The Clash Biography

The band's first single was the classic, two minute slice of vitriol, White Riot. The band's self-titled debut album soon followed later that year. From the start it was clear the band wanted to manipulate punk's energy as a means of political protest - Their songs were teeming with images of tower blocks, dole queues and race riots. Prophetically, I'm So Bored With The USA railed against the US domination of Europe and a cover of Junior Murvin's Police & Thieves was the first of many forays into dub reggae. The album defined the sound of British punk - vitriolic guitars gelling with Strummer's sloganeering. The album hit the UK Top 20 although CBS deemed it too uncommercial for a US release where it promptly sold 100,000 copies on import. For much of 1977 group members were in and out of trouble with the law for petty offences, (Headon for shooting a pigeon!) which added to their rock rebel status.

In 1978, having replaced Terry Chimes on drums with Topper Headon, the Clash returned with their second album, Give 'Em Enough Rope. With Blue Oyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman at the decks the album was a slicker affair than their debut, aimed at challenging punk's tunnel vision. Punk purists scorned at the apparent sell out but the incendiary tracks Tommy Gun and Safe European Home helped the album reach No.2 in the UK. The band soon embarked on a US tour while UK fans lapped up the The Cost Of Living EP which featured a rebel-rousing cover of Sonny Curtis's I Fought The Law.

Then in 1979 The Clash released their marathon masterpiece, the double album, London Calling. The album showcased the band at their creatively eclectic peak - from the rudeboy skank of Rudie Can't Fail to the rockabilly swagger of Brand New Cadillac, the album was crammed with top tunes and lyrical bravado. Everything fell into place, even the classic cover shot, a pastiche of Elvis Presley's first album. The album would be their first to crack the Top 30 in America. With the praise still ringing in their ears the band embarked on another US and UK, returning to New York to record their next album, Sandinista.

The three album set, released in 1980, is either a masterpiece or a sprawling, self-indulgent collection of unfocused dub and reggae treatments. The truth is somewhere inbetween. Although the set received a critical mauling and the ambition can be described at best as eccentric, there are standout tracks - namely the insistent funk of The Magnificent Seven, Police On My Back and The Call Up. However, the album's poor critical reception and crucially, poor sales, forced a back to basics rethink for the follow up, 1982's Combat Rock. Despite deteriorating relationships within the band, (Headon, now a heroin addict, would soon leave to be replaced by original member Terry Chimes), they recruited veteran rock producer Glyn Johns for what ironically became their most commercially successful album. The album which featured guests including beat poet Allen Ginsberg and rapper Grandmaster Flash, contained a clutch of simple, straight ahead rockers such as Should I Stay Or Should I Go (the band's only UK No.1) and the Fez-tastic Rock The Casbah. Hardcore fans felt the album was a sell-out, geared for the US market. Fears were heightened when the band supported The Who at Shea Stadium in New York.

After Headon's departure, (he would eventually be jailed for 15 months for supplying heroin), Mick Jones would be the next member to quit the band with Strummer saying: "He said, 'My accountant says I should check with him about writing songs,' so I said go and write songs with your accountant then." Original members Strummer and Simonon replaced Jones with guitarists Nick Sheppard and Vince White while Pete Howard had now replaced Chimes on drums and the new look Clash embarked on a tour of the US and Europe in 1984 before releasing the self-parodying 'punk' album Cut The Crap in 1985. Strummer tried to mesh hip hop with nosebleed punk with poor results. Cut The Crap was a flop and so, in 1986, The Clash ended not with (what should have been) a bang but with a whimper, a sorry farewell to a band full of high minded idealism. Despite lucrative cash offers The Clash never dented their legend by embarking on the now obligatory reunion gigs.

Mick Jones would go on to form the punk-funk band Big Audio Dynamite, enjoying success with hit singles E=MC2 and Medicine Show. Simonon went on to form the rockabilly band Havana 3AM while Strummer embarked on a low key solo career, as well as acting in Alex Cox's Straight To Hell and Walker 87. He released 1989 solo album Earthquake Weather and also helped out his friend Shane McGowan in The Pogues. Should I Stay Or Should I Go was used in a Levi's TV advert in 1991 and became The Clash's first UK No.1. In the late 90's Strummer re-emerged from musical oblivion with his own band, The Mescaleros. 1999's debut album Rock Art and The X-Ray style ran a gamut of styles with mixed success. 2001's Global A Go-Go was more cohesive with Strummer casting his caustic wit over various issues set to a world music tinged beat. Strummer was in the middle of a tour with the Mescaleros in 2002 when he died tragically of a heart attack aged just 50.

In September 2004 the band's finest hour, London Calling was re-released together with missing Clash recordings, The Vanilla Tapes, recently discovered by Mick Jones when he was moving house. The tapes, recorded at Vanilla Studios in Pimlico, London, were made in 1979 when The Clash were at the height of their creative powers. It's a fitting epitaph to punk's greatest standard bearers.