December 17, 2012

Viva Joe Strummer!

Why is it that the music makers for each generation are actually members of the previous one?

I graduated high school in 1971 and it was just as the Counter Culture was giving up on the hippieness of it all and going "up the country." Altamont killed the Summer of Love and all my friends, it seemed, either hung on for dear life to the old bands, giving up totally on any kind of personal evolution; or turning themselves around to other pursuits altogether. Or getting themselves set up for Disco.

God help us.

 In 1977 I was 24 and though outwardly I was a regular working stiff, freshly escaped from the cult of Scientology, and punching a clock for not much money and hadn't yet met my wife, the branch of my crowd had every basis to move into the new stuff that was starting up. Such as that much reduced crowd that remained in my life could. My stint with the cult pretty much wiped out a lot of the old friendships. So much for that episode.

The truth is "punk" saved my life. And it turned out that, eventually, The Clash became The Only Band That Mattered.

Wake up, the boring stuff is over now. Sheeesh...

I only just now found this video. It's an hour long. Get some popcorn. Viva Joe Strummer!

3 comments:

Kyra said...

Not just the previous generation, but often the one before that as well!

Brian said...

Because teenagers are the most moved by music, but rarely have anything of substance to say themselves.

Gino said...

when my daughter was 13, she marked up her new chuck taylors (that i had paid good $$$ more, damn it...), and proceeded to beat the living fuck out of them (i think she tied them, dragging, from the bumper of the car or something...)

i asked hey, wtf?

she replied: they're clashing shoes.
i'm like, huh?
she's: you know Dad, The Clash. i wear them to dances. they're sooo cool this way.

i asked her about The Clash. she didnt know them, but she had the idea down pat.

this was in the year 2000. i was kinda proud.

Viva Punk!