 | |
List Price: $16.00 | | Publisher: Faber & Faber
Salesrank: 401911
|
| Our Price: $9.24 |
| Used Price: $1.87 |
|
| Media: Paperback |
|
Editorial Review:
Johnny Green was a footloose slacker who loved punk rock, stumbled into being a roadie for the Sex Pistols, then tripped again into a job pushing sound equipment for the Clash and driving their beat-up van to performances in the mean industrial towns of England. Disaffected youth anointed the Clash as their spokesmen and made the group synonymous with punk itself in the late 1970s. Eventually becoming the band's road manager, Green had a unique vantage point from which to witness the burgeoning punk rock movement while helping the band in their perpetual search for women, booze, and drugs. Green was with the Clash when they conquered America, bringing with them their bad behavior and great music, and burning out after their third, too-long tour. Written in a tell-it-as-it-was style and accompanied by contemporaneous drawings by Ray Lowry, who tagged along with the Clash on their American tour as their official "war artist," A Riot of Our Own pierces the heart of the culture and music of punk rock and the people who lived it.
Description of A Riot of Our Own: Night and Day with the Clash:
Chronicles of the 1970s punk era aren't scarce by any means, but Johnny Green's narrative escapes the multiple traps of dried-out historical reportage, sociological analysis, and glory taking. Instead, he offers a certain worm's-eye vantage point on the advance of the Clash's career. A Belfast college grad when he met the band in 1977, Green accompanied them on endless tours, and he describes various episodes with a mix of detailed dialogue and picaresque humor. The Clash don't get the lavish hagiographic treatment one might expect from a fan. They come off, rather, as funny characters--intensely charged and, of course, young, sometimes-stumbling artists with insurmountable energy for performances. Green describes clearing the spit off band members' instruments in the same way that he recalls losing the demo tapes of London Calling. And then it all winds to an uneventful close, as so many things do (remember T.S. Eliot's maxim, "This is the way the world ends, the world ends, the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper"?). There's not even a whimper here, though, just Green announcing to the band--at their career peak, on the London Calling tour in the U.S.--that he wanted to see more of North America. Such a low-key ambition to end such a high-key narrative! Nonetheless, this is an essential document in the annals of punk. --Andrew Bartlett
A Riot of Our Own: Night and Day with the Clash Reviews:
Exciiiiiiiting 
2007-07-09 - Good read! I loved the way Johnny Green wrote this book, from his own perspective and his own experiences, it really lets you in. Information wise I wouldn't reccomend it,if you want THE FACTS presented in THE FACTUAL way then you'd be better off reading some other Clash biography-but this is great-- BIASED AND PASSIONATE just like it should be!
(You know, I'd love to read it on a train).
Makes the most exciting band in the world sound dull 
2004-09-19 - OK, ok, I've heard it a million times...being on the road with a band is only exciting for that one or two hours a night they're playing. BOY, does Green's book drive that point home! But, where a better story teller might have turned an account like this into a character study of some doubtlessly fascinatinating individuals (the band and its hangers-on), Green provides a series of dull anecdotes that don't seem to go anywhere or offer any real insight into the main characters. A big yawn by any standards, and a big disappointment for anyone looking for some insight into the Clash myth and legend.
this is my title
2004-07-02 - Now this is good. So many rock biographies spend too many pages describing the youth of the subject - like Lost in the Wood, a book about Syd Barrett that is painfully boring until after 150 pages.
No such prevarication here. Now it may be important for making a detailed psychological profile, but I want to read stories about the band, and get a bit of insight into the meaning of lyrics, or some description of how a song was written/ recorded. So on that level, 'A Riot of Our Own' delivers. Covering just the period that Johnny Green worked with the band, it's basically full of anecdotes and stories of day to day life with The Clash.
And that's it. It may not be as completely Clash-focussed as some fans might like, but that's just cos it's a personal account of one of the road-crew, and as such is more authentic that so many other biographies. So it's worthwhile.
A great read about the only band that matters.
2003-02-13 - Really, if you liked The Clash and their attitude towards music you can't help but like this book. The book tells real storys about actual guys; they're not super heros they're rockers; come on that's what made them so great. With the recent loss of Joe Strummer this one'e worth reading. Don't forget to spin your records while you read.
Joe Strummer RIP
2002-12-25 - If there are 3 Clash items that are essential then it's this book, the "Westway to the World" dvd and Bob Gruen's photo book.
Johnny Green's book tells it like it was. It doesn't dress up the rather US originated "stylised" view of the Clash from 1980-83 as almost the new wave successors to the Stones which may have resulted in gaining them many fans world wide but lost much of their original UK fan base. Instead it covers the essential 1977 to 1979 period and paints the band as human beings - Mick with his rock star aspirations and pretensions, Paul and Topper as jack the lads chasing women and wanting a laugh and Joe as the humanist who cares about the fans and who wants to know about what's going on in the world.
RIP Joe - you died way too young.
Johnny Green - you wrote a terrific book, thank you
Martin...
