The Clash: Return of The Last Gang in Town [Paperback]

The Clash were simply the greatest rock’n’roll band of the post-Sixties era. They combined the iconoclasm of the Sex Pistols with the old school rebel swagger of the Rolling Stones, striking sullen poses in punk rags, sharp black suits or combat fatigues while tearing through the kind of instantly memorable songs mainstream pop groups would kill for.

In 1977, ‘White Riot’ was their uncompromising British debut, followed closely by The Clash, the most incendiary album to emerge from the mid Seventies UK punk scene. Just over two years later, the band released London Calling, destined to be feted as a rock classic: Rolling Stone later voted it the best album of the Eighties. In 1982, ‘Rock The Casbah’ provided the Clash with their breakthrough American hit single, while its parent album, Combat Rock became an international commercial success. By then, though, the band had already begun to disintegrate…

When the Clash reached number one in the UK singles charts with ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’ it was 1991, long after the band had split: a testament to the timelessness of their music. The band’s achievements continue to be valued highly. In 2000, Joe Strummer received the Q Inspiration Award; in 2001, the Clash received the Ivor Novello Award for an Outstanding Contribution; and in 2003, the band was inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame.

Extensively revised and updated from both its 1995 and 2001 incarnations, The Clash: Return Of The Last Gang In Town traces the band members’ progress from dispiriting rehearsals in damp London basements to packed American stadiums. A fascinatingly detailed account of the first band to take punk’s radical politics to the masses and survive for a decade against all the odds, it also offers an intriguing investigation into the gap between rock mythology and rock reality.