CBS promo video shoot, Dunstable - date unknown

updated 22 December 2014

Live video shoot

This was a live studio video shoot and casual interview with Tony Parsons. The songs played were White Riot, Remote Control and Londons Burning, the latter being remixed making it onto the B-side of Remote Control.

Video - Soundsystem Box Set DVD

Filmed by Julian Temple?

A good listing of the contents of the The Clash's Sound System box set can be found here.

White Riot Interview 7:10
Promo and interviews with Tony Parsons
1977 1:87
White Riot 1:48
Londons Burning 2:05

Previous video releases:

The Essential Clash DVD [June 2002]

Full unedited in original format. This supercedes all other sources until Soundsystem release.

The original video has backing vocals for Londons Burning and White Riot and all of the video footage is oincluded on the DVD The Essential Clash.

The Sound on the DVD is as good as it can be and is worth having. The remixed White Riot on CoB4 is very good.

The entire video footage, with interviews can be found on the DVD, The Esssential Clash. All other sources are inferior and contain nothing extra.

The band set up an artificial live stage in a studio and power through 3 songs, designed to showcase the band and have a visual presence available to promote the band.

Remixed Audio on the video

White Riot was later remixed with the backing vocals dropped, and with 1977, was nearly included on Broadway Box Set. However they now circulate on the bootleg CD Clash on Broadway 4 - The Outakes.

Audio - Clash on Broadway 4 - The Outakes

Remixed versions of White Riot and 1977

Audio - Remote Control 7" Single B-Side

Londons Burning

Film - The Future is Unwritten - Julian Temple

Film explores the good and bad of Joe Strummer
by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio
November 9, 2007

When Joe Strummer, the leader of the British punk rock band The Clash died, the news echoed around the world. The suddenness of Strummer's death left many fans who had followed his turbulent career with unresolved questions about music, fame, and idealism. A new documentary called, "Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten," tries to find some of the answers.

In the late 1970s, Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols became the safety pin-pierced icons of British punk in the popular media. But for fans, the godfather was Joe Strummer, snarling away at the head of The Clash.

Strummer's voice and guitar helped define The Clash sound -- songs of protest and rage, about inequality and injustice. They were the songs of disaffected youth living in Margaret Thatcher's Britain.

Julian Temple

At the time Julian Temple was a film student, swept up in the excitement of the early punk rock scene.

"I was filming with the Sex Pistols and saw The Clash, and became very excited about the idea of filming them as well," Temple says. "That's how I finally met Joe."

It was Julian Temple who arranged the first studio recording for The Clash.

"On the Sunday evening when we knew the gatekeeper was down at the pub, we smuggled the band's van into the film school and onto the old movie sound stage that was part of these old movie studios where film school was based. That was the first time The Clash recorded anything in the studio," Temple says.

"There was a sense of wanting to heal some feelings that we had about Joe, because we never gave him a proper memorial, in terms of a concert or anything like that." - Julien Temple

The video

Temple captured Joe Strummer roaring his way through the vocal track of White Riot, the band's anthem of bored teen anger. It's a raw demonstration of Strummer's power as a performer.

Temple and Strummer became friends. He says Strummer always had something interesting or challenging to say. It was a friendship that lasted for the rest of Strummer's life.

The Sex Pistols imploded after about a year, but The Clash, with Strummer at the forefront, quickly built an international audience, even breaking into the U.S. mainstream with Rock the Casbah.

Temple says that while The Clash enjoyed the early flush of fame, it began wearing on the band, and especially Strummer. He wasn't a saint, and he rubbed a lot of people the wrong way over the years.

But Temple says Strummer remained idealistic.

"And I think that gave him a sense of only wanting to be famous because he had something he felt was important to say," says Temple.

After 10 years it was The Clash's turn to implode, and Strummer drifted for a while. He was on his way back with his new band, the Mescalaros, when he died of a heart attack. Julian Temple, who is now a name in music and film, says many people felt wounded by his death.

"There was a sense of wanting to heal some feelings that we had about Joe, because we never gave him a proper memorial, in terms of a concert or anything like that," he says.

The Future is Unwritten - Bonfires

Temple decided to make a film. He had footage from all through The Clash's career, but he needed to get people to look back and say what The Clash meant to them.

To do that, he arranged bonfires and taped interviews as people sat around to reminisce and argue, something Strummer himself loved to do.

What is amazing is who turned up. There are friends, family and people who attended the early concerts. There are also celebrities like Martin Scorcese, Johnny Depp and Bono of U2, whose first ever concert was seeing The Clash.

"There was a violence in the air," Bono says. "I was terrified. I was excited, and rock and roll was not entertainment in that moment. It was not a matter of life and death, something much more serious."

Everyone sits in the dark, their faces lit and sometimes obscured by the flames, talking about Joe Strummer. Temple doesn't name them, though. He says there are so many, it would be like reading a book. And he likes the egalitarianism, and the challenge to see if the audience can differentiate the aging stars from the ordinary people.

He thinks Joe Strummer would have approved.

Book: Marcus Grays "Last Gang Town in Town"

p307 &
extensive notes in The "Return of the Last Gang Town in Town" p230

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Setlist

1 2 3	1977 1:87 White Riot 1:48 Londons Burning 2:05