Coming Sept. 21: The Clash's "London Calling" with 21 outtakes and DVD

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.icemagazine.com/stories/210/clash.shtm



Some albums evolve into classics. But The Clash’s London Calling was born that way. At least that’s the evidence offered by 21 recently unearthed demos that Mick Jones, Paul Simonon, Topper Headon and the late Joe Strummer recorded on a Teac four-track in spring 1979 at Vanilla, a makeshift rehearsal space housed in the back room of a Pimlico, London car-repair shop. These raw, previously unreleased performances are the bonus-track bonanza of Epic/Legacy’s expanded two-CD London Calling: 25th Anniversary Edition, due September 21.

The original 19-track album, a double-LP punk landmark that Rolling Stone proclaimed the best album of the ’80s, will be presented on Disc One (a Legacy spokesman tells ICE that the disc has been mastered from the same upgraded source used for the 2000 reissue). "The Vanilla Tapes" — which include work-in-progress snapshots of 15 of the final album’s tunes and five songs that never resurfaced — fill Disc Two. A bonus DVD then features the videos for "Train in Vain," "London Calling" and "Clampdown," plus a new 40-minute "making of" documentary created by director Don Letts.

Rounding out "The Vanilla Tapes" are unissued performances that Jones says he barely remembers attempting: the raging "Heart and Mind," about the inner conflict of right and wrong ("We didn’t like it much," Jones recalls, "but it sounds better now than it did back then"); a reggae number called "Where You Gonna Go (Soweto)" ("Funny that one — we don’t know who wrote it," Jones says. "We might have"); a tongue-in-cheek country weeper called "Lonesome Me"; a loping cover of Bob Dylan’s "The Man in Me" ("That’s from New Morning, my favorite Dylan album"), modeled after an arrangement by British reggae heroes Matumbi; a warm-up romp through 1977’s "Remote Control," which the group had ceased performing in concert; and a blues instrumental titled "Walkin’ the Slidewalk."

The bonus DVD’s documentary, titled The Last Testament — The Making of London Calling, features interviews with all four band members. But the most revelatory material is previously unseen black-and-white footage of the eccentric Stevens (best known for his work with Mott the Hoople and Spooky Tooth) running amok in the studio, throwing chairs and taunting the band while tape is rolling.

[madrchsod]

1. i found a unscratched

lp of this album at my local thrift shop for 25 cents..but someone wrote on the cover!!! never have played it cause i don`t have a turntable. i`d really like to hear the teac 4 track on vinyl not that shitty cd sound...

[NWHarkness]

2. I heard Clampdown on the radio this afternoon

Great song, but it's kind of sad how appropriate it still is in these times.