turning rebellion into money
Life is so effing awesome!
Finals suck so hard, and the summer job hunt hasn't exactly been going stellar but people are nice! and music is good! and LJ is full of fun information!
So as I was doing my normal thing (stalking other peoples friend lists in order to get the latest scoop) and I came across this fan video of Paul Simonon, the bassist for the Clash. Man, I loved the Clash! I mean, I still like them and my favourites of their songs will forever be on my playlists but about....2 years ago I was sooooo in to them! I think it started with this completely unexplainable, huge crush on Joe Strummer. Actually it isn't completely unexplainable, it was the imagery of him as the beatnik with books piled all around his room that really got me.
I was going through a phase in high school where I thought you had to listen to certain bands in order to be 'cool' and I had downloaded Never mind the Bullocks and I just couldn't get into it and then I went to New Mexico with my parents for a couple weeks and forgot my cd case at home and was stuck with only 'London Calling', 1 recent mixed playlist that my Dad hated and a collection of trashy Europop. I had read some Remus/Sirius story that focused on 'Train in Vain' and so I was already in love with that song and then I just kept listening to the album on repeat and some of the songs that had previously just seemed lame really started to appeal to me. To this day I associate 'Spanish Bombs' with the canyons and 'Revolution Rock' with mesas and deserts. And then my love for them just exploded! and I coached myself to recognize Mick singing versus Joe singing (versus the one time Paul ever sang) and I collected pictures of Topper in his (totally kickass) Bruce Lee suit and...and.....and I just devoted my time to being an awesome Clash fan.
Now I am older (slightly) and I don't listen to them as much. But I still respect the Clash and I still frequently listen to bands that I got into only because of their ties to the Clash (hello reggae!).
And as I 've become more politicized I respect the Clash's politics all the more. I am not that crazy anarchist type, and I would definantly baulk before saying that my approval of the political ties of the Clash includes complete approval of the Sandinistas or the Brigate Rosse, but at least some music should be about real life (I had to ammend this statement, I had originally written that 'music should be about real life' and then I remembered the multitude of sappy, unrealistically perfect love songs that I listen to on repeat) and just getting a kid like me to wikipedia the Sandinistas is so effing cool. I can be honest and say that a huge bulk of the information that I know about Central America in the last 50 years is a direct result of that album title.
Bed now.
Finals suck so hard, and the summer job hunt hasn't exactly been going stellar but people are nice! and music is good! and LJ is full of fun information!
So as I was doing my normal thing (stalking other peoples friend lists in order to get the latest scoop) and I came across this fan video of Paul Simonon, the bassist for the Clash. Man, I loved the Clash! I mean, I still like them and my favourites of their songs will forever be on my playlists but about....2 years ago I was sooooo in to them! I think it started with this completely unexplainable, huge crush on Joe Strummer. Actually it isn't completely unexplainable, it was the imagery of him as the beatnik with books piled all around his room that really got me.
I was going through a phase in high school where I thought you had to listen to certain bands in order to be 'cool' and I had downloaded Never mind the Bullocks and I just couldn't get into it and then I went to New Mexico with my parents for a couple weeks and forgot my cd case at home and was stuck with only 'London Calling', 1 recent mixed playlist that my Dad hated and a collection of trashy Europop. I had read some Remus/Sirius story that focused on 'Train in Vain' and so I was already in love with that song and then I just kept listening to the album on repeat and some of the songs that had previously just seemed lame really started to appeal to me. To this day I associate 'Spanish Bombs' with the canyons and 'Revolution Rock' with mesas and deserts. And then my love for them just exploded! and I coached myself to recognize Mick singing versus Joe singing (versus the one time Paul ever sang) and I collected pictures of Topper in his (totally kickass) Bruce Lee suit and...and.....and I just devoted my time to being an awesome Clash fan.
Now I am older (slightly) and I don't listen to them as much. But I still respect the Clash and I still frequently listen to bands that I got into only because of their ties to the Clash (hello reggae!).
And as I 've become more politicized I respect the Clash's politics all the more. I am not that crazy anarchist type, and I would definantly baulk before saying that my approval of the political ties of the Clash includes complete approval of the Sandinistas or the Brigate Rosse, but at least some music should be about real life (I had to ammend this statement, I had originally written that 'music should be about real life' and then I remembered the multitude of sappy, unrealistically perfect love songs that I listen to on repeat) and just getting a kid like me to wikipedia the Sandinistas is so effing cool. I can be honest and say that a huge bulk of the information that I know about Central America in the last 50 years is a direct result of that album title.
Bed now.