I bought this single
a week or two after its release in August 1980.
We were on a family holiday at Weston Super Mare and I was 15 at the
time. Me and my brother had been heavily
into music for around 18 months and really just buying anything that we could
afford that was vaguely punk. We were already
big Clash fans by this time and having been exposed to the London Calling album,
knew that they were capable of creating a varied sonic landscape and we loved their
forays into reggae. But this was something special. I bought it from a record store in the indoor
market and couldn’t wait to return home from the holiday so I’d got access to a
turntable and could play it for the first time.
It seemed to sum up everything great about The Clash, Strummers voice had never sounded better
and the band perfectly fused the link between punk and reggae. In hindsight
the song was the ideal stepping stone between London Calling and
Sandinista. My love affair with the
Clash has continued for over 30 years and this song pretty much is ever present
in any Clash mix tape that I put together.
And I still can’t go to Weston without a little bit of me longing for
those days when visiting the record store in the market and being able to spend
some of my holiday money on those punky 7”s was always the best part of the
holiday.
THE CLASH - BANKROBBER
THE CLASH - BANKROBBER
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