Ooh Ooh Ooh, Complete CLASH POLL (that's a laugh) - ILX Artist Poll #41 (?) - Voting Ends July 9th at Midnight (EST)

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/40962/The+Clash.jpg

The only band that matters...to some.

The longish voting period is due to the July 4th holiday, plus I don't really know what I'm doing so maybe I'll have it figured out by then.

Following the format set by others:

Ballot Part One (mandatory): Your Top 30 Clash songs. Same as ever scoring method. No need to number just have them in order from 1 to 30 with 1 on top. As ever you don't need to submit as many as 30.

Ballot Part Two (optional): Your Top Clash albums. I know it might burn the s/t's chances, but please note if you're voting for the US or the UK version as I am counting them as two separate albums. Black Market Clash is also an option (and yes, I'm combining the normal and the "Super" because I can do that).

Ballot Part Three (optional) Since these polls have expanded, but The Clash don't have much in the way of music videos really, I'm going to ask for your Top 5 live tracks. They can be from the officially released live albums (From Here to Eternity/Shea Stadium), from tv appearances (1977 So it Goes, etc), or from the bootlegs that have gained notoriety over the years. This might be a really stupid idea, but if nobody cares then they don't have to submit, and it's worth a shot maybe.

Send ballots to theclashpoll AT gmail dot com

Deadline for voting is July 9, Eastern Standard Time

Shout out to Bee OK, from whom I nicked this intro format.

wanna put in a good word for "This is England."

I really like that song, but I was considering requiring a compulsory 300 word (minimum) defense if someone put Cut the Crap in the top 3 of their albums ballot.

YEAH!

FUCKIN AWRIGHT YEAH

Will be compiling my votes wearing my special voting fedora fyi

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lh13mpWx8R1qckm0wo1_500.jpg

I wonder if Paul considered introducing himself as "the cool one"

I like "This is England" alright, but picking only 30 Clash songs is gonna be brutal, so no way is it making the cut.

TESTED BY RESEARCH

aw hell yeah, this is gonna be fun and I have good stories to tell...

"Favourite Live Performance" is a tough one, I like whole albums more than individual tracks......

But I'd rep for "Capital Radio" off "The Guns Of Brixton" ("There will be Noooooh Rock And Rolll") (live at the Palladium, New York, New York, September 21, 1979)

.. and the whole of the "Live In Jamaica" (did the final song ever get found?)

ANd those "Previously unreleased" things like "Midnight To Stevens", for example.

Don't get me wrong, they wrote some great songs, but some of their covers were even better. Police on My Back, Brand New Cadillac, Armigideon Time, Police and Thieves, I Fought the Law....

.. wrong'em Boyo, Time is tight

Conversely, Sparks did a cover of "We Are The Clash"

I never got The Clash for so long. I think I'm on board now, but this poll is the acid test.

Hell, Paul Simonon looked good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKWO-wgzf20

my suggestion for this poll: listen to the 2nd half of london calling more

Hmm. I'll have to have a long, hard think about this one.

The Stranglers > The Clash, in any case.

This'll be interesting, because (bootlegs aside) there's really no such thing as a Clash deep cut. If you know them well enough to vote, you probably know the entire discography.

But in the spirit of the Husker Du poll, we could have a good spirited Joe vs. Mick debate.

And my obligatory lobbying post goes to "Julie's Been Working for the Drug Squad."

Deep cut?

One of my "live" noms is gonna be "How can I understand the flies"

Excited for this one!

Oh yeah..

When it came out, I thought one of their songs was about loads of walls...

"He's in love with a Rock and Roll Wall
He's in love with a GettyStone Wall
He's in love with a Jenny Jones Wall..."

I still love Mick's bad moods being described by Joe as "Liz Taylor on a bad day"

"okay okay don't push us when we're HOT" is probably going to tip "Armagideon Time" into my ballot.

voted.

i like plenty of Clash moments but good god "London Calling" is the dreariest, most over-played piece of shit in their career

The song or the album?

I included the song, but mostly for 25-ish years of kicking around in my head. I honestly don't need to ever hear it again.

the song, i don't know if it's the tempo, the over-familiarity, the lack of range...the other week i thought about starting a thread about it and Bowie's "Heroes" as examples of artists' most popular songs that are amongst their suckiest

Clash are a prime example of a band with enough facets that i can find some fans whose fandom is inexplicable to me, like they like a different group to the one i do.

i don't really like the myth tho, just individual moments. i like Joe best when i can't understand a word he's saying tbh

I think overhearing it has done that song in for me as well, but it still works brilliantly as an album opener. It's just that the rest of the album is so much better.

Clash sure knew how to open an album - Janie Jones, Safe European Home, London Calling, Magificent 7, Know Your Rights

"Clash City Rockers" opened the US version ;_;

ballot sent, though I didn't do much re-listening. I ended up putting Complete Control a lot higher than I might have expected

Guerrilla marketing via the thread title. Should've gone with Give 'Em Enough Votes

i like Joe best when i can't understand a word he's saying tbh

That's what I wrote in an obit for Pop Matters:

I fixated on the voice because I couldn’t understand what the hell he was saying. The more I listened, the harder it was to tell his guttural snarls from the equally guttural guitars. To this day, I have probably listened to that first Clash album more than any other single piece of music. And to this day, even after reading the lyrics, I can’t tell what the hell he’s saying. But I know what he means—you can feel it in every joyful angry spit and gargle. He got a little more comprehensible as time went by, but you never needed the words to understand the songs.

Also "Clash City Rockers" rules! It's their Louie Louie/Can't Explain/You Really Got Me.

Been thinking about this since I saw it queued up last year, so here goes:

I think there are many perfect Clash songs but no perfect "Clash" songs: Clashy perfection lies in the whole. To wit:

__the self-discovering excitement and beauty of the UK debut, but without the funky agility of Topper--big without for me.

__the giddy musicality of London Calling, but mythic-romantic literary BS and incipient gloss. (Though compared to so much other punk that year is sounds like '83 hardcore.)

__more personal lyrics but more diffuse arrangements and production on Sandinista!, leaving best tracks not quite Ur-Clash: slower than usual with Topper on steel drums ("Street Parade"), without Paul ("The Magnificent Seven"), or just beautifully weird ("Somebody Got Murdered").

__finest moments on Combat Rock atypically sad or resigned ("Straight to Hell," "Ghetto Defendant") or again without Paul ("Rock the Casbah").

__great singles in between, but with the produced-for-echo problem ("Complete Control," "White Man (In Hammersmith Palais)") or perfect recordings of not-Clash songs ("Armagideon Time," "I Fought the Law") or might-as-well-not-be-Clash-songs ("Bankrobber," "This Is Radio Clash").

The result for me is compulsive re-ranking, so I may just favor the underdogs and get it over with.

Pretty sure something from the US Festival will make my live ballot. Pete Howard was a motherfucker, and watching that show you can easily imagine them continuing on without Topper.

i think i'm the only person in history to like "remote control" better than "complete control"

Well, they're both on my short list. But my short list has 48 songs, so.

Also "Clash City Rockers" rules! It's their Louie Louie/Can't Explain/You Really Got Me.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Friday, June 28, 2013

OTM + All Day and All of the Night surely

the song, i don't know if it's the tempo, the over-familiarity, the lack of range...the other week i thought about starting a thread about it and Bowie's "Heroes" as examples of artists' most popular songs that are amongst their suckiest

― for many people a really special folder makes a huge difference (Noodle Vague), Friday, June 28, 2013

whoa. "heroes" may be played out but it's still A+... "london calling" at least B+

rock the casbah can go fuck itself tho

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? is all of these things xxp

Yeah this is definitely one where omitting the biggest hit doesn't feel at all contrarian.

(that was an xp about Casbah, not SISOSIG)

Casbah has that baseline though

So maybe I'd vote for Mustapha Dance

There's not a damn thing wrong with Casbah. Overexposure's not the song's fault.

Love that song, was high in my ballot.

Didn't vote "Pressure Drop" because it's the rare Clash cover that I don't think bests the original. They got to remake it again in a Clash stylie as "Revolution Rock."

"Safe European Home" is very high on my ballot; that''s all I say.

i am kinda flummoxed by the idea that 'janie jones' is a better song than 'clash city rockers,' or that CCR is a bad song at all!

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.),

not once did I say it was a bad song! I said it was my least favorite of the added songs.

Yeah, really, there are only a spare handful of Clash songs one could argue are actually bad, and most of them are goofs.

...or that CCR is a bad song at all!

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.)

Disorienting acronym.

Immediately imagined Fogerty singing it ("boin down the suburbs with the half closed eyes")

thinking about the Clash-named songs as being like the Monkees makes me happier with Clash mythology. unlike the Stones & their "greatest rock & roll band in the world" (cf. http://ethanrussell.com/americanstory/?p=407) I've never picked up on any tounge-in-cheek-ness re. the bullshit of that mythology on the band's part...but I also haven't read deeply on the band or maybe even listened close enough.

love the clash but let's not pretend they weren't deeply corny or awash in bullshit mythology, there's a reason this happened: http://youtu.be/5tjAQSxWdhM?t=3m20s

When I first got into The Clash the one song that bothered me was "Clash City Rockers". Struck me as corny to use your name in a song name. I have since come around though.

― Gukbe, Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:49 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

there is something slightly monkees-esque about that, i'll admit.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:50 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The first song on Black Sabbath's first album is called "Black Sabbath" wtf is wrong with you people

kinda 'eh' on 'clash city rockers' but having the name of yr band in the title of yr most who-like song is just good form i think

They had their whole sense of mission and purpose and whatever, but it always had a goofy, cartoony side. For every Lorca namedrop there's Lauren Bacall in a car jam.

And "Clash City Rockers" itself is pretty goofy, the Bowie and Gary Glitter shout-outs and all.

I put "Clash City Rockers" in the same category many put Sandinista!: a failure that shows how great they were. It's awkward musically, lyrically insider, badly recorded, and never quite pulls its parts together. It's also awesome. I loved watching a local band kill on it this year.

"Revolution Rock" is a Danny Ray cover. The (great) original was a retooling of Jackie Edwards's "Get Up." I love the Clash instrumental version from the Vanilla Tapes and Rude Boy too.

Found this piece on Topper from a few years ago:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/i-forgive-you-the-clashs-drummer-topper-headon-makes-peace-with-the-man-who-sacked-him-1717627.html

Months after being in one of the world's biggest rock'n'roll bands, Headon was living in a freezing, windowless squat in Fulham, while The Clash were performing stadium shows in the US in support of the single "Rock the Casbah", a song largely written by Headon and on which he played drums, bass and piano. He made various attempts to continue his musical career. His friendship with Pete Townshend nearly landed him the job of drumming for The Who. At the time, The Clash were supporting the British supergroup at Shea Stadium and Headon admits he would have relished playing for the headlining band, lording it over The Clash.

I love 'Clash City Rockers', best bit is the sarcastic "YEAH YEAH" before the guitar solo.

The Topper story is pretty brutal, but I love him sitting up all night with Bo Diddley, doing coke and watching porn.

I was pretty surprised to read that he didn't kick his addiction until the early 00s; I thought he'd kicked it by '99 at the very latest (as he seems to allude to in WttW).

The Who thing, though, I dunno. On the '82 tour they didn't bring their regular (heavy-drinking) keyboardist because Townshend was drying out. I can't imagine Pete, who had also just kicked heroin, would willingly/knowingly bring a heroin addict/cokehead on tour.

Jeez, that Topper piece. So many black laughs though:

By 1989, when the mini-cabbing work became too much for him, he had taken to the London Underground, busking with a set of bongos. "Every hundred people who passed, there'd be one who'd stop and ask, 'Are you Topper Headon from The Clash?'" He shrugs, "I'd have to say, 'Yeah, this is what I do now.' It was so humiliating."

:/

It was so weird to learn about his addiction/firing (which I didn't know anything about until I saw WttW), because I'd assumed that he was some kind of health/fitness nut (pretty much just based on his workout scene in Rude Boy).

I love 'Clash City Rockers', best bit is the sarcastic "YEAH YEAH" before the guitar solo.

― Gavin, Leeds, Wednesday, July 10, 2013 10:10 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Such a Mott The Hoople* moment...

*Who also certainly taught Strummer & co. a thing or two about self-mythologizing.

Jones was big on Mott if i recall correctly

hell, everyone should be big on Mott

otm

GODDAMMIT I FORGOT TO VOTE FOR LISTEN. Entire poll is therefore invalid.

re: mott/clash connection

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Stevens

Guy Stevens produced Brain Capers which is essential listening for ny Mott fan.

love the clash but let's not pretend they weren't deeply corny or awash in bullshit mythology

Well, what are we talking about here? The politics? Because if the politics fail, that's one thing, but I don't blame the mythology.

Ok everyone. Because of some extra work stuff + impromptu family/friends visiting over the next few days, I don't think I can roll out the results in a way that would be Britisher-time-friendly, so I propose I wait until Monday. I've got the results, and I'm pretty sure that anyone who wanted to vote in this has already voted (42 ballots!), but I'm fine with leaving it open for stragglers until Friday night, unless anyone has objections and would feel aggrieved that they rushed their ballot because of the Tuesday night deadline.

If any of that seriously fucks anyone off, then I can try to alter it and maybe roll it out quickly this week.

I'm fine with waiting, I had a six-hour Clash frenzy last night so a few days away is maybe a decent idea

Cool with me, too

Monday's cool.

NO RIGHT NOW!

Bummed, but will watch recent videos of Topper playing well and looking healthy to cheer myself up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEG_B4iBmvI

WHEN THEY HOLD UP YOUR CLASH POLL, HOW YOU GONNA COME?

You grow up and you calm down, and you start putting off Clash polls til next week.

tbqh i had no idea there was any notion rollout would start before monday but any excuse for a riot imo

it's proven by research, that he that delays rollouts will later .. Um, oh bol

bobby said he'd roll out no wait that's the springsteen poll

I'm so bored with the poll delay
I'm so bored with the poll delay
But what can I do?

they just systematically ruined everything in ways I didn't even think were possible.

(who even plays on CTC? I think Vince White, Paul Simonon and Pete Howard are all AWOL).

as I said upthread, it was made by Bernie from Joe demos after Joe walked. Norman Watt-Roy was brought in to do basslines.

Well I've been waiting for your Clash Poll/The one that never came/like a man about to burst/I was dying of thirst

I was pretty surprised to read that he didn't kick his addiction until the early 00s; I thought he'd kicked it by '99 at the very latest (as he seems to allude to in WttW).

Mick and Joe paid for him to rehab at least twice in the 90s, and I'm sure there were times when he was clean to his mind at that moment

Topper talks about this fairly touchingly in the Viva Joe Strummer doc -- the last time he saw Joe he was off heroin but still drinking, and Joe asked what was in his cup and it was beer "and my one regret today is that I couldn't honestly say Coke or water or something."

Voting has now officially ended. Countdown begins Monday. Top 60.

WOOOOOO

(Hands up for Hollywood)

HOORAY!

yay

can't wait for this

weeeeeeeeeee

This is a CLASH POLL service announcement...WITH RESULTS!!!!!! ILX Artist Poll #41