Syracuse Ska Forum

I was listening to the clash all day today and I was listening and thinking "hey...theres some ska riffs, if only there were horns" and WHAM! there were horns. I know that they are considered punk but could they just be a third wave ska band that were mis-dubbed "punk"?

The Clash were, well, The Clash. You couldn't stuff them in a single genre.

I was listening to London Calling earlier, and I was struck by how simple (but never simplistic) their arrangements are. Contemporary music sounds positively cluttered in comparison. Couple that level of musicianship with the guts to experiment and draw inspiration across genres, and "punk" feels far too small to describe their sound.

Joe Strummer's later band, the Mescaleros, goes even further blending and bending genres. It lacks the hot-headed energy of Strummer's earlier work (logically so,) and I'm glad that he kept moving forward to the very end.

I would sort of disagree with twitch on this one and say that the Clash were definitely a punk band. Absolutely, they had a ton of ska and reggae influences. And the horns they used were terrific, but there was at least as much Stax/Volt soul to them as ska/reggae.

And no, I don't think they could've been considered a third wave ska band. Their ska material fit in more with 2Tone than third wave, by a long shot, I think. In particular if you look at time frame.



Of course, the important part is that they were awesome.

I actualy ment to say 2-tone, sorry

At the start, certainly. I'd say they were the bridge between punk and new wave.

Take the Clash, replace the frustration and snarl of punk with a smart playfulness. What do you have? The Talking Heads.

Oh my. Now we're talking about the progression of punk.

What became "new wave" was universally called "punk" originally. As some of the punk bands became more mainstream and signed to major labels, there was a widespread uneasiness about still calling them punk, so this new term "new wave" was coined as a catch-all for the bands with the poppier, more commercial sounds. Talking Heads, Blondie and the Go-Gos were definitely punk originally and then were definitely new wave over time, for example. Bands like the Clash didn't really change what they were doing -- the market matured to where their original innovations became mainstream normalcy.


None of these categories is very well defined, so I'm not willing to concede that argument to you. The Clash had a lot of smart playfulness too and The Talking Heads had some frustration and snarl, especially early on. The Clash were street punks, while the Talking Heads were art punks. Just variations on a theme.

And to get more on point, ska is just as difficult to track and define into neat little categories. The Toasters are usually classified as the beginning of the 3rd wave, primarily because of chronology, but they also often get classified as 2-tone, primarily because of sound and approach.

Going full round, The Clash are generally accepted as having an influence on 2-tone and making some minor contributions themselves. But they are also universally classified as punk and not ska.

That's the conclusion I was fumbling towards. Thanks.

i think the clash defy categorization because of how diverse their music is. london calling is a little bit of everything, pop hits, cool little classic rock n roll type stuff, reggae, etc etc etc. and im not sure iof they could be considered ska but theyre definately an influence on ska and opunk obviously. they invented punk.




Im suprised jeff hasnt posted yet hes a major clash fan

Man... that's a new 'origin of punk' story to me.

You should see 'End Of The Century'. It's a documentary on the Ramones. Joe Strummer talks about seeing them the first time they came to London, and what an inspiration it was for the Clash. And that was after the Ramones had already been playing Stateside for 2 or 3 years...

And that's even completely disregarding the pre-punk bands like the Velvet Underground and New York Dolls and MC5...

I was thinking that way too, but then I assumed he didn't mean it literally. The Clash was probably the most commercially successful of the early punk bands while they were still together, that didn't lose their way in the process.

If anybody's really interested in learning more about the clash, their formation, and their progression from straight punk to their more inventive sound I suggest getting ahold of a copy of the westway to the world documentary. It's got a ton of interviews and live footage and is definitely worth seeing.