DS Book Club: “Passion Is A Fashion: The Real Story of The Clash” by Pat Gilbert

The Clash has been the subject of many books and documentaries, but only one of these has extensively captured the band: Pat Gilbert’s Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash. Originally released in 2004 to commemorate twenty-five years of London Calling’s release, Aurum and the Quarto Group have re-released Gilbert’s tome on the only band that matters with a new edition, expanded by about 10,000 words and edited for accuracy. It is the quintessential and most complete book about The Clash.

The first quarter of the book is dedicated to the backgrounds of the essential players of The Clash, namely Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon, by exploring their childhoods through meeting and forming the band. Each of these chapters starts with Gilbert giving an idea of where each of the band members were at the time of the interview. Gilbert’s talks with Joe happened weeks before his untimely passing in the early 2000s. Mick’s conversation happened weeks after and provides a somewhat somber tone for the book.

These introductions don’t just give us each member’s background, but also how they remember their time in The Clash. It makes me wonder if Strummer’s death softened Mick’s memories of his former bandmate and how things ended. Would the memories feel more raw if Joe were still alive? It’s mentioned that Joe and Mick were talking in the months before Joe’s death, and while they may have worked out their issues then, the passing of anyone will make someone look back with a softer heart.

It’s interesting to see who is canonized and who is considered a bit player. The expanded sections seem to be reserved for Strummer, Jones, and Simonon. People like Topper Headon, Keith Levene, or Terry Chimes, who actually played in the band, are held in the same reverence as some of the other adjacent figures of The Clash, like Don Letts and Kosmo Vinyl. However, Clash Manager Bernie Rhodes does get one of these extended origins. He’s treated like another member of the band, not only because of his importance to The Clash but to the UK punk scene in general. Fans of The Specials will recognize the name shouted at the beginning of the song “Gangsters,” which documents their experience with him. Most accounts about Bernie Rhodes are not flattering, no matter how much the band praises his support and how much it helped them.

The research Pat Gilbert has culled and updated is nothing short of a Herculean task. This book has some sort of history for nearly every person and place, even if it’s a paragraph or two. Sometimes with punk rock books, it’s hard to wade through what’s lore and be able to pull facts from legend. Gilbert does a great job of taking everyone’s account and weaving their memories into a finite version, but also succeeds in making England’s punk rock scene feel cohesive rather than just each band sticking to the pockets of their own scene.

Sometimes the piling of the details can get to be a bit much. Gilbert’s writing is dense, but it would have to be given the amount of information he’s unloading, between his own research, interviews, and the amount of information to update in the years since his book has been released. It seems that he makes some sort of reference to every book written about the Clash. Gilbert is not overly friendly with the band, at least not in this writing, but there is some camaraderie. Even so, this book is immensely entertaining. He does keep things as structurally disciplined as you can in regards to an English punk band in England’s punk rock scene.

“Passion Is a Fashion” is hands down the best book you will ever read about the Clash. While it takes a moment to start with the actual story proper of the band itself, once it gets going, be prepared to have your brain overloaded. Every nook, cranny, and nugget about the Clash is explored and done so thoroughly. Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash is the only book that matters when it comes to the story of the Clash. Its telling of the band’s rise and fall and the impact they’ve had on music, not just punk rock cannot be overstated, but is well written with Pat Gilbert’s pen.

Passion Is a Fashion: The Real Story of the Clash by Pat Gilbert is available through the Quarto Group.