Route 19 Revisited

January 17, 2011
Clash fans will welcome this comprehensive exploration of the band's landmark album London Calling by journalist Gray (It Crawled from the South), who has twice previously tried to tell this story, with mixed results. Gray kicks things off this time with biographies of Strummer, Jones, Simonen, and Headon. "There is...enough crossover of the four individuals' experience to provide pointers for the album's lyrical concerns," Gray says, rather dryly, positing that "if four musically creative people with such histories went into a rehearsal room they would almost inevitably" emerge with something like London Calling. At the heart of the book is a 200-page in-depth exploration of every London Calling track. Gray also discusses production details, the punk scene, promotion and touring, and the famous album image. London Calling continues to inspire today because "it looks anger, fear, impotence, and self-doubt in the eye, then pulls on its boots and goes out to face the day." Engaging and well-written, and rife with half a century of music scene details, Gray's third attempt at capturing The Clash is the one that fans have been waiting for. Photos.

August 15, 2010

The 1979 punk classic gets a trainspotter's treatment.

Having profiled the Clash in two editions of the group biography The Last Gang in Town, British music journalist Gray now turns his attention to the band's most enduring album. London Calling was formulated at a critical juncture in the band's career. The group was coming off an unfocused sophomore album and adrift without any formal management after a split with their Svengali, Bernie Rhodes. Drawing on sources that ranged through rockabilly, R&B, blues, funk, reggae and jazz, band members Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon thrashed up enough material for a two-LP set during protracted rehearsals at London's Vanilla rehearsal space. After a relatively brisk setup surveying the album's oft-arduous sessions with unpredictable producer Guy Stevens, Gray brings the narrative a grinding halt with 200 minutiae-filled pages devoted to the set's individual tracks. No fact is deemed insignificant enough to be omitted, and no research is left unutilized, no matter how irrelevant or expendable. The book becomes mired in a series of digressions about such subjects as English rockabilly star Vince Taylor, American R&B rocker Bo Diddley and his eponymous beat, Jamaican "rude boy" songs, England's Two-Tone ska-punk movement, the Spanish Civil War, Coca-Cola, actor Montgomery Clift, etc. While some of the material has a bearing on the record at hand, it is left unsifted. Worse, Gray ignores the relationship between the Clash's original "Jimmy Jazz" and its inspiration "Staggerlee," a provocative connection that goes unmentioned until a later passage about a quotation from the reggae cover "Wrong 'Em Boyo." Like his track-by-track explication, a chapter devoted to the imagery and marketing of London Calling—with an emphasis on the package's iconic photo of Simonon smashing his bass—and a painfully attenuated charting of the band's later history bog down in a sump of unedited detail.

Bloated and unfocused—for die-hard Clash fanatics only.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from September 15, 2010

The Clash's album London Calling has been acknowledged as one of the best albums of all time by such publications as Rolling Stone and NME. Gray (The Clash: Return of the Last Gang in Town), in another stunningly well-researched book, uncovers every fascinating and minute detail about the recording of London Calling, dissecting the lyrics, the music, and the design of the album. Clash fans will devour the track-by-track analysis, and Gray is so successful that readers will want to travel Route 19, a London bus route along which much of the album was written and recorded. More than just a look at London Calling, the book begins with biographies of the band members and includes discussions of the music that influenced each member and the cultural climate at the time that helped to create this landmark album. VERDICT Essential for Clash fanatics and punk music aficionados.--Troy Reed, Southeast Regional Lib., Gilbert, AZ

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2010
The Clash is considered one of the greatest of all rock bands. In this exhaustive treatment, Gray concentrates on the English punk rock bands third album, London Calling, released in the United States in early 1980. But first he sets the scene: offering biographical details on all four band members (Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, and Topper Headon) as well as discussing the bands previous albums. He looks at not only the recording sessions but also the songwriting style of Strummer and Jones, and analyzes each of the albums 19 songs. Gray writes about the packaging and promotion of the album, including the creation of its iconic cover: that of a live-action shot of Simonon smashing his bass guitar on stage, which was partly in homage to Elvis Presleys eponymous debut album. He concludes with a discussion of London Callings effect on popular culture and on the work of other artists, from Bruce Springsteen to U2. Although it may be too thorough for casual readers, serious rock fans will welcome this meticulously detailed examination.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)