Sweeping Promises, the duo of Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug, revive 80s post-punk sounds with “You Shatter” off their second album Good Living Is Coming for You.
Album: The Overload Artist: Yard Act Release Date: January 21, 2022 Label: Zen F.C. Favorite Tracks:
The Overload
Rich
100% Endurance
Thoughts: Yard Act of Leeds, England perform a throwback post-punk style offering Clash-like political commentary for a post-Brexit Britain. Lead vocalist James Smith use a speak-sing style with lyrics that amuse and scold. This is a good debut album from a band that should be worth following.
In Music Discoveries, I find artists and bands that I’ve liked but have only listened to a small portion of their output, and do a complete listen of their discography. In the case of the Clash, this is a band I have listened to a more extensively but nevertheless have still found new-to-me music.
Back when the Clash was an active band I was a child who decidedly did not like punk music. Of course, I didn’t really know what punk music was since I basically equated it with heavy metal (and honestly I didn’t really know what heavy metal was either). I first became acquainted with the Clash like many mainstream Americans with their 1982 hit songs “Rock the Casbah” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go.” In 1989, I was reading a “Best of the 80s” issue of Rolling Stone that ranked the Clash’s London Calling as the #1 album of the decade (despite being released in December 1979). I got a copy from the library and gave it a listen, surprised by what I heard and more surprised that I loved it.
A couple of years later, I started college and many of the people in my dorm listened to the Clash so I got exposed to their other recordings, including the more raw punk of the earlier days. And so, five years after the Clash broke up, I became a fan.
Lately I’ve been trying to learn more about the band by listening to a podcast produced by the BBC and Spotify called Stay Free: The Story of the Clash hosted by Chuck D of Public Enemy fame. That prompted me to give the Clash the Music Discovery treatment.
Album: The Clash Release Date: April 8, 1977 Favorite Tracks: “Remote Control,” “I’m So Bored With the U.S.A.,” “White Riot,” “Career Opportunities,” and “Police & Thieves.” Thoughts:
The Clash come in with a roar on one of the most remarkable debut albums of all time. This is The Clash at their most raw, most punk rock, and yet already melodic enough to be appealing to squares like me. They even cover a reggae song, “Police & Thieves,” which was innovative at the time. The album also stands as a legacy of the social unrest, inequality, and racial strife of the UK in the 1970s.
Rating: ****1/2
Album: Give ‘Em Enough Rope Release Date: November 10, 1978 Favorite Tracks: “Guns on the Roof,” “Drug-Stabbing Time,” Thoughts:
The sophomore effort feels more stripped down and raw than the debut, although the second side is poppier (and “Drug-Stabbing Time” sounds deceptively cheerful). Lyrically there’s a broadening of topical issues beyond the band’s experiences in London to global political events. This album doesn’t grab me as much as The Clash, but it’s still quality.
Rating: ***
Album: London Calling Release Date: December 14, 1979 Favorite Tracks: “London Calling,” “Hateful,” “Rudie Can’t Fail,” “The Right Profile,” “Lost in the Supermarket,” “Guns of Brixton,” “Death or Glory,” “Revolution Rock,” “Train in Vain” Thoughts:
It’s hard to find anything new to say about what many people consider one of the greatest albums of all time, except to say it is one of the greatest albums of all time. It’s hard to single out my favorite songs, although “Lost in the Supermarket” has always resonated with me. I wonder what it would’ve been like to hear this album for the first time in 1979. It must’ve been so unexpected for most listeners of the time.
Rating: *****
Album: Sandinista! Release Date: December 12, 1980 Favorite Tracks: “The Magnificent Seven,” “Hitsville, U.K.,” “Somebody Got Murdered,” “The Sound of Sinners,” “Lose This Skin” Thoughts:
Almost a year to the date of releasing a double album, the Clash follow up with a triple album! Sandinista!is reminiscent of the Beatles “White Album” in it’s diversity of musical styles, large list of guest musicians, and the sense that one could pare down this sprawl into a great single album, but what would you cut? The new wave and “world music” sounds of the album seem to be years ahead of the rest of music world.
Rating: ***1/2
Album: Combat Rock Release Date: May 14, 1982 Favorite Tracks: “Know Your Rights,” “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” and “Straight to Hell” Thoughts: The band’s best-selling album is more radio-friendly with tracks like “Rock the Casbah” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go,” but I don’t think the band compromised too much for commercial success. Other tracks on the album like “Know Your Rights” hearken back to their early punk rock sound. And then there’s music that doesn’t sound like anything else ever made, like “Straight to Hell,” one of my all-time favorite songs by any band. Rating: ***1/2
Album: Cut the Crap Release Date: November 5, 1985 Favorite Tracks: none Thoughts: This is the much-maligned final album of the disillusioned remnant of a once great band. The songs are formulaic, recorded over cheezy 80s synth with shout-along choruses that sound like a crowd of drunken football supporters. It’s not terrible, but it it is boring, which is about the worst thing one can say about the Clash. Rating: *
My Clash All-Time Top Ten Songs
Aramagideon Time (Live at Shea Stadium)
(NOTE: The live performance combines Armagideon Time with The Magnificent Seven which is not evident from the YouTube clip)
The legendary post-punk band The Mekons have composed what may be the first protest song of Brexit. Appropriate for a boozy sing-a-long at a pub, it is also a call to action
The Violent Femmes are back after a 15 year absence with their new album We Can Do Anything. By the sounds of their new song it could still be 1983 – which is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. The song that looks back so far musically is appropriately called “Memory.”
Ex Hex, the latest band formed by Mary Timony (of Helium and Wild Flag fame, among others) has a terrific new album called Rips. “Hot & Cold” is the first video from the album, but check out the rest of the songs as well.
And while we’re on the topic of Mary Timony, here’s a bonus video of “Honeycomb” by Helium from back in 1995 which was filmed in Jamaica Plain.
People who know me well know how I feel about The Eagles.
But this song is by the homophonic band spelled Eagulls from Leeds, England. The post-punk band’s track “Possessed” is reminiscent of mid-80s Pixies rather than mid-70s klassik rawk, which is a good thing.
What are you listening to this week? Let me know in the comments.
I recently signed up with Rdio, a music streaming social network that provides access to a boatload of music for a monthly fee. I’ve enjoyed being able to listen to a lot of new discoveries and digging up old favorites. For example, I listened to Prince and the Revolution’s “Around the World in a Day” for the first time in at least 25 years. That was a new album around the time we moved to a new house in 1985, and while all my other tapes were packed in a box, that one had just arrived in the mail so I ended up listening to it over and over. It’s surprising how many of the songs seemed completely unfamiliar despite that.
On that same nostalgia vibe, I also payed tribute to one of my favorite New York area radio stations of my youth, which was known as 92.7 WDRE-FM when I listened to it, but was also known as WLIR. This was the “left of the dial” radio station that played Post-Punk, New Wave, Modern Rock, Alternative Music, whatever moniker you wanted to slap on it (oddly, the term “alternative” became most popular around the time that R.E.M and Nirvana lead the music into the mainstream in the early 90s).
One of the features of WDRE was a contest for the best new song of the week called the “Shriek of the Week.” Apparently, during the WLIR days there was the rhymeless “Screamer of the Week” that did the same thing. There is a list of all the Screamers & Shrieks from 1980 to 1996 here: http://www.advancedspecialties.net/wlir.htm
I made a Rdio playlist of the Screamer/Shriek of the week covering my junior high and high school days from 1985-1991. Rdio had many, but not all, the songs from the list and sadly it seemed to be the quirky one hit wonders that didn’t make it to the playlist. Still it’s a good playlist that gives one the sense of those exciting days of the 80s and early 90s, if one can excuse a little too much exuberance for artists such as The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Erasure, U2 and Morrisey who seemed to have entire albums elected as Shrieks over the course of several weeks.
If you are on Rdio and have the time and energy to populate the rest of the list, have at it. I may go back and fill in the earlier days of the 1980s. I feel it may be too sad to go forward in the 1990s and watch the musical erosion, especially when you get to the third week of June 1994 when alternative music officially jumped the shark.
Oh, and apparently WLIR lives on as an internet station with some of the original DJs.
Panorama of the Mountains 