The Clash

Rating:
Summary: You must purchase this book immediately!
Review: Rock photographer Bob Gruen does not fail to deliver one of the best rock photo books I have ever seen. Every Clash fan must get this book immediately! Pages and pages of never before seen Clash photos, including the boys in between shows, pics with family members, etc. An absolute masterpiece of a book. Excellent work Bob!

Rating:
Summary: A Great Find!
Review: This book is fantastic! Although it may seem a bit expensive at first, it pays for itself and then some! It has some of the more common Clash photographs in it, but it is also loaded with rare ones. The pictures are big and clear, and captions are given on many of them by The Clash, Bob Gruen, and others associated with them. It's really cool to get their take on it, and you get some background stories too. I can't reccommend it more highly.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Find!
Review: This book is massive and is worth the 20 bucks or so it costs. A mixture of color and black and white photography enhances the pure energy of live shows and candid shots backstage. The captions from the band members themselves as well as the mysterious Bernie Rhodes, David Johansen, Caroline Coon, and Richard Hell are humorous and interesting.

Rating:
Summary: excellent photos from an excellent photographer
Review: This book is massive and is worth the 20 bucks or so it costs. A mixture of color and black and white photography enhances the pure energy of live shows and candid shots backstage. The captions from the band members themselves as well as the mysterious Bernie Rhodes, David Johansen, Caroline Coon, and Richard Hell are humorous and interesting.

Rating:
Summary: "Are you a punk or are you just fakin'?"
Review: This is just about the finest book there is on the almighty Clash, the only one that can really make you feel, if only for a white hot moment, that you're *there* while the band bashes out its masterpieces less than a dozen feet away, in some dank forgotten club a quarter century ago. You're so close for a second that you can read the phrases stenciled on Joe's military garb, count the zippers on Simmo's trousers, or feel the sweat from Jonesy's unshorn locks splashing on your face, not to mention the gob of a thousand punks flying over your head. And look who's in the crowd with you! Lester Bangs, Debbie Harry, Andy Warhol (altho' he's probably ligging about backstage), Martin Scorsese, that young ne'er-do-well of the NYC scene Harley Flanagan, even Johnny Thunders has stopped by on his way to cop.

Man, could the Clash dress: from the Pollock-esque/Sex shop/Teddy/Rude boy of the early years, to the "collars-up mate"/perfect quiff & creepers days of 'London Calling,' to the quasi-military/cop fatigues of the final era. Check out the guys in an American supermarket, Joe counting out his American dollars; or hanging out in Bob Gruen's NYC apartment watching Dolls' videos; or goofing off, in full rock leathers, at various airports round the globe. Really, please, and with all sincerity, can I go back and just *be* with those guys, come on, huh, please, just for a minute or two?

But I can't, and you can't, and this book (along with Johnny Green's 'A RIOT OF OUR OWN' memoir) is the closest we're gonna get in these sore days. Bob Gruen's stunning, intimate, exhilirating photos over six years of the Clash's career are second to none, revealing them in all their raging glory. So open the book, grab a Guiness, blast the tunes, and relive the true punk era, and thank your lucky stars, bittersweet that they may be, that there was never any reunion. This is the best you're gonna get.