Fall Out Boy. There are some other bands that enter the discussion, lots of kids like Green Day, and there is this odd and intense Eazy-E revival. This fascinates me, because Eazy-E wasn’t even a particularly large rap star when we were growing up, always running in Ice Cube and Dre’s shadows (though he was in jail, then dead from AIDS, which makes it tough to have a solo career). Admittedly, the kids I teach were unlikely to big indie rock fans, which is fine. But it also strikes me as the kind of place that would have had huge groups of dischord followers in the ‘80’s. It is for this reason that I feel there is a vacuum, and I think that vacuum is probably nation-wide. Punk bands and rap-stars alike are guilty these days of inviting the message of excess. Does anyone really believe that New Found Glory or Good Charlotte is genuinely anti-establishment? I think Fall Out Boy actually reframed the establishment and managed to make it even less about substance than it had been before, proving that a band could actually sell-out before there were any offers. And every rapper and hip-hop artist these days explains how many drinks they had and how many people were out at the club. But Eazy-E was not a man of excess, at least not originally. NWA created a mosaic of urban-ghetto life under Republican administrations that didn’t give a fuck about those people. Which I think is why Eazy-E, partially martyred without cause by an early death, has seen such a boom. That is the existence of my kids; a new Bush with Reaganite advisors, no health care and an intense military recruitment effort in the school that serves up $12 an hour plus benefits, which sound really good compared to what their parents make.
It is in this climate that there is room for a serious revival of The Only Band That Matters. I’ve been concerned over the last few years that the Clash (I feel the same way about the Replacements) weren’t getting the credit that they deserved, and that tracing the artistic roots of modern musicians seems to only lead to the Beatles, Johnny Cash, or Motown. Maybe it’s because the modern punk band is such a sorry shell of what the Clash were, so much so that we don’t even consider them to be in the same Aristotelian category. While the Clash were such a popular an influential band, it doesn’t seem to me that they exist in the public consciousness as a vitally important band. And maybe that’s the nature of true punk music, that it serves it’s purpose during difficult times, only to fade during those period of time in which we become too self-absorbed to pay attention. So I believe, my friends, that every time discontent swells to a necessary critical mass the Clash will rise. Another Republican administration would certainly accomplish this, but I’m not sure I’d want that even if it meant the Clash would get their due. With my finger on the pulse of that discontent, as Americas youth is for any generation, I can tell you it seems unusually high. So I’m calling it.
And to think that Eazy-E would one day prove to be a portent of a Clash resurgence.
Photo taken from Helge Overas
Tom Sep 25
Interesting. I think I have to disagree, though. I don’t really think the Clash belong in one of those “Aristotelian” (I like that) categories. Sure, they were hugely influential, but more as something to aspire to than to emulate (except perhaps in terms of lyrical and political content). Their sound was an obvious fusion of punk and reggae. It’s hard to take that as the foundation for another band’s sound (instead of just going to the sources). I would think that people say “yes, I would like my band to be excellent and important like the Clash” rather than “I want my band to follow in the Clash’s musical footsteps”.
But you guys are the musicians, so you know better than me.
Aaron Sep 28
Actually, I think that’s very well put (I don’t mean to sound surprised). I do think bands say they would like to be like the clash and not sound like the clash. However, there are some pretty big bands that were very influenced by the Clash (The Police, 311, Green Day). I think the problem with the clash is that their legacy is difficult to trace because
1)Punk has split in 7 different directions, and what sounds punk no longer necessarily carries any ideological weight.
2) Early Clash is very different from later Clash.
The Clash used multiple musical influences, but were “about” one primary ideology. But while the Beatles also used multiple musical influences, they had no real political ideology (though they did dabble with politics at the end). As a result, I think bands are considered to be true students of the Clash if they both sound and act like the Clash, whereas every 4-piece band is traced to the Beatles because they were influential in establishing that format.
If I was unclear, I am conceding your point, though I do have questions; it is sometimes difficult to tell who has influenced whom because it might not always be evident to 3rd party listeners. We can only assume influence based on what we find to be similarities and differences.