When kids can't afford to see it anymore maybe we'll have a whole resurgence of garage bands all over America and this New Wave thing will start to mean something on a grass roots level.- Lester Bangs
The ultimate sin of any performer is contempt for the audience.
The thing is that, they all had real strong personalities and real distinct identities, and I do not find most of the groups that are coming out now really do.
The great thing about The Clash of course is that they keep searching for answers beyond that.
The first mistake of art is to assume that it's serious.
That's one reason why it's pretty worthless, I can't totally buy it, if you think about it, it's things like the Phil Spector records. On one level they were rebellion, on another level they were keeping the teenager in his place.
Or like in the early 70's when we had the reaction against acid rock and all the fuzz tone, and feedback, and the noise. And you had James Taylor and everyone went acoustic and that.
Nothing ever quite dies, it just comes back in a different form.
No, I see it as meaning very little at the moment because none of the groups are about anything.
No I do not think it was a myth at all, anymore than what the recession that the whole country was experiencing was a myth, which obviously seems like it's going to get worse and worse.
Most of them are pretty down records, pretty unhappy, pretty confused. Which only reflects how people in general were feeling, I mean really the sense that you get is society running down.
It's much easier to wear a Chairman Mao button and shake your fists in the air and all that, then to actually read the Communist manifesto and things like that and actually become involved in politics.
In fact I think now we have reached a point now, where the powers that be really have sort of vested interest in all of us being stoned out as much as possible all the time so we do not know what's going on, and we do not care.
I am really schizophrenic about that, because on the one hand I would say, yes there is, there's something inherently, even violent about it, it's wild and raw and all this.
I mean the interesting thing I think would be if something happened like, what happened in England where all these kids that all of a sudden can't afford the ticket prices.
