Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

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TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:
14 Dec 2020, 9:36pm
I don’t exactly know yet. Mick liked the Mag 7 video.
Yes I did too. It was nicely edited and the footage was superb. Clash heaven for me.
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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by Kory »

TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:
14 Dec 2020, 7:21pm
I don’t expect a “concert DVD”.
That's too bad. The footage is obviously great, and it's such a shame that it should just sit unused for eternity. If anything, why not edit a complete show together and just release it for streaming or something. Sonyyyyyyyyyyy (shakes fist)!
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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by crashtheparty »

TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:
14 Dec 2020, 7:21pm
A few things:

All the 1981 footage has now been transferred. It was not before. There is a lot aside from what is described in Graham’s post.

I don’t expect a “concert DVD”.

Don and the Clash have little/nought to do with whatever Julien did with his Strummer doc, aside from licensing them music. Sorry for whatever misuse they made of you, Graham.
It would be great if the general Clash On Broadway as was intended at the time was resurrected. So not just a concert dvd taking us through a full set (who am I kidding, I’d be happy with that), instead a cool film with footage of the band and city, capturing the vibe of that time that influenced the music that was to come. It’s of great music and cultural significance, the mixing of styles and the vast mix of support acts they involved and encouraged. Sold to Sky arts as a music documentary for distribution or whatever. I’d be happy with that (anything). That’s just my two cents as a lifelong fan not in their 50s/60s (early 30s) as is so often referred to in these discussions.

In any event, I’m glad to hear it’s all been transferred now and the footage is preserved.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by Conrad »

Hello, great forum here, I rarely post but read frequently. the Bonds footage and the Strummer/Jones compositions for the "new clash album" in 2002 are my personal holy grail as a long time fan. Regarding this Don Letts material, I would not entirely agree that it is of little commercial interest except for the original fans declining in number and becoming older (including myself, 50). After all, The Clash is an act with huge numbers on streaming services that were conceived and became popular when the band was 20 + years dead. I don't know what is included in these reels, but potentially a concert film set in New York with the band onstage and offstage could capture them at one of their peaks and could be appealing for new fans approaching the band. So my issue is, how much performed music is included in the Don's transfers ? My pessimism makes me thing there is much less than I hope for, but I really, really hope to be wrong. If it's just or mostly offstage, I am still interested but dont know about the larger audiences.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

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Conrad wrote:
16 Dec 2020, 12:10pm
Hello, great forum here, I rarely post but read frequently. the Bonds footage and the Strummer/Jones compositions for the "new clash album" in 2002 are my personal holy grail as a long time fan. Regarding this Don Letts material, I would not entirely agree that it is of little commercial interest except for the original fans declining in number and becoming older (including myself, 50). After all, The Clash is an act with huge numbers on streaming services that were conceived and became popular when the band was 20 + years dead. I don't know what is included in these reels, but potentially a concert film set in New York with the band onstage and offstage could capture them at one of their peaks and could be appealing for new fans approaching the band. So my issue is, how much performed music is included in the Don's transfers ? My pessimism makes me thing there is much less than I hope for, but I really, really hope to be wrong. If it's just or mostly offstage, I am still interested but dont know about the larger audiences.
I think I remember reading at least two gigs were filmed with multi camera shots as they had to wear the same clothes for continuity purposes.
There's a tiny, tiny hopeful part of me that says you guys are running a Kaufmanesque long con on the board

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

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This thread reminded me about that guy with the Monterey footage. I just emailed him to see if he's willing to part with the footage. Last reached out to him in 2013. Let's see if he's as quirky as before.
Look, you have to establish context for these things. And I maintain that unless you appreciate the Fall of Constantinople, the Great Fire of London, and Mickey Mantle's fatalist alcoholism, live Freddy makes no sense. If you want to half-ass it, fine, go call Simon Schama to do the appendix.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by crashtheparty »

Heston wrote:
16 Dec 2020, 12:33pm
Conrad wrote:
16 Dec 2020, 12:10pm
Hello, great forum here, I rarely post but read frequently. the Bonds footage and the Strummer/Jones compositions for the "new clash album" in 2002 are my personal holy grail as a long time fan. Regarding this Don Letts material, I would not entirely agree that it is of little commercial interest except for the original fans declining in number and becoming older (including myself, 50). After all, The Clash is an act with huge numbers on streaming services that were conceived and became popular when the band was 20 + years dead. I don't know what is included in these reels, but potentially a concert film set in New York with the band onstage and offstage could capture them at one of their peaks and could be appealing for new fans approaching the band. So my issue is, how much performed music is included in the Don's transfers ? My pessimism makes me thing there is much less than I hope for, but I really, really hope to be wrong. If it's just or mostly offstage, I am still interested but dont know about the larger audiences.
I think I remember reading at least two gigs were filmed with multi camera shots as they had to wear the same clothes for continuity purposes.
This is from blackmarketclash.co.uk:

From the Julian Temple film researcher: Don hasn't yet ID'd the film boxes (03/2015).

Kevin Bud Jones: that was hired by Don Letts to help shouting The Clash on Broadway docufilm: "We shot one complete show with multiple cameras and a 24 track mobile recorder. We also shot most of every show with one camera and in house 8 track recording. The band wore the same gear every night and Topper was such a consistent drummer - and the band well rehearsed - that we were able to build edits from different nights with no trouble at all."‬ (03/2015)" There are around 36 tapes in all, each of which would cost at least £500 per tape to transfer (the prohibitive cost is why the filmakers didn't have this material transferred at the time) - it's on a rare early video format called EIAJ.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by TeddyB Not Logged In »

crashtheparty wrote:
16 Dec 2020, 6:23am
TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:
14 Dec 2020, 7:21pm
A few things:

All the 1981 footage has now been transferred. It was not before. There is a lot aside from what is described in Graham’s post.

I don’t expect a “concert DVD”.

Don and the Clash have little/nought to do with whatever Julien did with his Strummer doc, aside from licensing them music. Sorry for whatever misuse they made of you, Graham.
It would be great if the general Clash On Broadway as was intended at the time was resurrected. So not just a concert dvd taking us through a full set (who am I kidding, I’d be happy with that), instead a cool film with footage of the band and city, capturing the vibe of that time that influenced the music that was to come. It’s of great music and cultural significance, the mixing of styles and the vast mix of support acts they involved and encouraged. Sold to Sky arts as a music documentary for distribution or whatever. I’d be happy with that (anything). That’s just my two cents as a lifelong fan not in their 50s/60s (early 30s) as is so often referred to in these discussions.

In any event, I’m glad to hear it’s all been transferred now and the footage is preserved.

Something in this direction would be my would be my choice as well. I am not privy as to any decision having yet been taken.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by BR16ADE_R055E »

matedog wrote:
16 Dec 2020, 2:32pm
This thread reminded me about that guy with the Monterey footage. I just emailed him to see if he's willing to part with the footage. Last reached out to him in 2013. Let's see if he's as quirky as before.
DD!

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by Blackmarketclash »

TeddyB Not Logged In wrote:
14 Dec 2020, 7:21pm
A few things:

All the 1981 footage has now been transferred. It was not before. There is a lot aside from what is described in Graham’s post.

I don’t expect a “concert DVD”.

Don and the Clash have little/nought to do with whatever Julien did with his Strummer doc, aside from licensing them music. Sorry for whatever misuse they made of you, Graham.

I concur. Their message to me was they converted a few reels out of the 36. “Too expensive”.

They weren’t labelled at the time either - which was confirmed afterwards. I think TFIU had limited interest anyway. Just a few various seconds here and there ticked their editorial box. Nothing specific.

When you think about the time saved through us providing numerous never to be found otherwise contacts, the structure, research and chronology etc and when they had what they want, they were no longer interested.

Whether I could have got to the premiere is another thing, I didn’t even get asked or notified.

After some badgering of them, I sent them a hard disc and they sent some material but it’s all copyrighted so can’t see the light of day but the promise to provide us with the legacy research (contracts they’d discovered) never materialised.

My inclination is that they got the material they wanted from the info we have provided and they didn’t get much further. They had enough.

I don’t know about these reels but if someone has transferred 36 reels of material that must equate to 12-20 hours of footage?

What I saw was repetitive. Like 20 minutes, camera pointing to the floor and the band mumbling orTopper incessantly tapping away. There were some interesting moments and clipped back would make a good longer film or series of done well. I’m not confident about that because we hold material that is rare and we’ve not been approached. Unless we are being skimmed again?

I’ll certainly find whatever is produced very interesting and look forward to its release. If they take any advice from this thread then the audience is smaller and more sincere. Quantity as well as quality are required.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by Blackmarketclash »

BR16ADE_R055E wrote:
16 Dec 2020, 7:44pm
matedog wrote:
16 Dec 2020, 2:32pm
This thread reminded me about that guy with the Monterey footage. I just emailed him to see if he's willing to part with the footage. Last reached out to him in 2013. Let's see if he's as quirky as before.
DD!
I think he gave TFIU some footage but TFIU declined to give it to us breaking a promise to do so if we handed over the email details. Back then his email details were not on the site.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by TeddyB Not Logged In »

Thanks Graham. I tend to doubt Don is looking for any material he doesn’t already have and I don’t imagine he has any researchers or the like. This is in house, unlike TFIU, of which I was not a fan. He has been working on it now for a while, since Sony finally ponied up to transfer all the footage. What exactly comes of it we will have to wait and see.

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by JohnS »

Backtracking a bit, it's interesting now what channels/media are open to release a film. I got an email about Juiien Temple's new doc about Shane McGowan 'Crock of Gold' (which I want to see, the trailer is great) and a link 'how to watch the movie' which brings up a selection of options:
Renting or buying outright via Amazon Prime video, Apple, Google Play, Sky...
Renting via a couple of arthouse cinema websites (BFI and Curzon)...
Buying the DVD (amazon and hmv).... Sky also offer a DVD+CD package.
And that excludes any cinema screenings, which are limited right now of course but would normally yield a bit of income.
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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by Marky Dread »

JohnS wrote:
17 Dec 2020, 9:10am
Backtracking a bit, it's interesting now what channels/media are open to release a film. I got an email about Juiien Temple's new doc about Shane McGowan 'Crock of Gold' (which I want to see, the trailer is great) and a link 'how to watch the movie' which brings up a selection of options:
Renting or buying outright via Amazon Prime video, Apple, Google Play, Sky...
Renting via a couple of arthouse cinema websites (BFI and Curzon)...
Buying the DVD (amazon and hmv).... Sky also offer a DVD+CD package.
And that excludes any cinema screenings, which are limited right now of course but would normally yield a bit of income.
Yeah I wish there were a few more options to view "Crock of Gold". I would like an option where they perform the whole thing live in my backyard. Spoilt or what? :mrgreen:
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Forces have been looting
My humanity
Curfews have been curbing
The end of liberty


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No fuchsias for you.

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Nos Sumus Una Familia

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Re: Unseen Clash Footage From Don Letts

Post by blureu »

What is the DVD+CD package?

There have been many articles on the film over the past month. I found this one to have some interesting quotes.

https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-re ... w/12984580


JohnS wrote:
17 Dec 2020, 9:10am
Backtracking a bit, it's interesting now what channels/media are open to release a film. I got an email about Juiien Temple's new doc about Shane McGowan 'Crock of Gold' (which I want to see, the trailer is great) and a link 'how to watch the movie' which brings up a selection of options:
Renting or buying outright via Amazon Prime video, Apple, Google Play, Sky...
Renting via a couple of arthouse cinema websites (BFI and Curzon)...
Buying the DVD (amazon and hmv).... Sky also offer a DVD+CD package.
And that excludes any cinema screenings, which are limited right now of course but would normally yield a bit of income.

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