In the life and work of artist Shepard Fairey, social justice and the musical counterculture have always collided, igniting many of his most striking images. Most famously, they have come in the form of 18-by-24-inch posters, with messages against police violence, war, and government surveillance, and calling for peace, civil rights, and multiculturalism. There are […]
Late Clash vocalist/guitarist Joe Strummer can be seen rocking out and meeting fans all over the world in the video for the song “Fantastic,” which was released earlier this month on the Dark Horse Records archival project Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years. The Lance Bangs-directed video includes footage shot by Strummer, Dick Rude, Julien […]
If punk rock’s heart belonged to any one person, it beat in the chest of Joe Strummer. At a time when the movement was largely defined as a glue-sniffing “blank generation” with no future, the Clash’s frontman shaped it into something more purposeful, empathetic, ambitious, and even idealistic. In their brief time together, The Clash […]
Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder has paid tribute to late Clash frontman Joe Strummer ahead of what would have been the latter’s 70th birthday with a cover of “Long Shadow,” from the posthumous Strummer and the Mescaleros album Streetcore. In the Lance Bangs-directed video, Vedder performs the song solo acoustic next to a campfire, and afterwards […]
Looking back at 1982 in music, the headline is obvious: Thriller Sells A Bajillion Copies, Becomes World’s Biggest Album. But is it the year’s best album? Funny enough, Michael Jackson‘s sixth LP hardly even affected the charts that year — it snuck out in late November, just as Men at Work’s 1981 blockbuster, Business as […]
In honor of what would have been his 70th birthday next month, late Clash co-founder Joe Strummer will be celebrated with the boxed set Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years, which rounds up his three studio albums with that band plus a disc of 15 previously unreleased tracks. The project arrives Sept. 16 from Dark […]
The time has come to cut the crap and get your head right about Combat Rock. Why this album — the amalgamation of pretty much everything that made The Clash cool — does not get its proper due in the same way the first album and London Calling do is beyond comprehension. Originally mapped out […]
The Clash were “The Only Band That Matters.” But more to the point, they were the only band who’s ever gotten away with calling themselves something so self-aggrandizing, because it felt close enough to the truth. They formed in early 1976 out of the ashes of Joe Strummer’s pub rock band, The 101ers, and Mick […]
Ukrainian punk band Beton transformed the Clash‘s “London Calling” into a protest song called “Kyiv Calling.” The trio received permission by the surviving members of the Clash to re-record their 1979 hit and changed the lyrics to a call to action for other Ukrainians, and the rest of the world, to rise up and resist […]
Last week, Rostam released his new album, Changephobia, and just like that, he’s gone ahead and dropped a deluxe version of the record. And it’s a doozy. The ex-Vampire Weekend member unveiled covers of Lucinda Williams’ World Without Tears song “Fruits of My Labor” and The Clash’s “Train in Vain” from London Calling. Check them out below. [embedded content] […]