CONTENTS INTRODUCTION THE CLASH GIVE ’EM ENOUGH ROPE LONDON CALLING SANDINISTA! COMBAT ROCK CUT THE CRAP ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ABOUT THE AUTHOR IMAGE CREDITS INDEX INTRODUCTION “T he only band that matters” they said of Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon. But such solemn positioning was won the hard way (that’s entertainment!), through jockeying, striving, competition, and envy. The thumping hearts at the pole position beat inside of Mick, Joe, Paul, and manager Bernie Rhodes, who rapidly conspired to create something deserving of that erudite (albeit label-generated) epithet, which, amid the rest of the contemporary punks, could alternately have framed The Clash as “the adults in the room.” Indeed, The Clash rapidly landed at a place of maturity—“Write about issues,” Bernie admonished—but in the beginning, it was all about the competitive energy burning inside desperate youth going for broke. And what Mick, first, and then Bernie and then Joe wanted was what the Sex Pistols had: namely, their terrible power on stage and Johnny Rotten’s effect on the suddenly formed stylish cult of a mob called punks. Mick was already a punk on paper at least, having been part of the little- known, controversially named London SS, who through its brief revolving-door tenure, also included Rat Scabies and Brian James (both later of The Damned), along with theoretical bassist Paul Simonon. Mick also had going for him the same sort of quasi-hippie rock aficionado roots as Rotten and Strummer and thus a rich grounding in music that would add depth to the songs he would write. Joe had a flash of the punk as well, through his fronting of the 101ers, a minor pub rock band about London, and his authority-questioning hippie ideals (he would come to understand that punks and longhairs were one and the same). Once Joe witnessed the Pistols, when the 101ers headlined over them at London’s Nashville Room on April 3, 1976, he saw the light, confirming his embarrassment at feeling obsolete at just twenty-four years old. But competitive fire would put The Clash on the track to mattering. Now Mick and Bernie and Joe had an adversary in the Sex Pistols. Mick and Bernie had a second adversary in the 101ers and effectively poached Joe (scouted first by Bernie and The Clash’s then second guitarist Keith Levene in May 1976), whose own burning sense of purpose already had him primed to jump ship. A rhythm section seemed secondary to ideology. Terry “Tory Crimes” Chimes would appear on the band’s incendiary first record but was soon replaced by Topper Headon. Paul Simonon, a South Londoner, was The Clash’s replaced by Topper Headon. Paul Simonon, a South Londoner, was The Clash’s Sid Vicious insomuch as he couldn’t play bass, but he’d bloody well figure it out. He was already halfway there—he looked the part, all menacing punk, an anti-pinup pinup in safety pins. In addition to their rivalry with the Pistols, the band found themselves in dustups with the Stranglers (also self-conscious of age and in need of purpose), sped up by the energy of the Ramones and Buzzcocks (famously playing a gig with the latter and the Pistols), and resolute in their ambition to play live before The Damned did—poetically, the first Clash gig found them supporting the Pistols on July 4, 1976, up in Sheffield. Joe in his 101ers days. He would come to understand hippies and punks were cut from the same cloth. Flyer for an early gig, this one at the Royal College of Art, London, November 5, 1976.