Ralph HeibutzkiReseñas

Thorough book on the ending of the original lineup of the Punk band The Clash and the aftermath for the band’s remaining cofounder and vocalist Joe Strummer.
I really enjoyed this Socialist revisionist take on the band’s misfortune during 1984 and the related social upheaval in England during the same time.
The authors here are Socialists although they mischaracterize Joe Strummer as also a Socialist when he was more of a misguided idealist who tried to be socially conscious in his musical conception for the band. Strummer became a wealthy man and socially aware that his origins demanded certain allegiances to working class England. He was not so wealthy that he did what U2 did and move his trademarked assets out of the country to shell company tax havens.
The bulk of the book is made up of the reformation of the band after Topper Headon and Mick Jones were dismissed the intervening busking tour and the final album being produced. The final album sadly titled, “Cut The Crap” did not do well and was not promoted by Strummer. I don’t even remember ever hearing about the final album at the time and the songs were unremarkable in any case.
Strummer went on to record another album with a different group (Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros, Global A Go-Go). Mick Jones and Big Audio Dynamite made marked success with their albums but never the impact of the original Clash members. The book’s authors make constant reference to Sandinista! being a terrible album when it wasn’t. The impression given is that Sandanista! destroyed the band musically before it officially broke up.
John Lydon talks about The Clash’s social commentary and his own distaste for that type of song lyric writing. Lydon says in Anger Is An Energy that he was more interesting in undermining all Institutions and so taking up causes wasn’t so urgent as it was for Strummer.
At the moment there is a worldwide discussion on the merits of Socialism. It hasn’t worked anywhere and Socialists among the Unionists during the miners’ strike didn’t fare well either. The authors provide a skewed version of the role Reagan and Thatcher played on the downfall of the Soviet Union but the authors are entitled to their own Socialist history. Their history of The Clash is important not because the final Strummer, Simonon album was notable. It wasn’t. But because The Clash were an important band to follow The Sex Pistols, their anguished ending is worth noting for the energy they put into the creative music of 1980’s England. Strummer’s addictions and emotional disintegration at the hands of bystander Rhodes makes tough reading but will give fans insight into the complexity of some remarkable times.

This was so unexpected. As much as it felt like wandering into an argument that I really didn't have an opinion about (how good is the last Clash record?) since I stopped caring about the band @ Sandinista, I loved the juxtaposition of what was happening with the band and British and American politics. I learned a lot and it relit my white hot hatred of Reagan - not that that pilot light ever really goes out.

I also really enjoy a good piece of grassroots history and this is surely it.

Well done!

Thanks to the Early Readers program at Library Thing for the book in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.½

This is not just another story about The Clash.

Mark Anderson and Ralph Heibutzki’s book chronicles the band’s downfall after Mick Jones and Topper Headon were ejected from the group in 1983. In addition, it also documents the economically depressed Great Britain when Margaret Thatcher was closing down the mines and steel mills.

The political narrative of the Miners’ Strike is profusely referred to throughout the book, but not necessary to understand the downward spiral of The Clash during 1982-86 when band manager Bernie Rhodes took complete control.

When the Clash City Rockers of yore became no more, Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon kept soldiering on with new recruits Nick Sheppard, Vince White and Pete Howard. All the young punks get to have their say about their auditions, going on tour in the U.S.A., busking in England, and finally being erased from any real contribution to the group’s final release in 1985, Cut the Crap.

Bernie Rhodes inspired the political punk philosophy the band embraced. He was instrumental in The Clash’s formation in 1976 and continued to be their manger until the end. Mick Jones was the music of the group up to the time of his exit. Strummer was the front man of The Clash and the book is a sympathetic portrait of him. It delves into his struggles, his personal grief and the pressures of family and being in the band. Strummer constantly self-criticized himself and questioned one’s purpose, which led to contradictions.

With Jones removed and Strummer doing soul-searching disappearing acts to Spain, Bernie Rhodes was the leader and discouraged the new members from any significant input.

Some consider Cut the Crap a Bernie Rhodes release. Critics and fans often dismiss it as a Clash record. It’s constantly omitted from the Box Sets and other collections. They say true talent always emerges in time. Perhaps this book may incite a newfound curiosity for the album, proving that lightning strikes not once, but twice.

We Are the Clash is an interesting peek into the past. It tells the tale of not only the last few years of the band The Clash (in their second phase--after the firing of Mick Jones and Topper Headon), but also the political context the band was struggling in--the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US. Since I lived through those times, that part was depressing to relive, since everything those two fascists aimed for has pretty much come to pass.

It was also kind of sad and depressing to read about the last few years of the Clash, as they battled for their message and their music against their abusive, controlling manager Bernie Rhodes and Joe Strummer's depression and addiction.

That said, the book is a fascinating, presumably honest, read. The ends of things hurt, and the author really brought that home. I felt so bad for the new guys who got brought in to keep the Clash alive. They really tried and got treated like crap for their efforts. A lot like the coal miners in the UK. It's a shame they couldn't just have kept busking.

I received this book as an Early Reviewer.

Some 35 years ago I considered The Clash one of my favorite bands, so anything written about them is of interest to me. This book is actually about the so called (and much dismissed) neo-Clash or "The Clash Mark II" reformed with three new members, plus originals Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon, after guitarist and founding member Mick Jones was ejected for ideological reasons in 1983.

Here in exhausting detail neo-Clash history is shown to be a battle for artistic control between the musicians' artistic sensibilities and the aspirations of non-musician producer Bernie Rhodes who considered himself the founder/creator of the band. Rhodes apparently thought of The Clash more as an ideal greater than the sum of its original artistic members. In other words, he alone was "The Clash", and near the end even Strummer would have been replaceable. As should have been expected, the battle ended with everything falling apart and the band permanently dissolved. Prior to reading this I was unaware of how central Rhodes was to all things Clash. This part was a revelation.

Everything here is placed in context of the Reagan US and Thatcher UK political situation of the 1980s. Decline and fall of The Clash mirroring the supposed decline and fall of the socio-economic situation in those countries according to the Marxist interpretation of the authors. With this, I'd say that despite the political message of the book and a lame attempt to provide narrative relevance to the current situation in US politics, the authors provide a somewhat balanced assessment of the end results of the situation as it was in the 1980s. They also do not shy away from any of the glaring contradictions and hypocrisy of many of the characters involved.

Ultimately, the book is both a political attempt to re-energize a "punk" ethos for our current times and a story of how the neo-Clash might have become more than a dismissed afterthought were it not for the clash (!) of ideals within the reformed band itself. I enjoyed reading the book and would recommend it those more interested in the political side of punk.½

I don’t know too much about the Clash. I always thought they were hardcore punk, but I was wrong. This book does a nice job of mixing the politics with the music and the music with the politics. I was born in 1970, so I remember a lot of these issues, but at 14 I wouldn’t have cared about all that. Now at nearly 48 I can see what I missed as a young man. This was a nice eye-opener.
The book deals with Clash II if you will. It is a good long look at the hypocrisy of being a band for the regular guy, but also being paid big payments from promoters, etc. As with most bands it is a battle of what direction they want to see themselves follow, but trying to stay relevant which at times it seems they struggled to do that. A balance of getting your message out without selling out yourself. The loss of Mick Jones hurt the band and it seems throughout they are trying to get away from that era and move on. Critics seem to dislike the later Clash (which happens to most bands). But, what do the critics know. Leave 'em be.½

I actually liked this book quite a lot. It's very much about the Clash after Headon and Jones were cashiered out---their much maligned replacements and their almost universally hated last album--Cut the Crap. It's juxtaposed by the political events of the time and how the events around the band interplayed with the politics of the time. Basically the band is in a kind of death spiral. Strummer's dad has died--his mom is very ill and he's just cut loose Headon because he can't control his heroin addiction and Jones because he's more interested in being a rock superstar than in delivering any kind of message.

Strummer is also under the grip of his Svengali-esque manager Bernie Rhodes and his sidekick Kosmo Vinyl. A lot of the story actually comes from the new guys--Vince White, Nick Sheppard and Pete Howard who are constantly treated like shit or with indifference. As they are working and putting together music for a new album their manager Rhodes with Strummer's grudging assent is scheming of making that same record without them.

In the meantime Britain's economy is getting a taste of Thatcher's economic neo-liberalism--the miner's strike being crushed by her militarized police state tactics and underhanded parliamentary scheming (she really was a horrible human being).....and the Clash are nowhere to be found...either touring in America or when back home with Strummer dealing with anxiety and depression.

Anyway there's quite a bit more to it than above but this particular review of mine pretty much sets out to set the parameters of what the book is about. As I said I liked it a lot. The Clash (like them or not) were always kind of a political band so mixing in the politics of the times with the story of the band and their music I don't think is out of line at all. I think it's the right thing for the authors to do. It certainly doesn't fawn over Strummer--catches him in numerous hypocrisies. If anything I have a lot more sympathy for Sheppard, White and Howard.½

Phew. I'm about 70 pages in and had to take a break. This isn't a book about the Clash so much as it is about Thatcher and Reagan politics. Very heavy going and preachy. Not sure I'll finish.

An attempt to weave the story of the second, last, and inferior incarnation of The Clash into the political turmoil of the mid-eighties. Unfortunately it comes across as pretentious and self-serving and offers nothing new to support its oft-declared thesis that The Clash still mattered as a force for social change.