i do not really know much about joe strummer or the clash but still really liked this doc. there was something in the movie which i found unclear regarding joe and swastikas and neo nazis and the like; and this shocked me, but i have no idea what it actually meant. can anyone who knows about this help me out and clarify his affiliation please?
shareJoe's brother was a wannabe Nazi who decorated his bedroom with swastikas. He eventually committed suicide.
shareThere was a great deal of Nazi imagery surrounding early UK punk--most notoriously with Siouxsie Sioux's Nazi armband. It wasn't intended, I think as a direct political statement, but as a means of "shocking" the UK public--just one means among many. The Clash avoided this but there was some ambiguity--or at least confusion--surrounding their politics in the early days (c.;76/77). In fact early commentators thought they might be supporters of the National Front and misconstrued the first single "White Riot" as racist. Part of the band's strategy in dispelling this was to headline the influential Rock Against Racism concert in the spring of '78. Such a mistaken belief also inspired Strummer's highly-memorable statement, "I think people ought to know that we're anti-fascist, we're anti-violence, we're anti-racist and we're pro-creative. We're against ignorance." Nevertheless, an early proto-type of the Clash out of which both Mick and Paul came was a band called "London SS," the meaning of which, I think, is still subject to some contention ....
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Sid Vicious also frequently wore a t-shirt with a swastika. Part of it was to shock people, but there were/are neo-fascist punks.
shareThe whole thing with the swastika was to shock, but these were also times when the older generation, parents etc. would have fought in the war. So swastikas were directly shocking to 'the olds'. Younger people were constantly told of how 'I fought in the war so you could ...' by parents so it was a real attempt to antagonise this. Although misguided and ultimately regreted now, it was not strictly speaking a respect for Nazi values but an attempt to be as nauseating as possible.
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