3. The ClashThe Clash
I bought it in Woolworths in Portswood on my way home from school. It had a dayglo sticky label on which said ‘punk rock’ to identify it, though I think the cover spoke for that. I’d already bought a few punk singles. I’d been to see Eddie & The Hotrods, they were supported by the Buzzcocks I think. Anyway, the Clash’s first album came out and yeah, well, absolutely fantastic. At the time I never really liked ‘Police & Thieves’ and there was a lot more of that to come from The Clash. I liked their more fast and furious stuff. Obviously the singles off the album were great, ‘Remote Control’ and ‘White Riot’, but ‘Janie Jones’ and ‘Career Opportunities’ were great tracks. And ‘Garageland’, "back in the garage with my bullshit detector / carbon monoxide telling me it’s defective…" that was my life at the time, I was in a garage band and it was great. It was one of those albums that I played repeatedly. They were great two minute songs from when songs only needed to last two minutes, which I quite liked.
