The Clash

Tuesday

December 10, 2019

Is London Calling Boris Johnson?

Boris Johnson recently cited the Clash as his ‘favorite band’ along with the Rolling Stones. London Calling, the Clash’s great third album, was released in the US in January 1980, 40 years ago next month. Time has judged it one of the great rock ‘n’ roll albums, but was it really made for Establishment figures like the British prime minister?For the affordable price of $7.98 the 19-tune, double LP hit the New Year market in a blaze of righteous Jamaican reggae and driving, dance-floor ska, 12-bar jazz, mento-calypso, disco, funk and much else besides. Having just returned from an American tour on which they were supported by the blues showmen Bo Diddley and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, the Clash were fired up with the romance of America.

Thursday

June 13, 2019

Freddy Gray

Phony Betomania has bitten the dust

Remember Betomania? It seems an age away, yet just three months ago, Beto O’Rourke was still being hailed as the Democratic messiah. There was all that gush about how his campaign in Texas inspired the country, even though he lost. There was the mad drooling over his Medium and Instagram posts. There was that appalling, emetic Vanity Fair cover through which he revealed he was running: ‘I was born to be in it.’ There was that competing rally with Trump on the Texan border, where he stood for openness as opposed to bigotry.He was cool, he was cute, he was impeccably progressive on issues such as climate change, gun control and LGBTQ rights. But he wasn’t too dangerously threateningly left to freak out the elites.