THE CLASH
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, dub, funk, ska, and rockabilly. The Clash achieved commercial success in the United Kingdom with the release of their self-titled debut album, The Clash, in 1977. Their third album, London Calling, released in the UK in December 1979, earned them popularity in the United States when it was released there the following month. It was declared the best album of the 1980s a decade later by Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1982 they reached new heights of success with the release of Combat Rock, which spawned the US top 10 hit “Rock the Casbah”, helping the album to achieve a 2× Platinum certification there. (More from Wikipedia)
The Richmond Sluts were founded by Chris B (Chris Beltran, on bass guitar) and Shea Roberts (guitar and vocals) in 1998; they shared similar tastes in music, such as the Clash, the Rolling Stones, New York Dolls, and the Stooges. After adding Justin Lynn (keyboards), the Richmond Sluts developed a distinctive sound and began performing with the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
(June 2014)
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The Blondie frontwoman comes up again in this story of the genesis of “Rapper’s Delight” that is taken from Wikipedia: “In late 1978, Debbie Harry suggested that Chic’s Nile Rodgers join her and Chris Stein at a hip hop event, which at the time was a communal space taken over by teenagers with boombox stereos playing various pieces of music that performers would break dance to. Rodgers experienced a hip hop event the first time himself at a high school in the Bronx. On September 20, 1979, and September 21, 1979, Blondie and Chic were playing concerts with the Clash in New York at The Palladium. When Chic started playing ‘Good Times’, rapper Fab 5 Freddy and the members of the Sugarhill Gang (‘Big Bank Hank’ Jackson, Mike Wright, and ‘Master Gee’ O’Brien), jumped up on stage and started freestyling with the band.
“A few weeks later Rodgers was on the dance floor of New York club Leviticus and heard the DJ play a song which opened with Bernard Edwards’s bass line from Chic’s ‘Good Times’. Rodgers approached the DJ who said he was playing a record he had just bought that day in Harlem. The song turned out to be an early version of ‘Rapper’s Delight’, which also included a scratched version of the song’s string section. Rodgers and Edwards immediately threatened legal action over copyright, which resulted in a settlement and their being credited as co-writers. Rodgers admitted that he was originally upset with the song, but later declared it to be ‘one of his favorite songs of all time’ and his favorite of all the tracks that sampled (or in this instance interpolated) Chic. He also stated: ‘As innovative and important as “Good Times” was, “Rapper’s Delight” was just as much, if not more so.’ ‘Rapper’s Delight’ is said to be the song that popularized rap music and put it into the mainstream.’”
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In one of the sources for this post, the online magazine Louder than War, Paul Fischer describes the music by Lightning Strike as “an incendiary mix of Clash/B.A.D. and the Beastie Boys”. Big Audio Dynamite is the original punk/rap band, formed by Mick Jones in 1984 after he was thrown out of the Clash the year before. Most, though not all info on Lightning Strike lists them as a punk band or even a hardcore punk band.
The Nuzz Prowling Wolf blog quotes one member of Lightning Strike about their Clash roots: “The last review we had said, ‘The singer must have stood and practiced in front of the mirror for hours to be Joe Strummer’. And the geezer was right. I did! So what? We like the Clash so I don’t take it as an insult.”
(September 2016)
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In seemingly no time, the music scene was crowded with top bands and artists whose work has held up well over the decades since, among them Patti Smith Group (whose debut album, Horses came out before Ramones, in December 1975), Television, Richard Hell, the Heartbreakers (the punk band not Tom Petty’s group, though he was a part of the scene as well), Talking Heads, the Dead Boys, Blondie, the Clash, the Cars, Elvis Costello, Pat Benatar, Joy Division, the Specials, the Go-Go’s, the Police, etc., etc., etc. There were so many that rock critics and others began distinguishing bands in the safety-pin set as “punk” and others that were less confrontational as “new wave”.
(December 2016)
