Sunday, January 25

Casbah Club


The past several months I have listened to The Clash's Live-At-Shea-Stadium concert in '82 when they opened for The Who. Two weeks later the band broke up. The opening salvo amazing: Welcome to the Casbah Club are Joe Strummer’s first gravelly words into the microphone then straight into the Armageddon "London Calling" influenced by the '79 meltdown of Three Mile Island and problems of rising unemployment, racial conflict and drug use in Britain. It is also Summer's call to arms and demand for (the city's) relevancy. Here Katie and I pose by Tomkins Park. Strummer died in 2002, age 50.

Tomkins Park even on a freezing cold day is filled with youngsters wearing different variants of jeans and colours. I'm not entirely sure but from this sample it appears bell bottoms are back and grunge remains stylish. Puffy down jackets also Big but it is -5 so this may effect the style, though I doubt it. Ray Ban wayfarers seem to trump over-sized aviators.

"London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared, and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look to us
Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing

[Chorus 1:]
The ice age is coming, the sun's zooming in
Meltdown expected, the wheat is growing thin
Engines stop running, but I have no fear
'Cause London is drowning, and I live by the river"
The Clash