The Last Exile

Last Night the Last Amazon and myself watched a biography on Joe Strummer which blowed beyond boring. No matter the pertinent facts every day facts of Joe Strummer’s life – no greater testimony is needed really beyond the music he made and left behind. Anything else is just so much white noise.

The Clash were the greatest of all the punk rock bands to come out of the seventies. They did two things which no other band from that period ever really did. They connected with not only with the small genre which they initially performed for but too a much wider audience as well. Why, it’s true other punks bands crossed over and connected with the so-called mainstream rock audience but The Clash were the first punk band to cross over into the Funk & Hip Hop audiences.

Admittedly, they never made the official Billboard Charts for so called ‘black’ music but I remember running around New York (126th Street and Lexington to be exact) when Combat Rock was released. All those hardcore hole in the wall Funk/Hip Hop bar DJ’s were all spinning Rock the Casbah along with Kurtis Blow. It was This is Radio Clash which first piqued their interest but it was Rock the Casbah which made those guys stand up, pay attention and scratch & mix. Go figure. Some claim the Clash sold out but I see it as they grew musically beyond their own personal boundaries which was something most of those three chord bands were never ever really able to do.

I still say This is Radio Clash holds up remarkably well in 2010.