The Clash: The Clash

The Clash: The Clash (US Version)

CBS Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Clash City Rockers  2. I'm So Bored with the USA  3.  Remote Control  4. Complete Control  5. White Riot  6. (White Man) In Hammersmith Palais  7. London's Burning  8. I Fought the Law  9. Janie Jones  10. Career Opportunities  11. What's My Name?  12. Hate & War  13. Police & Thieves  14. Jail Guitar Doors 15. Garageland


The freakin' debut album by the Clash...

There's two versions of this album, the gnarlier original UK version and the 1979 US version, which had an altered track listing more in line with American sensibilities (i.e. it's wimpier...)

I have the US version, which removes five tracks from the original ("Deny," "Cheat,""Protex Blue,""48 Hours," and the original version of "White Riot") and replaces them with a pile of the greatest singles ever recorded ("Clash City Rockers," "Complete Control," "(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais," "I Fought the Law," "Jail Guitar Doors" and a later re-recording of "White Riot.") The UK version also has a slightly different cover...



There's been an ongoing debate between bespectacled record dorkuses of the world over which version is superior...Ideally, there would be a single release that combined both versions, but there isn't...So, gun to my head, I'm going to go with the US version, cos it has "White Man in Hammersmith Palais." I understand the UK version is the purer statement and has a punk energy the slicker US version can't match, but that doesn't sway me too much...Like I said, "White Man in Hammersmith Palais."




I remember at one point in time I owned three copies of the cassette..I asked my folks for it for Christmas after hearing a friend's copy of it, but simply couldn't wait the entire month, so I bought my own copy...

 Then, my family had a Christmas Eve party and imagine my surprise when i unwrapped a gift from my brother and it was another copy of the tape!

The next morning, I woke up at the standard 4 am to unwrap presents, and as always there was a big pile of festively wrapped cassettes, and one of them, was...you guessed it...

 A THIRD COPY OF THE CLASH CASSETTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I ended up keeping one for myself and gave away the other two, but remember shortly afterwords my only copy was eaten in my tapedeck, so I actually had to go out and buy a fourth copy...D'oh...

 God, this is a hard record to talk about, everybody on planet Earth is fully aware how great it is...To this day I've never heard a valid criticism of it, because let's face it...It's perfect...Joe Strummer was probably the most astute lyricists in the punk movement,  Mick Jones is a flat-out guitar genius, not to mention their always rock sold (and inventive) rhythm section (Paul Simonon and Terry Chimes/Topper Headon)...So I'm refusing to rehash all the usual accolades this album receives...

Instead I'm simply going to attempt to draw a horrible version of the cover using Microsoft Paint in under 5 minutes...Here we go...

Woah, I came in waaayyy under schedule...I know you won't be able to tell by the high artistic quality above, but this only took me three minutes!

And here's the US Version!! I tried to do it a little smoother so it would be more in line with American sensibilities (i.e. I spent four minutes on it...)

Orange you glad you took precious time out of your day to read about the greatest album ever made and instead looked at primitive drawings? I knew you would be...

Let's listen to "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" by the Clash...Enjoy...

CIV: Thirteen Day Getaway

CIV: Thirteen Day Getaway

1998

Atlantic Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Secondhand Superstar  2. Big Girl  3. Itchycoo Park  4. Haven't Been Myself in a While  5. Everyday  6. Shout It  7. Owner's Manual  8. Something Special  9. Using Someone Else  10. It's Not Your Fault  11.Living Life  12. Ordinary  13. Little Men  14.What Happened to the Grunge?


CIV was largely a 90's reunion of the 80's hardcore band "Gorilla Biscuits" with Walter Schreifels from Gorilla Biscuits/Quicksand/Rival Schools/A Billion Other Bands producing and writing the bulk of the songs...They kept a lot of their old-school speed and positivity but infused it with 90's pop-punk melodicism and  80's Adam  & the Ants tribal beats...

For some odd reason I no longer own CIV's first album, the beloved and highly successful "Set Your Goals"...



Instead I just have their 1998 follow-up "Thirteen Day Getaway," which is often dismissed as being the vastly inferior follow-up but I've never totally agreed to that assessment...
 
The popular consensus is that this was CIV's attempt at becoming the next Smashmouth, and soon they also be making big, fat hamburgery videos with porno chicks and shave landing strips on their chins and play in endless rotation on MTV, like Smashburger did...

...While I'll admit this record isn't as good as "Set Your Goals" (likely due to the relative absence of the always dependable Walter Schreifels)  it's also not as vomitous as its reputation suggests...To me, it sounds like a punk band indulging in the type of vintage 60's and 70's pop they probably loved in their youth...Dinky organ sounds and arm-swingin' melodies...Sort of like the Banana Splits meets Gorilla Biscuits...I'm highly-susceptible to this type of classic pop, so it sounds fine to me, but I can see how the happy-go-lucky melodies might grate on skinheads looking to go another round in the moshpit...

The sequencing on the album is a little weird too..."Set Your Goals" had a few pop songs scattered amidst the hardcore, but this album really segregates the styles...The first half is all fluffy pop and the second half is largely 80's style hardcore...

 (Secondhand Superstar single cover)

The best moments are the immaculate pop-punker "Big Girl" and the closing acoustic track "Little Men," which  happens to be the only song with a Schreifels credit attached to it..."Little Men" in particular shows that if they would have stuck around they might have found a way to navigate the Emo trend that was about to engulf all of punk rock, but they never got the chance, unfortunately...This turned out to be the band's last album...

I think a lot of the betrayal the fan's must have felt at the time surely must have faded by now, and to that end, I think it's time to dust off this album and give it another listen...I think there's some good stuff here if you're down for some good, hard pop...

On a personal note, I've always equated this album to the time in my life I spent working in a Car Parts factory in Tawas, Michigan...I used to work the overnight shift and get out at 6 or 7 am...Every morning I'd hop in my car and drive about a mile to the Shell station on the shores of Lake Huron...

...I'd buy a Cherry Choke...

 ...and drink it while looking at the sunrise on the Tawas Bay...

...I'd just take a quiet 20 minutes before hopping into my car and blasting "Thirteen day Getaway" by CIV...Huh, no wonder I have such a fondness for the album...Maybe I'm blinded by nostalgia, and the album really is a piece of shit!!!

 Oh well...Turn it up, anyway...

Here's a few other albums I strongly equate with that time period...
 

Hum: Downward is Heavenward...

The Humpers: Euphoria, Confusion, Anger and Remorse...

Rancid: Life Won't Wait...

 Slayer: Diabolus in Musica...

If you rode with me around this time, there's a 100% chance one of these would have been blasting out my car stereo speakers, so let's grab a Cherry Coke, go for a drive and listen to "Little Men" by CIV...Enjoy...

Circle Jerks: VI

Circle Jerks: VI

1987

Combat Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. Beat Me Senseless  2. Patty's Killing Mel  3. Casualty Vampire  4. Tell Me Why  5. Protection  6. I'm Alive  7. Status Clinger  8. Living  9. American Way  10. Fortunate Son  11. Love Kills  12. All Wound Up  13. I Don't



The Circle Jerks continue the hard rock direction they started on 1985's "Wonderful" which was an alright-ish record...



The cover is top notch, anyway...I don't own a copy of this anymore, but at one point I had the cassette of it, and I  never really got too attached to it..."The Crowd" was a great song though, and it showed this new direction had potential...

...and I think  "VI" largely lives up to that potential...It's incredibly 1987-sounding...The type of thin-sounding punk-metal that seemed to exist for only a brief time in the waning years of that decade...There's a couple of limp and forgettable tracks ("Patty's Killing Mel" and the so-so cover of Creedence's "Fortunate Son"), but for the most part it's fantastic riff-rock like "Tell Me Why" and "Casualty Vampires."  I'm a big fan of this type of punk-metal and I can see how someone less enamored of this style might long for the pure hardcore of their first album, but I don't really miss it at this point...I like heavy metal...

♫ Deedle deedle deeee ♫....

"GRANDMAAAA...WHAT WAS IT LIIIIIIIIIIIIKE..."

"I'M GONNA BE DEAD IN 10 YEARS!" (Gluggity glug gluggity glug) "WHOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

All kidding aside, the Circle Jerks still skew very much towards the punk side of things, I can't imagine many Manowar fans were flipping their loincloths over this...If you've been digging on their first three records but are hesitant to take the plunge on their later material, you have nothing to fear...The attitude and catchy songs haven't changed a bit, just the tempos are a touch slower and the guitars have a little more crunch...So let's listen to "All Wound Up" by the Circle Jerks...Enjoy...

Circle Jerks: Golden Shower of Hits

Circle Jerks: Golden Shower of Hits

1983
Allegiance Records

Format I Own it on: Compact Disc

Track Listing: 1. In Your Eyes  2. Parade of the Horribles  3.Under the Gun  4. When the Shit Hits the Fan  5. Bad Words  6. Red Blanket Room  7. High Price on Our Heads  8. Coup d'État  9. Product of My Environment  10. Rats of Reality  11. Junk Mail  12. Golden Shower of Hits (Jerks on 45)



Like all kids that fell in love with punk rock, the "Repo Man" sountrack was an important record to me...I think I had to buy two cassettes of it, since I wore out my first one...



Listening to it now it seems a bit skimpy (I could easily listen to a ten-record set of this type of shit),  but in those pre-internet days when information on L.A. punk was difficult to come by, it was an essential document that helped me navigate my way through the 80's California punk scene...And I particularly loved the Circle Jerks tracks! "Coup d'État" was just the most lightning-quick hardcore I'd ever laid ears on and the lounge version of  "When the Shit Hits the Fan" was so much fun...

..but I like the hard-rocking version from "Golden Shower of Hits" even more...This has always struck me as the most Circle-Jerky Circle Jerks album...It catches them right before their shift to the slower, heavier "Wonderful" and "VI," but it's the rare transitional album that finds the perfect middle-ground between two eras...Listen to "High Price on Our Heads," it retains their signature brashness but with a more muscular sound...and it just so happens to be one of their best songs...On the other end of the spectrum "I can See It In You Eyes" sounds like it jumped straight out of "Group Sex" to spit more beer in your face...

But the real highlight here, is the "Golden Shower of Hits (Jerks on 45)" medley...It's a brilliant send-up of those hoary old "Stars on 45" releases that stitched together a bunch of random songs into a tacky 12" single that often resembled some too-horrible-for-words, disco-dancing Frankenstein's Monster... 

If you don't know what I'm talking about, the video I posted below will give you the proper context...Although you might not be able to forget what you've just heard...A bunch of 5 second snippets of Beatles songs with a relentless disco beat pounding away underneath, ("Sugar Sugar" by the Archies is also tossed in for good measure)...So corny...Come to think of it, this is still the type of thing I hear whenever I accidentally find myself in a club or bar that has a  DJ...

Anyway, the Circle Jerks made the most of this concept and strung together a particularly rank and simpering selection of late 60's- mid 70's Am gold and emerge with a masterpiece of incidental storytelling...Essentially, a couple falls in love, get some afternoon delight, have a baby and get a D-I-V-O-R-C-E...

Hearing Keith Morris joyously shout "SHE'S HAVING MY BABY!!!" is an era defining moment...I think this song is to blame for the ever-popular punk trope of the "funny cover of an awful song" that you find on Me First & the Gimme Gimmes' records...But the Jerks take it sooo much further here than anyone has dared since...



So let's check it out...Here's "Golden Shower of Hits (Jerks on 45)" by the Circle Jerks...Enjoy...

Circle Jerks: Wild in the Streets

Circle Jerks: Wild in the Streets

1982

Faulty Products Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Wild in the Streets  2. Leave Me Alone  3. Stars and Stripes  4. 86'd (Good as Gone)  5. Meet the Press  6. Trapped  7. Murder the Disturbed  8. Letterbomb  9. Question Authority  10. Defamation Innuendo  11. Moral Majority  12. Forced Labor  13. Political Stu  14. Just Like Me  15. Put a Little Love in Your Heart


Yes! I love this one...Sure, it may not be the drop-dead classic "Group Sex" was but it definitely keeps the slam pit moving.. Have you heard this thing? Put the needle on the record and listen to the first song and tell me it doesn't make you wanna jump on your skateboard and get chased by the Daggers...

Oh yea, if you actually watch that "Thrashin'" clip you'll hear the whispery original version of the song as originally done by Garland Jeffreys in 1973...

 It's a cool song too...Much more of a cool rock n' roll song than a hardcore thrasher...But I have to say the Circle Jerks' radical reinvention is where it's at..One of the best songs they ever recorded...

Actually the whole thing's pretty great...It seems more polished and precise than the first record, but it's still inarguably some of the most slamming hardcore ever recorded...Lots of good stuff here..."Stars and Stripes," "Murder the Disturbed" and of course the closing duo of covers, "Just Like Me" and the old Jackie DeShannon chestnut "Put A Little Love in Your Heart" which foreshadow the awesome "Jerks on 45" single, but we'll get to that tomorrow...

I'm with the Gipper on this one...That show seems too good to be true...And for 7 bucks? You could skip your Starbucks Soy Latte Frappamocha Frappafrappfrapp and afford the admission...Incredible...

Look at all the beautiful red spellcheck zig-zags!

Alright, I'm getting silly...Better get out of here...But let's check out "Stars and Stripes" by the Circle Jerks before we go...Goodnight Kids!!

Circle Jerks: Group Sex

Circle Jerks: Group Sex

1980

Frontier Records

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Deny Everything  2. I Just Want Some Skank  3. Beverly Hills  4. Operation  5. Back Against the Wall  6. Wasted  7. Behind the Door  8. World Up My Ass  9. Paid Vacation  10. Don't Care  11. Live Fast, Die Young  12. What's Your Problem?  13. Group Sex  14. Red Tape



This is one of the first punk albums I ever bought back when I was just getting into it in the early 90's...The version I had was a twofer CD that also had the "Wild in the Streets" album...I think I might have touched on this before...

 But yea. this album is one of the reasons that I'm still obsessed with punk rock to this day...I pretty much blindly picked up CD's by groups I had read about....

I guess technically an old 8-Track of  "Combat Rock" would have been my first punk album, but I wasn't really aware it was supposed to be punk...To me "Rock the Casbah" wasn't part of some anarchic musical upheaval, it was simply the song that came on the radio after "Hungry Like the Wolf." So yea, I'm not counting that one...



Same with "City Baby's Revenge" by Charged GBH. I was really into heavy metal when I first heard it and I just thought it was another heavy metal album, albeit a very succinct and catchy one...To me it kinda sounded like the first Iron Maiden album, so I lumped it into that category...

The first punk album that blew my mind and made me rethink my undying allegiance to heavy metal was actually "Earth A.D." by the Misfits. I listened to the cassette with my friends J.J. and I can distinctly recall my entire world being turned upside down...But that was nothing...



I eventually picked up "Walk Among Us" and it blew "Earth A.D." outta the water in my mind! The greatest thing I've ever heard hands down...There was probably a good decade or so where I played this cassette every-single-day...And I still bump it quite often...

So after hearing those Misfits album I nabbed every punk album I set my eyes on...Right around this time, my Parents took me to the mall and I got to buy a few punk Cd's..I realize how un-punk it sounds to have your Parents drive you to the mall to buy punk albums, but fuck you...Anyway, I grabbed the aforementioned Circle Jerks CD and...



Dead Kennedys: Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death...



Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks...Here's the Sex Pistols

There were probably a couple others but I can't remember them at this point...But yea, the album holds a lot of good memories for me...Endless hours sitting in front of my stereo listening to Keith Morris shout teenage truths that you'd never hear on the radio:

"Every night would be so great,
I'd take you home to meet mom & dad,
and they'll be so glad,
they won't think their boy's a fag..."

 ...and what kid doesn't  love these lyrics:

"Twisted mind, withered brain,
you know I'm going insane,
I just tell them to get back,
when they tell me how to act,
I've got the world up my ass!"

I can remember listening to "Live Fast, Die Young" and hearing, "I don't wanna live to be 34, I don't wanna die in a nuclear war..." and thinking that 34 sounded so old. I had no idea I was going to be there one day...Hell, I was 34 three years ago! And if I had a dime for every time I died in a nuclear war! Sheesh!

And I still find that the power of "Group Sex" hasn't diminished one iota... The damn thing moves so fast the dust has  never gotten the chance to settle...The guitars remain a permanent blur, the drummer never lets up and the 14 songs are over in 15 minutes...When this is playing, you have no choice but to pound a couple cheap beers and jump up and down...

That old Cd is long gone, but I now own this on vinyl...The guy at the record store claims it's a second pressing...Apparently you can tell by the yellow label and the size of the ring impression, blah, blah, blah...

  I guess I don't really care about all that...All I care about is tossing on the best album the Circle Jerks ever unleashed upon this unsuspecting world and pogoing in my room to  "Live Fast, Die Young" all night...

Cheech & Chong: Various Albums

Cheech & Chong: Big Bambu

1972

Ode Records/Warner Bros. Records / WEA

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Sister Mary Elephant  2. Ralph And Herbie  3. Streets Of New York Or Los Angeles Or San Francisco Or...  4. Rebuttal: Speaker Ashley Roachclip 5. The Continuing Adventures Of Pedro De Pacas And Man  6. The Bust  7. Television Medley a) Tortured Old Man b) Empire Hancock c) Let's Make A Dope Deal d) Unamerican Bandstand




Warning: I wrote this post in about 5 minutes (as opposed to the usual 10 minutes I usually allot myself)  and didn't particularly have the time to edit it...So if it reads like shit, just convince yourself it's good or something...

(Boy, am I a straight...I have no idea what any of that stuff on that "High Times" cover means...)

Anyway, I love comedy albums and I have a lot of them...Whenever you go to a record store there's usually tons of 'em and they're always dirt cheap and usually in excellent shape.  Thing is, I find them somewhat difficult to discuss...I mean, what am I supposed to do? Type out the jokes? Spoil the punchlines for you?

But the whole concept behind the Friday Night Record Party was to listen to my entire physical record collection in alphabetical order, so I'm not going to make any exceptions...I decided to tackle these the same way I did the various Beatles Greatest Hits Collections I own, and make one big post out of them...

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved Cheech & Chong...I didn't know much about Marijuana back then...From what I could gather it was something you smoked that made you really funny...And I probably got this impression from watching  Cheech & Chong movies  on TV...To this day I maintain that "Cheech & Chong's Next Movie" is one of the greatest films ever committed to celluloid...

But before the movies they put out a series of comedy records...If you're around my age and had an older sibling, it's pretty much a guarantee there was a Cheech and Chong record buried deep in their smoky bedroom, among the lava lamps and black light posters...

"Big Bambu" was the duo's second album, and the packaging is so conceptually great...

 It's  designed to look like a giant package of rolling papers with an actual humongous rolling paper included...

...So you can roll your own Cheech-sized spliff...

"Whoah! Quarter Pounder!"

The giant skins even makes their way into the "Television Medley" track...These is the type of thing you don't get in the MP3 age...I wonder if anybody ever actually used the papers...I think the fact that copies of the album that still have them intact are pretty scarce answers my question...

The "Pedro and Man" routine steals the show on the "Big Bambu"...These are the hapless stoner characters that have become synonymous with Cheech and Chong and "The Continuing Adventures Of Pedro De Pacas And Man" plays like a little audio versions of their movies...In this installment Pedro's ride runs out of gas and they encounter a series of coloful characters (all performed by Cheech and Chong) in a vain attempt to get it rolling again...I could listen to this all day.. Hell, I essentuially did..

The "Television Medley" is also a masterstroke...It basically lets us sit in with Pedro and Man as they  watch television... "The Tortured Old Man" section is a rough start but I'm always enthralled by the time they get to the "Let's Make a Dope Deal" game show...

You can check it out here...

 




Cheech and Chong: Los Cochinos

1973

Ode Records/ Warner Bros. Records/ WEA

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Sergeant Stadanko  2. Peter Rooter  3. Up His Nose  4. Pedro and Man at the Drive-In  5. The Strawberry Revival Festival  6. Don't Bug Me  7. Evelyn Woodhead Speed Reading  Course  8. Les Morpions  9. Cheborneck  10. White World of Sports  11. Basketball Jones


"Los Cochinos" is their third album and probably the best one I own...This is where you find the famous "Basketball Jones" routine...Which was later made into a popular cartoon short that you can watch below...

This record was legendary on the schoolyard playgrounds as a kid...It seemed like every kid had the  "Cheborneck" routine down pat...For all the big laughs on here I often find myself enjoying the smaller moments the best. I particularly love "The Strawberry Revival Festival" which consists of  a couple of dope-heads simply arguing about mundane things (such as who spent the pop bottles, who ate the bologna, etc).

 The album itself has a cool die-cut cover that looks like a car, and when you take off the outer sleeve...

...you can find their hidden stash of weed!



...you can find their hidden stash of weed! Wheee! 

Cheech & Chong: Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album

1974

Ode Records/ Warner Bros. Records/ WEA

Format I Own it on: Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Championship Wrestling  2. The Other Tapes  3. Testimonial by R. Zimmerman  4. Hey Margaret  5. Earache My Eye (featuring Alice Bowie)  6. Wake Up America  7. Black Lassie (A Great American Dog)  8. Wake Up America (Conclusion)  9. The Baby Sitters featuring Pedro & Man  10. The Three Little Pigs  11. Coming Attractions

For some reason I've always been under the impression that this was a parody of John Lennon's "Wedding Album," and its elaborate packaging...



...but it might just be a coincidence...

 

 I love this album art...It has such a grimy, greasy 70's feel that never fails to make me queasy for some reason...My copy also appears to have a big brown stain that appears to be spilled bong water...At least I hope it's bong-water!

"The Wedding Album" gets off to a slow start (the opening wrestling skit being the worst moment) but a few tracks in and they're on a roll... "Hey Margaret" is particularly hilarious...It revolves around Chong watching a porno with his old lady...It doesn't sound like much of a concept, but Tommy Chong really sells this with his performance...Listen for yourself...

 

This is the album where you'll find the famous "Earache My Eye" song...What a great riff! Forget comedy! This is a great heavy metal song, period! I wish I could convey to you how many teenage hours I spent spinning this song, and the following sketch where Chong argues with his dad probably got the biggest laughs from me today...So let's grab a bag of Funyuns...

 ..some Mountain Dew...

 ...Lots of Water...

...and listen to "Earache My Eye" by Cheech and Chong...Enjoy...