Alexander Billet | ukwatch.net

Rebel Music

tim — Fri, 02 May 2008 11:53:47 +0000

"Art and politics don't mix." So we are told time and again whenever an artist or musician dares to speak out and be heard. Politicking, it seems, is best left to the politicians, and musicians are better off leaving it that way.

The Carnival Against the Nazis, staged by Rock Against Racism in Britain 30 years ago, was one of the many moments in history that prove what utter bollocks that is. While racism trolled the streets of Britain, this festival united black and white, immigrant and native born, punk rock and reggae in opposition. It was one of those iconic moments when the interplay between popular struggle and popular culture stepped forth for all to see. Yet again, it was proof positive that in the fight against oppression and inequality, music can indeed play a crucial role.

British journalist Sarfraz Manzoor summed up the influence Rock Against Racism had at its high-point on April 30th, 1978: "[F]or those who attended the original concert in 1978 it was a show that changed their lives and helped change Britain. Rock Against Racism radicalised a generation, it showed that music could do more than just entertain: it could make a difference."

The Ugly Spectre

Looking at Britain in the late 1970s, it's hard to argue that something different wasn't definitely needed. The UK was in the grip of an economic crisis. Unemployment and inflation were rife. Earlier in the decade, the British government, broke, had gone to the International Monetary Fund looking for a bail-out. The IMF agreed, but with the stipulation that social services were slashed throughout the Kingdom. By the mid-70s, welfare had been gutted, and the financial security of the working class wasn't any more secure.

It was only a matter of time until the crisis in the broad country reached the world of music. On August 5th, 1976, the legendary Eric Clapton took the stage in Birmingham's Odeon Theatre and delivered a drunken racist tirade. He said Britain was on the verge of becoming a "black colony," and that "we should send them all back." He urged a vote for racist Conservative politician Enoch Powell in order to "keep Britain white." Powell had become infamous in British politics eight years earlier when he delivered his infamous "Rivers of Blood" speech (as in "if Britain doesn't stem the tide of immigration, rivers of blood will flow through our streets").

There was, of course, a great irony to Clapton's comments. Most of his music wouldn't have existed if not for African American blues. And, of course, his career had been floundering until his smash-hit cover of Bob Marley's "I Shot the Sheriff" a few months prior. For him to be promoting the complete separation of black and white was laughable.

Irony aside, there was a much more sinister context for Clapton's diatribe: the rise of the National Front. The National Front was a political party founded in the late 60s by far-right former members of the Conservative Party and hardcore racists. They preyed on the fear of ordinary people by pointing the blame at Britain's sizable immigrant community of Asians and black Caribbeans. The NF toed the line heard from the Minutemen in the US today: that thieving and depraved brown-skinned invaders were stealing the jobs of respectable, hard-working white people. Though the NF tried to couch their platform in legitimacy and distance themselves from the "racist" label, they allowed white supremacists and neo-Nazis to join their ranks from the beginning. Even more horrifying was their increasing profile in the mid 70s. By the spring of '76 the NF had polled 40 percent in the northern city of Blackburn. "Paki-bashings" were becoming more frequent; in July Asian immigrant Gurdip Singh had been beaten to death by a gang of white youth. The public response of the NF's John Kingsley Read was "one down - a million to go."

Thankfully, the kind of ideas being spread by Clapton and the Front wouldn't go unopposed. The initiative was taken by Red Saunders and Roger Huddle, two artists who had been radicalized by the global uprisings of 1968. Both had been fans of Clapton and most of the artists that had revolutionized music in the 1960s. As anti-racists, they were disgusted by Clapton's comments. Upon hearing of them, they phoned up several friends and acquaintances, fellow artists and activists, and wrote an anti-racist manifesto that appeared in Sounds, Melody Maker and the New Musical Express, Britain's three largest music rags, along with the Trotskyist newspaper Socialist Worker. To say the letter's language took Clapton to task is an understatement: "Come on, Eric... Own up. Half your music is black. You're rock music's biggest colonist... P.S. Who shot the Sheriff, Eric? It sure as hell wasn't you!"

More than just a letter, though, Saunders, Huddle, and their co-signatories called for the formation of a organise "a rank and file movement against the racist poison music" to challenge the message of the National Front head-on. The name of this organization would be Rock Against Racism. Almost immediately, hundreds of letters began pouring in from people expressing enthusiastic agreement and wanting to know how they could get involved.

Battle Lines Drawn

As it would turn out, Huddle and Saunders had impeccable timing. "The founders of RAR were all soul fans," said Huddle, "but what really propelled it into what became a mass movement was the explosion of punk." White youth in Britain had tired of the pre-packaged version of rock 'n' roll being fed to them by major labels. Punk, with its visceral, back-to-basics approach, and uncompromising willingness to tell it how it is had found an incredibly enthusiastic audience. To many in the punk movement, Clapton's comments were yet more evidence that he was about as relevant to the times as woolly mammoth dung.

It seems that punk was something of a kindred spirit with RAR. Billy Bragg, a well-known politically active musician in his own right, made the connection right away: "I had seen the Clash on the first night of the White Riot tour and I remember thinking that the fascists were against anybody who wanted to be different - once they had dealt with the immigrants then they would move onto the gays and then the punks. Before I knew it the music I loved would be repatriated."

In the black community, the urgency of the real world was also finding an expression in music. Jamaican reggae had taken an increasingly militant turn in the 70s thanks in large part to the low-level civil war in that country. That militancy clearly resonated with a Caribbean immigrant community targeted not just by the NF, but by the police supposedly keeping them safe. Three weeks after the Clapton incident, London police incited a riot during a Caribbean carnival in Notting Hill, in what would become a well-remembered uprising against police racism. Around the same time punk was forcing its way onto the charts, London based Caribbeans would start making their own version of the heavy roots sound emanating from the islands in groups like Steel Pulse and Aswad.

The fields were clearly fertile for something potent to grow. Three months after the initial call to form went out, Rock Against Racism held its first show in East London featuring Carol Grimes. RAR started popping up all over the UK. Kids would call up from smaller cities asking what they could do to set up a local chapter. They attracted immigrant and British-born youth, punks, rastas, artists, dock workers would show up to shows and work security. Groups of musicians were signing up left and right to play RAR benefits. Roots reggae stalwarts like Steel Pulse, Aswad, and Misty in Roots often headlined. The vanguard of the punk movement, including the Clash, Buzzcocks and Sham 69, were frequent endorsers.

The organization also reaped the benefits of, and in some ways helped foment, the burgeoning Two Tone movement. Two Tone was the logical result of the collision between reggae and punk: multiracial bands that played Jamaican ska with a decidedly punk attitude. Groups like the Specials, X-Ray Spex, and the Selecter had a look, sound and message that proudly touted racial solidarity and most were regulars at RAR gigs.

Before long, the organization was publishing a magazine, Temporary Hoarding, which, in Huddle's words, was "the only really revolutionary cultural paper in Britain then or at any time." Its first issue summed up their political and musical mission in a page one editorial: "We want rebel music, street music, music that breaks down people's fear of one another. Crisis music. Now music."

While the starting point for RAR was fighting racism, they made clear from the start their opposition to all oppression. Some of RAR's earliest supporters were the Tom Robinson Band, a group of agit-rockers whose front-man, Robinson, had long been outspoken about his own sexuality. Organizers were keen on including women artists, and Temporary Hoarding frequently drew the connections between fighting racism and sexism, and commented frequently on the crisis in Northern Ireland.

After all, the National Front were also virulently homophobic; they were on record as saying rape wasn't really a crime; and they were staunch believers that Northern Ireland belonged to the British Empire. The NF had made their cause out to be one side of a cultural war between what was "English" and what wasn't. RAR also saw it as a clash of cultures, but reshaped the parameters. As the name of the magazine suggested, RAR were drawing battle lines. An early slogan was "Reggae, Soul, Rock 'n' Roll, Jazz, Funk, Punk - Our Music." Another read "NF = No Fun." This was clearly a fight between a culture of repression and one of freedom. Like Billy Bragg, RAR saw a direct link between fighting oppression and a vibrant and flourishing youth culture.

We Are Black, We Are White, We Are Dynamite!

That cultural war was only going to get more heated. In 1977, the National Front announced plans to march through the majority black neighborhood of Lewisham in London. Their move was made even more inflammatory by their slogan claiming that 70 percent of muggers were black. The NF's momentum, however, was about to hit the mother of all brick walls. The call for their march simply angered way too many people. On August 13th, 1977, the NF attempted to march through Lewisham, and were faced with thousands of counter-demonstrators; community members, union workers, socialists and other militant anti-fascists confronted the racists as they attempted to march. It didn't take long for the police line to crumble and demonstrators clashed. In the end, the National Front was prevented from reaching their final rallying point. What would come to be known as the Battle of Lewisham was a historic victory against the British fascists, and would inspire the foundation of the Anti-Nazi League.

The Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism were natural allies. Both were uncompromising in their anti-racism and their belief that the Front should be opposed head on, leaving no platform for the Front to spew their hate. RAR and the ANL's membership overlapped from the beginning. Bands associated with RAR would frequently attend ANL demonstrations. And so when the ANL planned a large march through the National Front strongholds in East London, it made sense for Rock Against Racism to provide the entertainment afterwards.

It's somewhat funny that the Carnival is what's remembered today given that the march was originally intended to be the main event. The Anti-Nazi League worked hand in hand with Rock Against Racism. While the march would send a political message, the music festival would be a celebration, a glimpse of the freedom and dynamism that a world without oppression might have to offer.

The day of the event exceeded all possible expectations. Richard Buckwell, a member of the organizing team describes it: "we expected 10 or 20,000 people, which would have been excellent, a big rise in the numbers who came on the marches and the demos. But on the day there were tens of thousands of people there." The march started in Trafalgar Square with about 10,000. When it ended in Victoria Park, the ranks had swollen by thousands. People had come from all over the country: punks, hippies, trade unionists, immigrant shopkeepers, bohemians, women's rights groups, gay activists; all had come to watch the carnival. By the time the headlining acts took the stage, the crowd was estimated at 80,000.

This naturally blew the organizers away. At most, they had expected 20,000. The PA system they had procured for the event couldn't blast much louder to accommodate more than that. The Carnival Against the Nazis had no corporate backing, and was run on a shoestring budget, heavily dependent on donations and volunteer labor. Tom Robinson, whose band headlined, describes what it was like: "At the park the gig was a ramshackle affair. Nowadays outdoor pop concerts make us think of corporate sponsorship, backstage catering, TV crews, guest lists, security guards, hospitality and VIP areas. But the Carnival Against the Nazis had none of that - RAR operated completely outside the showbiz establishment."

Perhaps that's why so many in attendance found the show so electrifying. All the artificial filters imposed by the music industry (ultimately composed of the same people who argue against confronting the Nazis) were completely absent. Very little came between the message of the performers and the audience.

That message was carried throughout the day by the brilliant acts. More than that, RAR's mission of fighting oppression with music seemed to actually work, if for no other reason than the sheer diversity and passion of the bands. The carnival was kicked off by X-Ray Spex, not only a Two Tone band, but one fronted by Poly Styrene, one of the most underrated front-women of the 1970s. Accounts of Steel Pulse's performance seem to always include their performance of their single "Ku Klux Klan" with them wearing white hoods in a salty and provocative act of satire. The Tom Robinson Band's performance of "Glad to Be Gay" was an explicit demand for solidarity between oppressed groups. And the Clash's set has become the stuff of legend, with Sham 69's Jimmy Pursey joining them onstage for their encore of "White Riot" (which had ironically been misconstrued as a white supremacist song upon its release; not that anyone could make that mistake now!).

And what of the audience? Did they just come for the music? Not likely. It seems that there were a good number in the crowd who had come to be inspired, who, through music, had been introduced to the idea that a world without racism may be more than just a pipe dream. Among the crowd was Gurinder Chadha, today a filmmaker, but in the 70s the teenage daughter of immigrants. She had to lie to her parents to come to the carnival, but it was something she wouldn't forget: "The whole of the park was jumping up and down to the Clash," Chadha says. "It was an incredibly emotional moment because for the first time I felt that I was surrounded by people who were on my side. That was the first time I thought that something had changed in Britain forever."

It was the first of many anti-Nazi carnivals held throughout Britain. The next few years would see festivals in Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester, turning out tens of thousands. Countless other small shows were held, and an unknown number of people were inspired and moblized by Rock Against Racism. When the organization folded in 1981 at a carnival in Leeds featuring the Specials, the National Front was in shambles. Indeed, the Front's former deputy would later state years later that both the ANL and Rock Against Racism were key in the organization's collapse.

We Still Want Rebel Music

Today the National Front is a shadow of its former self. However, the threat of racist scapegoating at the ballot box is far from over. The economic ineptitude and soft Islamophobia of the Blair and Brown Labour governments has opened the door for the British National Party, whose origins lie in the NF, to use the same anti-immigrant racism as their predecessors to make gains in local councils. With the London Assembly elections taking place on May 1st, the BNP is within reach of getting a seat. Luckily, the fighting spirit of Rock Against Racism is also still alive, and the Carnival Against the Nazis is revered by anti-racists of all stripes.

Rock Against Racism was re-launched in 2004 as Love Music Hate Racism. It has been active over the past four years combatting the BNP's influence with the help of Unite Against Fascism, heir apparent to the ANL. This past Sunday, the 27th, LMHR held a 30th anniversary festival commemorating the Carnival Against the Nazis in Victoria Park. Tom Robinson performed, along with some of today's most dynamic acts such as Roll Deep, The Good the Bad and the Queen (featuring Paul Simonon of the Clash) and members of Babyshambles. The carnival was more than a celebration, though. Throughout the day, performers and speakers spoke of the need to openly oppose the BNP on the streets, campuses and in the workplaces. And, if only because it seems hard to top the original carnival, it's amazing to know that over 100,000 turned out this time around!

There is a lesson for artists and activists on this side of the Atlantic, too. The notion of using popular music to organize political protest may seem a foreign one when surveying the pop-addled airwaves. There are plenty of signs for hope, though. The resurgence of garage rock in the mainstream has signalled a return to the gritty confrontation of punk rock. Hip-hop holds countless talented, politically active MCs in its ranks. And if anyone believes that the youth in this country aren't angry, then they simply haven't been paying attention. From a meaningless war to a hopeless economy, to our own homegrown versions of racism and scapegoating, it seems clear that youth are getting dealt a bad hand. What would happen if the same music kids listen to in order to escape and make sense was actually pointing the way to something better?

Rock Against Racism and the Carnival Against the Nazis answer that question brilliantly. Both are undeniable proof that music isn't something merely to be bought and consumed. Music, ultimately, belongs to us. It reflects our experiences, our worries, our hopes and dreams, and if we fight hard enough, it can bust the walls down and give us a taste of what's on the other side.

_Alexander Billet is a music journalist, writer, and activist living in Washington, DC. He is a regular contributor to SleptOn.com, Znet and Dissident Voice. His blog, Rebel Frequencies, can be viewed at http://rebelfrequencies.blogspot.com, and he can be reached at rebelfrequencies@gmail.com._

Bloc Party Review

Alex Doherty — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 19:00:43 +0000

Bloc Party has definitely made a huge mark on modern music. Their debut album Silent Alarm displayed an energy and emotional honesty that clearly set them apart from most of the too-cool-for-school attitude of most "indie-rock" bands. It was this that prompted the NME to claim Bloc Party as "the band of 2005, no contest. As vital as The Clash in '77…"

Big shoes to fill, and the London-based outfit didn't disappoint. But despite this comparison, Bloc Party noticeably shied away from political issues. They denied that their song "Helicopter" was about George W Bush, and lead singer Kele Okereke also criticized Green Day for jumping on the "anti-Bush bandwagon." Rather, it was their sheer openness and basic humanity that had young people clamoring for their records.

But a lot has happened since Silent Alarm's release. Just ask Okereke. Rather than focus on the group's music, the mainstream music press zoomed in on the singer's ethnicity; he's the son of Nigerian immigrants. Then, they hounded him about rumors of his bisexuality, which he confirmed after a few months. Okereke, known for his reserved and shy personality, was visibly frustrated by all this.

It's this kind of coverage that has the potential to make artists fear for their creative sanity. But rather than do that, or lash out at the press (which they would be completely justified in doing), Bloc Party have let those experiences shape their new album, A Weekend in the City. In doing so, they have released a shockingly deep and powerful record.

A step forward from Silent Alarm, the band has expanded its already intricate and layered sound, combining softer melodies with their raw frenetic power; a perfect compliment to Okereke's lyrics, which dare to venture into very heavy and often taboo subjects. The same range of emotions are expressed on this album: alienation, despair, hope, anger, etc. But Okereke has clearly put them in a frightening and confusing world: modern London. "East London is a vampire/it sucks the joy right out of me," sets the tone in the album's opening track "Song For Clay (Disappear Here)."

Bloc Party's London is especially alienating and hard for groups seldom mentioned or represented in pop music today: gays and people of color. It's a badly needed shift from the straight white boys club that seems to be the face of modern rock n' roll. "I just feel that every non-white teenager will know what I'm talking about when I say that certain avenues in this country are closed to you," Okereke told the Guardian in reference to the new album. "Whenever I walk into a pub in London I feel frightened. There are certain activities that are still predominantly white."

This is the world-one of inequality and bigotry-that Okereke has unflinchingly written into Weekend. The track "Where is Home?" highlights this in a gut-wrenching way as it starts at the funeral of Christopher Alaneme, a black youth stabbed to death last April, whom Okereke knew well. In a country where ASBOs ("Anti-Social Behavior Orders") are used to scapegoat anyone with dark skin, this song hits hard.

Another highlight of the album comes in the menacing "Hunting for Witches," directed at the racist backlash following the London bombings in July 2005. "[That song was] written when I was just observing the reactions of the mainstream press and I was just amazed by how easy it'd been to whip them up into a fury," remarks Okereke. "I guess the point about the song for me is that post-September 11th, the media has really traded on fear and the use of fear in controlling people."

But it would be wrong to portray Weekend as overwhelmingly bleak. The beautifully Cure-esque "I Still Remember" is a vivid portrayal of modern love; more explicitly one about a secret gay rendez-vous. When so many "love songs" trade in on cheap cliché, this tune is especially refreshing: "You should have asked me for it/I would have been brave/You should have asked me for it/How could I say no?" Love does take bravery, and doubly so when it's forbidden.

If one characteristic could sum up this diverse album, it would be the very thing that has set Bloc Party apart from the beginning: their willingness to be honest and open in their music. In an image-obsessed industry, this band has been bold enough to eschew pretension and speak their mind. In doing so, Weekend manages to capture perfectly what it feels like to be alive-truly alive-in frightening and frustrating times. That the album's lyrics are pulled directly from their songwriters' own experiences only highlights this.

It is a hard thing to wear your heart on your sleeve. Bloc Party wear theirs with style. And this has lead them to produce one of the most poignant records in a long, long time. This is a flat-out incredible album. And if Bloc Party continues on this path then they will indeed end up one of the most important bands of our time.

*Alexander Billet is a music journalist living in Washington DC. He maintains the music blog Rebel Frequencies (http://rebelrequencies.blogspot.com), and is currently working on his book The Kids Are Shouting Loud: The Music and Politics of The Clash. He can be reached at alexbillet@hotmail.com*

White Riot - Thirty Years On

jo — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 17:42:01 +0000

On August 30th, 1976, in a turbulent and volatile section of London, a piece of rock n roll legend took place. Though the anniversary last week was insignificant to most in the mainstream press, the events of that insufferably hot summer day were not just important in their own right, but played a part in shaping one of rock musics most influential bands, and helped re-establish the link between popular culture and popular resistance.

Much has been made in recent years of The Clashs immense influence on both music and culture. Rightfully so. Their rebel attitude, combined with a streetwise wit and politically charged lyrics, raised the bar for what was possible in punk rock, still in its infancy in the mid 1970s. Billy Bragg summed it up in a now-famous quote: were it not for The Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.[1] The Notting Hill Carnival, thirty years ago last week, was where it all started.

On the morning of the 30th, singer/guitarist Joe Strummer and bass player Paul Simonon, exhausted and a bit demoralized from a disastrous gig the night before, wandered with their manager Bernie Rhodes down to Notting Hill for the annual Caribbean Carnival. At that time The Clash were still a little known band that had yet to cut a record and were struggling to get noticed. Few outside of London and New York had any notion of what punk was. The charts were full of such acts as Queen and Elton John. But the stale, overproduced sound of stadium rock had run its course. Something was needed to inject some life back into rock n roll, and the first rumblings could be heard by anyone paying close attention. On August 7th, Melody Maker magazine gave four skinny, foul-mouthed youths known as The Sex Pistols their first cover story.

To look at Britain in the 1970s, one gets the feeling that the Pistols refrain of no future wasnt far off. The economy was in a deep slump, with inflation topping twenty percent. In 1975 unemployment had passed two million. And the so-called Labour Party was not just neglecting its working-class base, they were actively moving to crush it. Whereas the Tories had not dared to use troops to break the miners strike [of 1973], writes Chris Harman, Labour was able to use them successfully against the refuse workers in Glasgow, traditionally one of the most militant cities in Britain.[2]

Prospects were even worse for the black and immigrant communities such as Notting Hill. This neighborhood was a far cry from the well-to-do row-houses of Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts that we know today. In the mid-70s, it was an impoverished yet colorful world of reggae parties and record stalls where recent black immigrants from the Caribbean resided. Like most immigrants, they were shunned and scapegoated by Her Majestys Empire. Police harassment had become a fact of life for black youth, and fascist groups such as the British Movement and National Front were gaining more and more of a hearing.

The overwhelming feeling was that Britannia was coming apart at the seams. Still, Strummer and Simonon had no clue that the powder keg that they were sitting on was about to blow that day. They had wandered to the Notting Hill Carnival for the same reason most had; to listen to some music, eat some food, and take in the vibrant costumes and displays. But something else was to transpire that day. The police presence was, of course, unnecessarily large, and when a black youth was arrested for a supposed pickpocketing, the community erupted. People threw bricks and bottles at the cops, demanding the young mans release. When a line of riot police assembled to confront them, they were simply met with more flying debris. As things escalated, Paul and Joe jumped in.

Pat Gilbert, in his Clash biography Passion is a Fashion, gives an excellent account of the two young punks actions during the riot: In the commotion, Paul and Joe lost Bernie [Rhodes] under the Westway. Simonon recalls with glee throwing bricks at the lines of police and almost unseating a police motorcyclist with a traffic cone. As the riot exploded, Joe tried to set light to an upturned vehicle but the matches he lit kept blowing out in the breeze.[3]

Don Letts, later The Clashs video-maker and himself the son of Caribbean immigrants, was also at the Carnival that day. A photograph of him crossing the street in front of a line of cops right before the riot is itself a piece of Clash history, as it was used for the cover of the Black Market Clash compilation album. It is interesting how people look back on it as a black and white riot, he tells Gilbert. It wasnt. It was a wrong and right riot. It wasnt the black kids against the white police, it was youth at a black festival against the police. Dont forget this is 1976 you are talking about, a time when the country was in a bit of a state, there are no opportunities[4]

Likewise, Simonon and Strummer werent just two kids looking to raise some hell. They too had every reason to fight back against the cops. Despite Joes middle-class upbringing, his anti-authoritarian streak had longed to take part in the 1968 uprisings as he watched from afar. Now, after spending the past few years squatting and busking in Londons tube stations, being harassed by the cops and watching black and Asians being pushed around to no end, he finally had a chance to fight back.

For Simonon, who had grown up in the heavily Caribbean neighborhoods like Notting Hill and Brixton, the scene of police harassment must have been all too familiar to him as well. Paul had spent his teens hanging out at reggae parties. His high school was described as a shit-hole. You felt like you were dumped there until you got a job or signed on the dole he says in Passion is a Fashion. Most of the pupils were black, Irish or Greek. Very few [English] white. But there wasnt much racism as I can remember; everyone was in the same boat. No one had anything.[5] For him and Joe both, lashing out at the cops was just as much in defense of themselves as the Black community.

The effect that the Notting Hill Riot would have on them and the rest of the group would be profound. Taking manager Rhodes encouragement to write about whats happening, Joe would write The Clashs first single: White Riot. Clocking in at just under two minutes, the song is a brash and loud call to arms. Interestingly, the frank nature of the first lyric, Black men got a lotta problems / but they dont mind throwing a brick, would lead some to mistake the song as racist, but Strummer insisted he was only generalizing, and the second lyric, White people go to school / where they teach you how to be thick, made it clear that this was a fight for white kids too, against a common enemy: All the power in the hands / of the people rich enough to buy it / while we walk the street / too chicken to even try it.

The song would be released as The Clashs first single, and it became clear that they had touched a nerve: White Riot would reach number 38 on the UK charts.

From that day on, The Clashs insistence on taking a stand became an integral part of their music and image. If there was any mistaken notion that punk was a soundtrack for rebels without a cause, White Riot put it to rest. Over the next nine years, the group would make it clear which side they stood on in the riot between right and wrong. They wrote songs not just about race and class, but consumerism, war, police brutality and sexual politics. They played shows for anti-racist groups and benefits for striking miners, organized against far-right groups, and made public their support for liberation fighters in Angola. They would decry the US support for Pinochets coup in Chile in songs like Washington Bullets, and pay tribute to the Spanish workers militias in Spanish Bombs.

In the world of MTV and Clear Channel, the concept of music reflecting the outside world and urging us to take a stand seems far away. But if the story of one of rock n rolls most influential bands can be so intimately tied with an event such as the Notting Hill Riots thirty years ago, then we must sit up and take notice. The legacy of The Clash is safe, and will never be forgotten. But music, like history, doesnt simply exist to remember the past. It exists to inspire the future. In a time of war, racism and poverty, The Clash refused to sit on the sidelines. Today, musicians, artists and activists alike can learn a great deal from them.

References

1. Bragg, Billy, Billy Bragg: The Joe I Knew, BBC Entertainment News, 2 January, 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/music/2602083.stm

2. Harman, Chris, In the Heat of the Struggle: 25 Years of Socialist Worker, Bookmarks, London 1993. P. 142.

3. Gilbert, Pat, Passion is a Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash, Da Capo Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts 2004. P. 101.

4. Gilbert, p. 100-101.

5. Gilbert, p. 57-58.

Alexander Billet is a writer and activist living in Washington DC. He has written and spoken on The Clash for several publications and forums, including CounterPunch, Socialist Worker (US), Everensel (Turkey), and Radio Free Adelaide (Australia). He is currently working on a book tentatively titled 'The Kids Are Shouting Loud: The Music and Politics of The Clash'. He can be reached at alexbillet@hotmail.com