Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes - February 08, 2018


Get Off My Lawn #79 | Car Trek


Episode Stats


Length

45 minutes

Words per minute

156.32787

Word count

7,152

Sentence count

653

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Hate speech

26

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Dave Chappelle talks about punk rock and why the Clash are one of the most influential bands of all time. He also explains why punk rock came to define a new kind of rock and roll, and why it's important to remember International Clash Day.

Transcript

Transcripts from "Get Off My Lawn - Gavin McInnes" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:49.000 I chose that jam.
00:00:52.000 Well, I chose that jam because it's International Clash Day here on Earth.
00:00:58.000 But I chose that particular one because of the beginning, because it's an intro song, right?
00:01:02.000 Elevator going up on the gleaming corridors of the 51st floor.
00:01:06.000 The barrel can't snore, it can shatter on the floor.
00:01:10.000 Elon Musk sent one of his cars into space.
00:01:13.000 Isn't that awesome?
00:01:15.000 Car trek.
00:01:17.000 Elon Musk is a billionaire because of tax scams and the myth of alternative energy.
00:01:24.000 So every time you talk about paying more tax, just know it goes to billionaires.
00:01:30.000 It doesn't go to your stupid cause.
00:01:32.000 We're like Africa.
00:01:34.000 The more money you give it, the more money the despots get.
00:01:37.000 Elon Musk is the Mugabe of America.
00:01:42.000 He doesn't massacre people.
00:01:43.000 He just takes your money.
00:01:46.000 But yeah, The Clash are an incredible band because they sort of sum up your life.
00:01:55.000 They sum up regret, betrayal, commitment, entrepreneurialship, capturing the zeitgeist.
00:02:04.000 You know, I've always said to be successful in New York, all you got to do is when you get that moment, and you will get that moment if you hustle, ram a crowbar into it, pry it open, and just cram as much stuff as you can in that moment.
00:02:19.000 And then you'll be successful.
00:02:21.000 The example I like to use is Ryan McGinley, photographer, friend of mine, who, by the way, in his recent book, neglected to mention I discovered him.
00:02:29.000 I noticed this.
00:02:30.000 I'm so hated that when there's books about the early oughts in the New York scene, I'm left out of the history books.
00:02:38.000 But I was the early oughts in New York City.
00:02:40.000 I created Williamsburg for f ⁇ 's sakes. 0.98
00:02:44.000 But what Ryan did is he got a gig at the New York Times magazine very early in his career.
00:02:49.000 He rammed the crowbar in.
00:02:51.000 It was to shoot Olympic swimmers.
00:02:53.000 And he rented all this equipment.
00:02:56.000 He'd never done underwater photography before.
00:02:58.000 And he took like a thousand photographs and used lenses and filters and all this amazing stuff.
00:03:04.000 So they got the pictures.
00:03:04.000 I went, holy shit.
00:03:05.000 I thought you were just going to take a couple photos of some guy swimming.
00:03:09.000 You did an incredible job.
00:03:10.000 Oh, I like that, Dave.
00:03:13.000 This is how I want you to do it from now on.
00:03:15.000 I don't care if it's sloppy, but pull up pictures while I'm talking.
00:03:19.000 Yeah.
00:03:20.000 And this is what the clash did.
00:03:23.000 There was a zeitgeist.
00:03:24.000 There was a moment in the late 70s with punk rock, and they wrote it.
00:03:30.000 You know, you have to understand Britain to understand punk rock.
00:03:36.000 They had two classes from the beginning of time, from the Romans, basically, until the 70s.
00:03:44.000 There was the rich and the poor, and they liked it that way.
00:03:47.000 That's what pisses me off about Britain.
00:03:49.000 Why'd you want to be middle class?
00:03:52.000 They enjoyed their classes.
00:03:53.000 They still do to a certain extent.
00:03:55.000 They're still obsessed with those dumb accents.
00:03:58.000 But Maggie Thatcher is the personification of a growing tide that was happening in the late 70s. 0.97
00:04:07.000 She wasn't prime minister until 79, but the moment was already there.
00:04:12.000 And the moment, let's just play this in the background while I talk.
00:04:17.000 We don't need the audio.
00:04:19.000 We'll have a little clash mix.
00:04:23.000 She was the embodiment of this privatization that was going on in Britain at the time.
00:04:29.000 And that's inspiring.
00:04:31.000 That's American.
00:04:32.000 It took them that long.
00:04:33.000 America figured out they want freedom and liberty in, what, the 1700s?
00:04:38.000 It took Britain until the 70s to figure that out.
00:04:43.000 But the great thing about it was that it empowered, you know, this middle class.
00:04:48.000 And for the first time ever, there was a way that poor people could come rich people, could become rich people.
00:04:56.000 You know, the great thing about America, the reason they vote Republican all the time is because they don't hate the rich.
00:05:00.000 They think, I'm going to be rich one day.
00:05:04.000 And the Brits were finally considering that.
00:05:06.000 And that was also visible in music.
00:05:10.000 I know I'm talking a lot about the intro song, but I think it's very important.
00:05:14.000 And we'll get to the news of the day shortly.
00:05:18.000 But for once, I want to go off on the intro song because it's indicative of a much bigger thing.
00:05:23.000 And it is International Clash Day.
00:05:26.000 I think that's Paul Simon in right there, the most stylish man in music.
00:05:32.000 Daddy was a bank robber and he loved the way it was going.
00:05:39.000 He just loved to live that way and he loved to steal your money.
00:05:46.000 So the dinosaur rock was big.
00:05:48.000 You know, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.
00:05:50.000 And punk rock came along and said, yeah, you don't need to do, you don't need to be a top musician, although that drummer, Topper Heddon, was a top jazz musician.
00:05:59.000 But you can just rattle it out.
00:06:00.000 It doesn't need production.
00:06:02.000 Just make it.
00:06:03.000 DIY.
00:06:04.000 Do it yourself.
00:06:06.000 Mass capitalism, really, is what it was about.
00:06:10.000 And so these young punks came along and said, I want to be a band.
00:06:13.000 I don't have any money.
00:06:14.000 The Sex Pistols stole all their equipment, and they just banged out music with no professional training.
00:06:21.000 Sid Vicious was the bassist for the Sex Pistols before he ever played bass.
00:06:26.000 They just figured it out.
00:06:28.000 The Clash, Back then, bands were organized by managers, and they were sort of like models.
00:06:36.000 I mean, they were fashion projects.
00:06:37.000 I think the clash were chosen as much for their looks as they were for their talent.
00:06:43.000 And Bernie Rhodes was the manager at the time, and he said, let's get these guys together.
00:06:47.000 And then they just basically locked them in a room and said, practice.
00:06:53.000 Now, simultaneously in America, there was a funny thing going on with basically the same revolution.
00:06:58.000 A lot of people say London copied New York.
00:07:01.000 No, they were both going on simultaneously.
00:07:04.000 The Ramones played, was it the 100 Club in 1977, I think it was, or 76.
00:07:12.000 At that moment, then after that, you started seeing all these punk bands.
00:07:16.000 You go, oh, it was the Ramones.
00:07:17.000 No, no, no.
00:07:18.000 You saw the punk bands play like within a day of the Ramones.
00:07:22.000 Clearly, they already had a set ready.
00:07:24.000 They already had songs.
00:07:25.000 The clash had been locked in a studio by Bernie Rhodes, practicing again and again and again, trying to get their sound right.
00:07:32.000 So the Ramones didn't create punk.
00:07:35.000 The funny thing about the Ramones, by the way, is I don't think they were going for what they ended up with.
00:07:41.000 Back in the 70s, there was a big resurgence of 50s culture.
00:07:45.000 We had American graffiti, Fonzarelli, Happy Days. 0.99
00:07:48.000 Everyone wanted to be a 1950s greaser, especially in New York, especially in Queens.
00:07:54.000 So they tried to do rockabilly music.
00:07:56.000 Hey, we're booting up the back streets, doom to do, generate thin heat.
00:08:00.000 A Blitz Creek bop, bum, ba, doom, ba, dab, doom, ba, dum, bop, ba.
00:08:03.000 Sounds like Eddie Cochran.
00:08:04.000 But they played it really fast.
00:08:06.000 And the Ramones are just dumb people.
00:08:09.000 They're just, they're, they're retards, basically. 1.00
00:08:11.000 Dumb guys doing 50s music.
00:08:14.000 They go to Britain. 0.90
00:08:15.000 Britain over-intellectualizes everything, so they go, oh, I see what's going on.
00:08:19.000 It's an empowerment of the working classes.
00:08:23.000 All right, let's see what happens.
00:08:24.000 Are they going to make me watch a commercial?
00:08:26.000 Or are they just going to go right into the video?
00:08:29.000 Yeah, they're going to make me watch a commercial.
00:08:31.000 That's not cool.
00:08:33.000 I guess we'll be, this will be our little commercial breaks.
00:08:39.000 So, yes, the Ramones did inspire a lot of people in punk rock by playing that show in 77.
00:08:46.000 They didn't invent it, though.
00:08:48.000 What invented it was this new feeling of DIY, do it yourself, we can do it.
00:08:53.000 And so it already had huge momentum.
00:08:54.000 All the Ramones did was add to the momentum. 0.94
00:08:59.000 And so The Clash started their shows 1977.
00:09:03.000 Now, the record labels, the mainstream, didn't understand this.
00:09:07.000 You know, from zero till 1976, it was just the best musicians formed a band, you signed them, they played shows, sold a million records, you made your money back.
00:09:20.000 You understood everything about them.
00:09:22.000 Now, there's this cacophony on stage.
00:09:26.000 How do I monetize that?
00:09:28.000 So the record labels were just running around like chickens with their head cut off, trying to figure out what this next wave is.
00:09:35.000 And The Clash took advantage of that.
00:09:37.000 They were signed by CBS almost immediately and came out with this record.
00:09:45.000 The Clash, their epitomeous debut.
00:09:48.000 You'll notice, by the way, it says on it, to Gavin, open your eyes, I said to the crowd, but no, Joe Strummer, 1999, that's when I met him.
00:09:59.000 We were bros, me and Joe's.
00:10:02.000 The inside joke he's talking about here is he was with his family, Joe Strummer was, and his kids, and he realized, oh my God, we're right by the alleyway where we shot the cover of our album.
00:10:15.000 And so he told his wife and his kids to close their eyes.
00:10:18.000 And then he led them to the alley.
00:10:20.000 And then he stood in the alley exactly like that.
00:10:25.000 And then once they were positioned, he said, all right, open your eyes.
00:10:30.000 And they open their eyes.
00:10:32.000 They recognize the alleyway and they go, Joe, can we go, please?
00:10:35.000 Come on.
00:10:36.000 And he likes that story because it's so anticlimactic.
00:10:40.000 His family doesn't care.
00:10:42.000 His family are not Clash fans.
00:10:44.000 They're his family.
00:10:45.000 So they were not impressed that they happened to be in the alley.
00:10:48.000 This is an alley outside their recording studio where they did the album.
00:10:51.000 They just pounded that out.
00:10:52.000 And that album, by the way, was on CBS, their debut album.
00:10:55.000 They had never really played a solo show when they were signed.
00:11:00.000 And this video is distracting me.
00:11:03.000 I'm not sure I'll be able to do this.
00:11:04.000 We'll have to put it in post.
00:11:06.000 Oh, Nicaragua.
00:11:07.000 They're really into the Sandinistas. 0.98
00:11:08.000 They named an album Sandinista.
00:11:11.000 But that album, CBS, didn't like it.
00:11:13.000 They didn't release it in the States.
00:11:15.000 It was too noisy.
00:11:16.000 It was too raw.
00:11:18.000 See what I mean?
00:11:19.000 It's sort of like my dad.
00:11:21.000 When he emigrated to Canada, he hated me being punk in high school because he thought education is the most important thing in the world.
00:11:29.000 You're jeopardizing your education.
00:11:31.000 I want to get the communists out of here.
00:11:34.000 And I said, Dad, you're popular in Canada if you have good grades and weird hair.
00:11:41.000 It doesn't jeopardize your standing.
00:11:46.000 And also, you're from Scotland.
00:11:48.000 Why are you importing 1940s Scottish culture?
00:11:52.000 It's weird, there's all these Chinese ads.
00:11:54.000 Why are you importing 1940s Scottish culture into Canada?
00:11:59.000 That's bizarre.
00:12:00.000 Adapt, move on.
00:12:02.000 And the record labels were the same way.
00:12:03.000 They couldn't adapt.
00:12:04.000 They couldn't handle the clash.
00:12:08.000 So all of this is in a very short time span.
00:12:10.000 And the clash were immediately ostracized for signing to CBS.
00:12:14.000 Joe Strummer was kind of reklempt about it himself.
00:12:19.000 He was very distraught because he had come from a pub band scene.
00:12:25.000 And there was a band called the 101ers.
00:12:27.000 They were named after the squat they lived in.
00:12:29.000 And they were kind of rockabilly-ish.
00:12:31.000 That was Joe Strummer's background.
00:12:33.000 But Joe Strummer, by the way, is a rich kid.
00:12:35.000 He's not even middle class.
00:12:36.000 He's upper middle class.
00:12:37.000 And he had traveled the world, you know, as a young boy, going to private schools.
00:12:42.000 And he was slumming it.
00:12:46.000 A lot of punks were like that.
00:12:47.000 I was like that.
00:12:48.000 They were slumming it because it was cool.
00:12:50.000 So he was living in a squat, really, as a joke.
00:12:54.000 And so he claims he had to sign a CBS because he was, you know, he was sick of worrying About where his next meal is coming from.
00:13:02.000 But I'm not buying that.
00:13:04.000 And you'll see that, by the way, this is a little mini tangent.
00:13:07.000 You'll see that in the lyrics, all this glorification of multiculturalism and the Sandinistas, and I love Nicaragua and I love freedom fighters.
00:13:15.000 It's based on rich kids traveling the world and sampling just the elite part.
00:13:20.000 Like you go to Indonesia, you don't see, you know, the fact that they have no, they can't drink from a tap because there's so many brutal parasites because it's such a backwards country and they're murdering people for drinking alcohol. 1.00
00:13:32.000 You get caught with a joint in Indonesia, you're looking at life in prison. 1.00
00:13:36.000 But he'd go there as a rich kid, go to some beautiful restaurant, see some ladies, and he'd go, Indonesia's beautiful, man, you gotta check it out.
00:13:46.000 You know who else has that exact same background and life philosophy?
00:13:50.000 Pinch.
00:13:52.000 Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. from the New York Times, the editor of the New York Times, the impetus for the New York Times' multicultural pandering.
00:14:01.000 Their whole diversity is our strength garbage, comes from a rich kid traveling the world, going to private schools, seeing the very, very top elite best of each country.
00:14:11.000 Which is why, by the way, when you talk to the left about multiculturalism and diversity, they always talk about restaurants.
00:14:22.000 Even with Trump, when Trump says he wants to get rid of, he wants to build a wall, he wants to get rid of illegals, they go, you might want to try the taco. 1.00
00:14:31.000 Vincente Fox, too, he was asked, have the Mexicans ever invented anything of note?
00:14:36.000 And he goes, yes.
00:14:38.000 And he talked about the Aztecs, and they go, no, no, no, within the past 50 years, 100 years.
00:14:42.000 And he goes, the taco?
00:14:44.000 Food, food, food.
00:14:46.000 Diversity is different servants in different outfits feeding me.
00:14:51.000 That's what it's about.
00:14:53.000 Anyway, The Clash, their debut album, Incredible Album, Incredible Energy.
00:14:58.000 Joe Strummer was coming from a world of pub bands where you just sort of, you're in the background, you know, and you play some covers and you amuse people and they want you to turn it down, actually.
00:15:08.000 And then he saw the Sex Pistols and Joe Strummer was stunned to see that you can be a band and say, these are our songs, and f ⁇ you if you don't like them.
00:15:21.000 The Sex Pistols kind of invented that, which again was really Malcolm McLaren.
00:15:26.000 These are the managers.
00:15:27.000 They were the puppeteers.
00:15:29.000 And I'm against that.
00:15:31.000 I like the idea of a show.
00:15:33.000 I like the idea of you all dress the same and you have sort of an ethos.
00:15:36.000 You have a message.
00:15:37.000 You're a cohesive unit.
00:15:39.000 But the band can handle that themselves.
00:15:41.000 This idea that you're at the beck and call of a manager, it's just wrong.
00:15:47.000 And we'll see why it's wrong in a minute.
00:15:49.000 So the clash, find a song from that album.
00:15:53.000 Oh, how about this song?
00:15:56.000 Police Santi.
00:16:00.000 Now this is a reggae classic.
00:16:03.000 This is on a punk album.
00:16:10.000 Terry Chimes, I think, is drumming before they got Topperhead and the jazz guy.
00:16:18.000 Scott.
00:16:28.000 This is an interesting trend, too, going on simultaneously within punk is this Jamaican influence.
00:16:33.000 I think it was brought in by a guy named Don Letz, a Jamaican.
00:16:37.000 And by the way, that's also a fascinating side story where, you know, you talk about smash the patriarchy, smash capitalism.
00:16:48.000 Jamaica did it.
00:16:49.000 They got rid of those evil white men in 1969. 0.86
00:16:53.000 And what happened after that?
00:16:56.000 Jamaicans went, ah, this vexed me so, this independence, you know. 1.00
00:17:02.000 I got Babadon closing in on me, man.
00:17:05.000 And so there was a massive influx of Jamaican immigrants into Britain in the 70s, shortly after they had declared independence, shortly after they had eradicated the patriarchy, capitalism, the evil colonists, Britain. 1.00
00:17:21.000 This is why I fight for it here in America, all this ethnomasochism and we have to kill ourselves and we hate the patriarchy and we hate capitalism.
00:17:29.000 I've seen what happens when we eradicate all that.
00:17:31.000 And it's not pretty.
00:17:32.000 Jamaica has sucked since independence.
00:17:36.000 Haiti has sucked since independence. 0.62
00:17:40.000 South Africa, Mugabe, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, all blow chunks.
00:17:45.000 I don't know what it is about us colonists, us Westerners, but we're great at systems.
00:17:49.000 So don't kick us out.
00:17:51.000 In America, they don't want to kick us out.
00:17:53.000 They want to replace us with feminists, which real bad idea. 1.00
00:17:58.000 But anyway, the clash, as they did these punk songs, they also did a lot of reggae songs.
00:18:09.000 And that's the one I was playing for.
00:18:10.000 Let's play a little bit of that here on international.
00:18:15.000 What is with these Chinese ads?
00:18:43.000 He has the same microphone as you.
00:18:45.000 Oh yeah, he's got the same mic.
00:18:47.000 See you, Mike.
00:18:49.000 See you, Mike.
00:18:55.000 Just up so the Clash were ostracized for signing to CBS.
00:19:04.000 I don't blame them.
00:19:05.000 Who cares?
00:19:06.000 As long as they don't tell you what to do.
00:19:08.000 And they did tell them what to do.
00:19:10.000 They put out an album after that debut called Give Them Enough Rope that was overproduced by some mainstream producer.
00:19:15.000 It was still a good album because they were a talented band.
00:19:20.000 But after that, they said, you know what?
00:19:22.000 We can give you high production and all that, but we want to do it our way.
00:19:25.000 And they came out with London Calling.
00:19:27.000 And I think it came out in 1979.
00:19:30.000 Rolling Stone called it the greatest album of the 80s, even though it was not released in the 80s.
00:19:38.000 And that's like saying the best movie of the year on January 1st.
00:19:42.000 Actually, no, it's like calling a movie the best movie of the next year on December 29th.
00:19:48.000 And London Calling is an absolute masterpiece, and it was about their new life.
00:19:55.000 They sort of, they got pushed out of punk for sinning.
00:19:58.000 You know, the Crass, my favorite band, they had a song, they said that we were trash, but a name is Crass, not Clash.
00:20:07.000 They can stuff their punk credentials.
00:20:09.000 It's them that takes the cash.
00:20:11.000 They won't change nothing with their fashionable talk.
00:20:13.000 RAR badge with their process walk.
00:20:16.000 RAR was rock against racism.
00:20:18.000 The clash were really against racism.
00:20:21.000 Back before that was, you know, the norm.
00:20:23.000 And crass were saying loads of white men standing in the park.
00:20:29.000 Objecting to racism is like a candle in the dark.
00:20:32.000 Black man's got his problems and his way to deal with it. 0.99
00:20:35.000 He doesn't need help from you white liberal shits. 0.91
00:20:38.000 If you take a closer look to the way things really stand, you'll see that we're all just n ⁇ s to the rulers of this land.
00:20:45.000 Punk was once an answer to years of crap.
00:20:50.000 So that's how the clash were perceived.
00:20:53.000 And instead of accepting that, they adapted.
00:20:57.000 This is the key to why I'm talking about the clash so much today.
00:21:02.000 You have to adapt.
00:21:03.000 The cover of the post yesterday was this guy who killed himself because he lost his job as a limo driver.
00:21:09.000 What?
00:21:10.000 That's your identity?
00:21:11.000 I mean, I understand a soldier like Terry Shapert who's in the trenches and that it's over and he has PTSD because his identity is with his boys.
00:21:20.000 A limo driver?
00:21:21.000 A pardon?
00:21:22.000 You love traffic that much?
00:21:25.000 And the clash were always about adapting and they were about remaining true to each other, but they were also about kicking each other out.
00:21:35.000 I mean, Topper Hedden, the drummer, his heroin addiction was getting too brutal.
00:21:40.000 It's like Albert Hammond with the strokes.
00:21:42.000 The addiction gets to the point where you go, well, you're screwing us over.
00:21:45.000 The same with the proud boys.
00:21:46.000 If one of them is pictured with a swastika, even as a joke, I go, you're just helping other people get fired. 0.58
00:21:52.000 You're out.
00:21:52.000 I got to cut you loose.
00:21:53.000 With Vice, we'd see that all the time.
00:21:55.000 Guys would get so addicted to cocaine that they'd take money from the company or go somewhere in a business trip to open up a store and then spend it on themselves.
00:22:05.000 And I go, I got to cut you loose.
00:22:07.000 So you're constantly as an entrepreneur, and that's what a band is.
00:22:10.000 It's a business.
00:22:11.000 It's a company.
00:22:12.000 You're constantly as an entrepreneur volleying between loyalty and being a good person and having honor and character and standing by your boys and cutting people out who are a danger to the company.
00:22:28.000 I'm sure with my advice, one side would say that you were cut out because you were a risk to the company.
00:22:36.000 Others would say I left because the company is going in a different direction and I didn't want to be part of it.
00:22:44.000 And others would say I was betrayed.
00:22:47.000 History is written by the winners, and it's all open to interpretation, but this is my interpretation of the clash.
00:22:55.000 They were always adapting, always moving, and really, like, musically they peaked with London Calling, right?
00:23:05.000 But culturally, I think they peaked when they came to New York, which was around the same time, but immediately after that, around 1980, they came to New York.
00:23:15.000 Oh, yeah, that's a good video.
00:23:16.000 This is them.
00:23:16.000 So they played a show in New York.
00:23:19.000 Again, the mainstream labels couldn't figure them out.
00:23:21.000 The promoters couldn't even figure them out.
00:23:23.000 They thought, they're playing a bunch of shows in a row?
00:23:25.000 That's too many shows.
00:23:27.000 I don't think anyone's going to come.
00:23:28.000 So they just kept selling tickets.
00:23:31.000 And they oversold it to the tune of thousands.
00:23:34.000 The capacity for this venue was like 1,700, and they sold 3,500 tickets opening night.
00:23:41.000 So the fire department shut it down.
00:23:43.000 And then the clash said, no, no, no.
00:23:46.000 We're going to stay.
00:23:47.000 We're going to play.
00:23:48.000 I think they played something like nine shows in a row.
00:23:51.000 People kept coming to the same show, too.
00:23:54.000 And while they were there in New York, they recorded a hip-hop song.
00:23:58.000 Now, hip-hop is also an amazing cultural event at the time because the Bronx, thanks to Roger Moses, he had built a highway through the Bronx.
00:24:07.000 The Bronx was a beautiful suburban neighborhood.
00:24:10.000 Lots of Italians there.
00:24:13.000 Roger Moses wants to get, I don't know, I don't understand this.
00:24:16.000 You want to get out of New York faster?
00:24:18.000 You're just going to, that doesn't work when you do that.
00:24:20.000 When you build a wider bridge into Manhattan, it's not like traffic ends.
00:24:24.000 More people go, oh, I can get into Manhattan.
00:24:26.000 So it's smoother for like a week.
00:24:28.000 That's what Roger Moses didn't get.
00:24:30.000 He dealt in five-year spurts.
00:24:32.000 That's the way politicians work, too.
00:24:34.000 They're only worried about their term.
00:24:35.000 So he goes, oh, it's overcrowded.
00:24:36.000 We need affordable housing.
00:24:38.000 Let's build projects.
00:24:40.000 Now poor people go, I'm just going to live in Manhattan and have a view of the river. 1.00
00:24:44.000 So they just get filled up.
00:24:45.000 Same with open borders and immigration. 0.94
00:24:47.000 You give amnesty to 1.8 million people.
00:24:49.000 You incentivize illegal immigration.
00:24:55.000 So how does this relate to the clash again?
00:24:58.000 Oh, yeah.
00:24:58.000 So when Robert Moses built that highway, the Bronx was decimated.
00:25:03.000 You build a highway through the middle of a suburb.
00:25:05.000 It's no longer a quaint little suburb.
00:25:07.000 The Italians left. 0.99
00:25:08.000 It became blacks, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, with rubble everywhere. 1.00
00:25:11.000 It looked like World War II.
00:25:14.000 There's a famous moment Reagan went in there and just said, you guys got to get over the fact that your neighborhood got ruined and pull yourselves up by your bootstraps.
00:25:21.000 So murder was rampant there in the 70s.
00:25:26.000 And there's a good documentary about it.
00:25:28.000 I think it's called The Rubble or something.
00:25:30.000 And there were so many gangs.
00:25:31.000 You know, the movie The Warriors was based on that time.
00:25:34.000 There was that many gangs, the Ching-Alings, who are still going, actually. 1.00
00:25:39.000 I forget all their names, but the Baseball Furies were a ridiculous gang.
00:25:43.000 But there was tons of actual gangs back then.
00:25:46.000 And then hip-hop came along.
00:25:49.000 And all of a sudden, you could settle the score with a rap battle.
00:25:53.000 And the rap battle, too, wasn't like, I'm going to kill your mother.
00:25:55.000 It was like, I'm the best, then the girls love me, and the chicken tastes like wood.
00:25:59.000 And it was a really cool solution to a serious problem.
00:26:03.000 So in 1980, you had this incredible energy in New York where it was like the warring is over.
00:26:10.000 The death is done.
00:26:11.000 So punk rock and hip-hop collided in this sort of cultural epoch of elation.
00:26:19.000 And that is precisely when the clash had arrived.
00:26:24.000 Play that trailer about that time, 1980 in New York with The Clash.
00:26:28.000 Well.
00:26:47.000 I was so gone with it that the others used to call me whack attack and you know I walk around with a beat box.
00:27:02.000 WBLS was like blasting all over the city and we just hooked on to some of that vibe and made our own version of it.
00:27:09.000 We made an instrumental mix of Mag 7 and WBLS played it to death.
00:27:15.000 You couldn't go anywhere in New York that summer without hearing that.
00:27:18.000 And that was us.
00:27:21.000 weirdo punk rock white guys doing the kit Brings you back to this awful place.
00:27:45.000 That was when hip-hop was just starting, you know, and that was like another signpost of what was to come.
00:27:51.000 We sort of fell in with some graffiti artists and they made a big banner for us.
00:27:55.000 Now I like these sites from New York Maybe dark but I wanna talk It might rain, it might snow Alright, you can just play that in the background and we get it.
00:28:04.000 You know what's interesting about that too is the clash were able to adapt because of all their different cultures.
00:28:11.000 Kevin, I thought you always crap on multiculturalism.
00:28:15.000 No, no, no, no, no, no.
00:28:17.000 The clash were able to adapt because of their different Western cultures.
00:28:22.000 Joe Strummer has his rhythm and blues, Topper Hedden has his jazz, they have classical training, they have all these different Western influences, which makes them Western chauvinists, and it makes them an incredible band that could adapt.
00:28:41.000 So don't try to trick me by thinking I'm talking about multiculturalism in a global sense, because the West is the best.
00:28:47.000 The other countries suck.
00:28:48.000 The Clash were fantastic because they were so educated.
00:28:53.000 You know, they were so musically educated.
00:28:56.000 Anyway, so the 80s is going great.
00:29:00.000 And they have mainstream hits.
00:29:02.000 They put out combat rock that had Rock the Kazbah.
00:29:08.000 I think that was their biggest mainstream hit.
00:29:10.000 If you dig that up, David's got a cool video.
00:29:15.000 But Bernie Rhodes, the manager, is still getting in there, trying to influence these people, trying to manipulate them.
00:29:22.000 And in Glenn Beck's book, Miracles and Massacres, he says, you know, I'm going through all these historical events and I'm realizing that, yeah, that's Rock the Casburg.
00:29:33.000 Let's hear it for a second.
00:29:59.000 You'll notice lots of beatboxes in The Clash's visual imagery, which is probably why I have a ghetto blaster to introduce the show.
00:30:09.000 But yeah, Glenn Beck's book says, either the good guys won or the good guys lost because they listened to the bad guys.
00:30:18.000 They lost their liberty.
00:30:20.000 So, you know, you had Paul Revere and in the book, he's got someone else who prevented the assassination of George Washington by taking it upon himself to go and warn George that an assassination was imminent.
00:30:32.000 That could have, you know, that could be the reason why we won the war against Britain right there.
00:30:38.000 And then he talks about wounded knee in it, and he says, those prisoners, it was Indian prisoners who were massacred by soldiers, right?
00:30:46.000 But before the top brass showed up, before they arrived on the scene, the Indians who were prisoners were, you'll see this in the movie Hostiles, a similar story.
00:30:57.000 The Indians who were prisoners had their own guns.
00:30:59.000 And they're saying, look, guys, we've got to take you here.
00:31:03.000 We're going to get attacked by tribes on the way.
00:31:04.000 So here's your own guns.
00:31:06.000 And let's just all get there together.
00:31:08.000 We all want the same thing.
00:31:10.000 We all want to stay alive.
00:31:12.000 And then the top brass showed up and said, Hillel, wait a minute.
00:31:15.000 Why are you allowing these Indians to have guns? 1.00
00:31:17.000 Absolutely not.
00:31:18.000 No, no, no, no.
00:31:19.000 Confiscate the guns immediately.
00:31:21.000 So they go, we've got to confiscate your guns.
00:31:22.000 And they go, no, no, no, no.
00:31:23.000 My gun is my life.
00:31:25.000 This is back when it was as expensive as a home and as valuable as a home.
00:31:30.000 So they start fighting back.
00:31:31.000 And the next thing you know, they're shooting people in the back, killing women and children.
00:31:36.000 That was the authoritarians that started that.
00:31:38.000 And by the way, to this day, the reason we know about this story is because the American soldiers were so horrified by this that they wanted, it was well documented, you know?
00:31:49.000 And it's also why to this day, you have a lot of military people who, those guys won medals for Wounded Knee.
00:31:54.000 They want those medals revoked.
00:31:57.000 And this is what happened to the clash in the 80s.
00:32:01.000 Bernie Rhodes decided that rap thing went really well.
00:32:06.000 Let's get more rappy.
00:32:09.000 And Mick Jones said, yeah, I got it, Bernie.
00:32:11.000 And he goes, no, no, you don't got it.
00:32:13.000 And they kicked out the Topperhead and the drummer for doing heroin.
00:32:17.000 And Bernie started to get more involved.
00:32:18.000 And then Joe Strummer, who, you know, wanted the business to succeed, erred on the side of the manager.
00:32:29.000 A crucial mistake.
00:32:33.000 Just like Wounded Knee, he erred on the side of the authoritarians.
00:32:37.000 He erred on the side of big business.
00:32:39.000 He erred on the side of making more money.
00:32:42.000 He erred on the side of what the boss says.
00:32:46.000 What am I going to say about the police?
00:32:48.000 The police says the boss.
00:32:53.000 Joe went with the boss.
00:32:56.000 And that meant that Mick Jones was out.
00:33:01.000 Now, Mick Jones, coincidentally, went on to do Big Audio Dynamite that was a rappy band.
00:33:09.000 Exactly where they were going.
00:33:10.000 The direction was fine, Bernie.
00:33:14.000 Do you have some Big Audio Dynamite?
00:33:16.000 Just see what the biggest hit is.
00:33:18.000 They've got like three big hits.
00:33:20.000 They're an acquired taste, but I really enjoy them.
00:33:22.000 And then Cut the Crap came out, the Clash's last album.
00:33:25.000 We're now up to like 1981, I guess.
00:33:27.000 Merry Cool Duty!
00:33:33.000 Really friendly.
00:33:36.000 I like to play this when the kids are around, because they don't like punk.
00:33:39.000 and they'd say, Hey, Dad, this sucks.
00:33:42.000 Robert Wagon, let it show you.
00:33:49.000 That's Mick Jones.
00:33:51.000 Take it to a place where the healing falls off.
00:33:55.000 And then Cut the Crap was the same kind of album.
00:33:58.000 That's enough of that.
00:33:59.000 There's a great song on Cut the Crap.
00:34:00.000 So after Mick Jones was cut out, by the way, Mick Jones today, you've got to see this guy.
00:34:05.000 Do you have that footage of him?
00:34:05.000 He's running for Labour.
00:34:07.000 He's running for the Labour Party as an MP or something in Britain.
00:34:11.000 And you just think, wow, Joe didn't get over it.
00:34:14.000 You haven't gotten over it.
00:34:15.000 Look at him.
00:34:16.000 That's Mick Jones today.
00:34:17.000 Play some of that footage.
00:34:20.000 Okay, so I'm sending in this Rushcliffe selection because I think I'm the only candidate who can beat Ken Clark.
00:34:27.000 I'm passionately pro-European.
00:34:30.000 I'm passionately pro-European.
00:34:32.000 I enforced a general election this year on that subject.
00:34:35.000 Dude, it was just a band.
00:34:36.000 It was a quarter century ago.
00:34:38.000 Move on.
00:34:42.000 I'm just kidding.
00:34:43.000 That is a hideous trans woman who looks like Mick Jones. 1.00
00:34:49.000 Mick got over it.
00:34:50.000 He started Big Audio Dynamite, I think, in 1982 or something, a year after he was kicked out of the clash.
00:34:59.000 And they did Cut the Crap.
00:35:01.000 And Cut the Crap is like a disco-y-rappy kind of a thing.
00:35:04.000 Lots of like soccer chants, but lots of beatboxes and drum machines.
00:35:09.000 I think the band, Bernie Rhodes hired all new people in the band.
00:35:13.000 And I think the new members suffered a kind of a psychosis because getting to be in the clash was disturbing.
00:35:22.000 And Joe Strummer wouldn't hang out with the band anymore.
00:35:24.000 The thing about Joe, you have to understand, is he sort of got this punk mentality that was sort of stolen from the glam scene in the 70s, Matt the Hoopal.
00:35:32.000 And that was that scene I was talking about at the beginning of the show, which was this, we're for the people.
00:35:37.000 Like Mat the Hoopal were a glam band.
00:35:39.000 And glam was the precursor to punk.
00:35:41.000 That's why you can prove it didn't start in New York.
00:35:43.000 It's an evolution of glam.
00:35:45.000 Slade and these bands and Matt the Hoopal.
00:35:49.000 And they had a thing where the fans would just come backstage.
00:35:52.000 Like there was no sort of groupies or let me see, I choose you and I choose you, like with the dinosaur rock bands.
00:35:58.000 It was just everyone's fun.
00:35:59.000 Everyone would get on the stage with these bands and they'd be friends with them.
00:36:03.000 And Joe Strummer took that on too, to a fault, by the way.
00:36:07.000 When I would hang out with Joe, he would, I say when I, it was like two or three times, to be honest.
00:36:12.000 But some kid would show up.
00:36:14.000 Like there was a bar on 10th and A. What the hell is it called?
00:36:20.000 There was Three of Cups and there was A bar, 2A?
00:36:24.000 No.
00:36:24.000 Anyway, some bar I'm forgetting the name of.
00:36:27.000 And like this guy would go, holy shit, are you Joe Strummer?
00:36:30.000 And he'd go, yeah.
00:36:30.000 And he goes, can I get a picture with you?
00:36:32.000 Again, selfies.
00:36:33.000 By the way, people who want selfies, I don't have any selfies with Joe Strummer.
00:36:39.000 Joe fucking Strummer.
00:36:40.000 So you don't need a selfie with me, okay?
00:36:43.000 I'm never doing selfies again.
00:36:44.000 Don't ask me.
00:36:47.000 And Joe would go, yeah, no problem.
00:36:49.000 I got an idea.
00:36:51.000 Come on.
00:36:51.000 And you take me to the bathroom as the photographer, because he'd like give me the kid's camera.
00:36:57.000 Then he takes off his shirt and he puts it on the kid, who's like 21.
00:37:03.000 And then he puts the kid's shirt on him.
00:37:05.000 And we do a whole photo shoot.
00:37:07.000 That's the way Joe Strummer was.
00:37:08.000 He was a man of the people.
00:37:12.000 Fun guy to hang out with.
00:37:13.000 I wrote about this in my book, In Death of Cool.
00:37:15.000 You know, we're walking down the street and he starts going through the garbage.
00:37:19.000 I'm like, did you just get out of jail?
00:37:21.000 And he goes, that's the way it is with guitarists.
00:37:24.000 We're obsessed with little bric-a-brac. 1.00
00:37:26.000 Ask, who was it, like, Buddy Guy or some classic guitarist that invented rock and roll.
00:37:32.000 Ask Buddy Guy.
00:37:34.000 He's going through the garbage.
00:37:37.000 We went and got drinks.
00:37:38.000 Fun guy, really like huggy and effusive.
00:37:41.000 And his friends and his wife would always be like, Joe, we got to go.
00:37:45.000 We got to keep moving.
00:37:46.000 Come on.
00:37:46.000 He's always like, let's talk to this guy.
00:37:48.000 What's happening?
00:37:49.000 Hey, you got some bongos.
00:37:52.000 Let's play them like in the New York subway.
00:37:53.000 I want to be part of it, man.
00:37:55.000 He really acted like he had died and then he went to heaven and they said, you know what?
00:38:00.000 You have one more day.
00:38:01.000 Go back down.
00:38:01.000 All right.
00:38:02.000 Hey, I got one more day.
00:38:03.000 What's happening, man?
00:38:05.000 Hey, what's your name?
00:38:06.000 You got moustache.
00:38:09.000 We went up for dinner with him with one of the worst people ever, the singer of the Black Crows, Chris Robinson, I think his name is.
00:38:17.000 And a really annoying guy, kind of a southern wigger in that he wanted to be a cool black guy, not a rapper, but like a blues dude. 1.00
00:38:26.000 Yeah, he's got his bandana on, his beads and stuff.
00:38:29.000 Just a really sh ⁇ person. 1.00
00:38:32.000 And everyone hated him, including his girlfriend at the time, or his wife, whatever she was.
00:38:36.000 And I noticed as he got more and more drinks, he's probably nervous because Joe was there, so he was drinking.
00:38:41.000 And then he started getting a little more sullen.
00:38:44.000 Well, yeah.
00:38:46.000 Oh, I'm from the South.
00:38:49.000 And I was like, you sound like a plantation owner.
00:38:51.000 What's going on?
00:38:51.000 And then his girlfriend slash wife, I don't know what she was.
00:38:53.000 She goes, yeah, Chris gets progressively more black the more he drinks. 0.97
00:38:58.000 And then he goes, Hey, you like pigfoot?
00:39:03.000 I like every part of the pig.
00:39:07.000 And then he goes, I eat a pig's ass.
00:39:09.000 Did they cook it right?
00:39:11.000 Which reminded me of the Chris Rock line where Chris says, I ate a pig's ass.
00:39:17.000 Did they cook it right?
00:39:20.000 Ew.
00:39:23.000 Yeah, and also when you're going home, Joe's like, where are you going?
00:39:26.000 I'm like, it's four in the morning, dude.
00:39:28.000 I'm tie-tie.
00:39:29.000 No, we're going to go over here.
00:39:31.000 Let's do that.
00:39:32.000 I guess he died of Coke.
00:39:33.000 I never saw him do Coke.
00:39:34.000 He had some sort of heart palpitation.
00:39:36.000 I don't think he was the best dad in the world, for the record, because he was so into the band and touring.
00:39:41.000 And that brings me back to this betrayal.
00:39:44.000 So he didn't adapt correctly and follow his character and legacy.
00:39:52.000 He screwed up and he betrayed his friend.
00:39:54.000 And that broke his brain.
00:39:56.000 He went away for a while.
00:39:57.000 He came back.
00:39:58.000 He wrote This Is England, which is on the last album, Cut the Crap, which is find that song.
00:40:03.000 Is there a video for it?
00:40:06.000 No video?
00:40:06.000 No, no video, but yeah, I got it here.
00:40:10.000 This song was pan.
00:40:13.000 Oh, I shouldn't be playing the air drums.
00:40:14.000 It's a drum machine.
00:40:16.000 This is how you play the air drum to the drum machine.
00:40:28.000 I hear again somebody walking.
00:40:40.000 A great movie too, about the 80s and punk and the skinheads.
00:40:45.000 There's a great line in that song where it goes.
00:40:47.000 I got my motorcycle jacket, but I'm walking all the time.
00:40:54.000 This life will change me.
00:40:58.000 This is it.
00:41:00.000 This is how we feel Teaching my kids how to play air guitar the other day.
00:41:11.000 You've got to remember that it's a straight line.
00:41:12.000 Never go like this or bend your hand.
00:41:14.000 And also, when you're playing air guitar, occasionally look at your fret hand.
00:41:18.000 Because no one has the song perfectly memorized.
00:41:21.000 So you should be just double checking.
00:41:23.000 Maybe even like tweak the A if it's going out of key.
00:41:28.000 So he went nuts and he literally went to live in a cave.
00:41:38.000 Joe Strummer went to live in a cave in Barcelona, I believe.
00:41:42.000 Mick Jones went off, had a successful music career.
00:41:44.000 He got over it.
00:41:45.000 He's a big boy.
00:41:46.000 But Joe could never get over the fact that he betrayed his friend Mick Mick, who wrote all the Clash's hits.
00:41:51.000 Mick Jones was really the brains behind The Clash.
00:41:53.000 Joe was the heart.
00:41:54.000 Mick was the brains.
00:41:56.000 And eventually Joe Strummer, there's a documentary about this that's really good.
00:42:01.000 Joe Strummer started having bonfires.
00:42:06.000 He started getting all his friends together and they would play acoustic guitar.
00:42:12.000 And he also did a great movie called Love Kills.
00:42:16.000 Oh, he did a good song for Sid and Nancy, Love Kills.
00:42:19.000 See if you can find that.
00:42:20.000 So he did have moments.
00:42:22.000 They did a cool Western, if I recall, I forget what it's called, Hell something.
00:42:28.000 And yeah, Joe, which is that?
00:42:31.000 Is that Love Kills?
00:42:33.000 Yeah, Love Kills.
00:42:37.000 Rage!
00:42:39.000 You're watching Rage and I'm a VJ.
00:42:41.000 Walking out of the window, can you hold a king to die all this world?
00:42:54.000 When I bust and go to Mexico, we'll kill her all the fine to sleep next. 1.00
00:43:01.000 Oh, I get it!
00:43:02.000 The plot of this is Sid wasn't killed, he's alive.
00:43:05.000 He's living in Mexico.
00:43:07.000 I'm gonna cry if I'm going back a little bit.
00:43:09.000 Whew.
00:43:13.000 I'm down and into you, crying for me.
00:43:16.000 So many of my friends died because they wanted to be a legend.
00:43:20.000 And they got stuck in that epoch at that time, at Xena.
00:43:26.000 And they didn't understand that.
00:43:27.000 It's just a phase.
00:43:28.000 Just a chapter.
00:43:34.000 With heroin, it's like you went to Jamaica for a vacation.
00:43:38.000 And then the vacation's over, and everyone's got their suitcases.
00:43:41.000 And you look back, and there's your friend wearing this Hawaiian shirt.
00:43:43.000 And you go, what are you doing, Sid?
00:43:45.000 And he goes, I'm going to stay here.
00:43:47.000 You go, it's a resort.
00:43:48.000 We're just here for a vacation.
00:43:49.000 No, I love it here.
00:43:51.000 I'm going to stay in heroin teenage punk rock rebellion.
00:43:54.000 You go, no, no, no, no.
00:43:56.000 That's just a vacation we're in.
00:43:57.000 We're getting married now.
00:43:58.000 We're having lives.
00:43:59.000 We've got to go to the airport.
00:44:00.000 No, bye.
00:44:01.000 And you go, okay, bye.
00:44:03.000 Have fun on a resort by yourself.
00:44:06.000 It's about to be rainy season.
00:44:08.000 It's going to be pouring with rain here.
00:44:10.000 It's not that fun.
00:44:15.000 But that's what they did, and they died there.
00:44:17.000 Dash snow, Sid Vishes.
00:44:21.000 Lots of people.
00:44:21.000 Anyway, sorry.
00:44:23.000 A little nostalgic there.
00:44:24.000 Getting emotional.
00:44:26.000 And so Joe Strom would have these bonfires.
00:44:28.000 They'd play around, they'd have bongo parties, whatever, and they'd make music together, and it sort of revitalized him.
00:44:34.000 And he came back to earth in his later years.
00:44:38.000 I would say this is like the 90s, early, you know, mid-90s up until the 2000s.
00:44:43.000 He had been restored.
00:44:45.000 Him and Mick made good.
00:44:47.000 But the reason I just wasted an entire show talking about the intro song was not just because it's International Clash Day, but because the Clash is a great example of how, as a man, as an entrepreneur,
00:45:04.000 as an adult, you constantly have to distinguish between what is me being a grown-up, saying goodbye to the past, saying goodbye to clutter, saying goodbye to things that are hurting me, and what is me sticking by something valid, something real, like a family, and being true to myself, having honor and character.
00:45:26.000 I think Joe screwed up.
00:45:28.000 It damaged him forever, But I don't blame him because all his previous decisions were great and they made one of the greatest bands in the world.
00:45:39.000 A band where if someone was standing on your property and they said they suck, you'd say, you know what?