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_Last Gang in Town : The Story and Myth of the Clash_ by Marcus Gray

(title taken from the track _Last Gang In Town_ by The Clash off of _Give 'em Enough Rope_ 12" (1978)

Twenty years after its loud birth even punk rock cannot avoid the grasp of nostalgia. The black leather, silver studs and pierced skin no longer shockingly new, the aging Sex Pistols are on tour again. The ultimate rejectionist philosophy is the subject of revivals, celebratory reissues, and analytical documentaries and books. Only one other band rivaled the Pistols as kings of punk:  The Clash. Marcus Gray's account of the band that was led by Mick Jones and Joe Strummer offers "the story and myth." Gray details the early lives of the band, describing the genesis and then the decline of this most political of punk bands. Gray is highly critical of the band's later career, arguing that they sold out the punk philosophy by giving in to the lure of money.

From Booklist , September 15, 1996
In 1976, Keith Richards wannabe Mick Jones cut his hair and Joe Strummer quit the R & B pub band he was in and donned a T-shirt proclaiming "Chuck Berry Is Dead." What prompted their about-faces? Punk, the rock style and subculture led by Malcolm McLaren's Sex Pistols that took England by storm. McLaren associate Bernie Rhodes organized Jones and Strummer into the Clash, a more politically oriented band than the Pistols. Less into anarchy than into social change, the Clash, as Gray chronicles it, was full of contradictions. Clash members preached antiviolence but dressed in military garb, portrayed themselves as working-class but were middle-class, promoted a do-it-yourself ethic but let CBS Records rather than an independent label sign them. Though he failed to interview Strummer and Jones, Gray dug up obscure Clash interviews and uses the inconsistencies in his attempt to dismantle the Clash myth. Moreover, he more than adequately re-creates the excitement of the early punk era. A good companion to Savage's England's Dreaming (1992). Benjamin Segedin

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