Today, Feb. 7, is International Clash Day, which started as a Seattle radio DJ’s lark and now is an international event of sorts.
And it’s a semi-religious holiday for me, as I’m definitely a follower of Saint Strummer.
If you ask me what my favorite band is, I’ll tell you it’s The Clash. That’s not always true day to day, as the music I have playing in my ears frequently changes with my moods, but I always come back to The Clash’s music again and again.
And it’s the band that’s made my life more bearable at crucial times.
I have a terrible memory for when events in my childhood happened, but I think my first exposure to The Clash came in 1983 or maybe ’84. I know who to credit for it: Patrick, the Northern Irish guy my age who lived across the street from me and had four older siblings who helped feed his musical knowledge. As the oldest sibling in my family with parents who did not keep up on current music, I relied on Patrick and my favorite radio stations to educate me on such things.
After hearing it at his house, the U.S. version of The Clash’s debut album was one of the first cassette tapes I ever purchased. I played that precious tape for years in my home stereo and then my Walkman until I wore thin. It was the tape I remember playing most during my middle school and high school years. I also bought the band’s “Black Market Clash” and “Give ‘Em Enough Rope” albums on tape, along with the iconic “London Calling” and “Combat Rock,” which produced the band’s only hits in the U.S.
The raw energy, loud guitars and unpolished sound of The Clash’s self-titled debut was unlike anything my ears had heard when I was just entering my teenage years. It was different from so much I heard on the radio. For me, it was perfect.
When I first heard The Clash, I was only a year or two removed from my familv’s transplantation from the treeless, over-baked suburbs of Los Angeles to one of Seattle’s wealthier, tree-covered suburbs. I loved my new environment in the literal sense: The smog-less skies cleared up my lungs, the woods behind our house seemed magical and moody at the same time, and I enjoyed the more temperate seasons.
In most other ways, it was a disaster. I already was a shy kid, but I also was—thanks to a genetic fluke remedied by years of human growth hormone injections—startlingly short for my age at the time. And my clunky, unfashionable glasses only cemented my look as a tiny weirdo who made an attractive target for bullies.
So the British punk sound of The Clash seemed to come from an ultra-cool alternative world. A world where Joe Strummer and Mick Jones sang out, urging listeners to fight the machine while lamenting how boring and unfair the world could be. I could jump around and sing the lyrics to soothe my soul, even if the mere style of the music made my parents wonder about it.
By college, when I could decorate my own dorm room, I owned a huge, door-sized Clash poster that I displayed proudly. My randomly assigned freshman-year roommate and I had little in common, but we bonded a bit over The Clash, which was one of the few bands we mutually agreed we could play aloud while studying. I would go home during breaks and, when feeling stressed by being around family or just being in the hometown again, I would drive my old Volvo along the curvy roads that hug the shoreline hills of Mercer Island while blasting The Clash out of the car speakers.
On the Fourth of July, I’d always play the band’s cover of “Armagideon Time,” originally a Jamaican reggae tune, because it included fireworks-like sound effect noises. And playing a hit by a British band on July 4th seemed slyly subversive.
In short, the music of The Clash was—and still is—always there for me. It opened my young ears to alternative rock in general, to music that often has a political edge to it. While I can’t say The Clash was the only band that mattered to me, it was among the most important.
And when Joe Strummer died, the day after my 32nd birthday and six months after my first son was born, it hit me hard. I stuck a little “RIP” Post-it note on The Clash poster hanging in our apartment at the time, mostly because I didn’t know what else to do. For a little while after that, I couldn’t listen to The Clash for the first time in nearly 20 years because it made me sad.
But life went on. I had more kids (I wore my lucky Clash T-shirt while witnessing the birth of at least two of my children), went through hard times, moved to new jobs, faced new stresses … and The Clash was still there for me when I needed it again. I’m now only two years younger than Strummer was when he died, which amazes me in a melancholy way. Like many people, he deserved a long time here on Earth, in my opinion.
When I stumbled upon International Clash Day a few years ago, I immediately embraced it. It’s a “holiday” I would have invented if I’d thought of it first. It’s a day that celebrates people, inclusiveness and taking on life without fear or hate. It’s a day to play the music loudly and remember this band that changed the world and many of our lives, including mine.
(And because it’s my posting, I’ll ending with a link to my favorite Clash song of all time. Enjoy.)