Johnny Green's favorite Clash song. Probably not least of all because Joe calls him out in the coda, "Johnny, Johnny!" Perhaps honoring Johnny's dedication to condoms. Green, all-around chauffeur, stage-hand, personal assistant, drug & alcohol supplier, and horny groupie hound dog; basically, one-half the production team that kept The Clash running in their Death & Glory years ("like being on a commando raid with the Bash Street Kids," said photographer Pennie Smith of those times), and co-author of A Riot of Our Own (1999). "Protex Blue" is, arguably, as influential a Punk Rock prototype in form, in style, as anything on the first album. There's Chuck Berry guitar and it covers a lot of early X territory, for instance.
They'd soon enough grow more interested in what the rich were doing but "Garageland" is my lumpen Clash sentimental fave. Paul's sexually explicit bass. Topper in peak rat-a-tat-tat attack form. Joe's gruff bark and Mick's "Ahh-ahh-ahhs" chorus. A mic-drop classic punk rock instrumental coda. The whole shebang a drunken rampage of gleeful intensity and laddish pride.
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