bronze film footage

[M Holmes]

Stephen Swann writes:

> On Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 04:07:47PM +0100, Filip Vanhuyse wrote:
> > Well,the "Silver Machine" footage with Stacia blowing bubbles is from the 
> > Space Ritual.The Bronze footage is on the 2 video 
> > "concerts,festivals,private parties1979-1989/1979-1992" I think.
> 
> Really?  I fucking love that clip - but I thought it was
> taped off Top of the Pops.  Is that whole TOTP clip
> artificially constructed then, or did TOTP show that footage
> rather than have the band perform?

The story as I heard it: The band refused to appear on ToTP and
challenged the Beeb to come to a gig.  The BBC sent the Outside
Broadcast team to record the gig.  Calculations on timing suggest that
this was most likely the Dunstable Queensway gig on 7/7/72.  The ToTP
broadcast included video cuts from the gig being broadcast along with
the sound from the Silver Machine single (itself an edit from the
Edmonton Sundown gig - the original recording appeared on the
Glastonbury Fayre triple-LP).  The only other appearance from that gig
that I know about was the broadcast of "Silver Machine" and "Brainstorm"
in August of 1972 on the Brian Matthews Top of the Pops radio show.  In
both cases the live recording was broadcast.  There would have been 24
BBC Transcription discs made containing those two tracks (by BBC
Radiophonic Workshop), but the local BBC stations were ordered to
destroy these after the show. So far we've only heard of one survivor.

What I don't know is whether the rumoured "Space Ritual" video without
the sound is from that same gig. If it is, then we at least have the
sound which can be matched to video for two tracks. However, given it's
a BBC transcription disc they're on, there are undoubtedly some
interesting copyright issues. No doubt the easiest thing to do would be to
pretend the sound came from "someone's attic".

> And, is the rest of the SR footage basically like that?  And, 
> and, and... where do I send my check goddammitall???

I've no doubt a whipround here would net some funds with which to tempt
the holders of the footage ;-)

> Is this going to be one of those situations like when Dave
> was surprised that we all love his guitar playing and want to
> hear more of it?  Like, "Oh, you guys actually *want* that
> old Space Ritual video? Who knew...?"

Heh. I suspect the real issues are copyright. Then again, as a
capitalist, I know that such questions can easily melt under the light
of cold hard cash.

FoFP