The Clash-Essential Clash (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Booklet Menu Animation & Audio Custom Play Featurette-Hell W10 (49:31) Featurette-Promo Footage (1976) (3) (7:09) Discography Bonus Track-I Fought The Law (Live) (2:20) Featurette-Interview Clip (1976) (2:58)
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	49:21 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Sony Music Sony Music	Starring	Joe Strummer Mick Jones Paul Simonon Topper Headon
Case	PUSH-DV-18
RPI	$24.95	Music	The Clash

    Coming straight after reviewing a look into perhaps the most influential punk album ever, it seems very appropriate to be looking at the band that perhaps most epitomises the heights of the punk genre. As you will have gathered from various ramblings during reviews, not only do I consider The Clash the epitome of the punk genre, but indeed the epitome of rock - no ifs, no buts, no maybes. Accordingly, just about everything they ever did was essential. However, the title being applied to this release is not necessarily the appropriate one.

    One of the big problems in trying to put together a video programme called Essential Clash is that the band never embraced the television medium and therefore there is very little in the way of music videos of the band. To put together such a programme means the use of live performances, and that proves rather limiting in some respects. That is perhaps no more evidenced than the fact that this "essential" programme runs for just over forty nine minutes. The equivalently titled compact disc release runs to a couple of hours - and still misses plenty that I would consider the essence of the Essential Clash. Still, nothing they ever did was anything less than essential (except perhaps the contents of the extras package here and most of their last album Cut The Crap). Still, this video collation does gather together the very few music videos they made and fleshes out the programme with often raw live performances.

    As an "essential" look at The Clash this sadly falls down in just about every way, and is in no way preferable to the earlier The Clash - Westway To The World. Sure, the mere fact that anything of The Clash on DVD is a real bonus, this will only be of interest to fans of the band. The less devoted or the non-interested will really find nothing here to make the journey worthwhile.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and it is of course not 16x9 enhanced.

    There is something of a variety in the clips included here, but at least they have something in common: they are not amongst the best stuff you will ever see. Sharpness is rather variable, ranging from pretty good to pretty average, but this entirely reflects the source material used. Shadow detail is rather average in most respects but this is not unexpected in most of the footage - the lighting on some of the live material is not well captured, and on some of the other is plainly inadequate. Definition is average too, whilst some of the material is rather grainy.

    Like most other aspects of the programme, the colour is all over the place, too. Ranging from average to bloody poor, this really is not the prettiest transfer you will ever see. Aside from the flaring that afflicts some of the clips, there is ample evidence of washed-out colours as well as oversaturation. Sure, I appreciate that the source material is anything up to twenty seven years old, but my recollections of some of the source material upon initial release (Rock The Casbah) was that it was never that great looking anyway. Accordingly, what we have here is probably no worse than I should have expected - but that does not diminish the disappointment.

    There is nothing really obvious in the way of MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There are also few obvious instances of film-to-video artefacting in the transfer. There are, however, plenty of film artefacts floating around, with the usual array of specks and nicks joined by what appears to be mildew on at least one clip (Bankrobber).

    This is a Dual Layered, single sided DVD, presumably with the programme on one layer and the extras on the other.

    There are no subtitle options on the DVD.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two soundtracks on the DVD, being the default English Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack and an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. Let me see: Sony DVD and a six channel soundtrack - not a happy combination in my experience. In some ways I wish I had not checked out the six channel soundtrack, for I was very happy with the two channel...

    The dialogue and vocals come up quite well in the soundtrack, and there appears to be little indication of audio sync problems in the soundtrack.

    I really have no complaints at all about the Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. There is something of a variability in the soundtrack owing to the variety of source material on offer, but you hardly register this as you enjoy the music. Whatever problems may be found here are more than likely source related rather than mastering related.

    If there was really nothing wrong with the Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack, what about the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack? Well, my initial reaction to the six channel effort was that someone had goofed and they had included the two channel soundtrack on the DVD twice. Whilst I normally whinge like crazy about the over-resonant bass that seems to be favoured by Sony engineers, I at least don't have that complaint here. The bass channel is still not perfectly handled within the overall mix, being a bit too prevalent at times, but that is perhaps more a result of the virtual absence of the surround channels in the mix. The comment I made in my notes during the review session was that the six channel soundtrack was a waste as time as there was bugger all surround channel activity. Whilst there are the odd spots where there is some obvious surround activity, a fair chunk of the time this really does sound distinctly two channel, front and centre. That really is not a good sign for a six channel soundtrack. Call this one a 2.1 soundtrack and you have a better description of what is on offer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    On the face of it there is a substantial package here but it is definitely a case of quantity over serious quality. Notwithstanding this, true believers will probably delight in most of this and those that don't believe ought to watch it anyway and become true believers.

Menu

    Some reasonable menu audio and animation certainly aids the overall menu presentation.

Booklet

    How on earth a band of the stature of The Clash can only merit three pages of notes defies belief - at least for the true believers. Better than nothing but nowhere near enough.

Custom Play

    A simple video selector that allows you to programme the videos to be played in the order that you choose.

Featurette - Hell W10 (49:31)

    During a break in 1983, the late Joe Strummer kept on working with a rather amateurish film about drugs and gangsters in London. With the band playing the main roles, crew, girlfriends and fans were roped in for the rest of the cast. With silent-era styled dialogue cards tossed into the mix, the film was not completed as the band went back on tour and it was supposedly lost. This presentation is derived from a rather ropey copy of the film found by a couple of fans at a car boot sale. It is presented here with a soundtrack comprising various recordings from The Clash archive. The film is presented in a Full Frame format that is obviously not 16x9 enhanced, and comes with the choice of Dolby Digital 2.0 or 5.1 sound. The source material itself is in fairly ropey condition with plenty of film artefacts on show. Many are far too prominent to be ignored and they certainly affect the potential enjoyment here. Another impediment to enjoyment is the fact that quite frankly the whole thing is crap. Think of something along the lines of the garbage that you see on shows like Funniest Home Videos and you have a rough idea of what to expect here. I suppose there is some importance to the film due to the fact that it is, after all, The Clash and it was made by the late Joe Strummer, but really and truly even a die-hard fan like myself finds little here to warrant the fifty minutes of my life being wasted.

Featurette - Promo Footage (1976) (7:09)

    Comprising three segments - 1977, White Riot and London Calling - this is an interesting compendium of live performances with some odd interview stuff tossed into the mix. Some of the footage is actually duplicated from the main programme, but it is nonetheless rather interesting. It is presented in a Full Frame format that is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Given the limitations of filming of live performances that are not often completely overcome even today, this is of quite good quality technically.

Discography

    A complete album discography, with the initial listing giving access to the details of the album (album cover and track listing) over which is played a song from the album. I love presentations like this one!

Bonus Track - I Fought The Law (Live) (2:20)

    Demonstrating that not everything involving the band needs to be poorly presented, this is technically pretty good. Presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, it is not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Short, and semi-sweet.

Featurette - Interview Clip (1976) (2:58)

    A mildly amusing snippet wherein three obviously disinterested Clashers suffer the mindless questioning of an interviewer who has sod-all knowledge about music. Since it was recorded for television, the presentation is obviously Full Frame, not 16x9 enhanced and comes with Dolby Digital 2.0 sound. Given the source and the age, it does not look too shabby at all.

    From the limited amount of information I can find regarding the Region 1 release, there appears to be no significant difference between it and this Region 4 release.

    Were it not for the fact that it does feature the greatest rock band of all time, I would be very tempted to suggest that you take The Clash's own advice regarding this release - Cut The Crap and buy the infinitely better value, and like-named, double compact disc instead. Throw that into your DVD player, stick a picture of The Clash over the television screen and you would be no worse off. However, since it does feature the greatest band of all time, such advice is not really advisable. However, calling the DVD the Essential Clash does not make it so and really I would have expected something better than this. Put it this way - I am a huge fan of the band and it has taken me seven agonising days to finish writing this review. 'Nuff said? Personally, I would stick with The Clash - Westway To The World.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall