Clash City Rockers and Protest Guitars

Thursday, November 11th, 2010

The Clash: The Most Influenential Band that Mattered for a Lost Generation Gets an Hommage Song of Youth, Pain, Protest, and Action

The Story of The Clash, Johnny Punish, and a Gang of Lost Youth with Protest Guitars

by Johnny Punish

So I just penned a song called Protest Guitars. It’s really about our teenage gang and our very intimate relationship with The Clash. I shall explain.

Our our gang, as we called ourselves, The Shabbab, began hangin’ out in Joe’s garage in the alley behind his mom’s Anaheim California apartment in summer of 1982. (Joe’s real name hidden due to a self-inflicted witness protection program).

It was time of discovery. I just finished my first year of college at California State Fullerton.

Joe had it decked out the garage with a old dirty couch, a few lights, and some other garage sale trinkets that made it a hang-out. I think there were posters of Che Guevara, The Who, and some other icons of the late 70s and early 80s.

Ya see, Joe was a few years older and thus wiser. He heard of this band called The Clash that was speaking to him. He shared it and we, the Anaheim Clash City Rockers were off.

Yeah, to commemorate the influence that this new music played into those days, there are 12 song titles hidden in the lyrics of Protest Guitars; 9 from The Clash and 3 from The Plimsouls. It was Death or Glory because we were not just another story. We were not going to start wearing blue and brown, working for the Clampdown. We were going be Clash City Rockers.

Oh and there was that bit about that White Audi Fox.

Yeah that was Joe’s piece of shit car where we had a barely working cassette tape player featuring only one tape. It was the first Clash tape to hit America. It was played over and over again all summer in 1982. “Who the fuck is Janie Jones? It’s a lovely getting stoned world oh oh oh!” We wore it out!

Later, somehow somewhere, Joe found The Clash cassettes of Give Em Enough Rope, London Calling, and Sandanista turning our Shabbab on to force that was The Clash with his typcial “you listen and love it or you’re the enemy” mantra. Yeah, wearing his U.S. Army Jacket with a Palestinian flag signifying war, resistance to occupation, and aggressive posture was the message. We believed and followed jobbing on just like The Clash.

So yeah Joe drove that piece of shit all over Anaheim in 1982-1983 looking for causes to make and trouble to cause ending up at some Egyptian fundi lunatic jerk-off’s apartment named Abdel Muftuh. Muftuh had threatend to kill Joe and so Joe brought all of us, the shabbab, in to knock his door down and teach him a lesson.

When Muftuh tried to knife Joe, Joe yanked it from hand and let him know that this was it for him and he’d better fall in line or else! From that point on, it was Joe’s turf and we were all there to suppport the cause.

To support the Garageland mission, Joe set up the feed & weed sales office.

Yeah, with a scale on top of the crappy old 12″ inch black and white TV, he sold it by the dime to passersby and friends in the alley hood. We were all yobless and needed a way to fund the missions, excursions, operations, and mis-adventures. So this worked out great. I think Joe was his best customer or at least he pinched so many bags that it sure seemed that way.

His funding strategy worked and in the summer of 1982, together we formed the future.

Yeah, peeps would pop in for some of Joe’s infamous Turkish Coffee, some Black Market Clash, and a toke on the pipe du jour usually kypted from the last guy who brought in a good one to show off. Yeah Joe had a penchant for keeping everyone’s pipe claiming it to be his own. He was a small time theif but no one would dare accuse him. After all, the pipe was a donation to the cause. Hey, it was Joe’s world and we just there to follow orders! It was always his pipe. Of course, he pinched every bag sold to insure that his troops had their stash. His gang was always armed and ready.

We were out fighting with pipes, protesting enemies of Joe, and playing Galaga at the local Shakeys Pizza on Euclid Ave or was it Beach Blvd, or maybe State College………who knows? I mean, we were so ripped who knew? We just sang I’m So Bored with the USA looking for Jimmy Jazz all day and night until our one worn out Clash City Rocker tape melted from overuse. It was one heck of year in Anaheim, California 1982.

Then Sabra & Shatila hit the world stage in September 1982. Joe took us down to the Israeli Embassy in Los Angeles were we ran into Irv Rubin, the head of the west coast Jewish Defense League (JDL), a known militant wing sponsored and led by extreme hater Rabbi Meir Kahane. They advoacated “All Arab Dogs into the sea” and thus supported the deaths of over 5000; including women and children at Sabra & Shatila. We were pissed beyond pisssed!

Ronald Reagan as Ronbo There was no time to Save it for Later. We had our metal pipes in hand ready for riot of our own. We screamed “JDL GO TO HELL” all the way to IRV’s “HELL NO P.L.O” while the FBI took nice pictures of all of us for their lovely family scrapebooks. That night, Joe made it onto the intro of Ted Koppells Nightline show on ABC TV and he was king!

Yep, we were in the fray and there was no looking back. Getting pulled over by the Fuzz on the mean streets of L.A. was a common occurance back then.

We were activists by day and concert goers by night seeing The English Beat open up for The Clash at the Hollywood Palladium along with great bands like the indie underground called The Plimsouls, singing at the Cal State Fullerton Pub playing Zero Hour and Now , Wow!

We were so impressed we eventually had our own band debut at “the Pub” on campus that following year at a talent show where they dropped the curtain on us in the middle of our first song! It was awesome ! We were punk! Of course it was a cover of Should I Stay or Go by The Clash. Classic!

We sucked so bad and Joe, the lead singer, was incredibly obnoxious. It was classic Joe, classic punk, and done right in the heart of the Orange Curtain, that right wing bastion of Republicans looking to kill the unions and have the elite rape the people. We were at war!

It was totally us with Joe on lead vocals, me on guitar, and Richy on drums. I don’t think we even had a name of the band yet. Who know’s what we called ourselves. No matter, we pissed off the establishment with our hard edge that made everyone uncomfortable and they threw us out! There was just no better to end the show! It was truly perfect! “Fuck you and good nite you fuckin wankers!”

Anyways, in between all the mis-adventures we watched Ronald “Ronbo” Reagan attack Grenada and the father of Combat TV, the great late Wally George, on Channel 52 spewing out his HOT SEAT fun loving nitwit right wing conservative schtick, laughing all the way screaming 999! 5000!

We were inspired and thus started our journey into activist music eventually ending years later with the seminal 90′s punk band Twisted Nixon. As Punish says “Yesterday I thought I was a crud. Then I saw The Clash and I became a King and decided to move into the future”

That year we spent in Joe’s garage, behind his Mom’s apartment in Anaheim was where it all started. This song is dedicated to that garage and all that went with it.Three cheers for Joe’s Garage; our Garage! Hooray! Stay Free!