In 1982, Combat Rock came out and MTV constantly aired the Clash's "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go" videos. The former one scared me (I was only eleven) with its image of an armadillo running amok on the desert ground while Mick Jones (or was it Paul Simonon) wears a gas mask.

The following year, my friend Josh, who had shaved two horizontal lines into the sides of his head, lent me a copy of the Clash's self-titled debut album.

I was in junior-high and a whole year wiser, so I understood why the album's high-contrast cover photo of Strummer, Jones, and Simonon looking like Borstal drop-outs in a Lindsay Anderson flick, made me want to cut my hair in dank East End alleyways.

Suddenly, there was a heightened sense of meaning to my existence, even though I didn't understand what it all meant. I didn't truly realize its significance until I discovered Richard Hell and got a hold of London Calling at the age of 21.

"I Fought the Law" was my anthem (even if it was a Bobby Fuller cover) and I tried to mimic Mick Jones' accent. Unfortunately I turned in my Clashness for a FRANKIE SAY WAR tee-shirt. The rest of junior-high was a blur of bad synth rock.

Not long ago, I found a used copy of the album and gave it a spin. I didn't recall it sounding so great. I didn't remember it being this raw. The sound was rough, lo-fi. It made me happy.

On songs like "Clash City Rockers" and "Garageland" Joe Strummer sounded awful. Another plus. And the band's take on reggae - "Police and Thieves" and "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" - was harsh, unlike their later excursions into bluebeat, funk, and rap. The tracks were ambitious, yes, but the tunes often took saturated flights into listener-obscuration.

Listening to The Clash so many years after its initial UK release widens the domain for today's punk-phile. It sounds like somebody slapped together the Spinanes and Bikini Kill and gave them a whole new set of post-Thatcher leftist politics: brash but intelligent.