Punk is no the place you would think that double albums would generate, and you would be wrong. Music designed to be primitive, often with incredibly short durations due to the sheer intensity, a straight up 'fuck you' to the music industry of the 1970s as it became more and more corporate. Instrumental skill was not necessary, but the right attitude was. Some of the most noted groups barely released singles before self-destructing.
Yet both the Clash and Husker Du seemed to be more enamored with the double or even triple album than anyone else except maybe Frank Zappa. They were both somewhat wolves in sheep clothing in the punk world - okay, technically hardcore for Husker Du, but that genre was entirely dependent on punk before it. Both groups had excellent musicianship that emerged over time, and both had world-class song writers. Those elements made the longer double platter format so appealing.
The Clash were formed on the heals of the explosion of promotion that Malcolm McLaren generated for the Sex Pistols. England's economy had been floating on the success of rock music for over a decade, but things were grim, with 25 % unemployment. The big rock stars, perpetually stoned, living in mansions. were about to lose the youth of Britain. The time was ripe for something new, and punk was it.
Punk was to music what Dada had been to art sixty years earlier, a protest movement designed to self-destruct it's very form over time. That's exactly what most of the band's did. One that did not, instead getting better and better with each single and album, was the Clash. Joe Strummer had live abroad with his civil servant parents, a little bit older, squatting in empty flats while fronting pub rock bands. Paul Simonson wanted to be an art student, having an excellent sense of graphics. Mick Jones wanted to be a rock star.
They burned through their first management and drummer within a year, furiously recording and gigging. Terry Chimes didn't have the right attitude and was fired, no great loss as his drumming was pedestrian. They gave him the name 'Tory Crimes' on the first album, one last dig, an indication of their politics. With the addition of Topper Headon, they became a great band. Headon's musicianship lifted the group, enabling them to stretch out into reggae and other aspects of world music.
The second album was produced by the guys who also did Blue Oyster Cult, showing how early the band wanted to conquer America. It sounded like a great hard rock album, but purists were dutifully disapproving. The band was diversifying their sound, not only with Caribbean influences, but also roots rock and rhythm and blues. After extensive touring across the states, they went back to England to produce their masterpiece, 'London Calling'.
The Clash used the space on the double album to spread the sound out, still hard and intense at moments, but also playful, trying out everything including jazz. Even though it was still as political as anything around, it also looked backwards, both in music and in the songs, with 'Jimmy Jazz', 'Wrong 'em Boyo' and 'Revolution Rock' reminding the listener of attempts at causing change in the past. 'Yet 'Clamp Down' was all about the nuclear meltdown in Harrisburg that year.
The album put the Clash at the head of the class. Almost all the other English punk bands had disappeared by now, and these guys had the ability to sell in the vast American market, which had so far been resistant to the charms of spitting and piercings using bobby pins. It was natural for these guys to move to New York City and start working on the next thing. Already having pissed off the record company by insisting on selling the double 'London Calling' at the price of a single, taking the financial loss themselves, they now wanted a triple a the same cost.
These guys were positioning themselves as the 'people's' band, committed and approachable, the opposite of jet setting Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. It worked, too, as everything these guys released started selling in huge quantities. They tried doing a series of shows at Bond's Casino, a large venue in Manhattan, that turned into near riots on the streets. Having been to one of those shows, I can say that the presence of horse riding policemen in NYC will provoke confrontation with the locals, not quell it. The law wanted a fight, and when they got one, the venue had it's license pulled.
The band was prolific in the studio, releasing a barrage of singles and EPs constantly, including 'This is Radio Clash', embracing the new hip hop culture as well. But cracks were starting to show, fatigue from all the work without pay. Topper developed a nasty drug habit, while Jones acted more like the rock star than Strummer felt comfortable with. They found themselves flying around the world to appear at festivals, From Holland to Tokyo to Kingston, Jamaica, Topper in constant withdrawal.
'Sandinista' came out, a triple disc set as promised, thirty six songs, almost too much to digest. Long time fans were puzzled by the lack of hard rock. The album is absolutely flooded with world music, very little of it sounding like the same band that had did 'London Calling' just a year before. Personally, I love the album, but many actively hate it. Guess it depends on how you feel about that much reggae and dub when your expectation for another call to arms isn't there.
Yet it was still very political, but with a new maturity that the audience wasn't really ready for. Still, the album sold well, especially considering its sheer bulk. But things start going from bad to worse. The follow up album was actually finished, yet another double disc, when the record company pulled the pull. It had the greatest title in rock history, 'Rat Patrol From Fort Bragg', but by this time Strummer didn't want Mick Jones to be the producer. Politics within the band were getting tense.
Worse, Topper Headon's playing was starting to suffer from going into withdrawal during the touring. The band sacked him right around the time that 'Combat Rock' was released. Glyn Johns, engineer and producer for acts from the Rolling Stones to the Eagles, trimmed the tapes down to a single. Having heard the two disc set, it was vastly improved by the reductions. The band sound bloated and lost much of the time.
Hit singles put the band in heavy rotation on radio and MTV. A huge nationwide American tour opening for the Who followed, with Terry Chimes back behind the kit. Strummer hated the big gigs, feeling that he was losing the intimacy. By the US Festival in 1983, a big thing in its day, Mick Jones was fired. The band kept on for a couple of years, but it was a ghost of itself. From 1978 until 1982, with both Headon and Jones in the band, the Clash were the best rock band on the planet.
It's too bad that, at the Live Aid event in 1985, that they couldn't have reformed. A charity gig that big would have been unthinkable before the Clash came along, wearing their hearts on their sleeves, willing to argue politics, making it cool to care. They were the one English punk band to make a dent in the American market, and they conquered it on their terms, even if it caused them to disintegrate. Bruce Springsteen and U2 became mere echoes of what the Clash had been, committed, forceful, down to earth, caring.
In America, we really didn't have punk. It was hardcore and thrash, playing as loud and fast as humanly possible. In NYC, it was the Ramones. Mostly it was Los Angeles, with Black Flag, Fear, and the Dead Kennedys from San Francisco. Husker Du (forgive the lack of umlauts) instead came from Minnesota. The one lasting effect that punk did have in the States was a flowering of independent labels, and the band signed on to a bunch of them, going through New Reliance and Reflex before landing with SST.
Husker Du played faster and thrashier than just about anyone else. Many of the songs on their first album didn't even last a minute. The second album, both sides combined, didn't even last twenty minutes. Imagine the surprise when their third, 'Zen Arcade', would up as an expansive double album. Suddenly there were long instrumentals and acoustic guitars in the mix. Sometimes they verged on sounding like King Crimson or even the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
The band had two strong writers, Bob Mould, who did most of the songs, and drummer Grant Hart, no slouch either. They wanted to explore melody in a metal environment, and in that aspect, they were unique among American punk bands. No question it was still hard core, but there were songs within the noise. They even started playing around with psychedelic aspects, such as 'Hare Krna'.
The album drew national attention, along with national tours. There were no stadiums, just an endless string of club dates and college towns, typical of the early 1980s. Albums came fast and furious, and there was a threat that these guys might almost become mainstream. The main thing holding them back was their independent record label, too small to really support them nationwide no matter how much the bad tried.
By 1985, Husker Du faced the inevitable and switched to Warners. Things should have improved, but there started to be friction in the band, enough to cause long-suffering manager David Savoy to commit suicide. Grant Hart had a serious heroin addiction, always a problem for a touring band. When Mould took over the day-to-day operations of the group, the power shifted too much in his favor. In the middle of the tour, Hart suffering withdrawal, Mould canceled the rest of the shows. Hart left and it was over.
Too bad, because they released their second double disc, the superior 'Warehouse: Songs and Stories'. Both Mould and Hart had developed into really interesting song writers, constantly stretching the boundaries of what a punk song could be about. While they lasted, they were a great group. It didn't matter if they were gay or addicts; the music won out in the end, until the personalities canceled everything.
Husker Du never made it to the big time, never even came close. But their combination of thrash metal and melodic material paid off for other bands. Green Day, for instance, regularly play stadiums around the world, sounding exactly like a combination of the Clash and Husker Du. I certainly welcome intelligent dissent in the world. Sometimes I wish the originators could have reaped some of the rewards.
Strummer died walking his dog in 2002 from an undiagnosed heart defect. Grant Hart died in 2017 from liver cancer. Punk was always supposed to self destruct, but when it becomes personal, it's hard to take. At least they left a legacy of great music and passion.
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