Geary Temple known as The Fillmore
The Geary Temple was an old synagogue at 1839 Geary St, near The Fillmore club at 1805 Geary St. on the corner of Fillmore and Geary St. They are 2 different buildings. The Temple was torn down and is now a post office.
Pearl Harbour Tour supported by Bo Diddley, Zeros & Negative Trend.
updated 30 March 2003
updated 2 Jan 2009 - added new master source
updated 5 Jan 2010 - updated exact venue info
updated 13 April 2011 - added new poster
updated 7 Nov 2015 - added new better alt master source
updated 2 Sept 2016 with better audio information & added 3rd master
handbill / flyer
High resolution
.jpg)
Audio 1
Unknown - Sound 2.5 - 57mins - ? gen - 18 tracks
Copied widely circulated version
Audio 2 - master
Sound 3.5 - 1hr - 18 tracks
Audio 3 - 2nd alternate master
- recorded from balcony - Sound 3.5 - 1hr 2mins - 18 tracks
Not to dissimialr to the 1st master
Audio 4
unknown - 60 minutes - 18 tracks
Video
Not in circulation. See below.
Older Audio 1 Recording
This recording is of 3rd or 4th generation coming to the UK from a west coast Clash fan in the early 80’s (i.e. a separate source to anyone else's so its difficult compare with what’s in circulation.)
Unfortunately a poor quality cheap tape was used which has meant a reduction in sound quality. However it’s still an enjoyable audience recording of a brilliant performance; the earliest US live Clash in circulation. There is little distortion and some slight speed problems - runs a little too fast. It has a good even mix, though the bass is only marginally recognisable as par for an average audience recording. It has a nice reasonable range as well, which improves the quality a lot.
Its flaws are the distance of the recorder from the band, which produces a touch of echo and loss of clarity. Sound improves a touch from Stay Free. The recording is complete with no song edits. Vocals come through best and with the volume cranked up it’s very enjoyable.
Newer Master Audio 2
Running some 5 minutes longer this master is just a clearer being the master, though only a few copies less than the older version the difference is not huge.
Footage of The Clash in SF '79
by BR16ADE_R055E on 20 Jun 2008, 6:01pm
Last night I attended the Target Video show at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley (http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/film/FN17017). There was a lot of great footage from the '70s & early '80s (Dead Kennedys, Flipper, Black Flag, X, The Nuns, Avengers, The Mutants, Bush Tetras, Siouxsie & The Banshees, etc.), most of which I had never seen before. Target was selling t-shirts (I bought one) in the lobby, and on the back of the t-shirt are logos of bands Target filmed, including The Clash.
I asked Target Video's Joe Rees when and where he filmed The Clash. He replied: a couple of shows, including Geary Temple in San Francisco '79 and at the Target studio on Van Ness. I asked him if the Geary Temple footage was ever released on video in the early '80s, and he said "yes," but I've never heard of that release. One would think it would've showed up on bootleg videos/DVDs, on YouTube, etc., and also Graham doesn't mention the existence of the footage on BMC. It must've been available for a very limited time in '84 when Target Video started releasing videos. Anyway, I told Joe that I hope that Target Video's footage of The Clash will be released on DVD.
Target Video's site: http://www.targetvideo.net
Target Video's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/targetvideo
Footage of The Clash in SF '79unknownLast night I attended the Target Video show at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley link here. There was a lot of great footage from the '70s & early '80s (Dead Kennedys, Flipper, Black Flag, X, The Nuns, Avengers, The Mutants, Bush Tetras, Siouxsie & The Banshees, etc.), most of which I had never seen before. Target was selling t-shirts (I bought one) in the lobby, and on the back of the t-shirt are logos of bands Target filmed, including The Clash.I asked Target Video's Joe Rees when and where he filmed The Clash. He replied: a couple of shows, including Geary Temple in San Francisco '79 and at the Target studio on Van Ness. I asked him if the Geary Temple footage was ever released on video in the early '80s, and he said "yes," but I've never heard of that release. One would think it would've showed up on bootleg videos/DVDs, on YouTube, etc., and also Graham doesn't mention the existence of the footage on BMC. It must've been available for a very limited time in '84 when Target Video started releasing videos. Anyway, I told Joe that I hope that Target Video's footage of The Clash will be released on DVD.Target Video's site:
http://www.targetvideo.net
Target Video's MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/targetvideo
Debut US Tour
Fresh from recording at Wessex Studios the Rude Boy overdubs and the Cost of Living EP The Clash tour the States for the first time in the now historic Pearl Harbour tour. A band with a mission to “resuscitate a barely breathing US rock scene”, their target the “music to drive by” of Foreigner, Boston etc, etc.
Continuing problems with CBS meant they refused to finance a tour and their US CBS label, Epic reluctantly put up $30,000 and provided little promotion or back up. By way of illustration Epic called it the much less provocative Give ‘Em Enough Rope tour. Epic were horrified at the choice of Bo Diddley as support but The Clash united without Bernie and fired up were determined to do their first US tour their way. Rope had sold 50,000 copies already and 'The Clash' was then the largest selling US import.
The Clash played 9 concerts, and there are recordings of all but the first 2 in circulation.
Flying into Vancouver on January 30th they played a memorable warm up gig there the next night, which went down so well, they played 3 encores, and got canned off stage. Topper’s head was split open in 3 places and in the frenzy Joe split his arm open slashing his guitar strings. The cue for the famous Strummer guard of gaffer tape.
Onto the ex Dolly Parton bus and the long drive down to San Francisco and the least memorable gig of the tour at Berkeley Community Centre on February 7th. Joe “we shouldn’t have played here. It’s a university town. They’re boring snobs”. The energy went all one way with the audience polite and restrained. Billy Graham had the San Francisco rock scene tied up but New Youth, a fledgling organisation had been set up with the aim to keep ticket prices down and find places for new bands to play.
Hearing of this The Clash arranged, against manager Caroline Coon’s advice to play a benefit for them the next night. The venue was The Geary Temple [see poster below], an old synagogue next to the Fillmore. Sylvie Simmons in Sounds (link) wrote tickets were half the price of the Berkeley gig, with no seats in a “moth eaten synagogue, next door to Jim Jones People’s Temple, tacky but majestic, a great venue”. “We’re in church”, shouts Joe from the stage!
Epic were unhappy; this was not part of the official tour, so it was billed as “White Riot in the Fillmore with the best band ever direct from England”. An accurate description as The Clash were “electrifying” (Simmons), a storming gig from the second the band ran onto a disintegrating stage” (Johnny Green) and the best of the tour yet (The Clash). Joe was inspired, climbing from the stage into an opera box, waving and twitching manically.
Corbis has many excellent Roger Ressmeyer live photos credited to this gig.
Photo 4 (here): Left to right: Joe Strummer, Maati Stojanovich, and J Neo Marvin, backstage at the Berkeley Community Theatre. (Photo by Annie Hesse) I'm asking him how the chorus to "Last Gang In Town" goes.
Photo 5 (here)..., - 6 (here)..,, - 7 (here)...: The former site of Jim Jones' People's Temple on Geary St. This was an underground show put on by a group of punks called New Youth. The Clash were a lot more inspired and spirited here than they'd been in Berkeley. The crowd was fairly wild, ourselves included.
[photos 1-3 Berkely Community Centre previous night]
The gig like all the Pearl Harbour tour blasts off with I’m So Bored With The USA, another explosive Clash set opener. Joe changes some of the lyrics to suit the location “down in Hollywood…”. All the performances are strong: Joe fired up and Mick inventive in his lead guitar work.
The Pearl Harbour tour has a punkier/r’n’b guitar feel than the more heavy rock Pearlman influenced sound of the Sort It Out tour. Joe inexplicably talks about “monkey wine, why do you whine” before an excellent Whiteman with an extended finale. Hate and War is now back in the set. Mick acknowledges “we’ve had a nice time in San Francisco” and Joe jokes “pay special attention to the guitarists fingers” as Mick plays the delicate slow intro to Capital Radio. This song is extended in a similar vein to the Cost of Living EP version they had recently recorded at Wessex Studios and is the highlight of the set. Joe mimics a record company exec/DJ giving advice on how he should sing.
Janie Jones is brilliantly intense and The Clash charge through to White Riot with the audience roaring their approval.
4 photos above copyright Dave Seabury
Did you go? What do you remember?
Info, articles, reviews, comments or photos welcome.
Please email blackmarketclash
The CLASH in San Francisco
The Clash played their first show in the US on February 7, 1979 at the Berkeley Community Theater. Bo Diddley opened for The Clash that night. On the following night, February 8th, The Clash played a benefit gig at for New Yooth in the Fillmore.
I have an original flyer from that show and will make copies of it for anyone that has other Clash flyers to trade. You can send me an email to mailto:jchensf@yahoo.com.
I was working for the sound company at UC Berkeley and was given a stack of flyers to post around campus. I just found them after almost 30 years. The Clash also did an album signing at the Tower Records on Durant. I got my album and record sleeve signed by both Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon. Years later, I also got Sandy Pearlman (who produced the album) to sign the record for me. I also found my ticket from the show ($5.50), three reviews from the newspapers, a listing of shows from Bill Graham Presents (The Clash, Elvis Costello, and The Police all within a month) and a newspaper clipping of Joe's death. The flyer is a very RARE document from The Clash's original assault on the United States.
We turned up the following night and Mick was delighted to find we were playing at the old Filmore West, a fine, ramshackle wooden building. The people running it were ramshackle as well. I warned the band about the Acid Test. Who better for a spiker than a star catch? The stage would not have passed our London health and safety man. Who cared? The joint was jumping as Coon muttered darkly about the ‘ramifications’. The lack of organization was made up for by enthusiasm. It was a astorming gig from the second the band ran on to the disintegrating stage. The Clash rocked out and the crowd was with them. Joe’s delirium showed. He climbed from the stage into an opera box, waving and twitching.
Wheeling down the freeway later, we agreed we had don eit right, happily discussing our free show.”
From “A Riot of Our Own, Night and Day with The Clash”
By Johnny Green and Garry Barker
Joe: This is Frisco, right? That wild show we did for that new youth movement… a charity show for this youth organization. It was kind of like a squatters’ beatnik neighbourhood scenario, this.
Bob: In San Francisco the group played a benefit gig for the homeless. There was a lot of trouble with Bill Graham over that - Graham was promoting the official San Francisco concert, but they had this alternative gig going on as well. It’s interesting that the first show The Clash played in the USA was a benefit.
Caroline: Part of the policy in every town to which we went - and to persuade the record company of this was a nightmare - was to play a benefit gig for whichever youth group in the town needed a benefit, and then do the commercial gig. We tried to do it as often as possible, and get the local bands to play as well.
Mick: We played a benefit at the Temp, next door to Jim Jones’s temple - the guy who went out to take Kool Aid with his followers in Guyana. There was lots of trouble with that, because Bill Graham didn’t want us to do it. It was great that night.
When we first went to San Francisco, Joe and I, we went to that place where we played the benefit, and it was like the last vestiges of a real hippie night: with a little imagination you could see what it must have been like.
From “The Clash. Photographs by Bob Gruen”
By Bob Gruen
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There are several sights that provide setlists but most mirror www.blackmarketclash.co.uk. They are worth checking.
from Setlist FM (cannot be relied on)
from Songkick (cannot be relied on)
... both have lists of people who say they went
& from the newer Concert Database
Also useful: Ultimate Music datbase, All Music, Clash books at DISCOGS
If you know of any articles or references for this particular gig, anything that is missing, please do let us know.
French clipping US SanFran debut
The Clash : Live in San Francisco
Roadrunner 2 - 3 April 1979
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Photos from gig courtesy of
www.jneomarvin.com/
4.. 5.. 6.. 7..
DIY style, for the kids The Clash 79
archived PDF
A Riot of Our Own pg137
A collection of articles, interviews, reviews, posters, tour dates from the Clash's first US Tour covering the period of the Pearl Harbour Tour.
Toronto Interview 2-20-79 Paul Topper Canada
part 1 - (5mins)
part 20 - (5mins)
Candian Radio Interview (20mins)
Toronto - 20 February 1979
The Clash 1979 Canadian TV backstage interview
Complete interview segment of the Clash backstage at the O'Keefe Centre in Toronto, Canada with the Undertones which was originally broadcast on CITY TV's New Music Program in 1979.
The New Music was hosted by J.D. Roberts (aka CNN's John Roberts) and Jeanne Bekker (later host of Fashion Television). This clip includes the infamous concert aftermath with Cosmo Vinyl counting the ripped out seats at the venue.
This rare interview was shown/re-broadcast during the Joe Strummer death coverage.
Bo Diddley talks about his experiences opening for the Clash on their 1979 US Tour. This interview took place in November 2002 at the Rock Nightclub in Maplewood, Minnesota.
Bo Diddley opening for the Clash At Ontario Theatre, Washington DC
A collection of articles, interviews, reviews, posters, tour dates from the Clash's first US Tour covering the period of the Pearl Harbour Tour.
If you know any please let us know
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The best Clash messageboard and which also has links to downloads on its megalists
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Go here for uploads and downloads. It's not a massive space so its on an as and when basis.
Contact your local library here and see if they can help.
If you are searching for articles in the USA - DPLA Find the local US library link here
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Explore the British Library Link (free to UK users - ask if you find something)
Trove - Australia National Library Link (free)
The Official Clash
Search @theclash & enter search in search box. Place, venue, etc
Clash City Collectors - excellent
Facebook Page - for Clash Collectors to share unusual & interesting items like..Vinyl. Badges, Posters, etc anything by the Clash. Search Clash City Collectors & enter search in search box. Place, venue, etc
Clash on Parole - excellent
Facebook page - The only page that matters
Search Clash on Parole & enter search in the search box. Place, venue, etc
Clash City Snappers
Anything to do with The Clash. Photos inspired by lyrics, song titles, music, artwork, members, attitude, rhetoric,haunts,locations etc, of the greatest and coolest rock 'n' roll band ever.Tributes to Joe especially wanted. Pictures of graffitti, murals, music collections, memorabilia all welcome. No limit to postings. Don't wait to be invited, just join and upload.
Search Flickr / Clash City Snappers
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I saw The Clash at Bonds - excellent
Facebook page - The Clash played a series of 17 concerts at Bond's Casino in New York City in May and June of 1981 in support of their album Sandinista!. Due to their wide publicity, the concerts became an important moment in the history of the Clash. Search I Saw The Clash at Bonds & enter search in red box. Place, venue, etc
Loving the Clash
Facebook page - The only Clash page that is totally dedicated to the last gang in town. Search Loving The Clash & enter search in the search box. Place, venue, etc
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Images on the offical Clash site. http://www.theclash.com/gallery
www.theclash.com/ (all images via google).
Images on the offical Clash site. site:http://www.theclash.com/
