The first album is amazing - one of the best albums of all time by any band, any genre, and is in many ways the very definition of what punk meant in the late 70s. Give 'em Enough Rope is really, really good. London Calling is just okay. Sandinista, Combat Rock, and Cut the Crap all suck. Those three albums combined have three good songs total. Two of those three songs, Should I Stay or Should I Go and Rock the Casbah are overplayed to the point where I am no longer able to derive any pleasure from hearing them. The third, and the only worthwhile song on the 3 disc monstrosity that is Sandinista, is Police on My Back, which is a cover.

I love the first Clash album, and I'd definitely say it's punk. But that's just me. But early punk was rock'n'roll, after all. And I was also one of those kooks who was listening to ELO and Queen, too. So sue me. ;)

richard holguin said:

punk is self expresion ,

Yup, that's a good one! Bring on the stink! Hahah! About punk: Besides the "historic implications of the term" I would hang my coat to the hook of the guy above me.

punk is self expresion , all these albums are punk regardless of sound ... the clash are punk !

Yeah, yeah - all fair comments so far. One thing I should mention - what I started off saying stemmed from the fact that i'm not a fan of 70's punk personally i.e. - The Sex Pistols, The Damned, etc. I can quite imagine that SANDINISTA and COMBAT ROCK probably sounded quite horrific to punk fans of the time, but like i said i came to The Clash slightly later. I was a young lad experimenting with music - and fell in love with how The Clash experimented with what influenced them. Most people in the UK were too narrow minded at the time to see what The Clash were trying to achieve - it was the rest of the world that embraced them.

What i'm saying is that The Clash's debut album was the only true punk one and that people seem to have this romantic nostalgic view of them as something they never really were. You know, a lot of people wear a Clash t-shirt, i just doubt it's because they dig MAGNIFICENT SEVEN - and they did a hell of a lot more stuff in that vein than they did with the WHITE RIOT stuff. Great to hear everyones thoughts though. Just my opinion.

Now when I think of the term Punk:
My eyes roll back. Labeling something is to give that something meaning to which the world can relate to a specific idea. PUNK has had a few meanings: Somebody who takes it up the ass in jail and or prison. Another meaning is a genre of music... I could elaborate - but shit, yer on here - google mofo.
Punk, how I relate to it: a state of mind... a rebellious, questioning state of mind that seeks to abolish tyranny and corruption in the world. This definition is my own. For G.G. Allin punk was Chaos for Joe Strummer it was about justice. Punk is an attitude. Get wit it den.
The Clash are the epitomy of Punk - period.
More so even than many of the faux bands that came up around that time in '77.
It's not arguable... It's a FACT.

Yeah Mike, i guess what i said is very retrospective - i was slightly too young for punk [by about 4 years]. I personally think SANDINISTA is quite an achievement and i love COMBAT ROCK and LONDON CALLING. I guess they were punk in their attitude but smart enough not to get pigeon-holed as punk musicians.

Also i don't really think Joe Strummer was a phony, he was quite a complex individual yet prone to making the same mistakes as all of us... but you are well within your rights to think so, Fierce Play!

You know, up until "Sandinista" at least they definately were not what was considered "Rock" or pop for the era. Maybe it was just Strummer's voice that kept it from crossing that fine line. I agree that London Calling is much tamer than the 1st LP. But, it's all Rock n Roll isn't it? Play London Calling back to back with what ELO or Queen, or most anything else the kooks at school were listening to then, and it definately is "punk" in comparison. I mean I definately understand your point, but then I have to ask myself how much of that understanding is based on my 30 years of corrupting my ears with everything that's come along since.

Whew.., taking too many words for me to say, I'd disagree with your statement in 1980, but could give it a bit of agreement in 2009.

I completely agree. I get shit every time I bring this discussion up. Granted I love some of The Clash's tunes but there is something phony about strummer when he is being interviewed. I can't quite pin point it. But watch both The Ramones documentary ( End of the Century) and The Clash documentary (The Future is Unwritten) back to back and you might see what I mean. Also though...I am a loser and have way too much time to spend analzying things. ; )

I gotta agree with you straight down the line here. So much of what came out in the 80's that is classified as punk was done so because there just were not that many categories to stick them in, at least that's the way I see it. Maybe it was the confusion of their collectivist expression with the anarchist trend of punk that got them lumped in.

So i know the word PUNK covers a lot of ground, but when i hear people say THE CLASH are one of their fave punk bands... it makes me wonder.

Me? I loves me some Clash BUT my least favorite of their output would be their first self titled album [the only true punk one] and GIVE 'EM ENOUGH ROPE which i think was an abortion. They didn't even like it themselves.

So this leaves us with LONDON CALLING - which is pure and simple rock 'n' roll.

SANDINISTA - mainly funk, dub reggae, hip-hop and soul.

COMBAT ROCK - basically the musical equivalent of an arthouse movie.

CUT THE CRAP - i won't even comment on this one, for obvious reasons.

So none of these are really PUNK in any way.

... what do YOU think. do people just name them as they are easily identifiable? do you think their only PUNK album was the first one? or am i completely wrong?

The Clash, Sham 69, Dead Boys, Cramps, And Radio Birdman...

What Kopper said! Almost daily, hmmm... Then let's see... I'm currently flippint thru the box a recents here....: Hangin' on for Mercy 39-42 Get Drunk 68 - 70 Savage Kick up from number 57 until recent Hot Slop - pretty much alla them! Backseat Beat 2 and 7 Apokalypstick 4,7,10,11 (THAT's A RHYME!) Radio Bo'livion! And I'm cross-listening to pretty much all of that show! The last transmission's of Dan the Alienman! Other stuff has been pretty heavy, but that's what's going now. Duh! Seems like I'm a junky!

Yeah, The Brazilian Mob was great. Too bad Alessandro's too busy to do a regular 'cast. I'd really like to have one on our network for Latin American garage.

There's a track (or two) on the Aztec Music re-issue of Lethal Weapons, a patchy Australian "punkploitation" album from the turn of the '70s.

I've found blogging to be a pretty reciprocal medium. You have to read other people's blogs and leave regular comments on them. There are certain sites like stumbleupon which can bring you a lot of traffic, but I've never found those to bring any regular readers in the long run. I do love receiving random comments from people I've never heard of though on my own blog, just in case anyone's interested. And If you've got a blog that looks interesting, I'll probably put it on my blogroll.

Ya, I seem to drag a heap of attention to the cave that is this question! Haahah. Seems the podcast longings are saturated by everything going on here. Not for the bad of it, so much is for sure...

April 19th:

18.00-19.30 Roadburn Special:

Neurosis - Saturday Night Holocaust
Dragontears - Hadron Collider part I & II
Angel Witch - Confused
Eugene Robinson/Strings Of Consciousness - Cleanliness is Next to Godliness
Amon Düül II - Luzifers Ghilom
Skullflower - Orange Canyon Mind
Motorpsycho - Black to Comm
Ufomammut - Alcool
Saint Vitus - Saint Vitus
Church of Misery - Ripping Into Pieces
White Hills/Dan McGuire - Potters Field
Wolves in the Throne Room - Hate Crystal
Zu - Tom Araya is our Elvis
The Young Gods - El Magnifico

19.30-20.30 Lowcut:

Charles Bukowski - A Radio With Guts
Cheveu - La Truite
Tyvek - Mary Ellen Claims
Brutal Truth - Walking Corpse
Der Teenage Panzerkorps - Human Winter
Love Potion LIVE - Lades 16/4-09
Highway Child - Turn Me Me
Swinehood - I Wipe The Shit Out Of The Ass Of The World
Fresh Blueberry Pancake - Hassles
Jerry's Kids - Machine Gun
F.U.'s - CETA Suckers
Feelers - Achtung Hipster
Venom - At War With Satan

May 3rd:

Virus 18.00-19.30 Guest DJ Steffen (Death Token etc.)

Mrs Miller - Yellow Submarine
Non - Total War
Fugs - Kill For Peace
Jesus and The Gospelfuckers - Kill The Police
The Worst - Emergency Room/I don't know/Going to new york
The Sexual - War Cry
Gates - Born To Lose
LSD - Jast Last
Confrontation - Death Trap
Asocial - Asocial Attack
Grief - Falling Apart
Rusted Shut - God Strike
Kiss - Going Blind
Brainbombs - Stalker
Leathernun - Prime Mover
Black Randy - Idi Amin
Butthole Surfers - Human Cannonball
The Kill - The Clash Has A Lot To Answer For
Cold World - Hands Off Our Music
Deathcharge - Hangman
Age - It's Spiderweb
Wankys - Much Too Young
Cathedral - Equilibrium
Dead Instrument - Attack Patterns
Whitehouse - Rock'n'Roll

Lowcut 19.30-20.30

Redbone - The Witch Queen of New Orleans
Hul - Ødelæg dig selv
Death (detroit) - Freakin Out
Dead Instrument - LIVE @ 17/4-09 Lades
Roxy Music - Remake Remodel
Seven That Spells - LO III
Love Potion - Time to Die
Tiger B. Smith - Tiger Rock
Cranicus - You're in America
The Only Ones - From Here To Eternity
Angel Witch - Sweet Danger (LIVE @ Roadburn 2009)

Ah, I see now (see, it always helps to use the quoting feature). Thanks for that. And yeah, Zappos is pretty amazing with their overnight shipping. kopper Hank Cockpit said:

kopper said:

Huh? What're you yappin' about?

Hank Cockpit said:

Oh man Kopper, would you provide overnight shipping? I ordered a pair of shoes there once at like 7:30pm and they were on my door step at 9am the next morning.

This:

"If I thought I could make enough money to live off of, I'd totally quit my job, rent a warehouse, set an online store up here, and make GaragePunk.com the Zappos of Rock'n'Roll."

kopper said:

Huh? What're you yappin' about?

Hank Cockpit said:

Oh man Kopper, would you provide overnight shipping? I ordered a pair of shoes there once at like 7:30pm and they were on my door step at 9am the next morning.

"Go IX! GO!" ixnayray said:

Well i've just read through all this and i have to admit... i'm slightly puzzled. Why the hell would anyone WANT to go anywhere else? Through looking at some of the profiles on here we're all obviously on the same page. The podcasts are the best i've heard on ANY website, and when chatting to the folks on here i've noticed that everyone has a great sense of humour and plenty of enthusiasm.

The only stumbling block is clearly how anti-social everyone is. Even if it was someones actual job to post topics for discussion, that doesn't necessarily mean people are going to join in. And thats a damn shame. I'm slightly guilty as i have never started a topic myself... but i'm always keen to chat when anyone signs in. I've noticed there's a bit of activity chat-wise, on peoples individual profile pages but that's not good enough.

A lot of hard work has clearly been done building this site and there are new people joining up all the time. Just a shame it doesn't get used as much as it should.

I'm just curious, but if i started a general discussion every day next week, I wonder what kind of response it would get... in fact, fuck it, thats exactly what i'm gonna do.

HAW! Thanks guys, I'm just a flake and you know it! Michael Kaiser said:

kopper said:

Wow, now that's a refreshing perspective!

He's a very sharp individual!

kopper said:

Wow, now that's a refreshing perspective!

Hey Mr. Jim!

I know it's late, BUT:

"jungle/savage tunes..." WILD WILD WILD sounds of nature! That's what this sounds like to me! Burpin' monkeys, fartin' zebras, drunk lions, roarin chihuahua's! Field recordings a GO-GO! Would be awesome, how about that?? ;)

lookin' forward to what yer doin'!

Keep the wild sounds a tumblin' baby!