This classic album’s front cover features a photograph of bassist Paul Simonon smashing his Fender Precision Bass against the stage at The Palladium in New York City. This happened during their Clash Take The Fifth US tour on 20 September 1979.
Simonon later explained that he smashed the bass out of frustration when he learned that the bouncers at the concert would not allow the audience members to stand up in their seats.
It was Pennie Smith who shot the photo of Simonon for the cover, and though it has gone down in history as one of the greatest rock’n’roll photos of all time, Smith originally didn’t want to use the shot for the album’s sleeve. She felt it was too out-of-focus. Thankfully, Joe Strummer convinced her otherwise.
The cover layout was made by graphic designer Ray Lowry, who created a lovely homage to the design of Elvis Presley’s debut album. Both albums have pink letters down the left side and green text across the bottom. (Mick Jones’ later band Big Audio Dynamite would use the same design on their 1995 album “F-Punk.”)
The Clash were setting their stall out early on their third release. A mixture of punk, reggae and rockabilly, London Calling may well be to punk/post-punk music what Elvis Presley was to rock’n’roll: a collection of influences wider than the genres the artists were recognized as spearheading. Like the artwork it is based on, London Calling also perfectly captures the spirit of punk in the way that Elvis Presley captured rock’n’roll.
The cover image pretty much signalled the end of the 1970s as the album was released on 14 December 1979 (early January 1980 in the US).
Incidentally, London Calling did really well in the Norselands. Its highest charting countries worldwide were Sweden and Norway, at #2 and #4 respectively. The only other top 10 placement it got was UK at #9. In fact, in Norway the album is so well liked that a 25th Anniversary edition of the album re-entered the chart at #17 in 2004, even outranking most countries initial chart placement from 1979/80.
Pennie Smith was a good friend of all the band, and would continue to take pictures of them as well as most of their post-band projects. She was the photographer for a project as recent as The Good, The Bad And The Queen – a supergroup of sorts featuring Clash bassist Paul Simonon alongside Damon Albarn (Blur/Gorillaz), Simon Tong (The Verve) and Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen.
The bass that is being smashed up in the image is currently on display at the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
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