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WE ARE THE CLASH

Name: WE ARE THE CLASH
Author: Mark Andersen
ISBN: 978-1-61775-293-3

REAGAN, THATCHER, AND THE LAST STAND OF A BAND THAT MATTERED

by Mark Andersen & Ralph Heibutzki ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 3, 2018

More than a footnote to the rise and fall of one of the last great rock bands.

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When did the Clash quit being “the only band that matters”?

This fascinating book faces a challenge: documenting the final years of the British band that its record label had promoted with that slogan. It’s a period the band has disavowed and that critics have generally reviled, resulting in one album released after this version of the band had effectively disbanded and which the Clash has omitted from its authorized anthology. The best that Andersen (co-author: Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital, 2009) and Heibutzki (Unfinished Business-The Life and Times of Danny Gatton, 2003) can say about the album, “Cut the Crap,” recorded with only two original members, is that it was “indeed unique, if also sometimes a bit of a car wreck.” As much as the Clash as a band, the authors focus on the Clash as an idea, an interchange of rebellious fervor between artist and audience and perhaps more timely than ever with the ascent of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The authors risk oversimplifying what led the Clash to this juncture: a split between Joe Strummer and Mick Jones, whose more commercial-sounding hits were at odds with the band’s activist urgency. There’s also a bigger tension at work: how rock can possibly fight the system from within the system—recording for a huge conglomerate—and how it can become popular enough to wield significant influence without succumbing to the temptations of rock stardom. Following a large festival payday, Strummer and the band sacked Jones (after their drummer had already been sidelined by heroin addiction) and recruited a new lineup under the old name. However, they could never agree on what the new Clash was supposed to be, and Strummer and his manager ultimately found themselves at irreparable odds. The band may no longer have mattered, but its legacy mattered to the authors, who make it matter to the readers.

More than a footnote to the rise and fall of one of the last great rock bands.

Pub Date: July 3, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-61775-293-3

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Akashic

Review Posted Online: April 10, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018

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THE PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS

FROM MEAN STREETS TO WALL STREET

by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006

Well-told and admonitory.

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Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.

Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.

Well-told and admonitory.

Pub Date: June 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-06-074486-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006

Categories:

GENERAL BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR | BUSINESS

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BLACK BOY

A RECORD OF CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

by Richard Wright ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 28, 1945

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This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.

It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.

Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.