VdGG "Refugees" '70 vid - Mystery Solved!

Within the last few years, a vid of VdGG miming to "Refugees" in 1970 emerged that no one knew anything about. The mystery has been solved ;-) . I posted the info yesterday morning on my VdGG Facebook page (see here: https://www.facebook.com/vandergraaf..._post_reaction

For those who don't do Facebook, here's the post:

STOP THE PRESSES! MYSTERY SOLVED!!! (buckle in, this should be a fascinating read for the VdGG enthusiasts out there!)

A few weeks ago I posted VdGG's 1970 mimed performance of "Refugees" (here it is again: https://youtu.be/ZHpBEGkGFGo ). This has been one enigmatic film clip. It was first "discovered" a few years ago by VdGG super-fan Herman Permentier. He'd mentioned that he had an old 16mm film reel in his attic that was given to him several years ago by a former BBC producer. He himself hadn't played the reel in many years but remembered that, among the many music clips included, there was a film of VdGG miming to Refugees. He mentioned that on Facebook somewhere as an 'in passing', throwaway comment while addressing something else. I caught it and privately emailed him: "Whoa!! What??? You have an old vid of VdGG performing Refugees???" No one knew about this, much less had it (I'm talking about all the VdGG cognoscenti / avid collectors / super fans), and it was never listed on any old video / TV lists, etc, so the possibility of this even existing came totally out of left field. Herman went about digitizing the clip (through much time, effort, and $$, for which the whole VdGG community should be ever thankful) and made it available for all to see on Youtube and other outlets. The clip was a bit rough (fuzzy picture, time code, etc) but was still a wonderful find that many have since enjoyed. The mystery of the film's origins (who made it, for what purpose, where was it filmed, etc) grew even greater when I reached out to the band themselves (as well as their producer at the time, and a few Charisma staff members from back then) and *NO ONE* had any recollection, whatsoever, of making this film (Hammill didn't even remember ever owning that shirt...). Total mystery.

Recently, a much cleaner, better version of that same video appeared on Youtube on a channel called Piers Bedford Media. At least *part* of the mystery was solved. The director of the film was a man called Piers Bedford. I googled him with the intent of reaching out and annoying him with several nerdy, fanboy questions about the video. Info on Piers was scant. I found a Facebook profile for a Piers Bedford who had studied at the U of Maryland (USA) so I didn't think it was the same person (I assumed that our Piers Bedford was from the UK). Nevertheless, I shot off a private message a while back and heard nothing, and let it go... until very recently, when he responded to my Facebook message out of the blue.

It turns out that Piers Bedford is from the UK but went to school at the University of Maryland (USA) in 1966 to do a post-grad TV directing course. He returned to the UK around '67/'68 and went to work at Eyeline Films where he directed around 150 bands in music promo videos for TV (thus making him a true pioneer / innovator of the music video later made famous by MTV and the like), over 200 commercials (mainly for records), and spots where he directed several "name" DJs such as Kenny Everett, Tommy Vance, Alan "Fluff" Freeman, and Tony Blackburn ("on the day he split very publicly with his wife"). Piers went on to have a thriving career directing hundreds of videos, including shoots for The Cure, Bill Wyman, The Jam, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Sham 69, Status Quo and others (including many punk bands).

He remembers making the VdGG vid well. The VdGG shoot was done mostly on June 2, 1970. You'll see from the Call Sheet he sent me (posted above) that the film was done at Eyeline Films Studio on 77 Dean St in London. He never shot two vids in one day but June 2nd that year was an exception (he shot Rare Bird in the morning, Van der Graaf in the afternoon as the call sheet bears out). One can see on his YouTube page that he'd also done vids and commercials for Clifford T Ward and Alan Hull, as well as that Charisma-heavy commercial I posted a few weeks ago (that included PH's Chameleon). So, there was obviously some sort of Charisma label connection. It turns out that Piers got to know Charisma label boss Tony Stratton Smith and got on well with him. Piers mentioned that he did two Charisma ads and they were the 1st videotape commercials ever on UK TV.

Piers: "I don't remember the exact commissioning process but I got to know Stratton Smith well and on a recent UK 60s / 70s site I was saying he was a great / fun guy. His office was a block away from mine I think, in Soho."

As for the VdGG shoot: "Amazingly there was no UK TV outlet then apart from Top of the Pops so it probably never was shown in the UK except possibly on some local programme as 'filler', but unlikely... Most of these promos went to 'Beat Club' on German TV and other European stations, nothing in the UK unbelievably. Many were mimed to playback in our studio at 77 Dean St in Central London, in a half day probably. Possibly little or no big pre-production discussion back then... later, maybe. Crew was probably 3 people, including my wife. Budget was probably about 300 dollars. There was often a problem with the instrumental bits and they needed livening up so I often 'cut to slow motion girl' in desperation!!! I shot those exterior bits myself in Chiswick London by the Thames [so that's the location of the girl in the vid - jc]. I never did anything else for Van der Graaf. I remember it quite vividly but many things from that era were indeed a blur for many people due to other factors!!"

Thanks a million to Piers Bedford for 1) shooting this quite historically important vid of VdGG back in the day, and doing such a great job with it, 2) making it (and several other of his fascinating videos) available on his YouTube channel, and 3) taking the time to shed light on this previously enigmatic / mysterious Van der Graaf '70 vid that we all love so much. Thanks Piers!!!

-- Jim Christopulos