Word: headon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...them. Yet the broad mass of Americans are wearying of inflation, regulation and budget busting. They realize that those three mighty forces have impeded investment and caused the nation to fall behind, and they may be ready to support the courageous political leader who will tackle the special interests headon. In times of such ferment, the public may well be prepared to accept fairly radical steps. Some possibilities...
American mini-blitz on behalf of their new album Give 'Em Enough Rope: ten days, seven cities, stretching from Berkeley to New York, stirring up waters that flow far too free and easy. "American audiences like music to keep you happy," observes Drummer Nicky ("Topper") Headon. "It's music for you to drive home by." "It's the most dreadful thing," Lead Guitarist Mick Jones declares scornfully. "The Aerosmiths, the Foghats, the Bostons-they've kind of signed themselves...
...that matter, the Sex Pistols, with whom the Clash is continually compared, although, as Headon says, "we're nothing like the Sex Pistols. We don't set out to shock people through being sick onstage or through self-mutilation." Jones elaborates: "I never was one for sticking a pin in me nose." The Clash, though hardly elegant instrumentalists, makes far better crafted music than the Pistols ever did. The sheets of sound they let loose have the cumulative effect of a mugging, but the songs, full of threat and challenge, never mean to menace. They are, rather, about...
...Jones, Headon and Bass Player Paul Simonon are all 23; Strummer is the band's senior citizen at 25. Two come from broken homes (Jones: "I stayed with me gran and a lot of wicked aunts") and have logged long hours doing manual labor and running the streets. Even Headon, whose father was a headmaster and whose mother was a teacher, says, "I used to steal a lot and run with a gang," and figures he would be in stir today if he had not beat out 205 other drummers at a Clash audition. Out of the pieces...
Abandoning the near-Olympian distance he had maintained up to now from the bitter political skirmishing, Giscard attacked the left headon. Pointing out some of the successes achieved by Premier Raymond Barre's policy of cautious stimulation-a December trade surplus, four months of falling unemployment and a slowing rate of inflation (0.3% for December)-Giscard argued that only the center and right were capable of leading the country out of its lingering economic malaise. "If we want to be cured," he thundered, "we must choose the right doctor. If we choose the easy way out, the economy will...