After a few episodes of wandering off course and talking about things that were, at best, tangentially related to the Only Band That Matters, this week I return to my core subject. In particular, at the recommendation of my friends Dan and Tammy Domike, retired booksellers from Seattle, I picked up a copy of Martin Popoff’s book, The Clash: All the Albums, All the Songs, which, as the title suggests, is literally about all the albums and all the songs.

One thing in particular that resonated with me is this: in the Introduction, Popoff talks about how the early Clash embraced the sort of anti-hippie sentiment that was common among punk rockers of the day, but, he says, Joe Strummer “would come to understand that the punks and the longhairs were one and the same” and “cut from the same cloth.” As someone who straddles the hippie and punk eras, I really feel that. While I’m technically a late-stage boomer, Popoff’s comment about Strummer’s evolution reminds me of what I think of as the original meaning of Generation X, the name that Billy Idol (born in 1955, not 1957 as I say in the episode) gave his first band, and the name of a somewhat popular, if not universally loved, novel by Canadian writer Douglas Coupland (born in 1961). While the term Generation X has taken on a very different meaning in pop culture, it originally referred to us — folks born in the mid-to-late ’50s to the early ’60s who fell in that awkward gap between the true boomers and their kids.

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the book very much so far, and I highly recommend it, but I add this caveat: Popoff, as a true music critic, is not afraid to … you know … criticize his subject. I happen to respect that, whether or not I agree with every criticism, but don’t expect this book to be a dewey-eyed, naïve homage to Mick and Joe and the band.

Finally, I mention that March 31 is International Day of Transgender Visibility and I encourage you to give a listen to the LGBTQIA-friendly podcast my wife and I host called In the Shadow of the Evening Trees.  Our latest episode, in particular, talks about trans rights in these challenging times.

So please give this week’s show a listen and share your thoughts in the comments below. And as Joe always said, “Without people, you’re nothing.”