The Clash - T.V. 7" EP

Like yesterday's post, the quality of this recording isn't the greatest. However what I like about this record is that it captures the live energy of the Clash at the Zenith. The other thing I like about it is that you can really feel their punk roots on these songs. Let's face it after the first Clash record The Clash began to evolve and move away from the very form of music they became poster children for. They explored different genres and delved into straight up pop song territory with a song like "Train In Vain". Don't misunderstand me. Pop song isn't a dirty word to me. It takes great skill and craftsmanship to write a great pop song. What is so great here is that here you can here "Train In Vain" in a raw more punk version. Things aren't all clean and perfect here. The guitars are noisier. The vocals aren't perfect. I can hear Mick Jones out of breath and struggling through the lyrics as I'm imagining he's shaking and bouncing on stage in front of the microphone.

I imagine it looked something like this.



There has been a lot more written about this song. A great article is by Johnny Black and can be found here.

As for the other songs, "Clampdown" is another one of my favorites and this captures all the noise and attitude well. This is the kind of song that doesn't suffer from being a poor recording. It doesn't matter. It's punk. The songs intro guitars just get all riled up and ready to dance.

A song like "London Calling" however to me does suffer. It's just my opinion of course, but to me that song's studio recording is so perfect and so iconic, that it is hard for me to hear any other version and be pleased. Such is the case here. It's okay live, but I love the original.

"Guns Of Brixton" is also just okay here.

So this one's a mixed bag, but it's a mixed bag of The Clash. Not bad if you ask me. So if you were too you to ever see The Clash live or just someone missed out put these songs on, close your eyes and imagine yourself in the way-back machine to a night in 1980 where The Clash rocked the house.

Enjoy!

01 London Calling.m4a

02 Train In Vain.m4a

03 Guns Of Brixton.m4a

04 Clampdown.m4a