Rock the Casbah Traditional Cache
Hidden : 11/17/2013
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size: micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

"Rock the Casbah" is a song by the English punk rock band The Clash, released in 1982 and was released as the third single from their fifth album, Combat Rock. The song reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the U.S. (their only top 10 single in the United States) and, along with the track "Mustapha Dance", it also reached number eight on the dance chart. It is the band's highest charting single worldwide.

The song gives a fabulist account of a ban on rock music by the Sharif or King being defied by the population, who proceed to "rock the casbah." The King orders jet fighters to bomb any people in violation of the ban but the pilots ignored the orders anyways, and instead played rock music on their cockpit radios.

The song's lyrics feature various Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Sanskrit loan-words, such as sharif, bedouin, sheikh, kosher, rāga, muezzin, minaret, and casbah.

Bernie Rhodes

According to the album notes in the box set The Clash on Broadway, "Rock the Casbah" originated when the band's manager Bernie Rhodes, after hearing them record an inordinately long track for the album, asked them facetiously "does everything have to be as long as this rāga?" (referring to the Indian musical style known for its length and complexity). Joe Strummer later wrote the opening lines to the song: "The King told the boogie-men 'you have to let that rāga drop.'" The rest of the lyrics soon followed.

The instrumental opening was a tune that drummer Topper Headon had written on the piano some time earlier and had toyed with during rehearsals before being incorporated into the song. In the 2000 documentary Westway to the World, Headon said he played drums, bass and piano on the record for the song. Headon claims that, while he thought he was merely playing the song for the band, his performances were recorded without his knowledge. All that was left to record were the guitar parts and the vocals. However, in The Future Is Unwritten (a documentary on Strummer), he states that he was in the studio waiting for the rest of the band to come to record, got sick of waiting, so recorded the parts himself.

Joe Strummer wrote the lyrics about an Arab ruler (the
Shereef) who hates music, but is defied by the citizens
and even his own air force.
Strummer was inspired by a news report of Iranians
who were flogged for owning Disco albums.

The Clash made low-budget music videos for several of their songs, and the one for "Rock the Casbah" may be their most memorable. Filmed in Austin, Texas, it depicts an Arab and a Hasidic Jew befriending each other on the road and skanking together through the streets to a Clash concert at Austin's City Coliseum, often followed by an armadillo, interspersed with the band performing in front of an oil well.

The U.S. Air Force became an unwitting participant in the video. Two RF-4C aircraft landing at Bergstrom Air Force Base (near Austin) from the east are featured in the portion of the video with the lyrics "the King called out his jetfighters..."

McDonnell Douglas RF-4C-43-MC

The single version has more pronounced bass. Also when Joe Strummer screams "The crowd caught a whiff / Of that crazy casbah jive" at the end of the third verse the word "jive" is sustained for several seconds with digital delay. Additionally, the sound effects of the jet fighters in the last verse are lower in the mix, particularly just after "drop your bombs between the minarets." The single version of the song is what is played in the music video.

“Casbah” (also spelled “Qasbah” or “Kasbah”) refers to walled areas in many North African towns, especially the one in Algiers.
This cache is NOT on the airport-side of
 Road 42, but across from it.

This is also the location of the long-gone
 Skyway Drive-In Theatre and the cache
that i have as a dedication to that
drive-in theatre can be found here:
(OCH) The Skyway Drive-In Theatre
 http://coord.info/GC489GB

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Gur Pynfu'f 1982 Uvg

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)


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