I know it’s late, but I just came across a collection of photos from the CBGB’s fundraiser shows by Vice’s photo editor.
Useful for:
- Seeing the audience
- finding out that CBGB’s payed all the transportation and hosting costs for the bands they brought in from across the world, sort of ruining the “raise” part of the “fundraiser”
- This quote: “Someone should do a list of how many Motorhead, Ramones, Crass, Conflict, Him, and Bad Brains shirts have sold compared to how many records.”
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9 out of 10 times, if you go up to someone with a Ramones/Clash/Sex Pistols tshirt and ask them to name 3 songs, they’ll have no clue.
I don’t think most people could even name 3 Sex Pistols songs no matter what- God Save the Queen and Anarchy In The U.K. are the only ones that ever get play.
Seeing as the Sex Pistols only have one album, that’d be about what they deserve… Man, are those guys overated! One album, 4 decent songs, 2 of which were covers.
…and to even mention them in the same breath as the Clash… (shaking head)
but… one album… that’s the whole point…
Bad Brains – I Against I
One of the Best albums ever recorded……EVER!
The Pistols may have never made an album as great as London Calling, they also never made an album as bad as Sandinista, Combat Rock, or Cut the Crap.
There aren’t any covers on Never Mind the Bollocks. If we’re including non-album tracks and live stuff, the point about them having “only” one album is sort of dumb, since they obviously have one “studio” album and a bunch of other shit.
Not to derail, but who is this Gretchen Lieberum, and why is her bosom taunting and haunting me with each visit to this site?
Sandinista isn’t a bad album. It isn’t even too bad a double album. It fails as a triple album, and it definitley pales if you cue it up after London Calling, but what doesn’t?
Cut the Crap isn’t really a Clash album, and to criticize it as such makes the critic look ignorant. Combat Rock was the last Clash record, made by a band going in different directions, and even if only half the songs are worthwhile, those are still more listenable than even the best of the Sex Pistols. Still, there’s something to be said for punk bands quitting while they’re ahead.
Please re-read. Of all their recordings, they got a total of: 1 complete album and 4 decent songs. Two of of those four songs were covers (I’m counting God Save the Queen as a cover. How do you categorize an anthem, as a “traditional?”) I didn’t say all of those songs were on “…Bollocks.” I’m saying that’s the sum, the total, of their achievements. Ye ken?
…and “The Pistols may have never made an album as great as London Calling.” Period. That’s it.
“Cut the Crap isn’t really a Clash album, and to criticize it as such makes the critic look ignorant.”
No, it really doesn’t. In fact, to eliminate albums from an artist’s ouevre despite the involvement of key personnel, and, oh yeah, the application of the BAND NAME simply because of shoddy quality makes the critic look ignorant.
Sandinista is at least 80 percent unlistenable. Combat Rock is only slightly better.
Pistols get way too much credit for what they were. The only reason they are still remembered today is because their name and punk rock style was outlandish for the day.
It is great that they were able to break down musical barriers but musically they had nothing that great. If it were not for timing and perpetual posthumous marketing, they and their crappy music would be forgotten.
The point is, key personnel weren’t involved, everyone knew this at the time, and Clash fans didn’t buy it. Please see Jello Biafra vs the Dead Kennedys.
But really, that it’s necessary to drag the posthumous non-Clash Clash album in to have something shitty enough to compare the Pistols to says enough.
“God Save the Queen” is not a cover of the traditional song. They merely share the same title.
But the point is, why wear the shirt if you can’t even represent/know what the band is about? I don’t think the argument was if the pistols were of quality or not.
You’re so right. In truth, I’ve never heard the Sex Pisols’ version (because I hate them). I owned Bollocks for about 3 weeks first semester freshman year because I thought I had to. I listened it a few times.
Makes sense, though, that I’m no expert. I mean, I don’t like them (I’d rather listen to Live, seriously). To listen to them would be along the line of: I’m sure this milk’s gone sour, but I better taste it again.
Re-do the count: 4 good songs and ONE of them a cover. I stand by the rest…
“But really, that it’s necessary to drag the posthumous non-Clash Clash album in to have something shitty enough to compare the Pistols to says enough.”
It’s not necessary, just an interesting comparison point. I also mentioned Sandinista and Combat Rock. I could have also mentioned most of the crap that ended up on Black Market Clash and even Give ‘Em Enough Rope, which despite a couple great tracks, is a blip compared to Never Mind the Bollocks.
London Calling may be one of my favorite albums of all time, but that’s not the extent of the Clash’s output, unfortunately. The two situations are entirely different, since the Clash had a longer lifespan to both evolve and go to shit. The Pistols had one great album, which is an absolute marvel of clever marketing, calculated anger, amateurish playing, some strikingly original lyrical moments (most of which are more memorable than anything on the first Clash album, actually), and stellar production. To say they’re only known for being “outlandish,” as some in this thread have said, is to demonstrate a lack of both familiarity with the album and historical perspective.
Ahhhhh….but that first Vibrators LP. Now that’s a punk classic!
http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2004/MERC-Jul-29-Thu-2004/24404730.html
I’m just loving the quote from the Vice site:
Someone should do a list of how many Motorhead, Ramones, Crass, Conflict, Him, and Bad Brains shirts have sold compared to how many
records.
I’m 35 years old and this band t-shirt thing is nothing new. There was a kid with a 6 inch mohawk back at the Catholic all boys high school I attended. He wore a denim jacket that had a huge DK on the back, as well as smaller logos of Cramps, Minor Threat, etc. You get the picture. I always thought this kid was THE punk rocker in the school. That was until a mutual friend told me that he didn’t like the music and thought of it more as a way to get attention. The band names on that denim jascket to make his fashion statement look more legit. I don’t see any harm in asking people wearing these shirts to name songs.
Especially Bad Brains and Motorhead. I’d love to see someone try and fudge song titles from those bands.
Interesting point neither pro nor against the I-own-the-shirt-but-don’t-know-the-music-phenom: bands typically get more money for the merch than the records.
Well, maybe I’m not giving the Pistols enough credit and the Clash too much. To be fair, I enjoyed a few of Pistols songs back then and, though even as a kid I could see it was mostly Malcolm Maclaren’s nihilist novelty act, I still enjoyed Johnny’s bile enough to listen to PIL.
And I’m not suggesting everything the Clash put out was golden — I’ve never made it through the second side of Combat Rock, and as it features Allen Ginsberg, I never will. And “Guns on the Roof” just sucks. But Sandinista! isn’t all bad dub filler, and Crap was put together from Strummer’s leftover vocal tracks, without Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, or even a human drummer. Calling it, rather than Combat Rock, the last Clash album is all I really disagreed with you about.
i actually went up to a punk in a germs shirt at my school and asked him to name 1 germs song. he couldn’t fucking do it. as an excuse, he told me he sometimes got them confused with minor threat. punk t-shirts should be banned
I have a Clash T-shirt and I own all their cd’s…
The Sex Pistols ain’t about the music & you are mentally masturbating arguing whether the Pistols had any good ‘songs’… the Pistols set the stage for a whole new attitude something called punk. their music was the purest of raw garage (& majority of the times very unlistenable) but people wake up… they were banned in their own country, they beat themselves, the audience and each other up playing live, & they set the stage for the attitude, they inspired bands to do something different, they created a fucking movement of new music just by how they acted, how they portrayed themselves, not by their friggin music…..
The best clash album is their first self titled release. London Calling represents a more polished ‘rock n roll’ punk clash. Sandinista is the Clash experimenting and trying different things & has some of their best stuff – Charlie Don’t Surf, The Call Up, Police On My Back….
And the fucking world will never be the same after the death of Joe Strummer….
We ain’t talking about the Strokes here ya know!
“Cut the Crap isn’t really a Clash album, and to criticize it as such makes the critic look ignorant.”
That is absolutely correct, it isn’t a friggin Clash album because all the members of the Clash did not make it since Mick Jones was kicked out of the band..
Is INXS with the rockstar idiot they picked a true INXS album…. not without Michael Hutchence it aint INXS, IT is just a name and that is it…
Would U2 still be U2 if Bono were replaced with Paul Simon? I don’t fucking think so….
Cut The Crap is the equivalent of what the new INXS album will be, definitely not INXS & definitely not the clash..
the sex pistols are briliant, so are the clash but whos better? sex pistols for roar energy, the clash for re inventing themselves and kept writing great tunes throughout but never mind the bollocks is the best album out of both bands but if u made a best of the clashs best of wud be better
The very first band I ever saw in concert ever in my life was the Ramones. Middlebury college had hired them as the winter festival band. The ‘security’ was mostly college kids (I was in high school) and so me and my two girl-friends pushed forward to the edge of the stage and they didn’t stop us. I was a Johnny’s feet for the whole show! I could’ve tied his shoes together. I still cherish that Ramones guitar pick.
I can name at least ten of their songs without taking a breath (kinda like how Joey used to sing) but I STILL DON’T HAVE A RAMONES T-SHIRT!!!
To this day when I see a ‘punk’ kid I tell ‘em “Ramones, Clash and Dead Kennedys got me through high school!’ It was my mom that bought London Calling, she still oves those albums.
I can’t believe I’ll be 40 next spring! And I sing Lazytown songs with my two children: “It’s a piece of cake tro bake a pretty cake…”