The groove machine from Bush House: Joe Strummer’s London Calling
Thanks to Steve Holy13Nation I found out that in America last summer 8 shows (plus an intro documentary) were broadcast featuring 14 episodes of Joe Strummer’s London Calling – the show he did for many years on the World Service before he died, and as featured in the film ‘The Future is Unwritten‘ as links – you can find them on iTunes for free as podcasts (which I’ve uploaded here as a mirror in case they go down or people don’t have iTunes).
Only downside is as Steve pointed out, is the need and desire for such things is to tell you how great Joe Strummer was and constantly reminding you who he was through fairly obscure and tangentially related people cf. a ‘I met him once at a bus stop! type’ popping up before the 1st show.
So if you want to hear some of the other London Calling shows without the waffle, you’ve come to the right place. Posted some of these here before such as the 2007 repeats and Don Letts show, but most of these were obtained from the wonderful alphish and his Multiply page which is always worth checking out for new ones if they turn up – but they’re all Megaupload, which can be a right arse, so here they are all in one place…most are MP3 but some are OGG files EDIT: I’ve uploaded the converted MP3 files, aren’t I nice?. 
And also the Don Letts show.
Also I’ve checked the podcasts linked above versus these original radio recordings – it’s weird, some are duplicated here and some are not (none of the 2002 shows are there) and all in the wrong order. So you might be best listening to the podcast as a few of these are terrible hissy quality, compared to the lovely clean podcasts.
As a side note, the blurb around the ‘Summer of Strummer’ seems to suggest there were only 14 shows – not true from what I’ve read on ClashCity (sadly the thread isn’t there anymore) and others – there were quite a few shows esp. in 2000 – and the fact they missed the last 4 shows doesn’t really inspire confidence.
Anyone know for certain how many shows were created and their TX dates? And if you have anything not listed here – gimme! I’ll add it.
As Joe said once ‘If that was no toe tapper or no body shaker, boy you need to see the undertaker!’
- 1998 Show 1 * low quality, duplicated by the podcasts
- 1998 Show 2 * low quality, duplicated by the podcasts
- 1998 Show 3 * low quality, duplicated by the podcasts
- 1998 Show 4 * low quality, duplicated by the podcasts
- 2000 Show 1 (ogg) 2000 Show 1 (mp3) *
- 2000 Show 2 (ogg) 2000 Show 2 (mp3) *
- 2000 Show 3 (ogg) 2000 Show 3 (mp3) * – low quality – fortunately this show is part of the podcast set
- 2000 Show 4 (ogg) 2000 Show 4 (mp3) *
- 2000 Show 5 (ogg) 2000 Show 5 (mp3) * full intro on the podcast version
- 2000 Show 6 (ogg) 2000 Show 6 (mp3) *
- 2001 Show 1 *
- 2001 Show 2 *
- 2001 Show 3 *
- 2001 Show 4 *
- 2002 (rebroadcast 2007) Show 1 (weirdly not in the podcasts)
- 2002 (rebroadcast 2007) Show 2 (ditto)
- 2002 (rebroadcast 2007) Show 3 (ditto)
- 2002 (rebroadcast 2007) Show 4 (ditto)
- Don Letts Culture Clash tribute show- includes rare stuff about Joe also not in the podcasts (2007) – bit low quality to fit on my webspace – higher quality is the original RealAudio file rip which you can use something like this to convert. Tracklisting
And may I remind you, This One’s For Joe, the Strummer mashup album from a few years back is available – including my Orb vs Joe Strummer & Bonzo Dog mashup Willesden Blue which also takes samples from London Calling, and is still one of my best.
Oh and after a few question – it’s nice to be asked but – feel free to repost, spread the links, repost the files, torrent, twitter, send to all your friends, burn to CD etc. spread these far and wild – these files are on an old server and is dedicated to this, and has been up for years with some of these files with no problem, but in the rare event it does get pulled or go down I want these files to be out there – for ever. For future generations to hear – for the future is unwritten.
Joe’s love was the music and getting it heard, and this show deserves to be preserved and heard again – still surprised the BBC hasn’t repeated the whole series, or released them as discs – that’s a shocking omission, I’d far prefer to listen to these in high quality complete…I think there are many shows missing – let me know if you have any more.
Also some naughty person might’ve uploaded the podcasts for those without iTunes, with tracklists in the comments, tags and cover art, but as Shaggy once said ‘It wasn’t me’ 
Please let me know ASAP if any of these links are broken – I want to make sure these stay up permanently for as long as possible, for everyone to hear these great shows. Joe deserves that.
Thanks, mate!
You are a diamond for posting these – thank you more deeply then my keyboard permits.
I’d like to link out from my blog if I may – you’re providing a service getting these all in one place.
Cheers
Tim
Typical Strummer comentary & song selections. Bringing home the bacon! Legendary
Many thanks! You’ve made so many people so happy…
Glad you like them! I hope to keep them online as long as I can, can’t promise forever but they deserve that. I’ll also mirror the podcasts when/if they go down.
These priceless recordings are a huge comfort to me and many others I’m sure. I am listening slowly to make them last. THANKYOU so VERY much for making this possible.XXXXXXX
Glad you like them! I hope to keep them online as long as I can, can’t promise forever but I’ll try. They really deserve that.
Thank you so much for uploading these, timbearcub. It is nigh on impossible to find the shows in their original broadcast versions so you’ve provided an invaluable service here…Joe would be pleased! However I should point out that the four episodes listed as being from 2002 are in fact just from 2000 – they are episodes 2, 3, 5 and 6 respectively. Cheers.
thanks bro! it gets difficult to access this stuff from argentina otherwise
Thanks so much for these. Fantastic, and much appreciated. Is there a complete track list somewhere? Mr. Strummer always did a great job of letting you know what he was playing, but I’m trying to make a Pandora station that features all of the artists from these shows and I’d love to have a handy reference. Thanks again for keeping the legacy alive!
Well they should have tracklists in the ID3 comments field here: http://radioclash.myzen.co.uk/londoncalling/ if not then look at the itunes http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/joe-strummer-london-calling/id285877923 – sure there is a site somewhere with the tracklists for selling the podcasts other radio stations (Strummer programs are the second show in each epsiode) http://s3.amazonaws.com/production.mediajoint.prx.org/public/series_files/176/joestrummerplaylistsfinal.doc and at alphish’s site http://alphish.multiply.com/music/item/245/Joe_Strummer_-_London_Calling_BBC_World_Service_
It’s a shame you haven’t got Spotify yet, I’d love a Spotify playlist. Can you export in a list format?
Excellent! Thanks for all your help with finding all the track list info Tim, very helpful. Unfortunately Spotify isn’t available in the US yet, but thanks for pointing it out to me (never heard of it, lol). If it DOES become available here, I will definitely work on that. Is Pandora not available to you in the UK? It’s different than Spotify as far as I can tell, in that with Pandora, you add tracks/artists, and based on you choices it creates playlists based on similar artists and styles. It pulls info from the Music Genome Project, and is really cool, except for some reason it thinks all I ever want to hear is The Ramones, lol.
Pandora was available in the UK, I used to use it – but music licensing and the silly record companies forced it to block access from the UK many years ago. I loved it…same with sites like Hulu, MTV, etc. I think people in the US don’t realise how many sites push out that pesky ‘not available in your country’ message because they don’t get it that often.
Same issue is with Spotify but the other way round. Nice to have it the other way round, for once.