NEW YORK (AP) Ah, the boom box. The portable stereo brings back memories of a specific time in music, when some of the sounds blaring from the speakers included the stew of punk rock, reggae and early hip-hop cooked up by the Clash.
Bass player Paul Simonon designed the group's new box set to look like a boom box. Lift up the cover and you'll find the complete recorded output of the classic Clash lineup the late Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, Simonon and Topper Headon with outtakes, videos, fanzines, stickers, a poster and more. The survivors worked a few years to get back control of their music, remaster it and restore the original artwork.
The Clash were leaders of London's punk rock class of 1977, made one of rock's most enduring albums in "London Calling" and soaked up the sounds of the street in hits like "Train in Vain" and "Rock the Casbah." Jones and Headon were fired in 1982 and although replacements were added and another album, "Cut the Crap," released in 1985, that final chapter is ignored in the "Sound System" box.
The balding Jones now looks like a kindly British professor as he sits down to talk about the project. Simonon, who always looked better than he played, is impeccably tailored.
They confide a few myth-puncturing details in an interview with The Associated Press earlier fall: "The Only Band That Matters" declaration was record company hype that they detested, and the band poked fun at their political crusader image in the song "Know Your Rights," only people took them too seriously to notice.