Posh, dosh or dross.

I’ve never seen the X Factor, the show that’s pulling in all the ratings in the UK. Apparently nearly 15 million saw Cheryl Cole perform her new single. Cheryl who? She married a footballer, apparently. A dumb one at that. So now we have He Cole and She Cole. Apparently one was enough, we needed a pair of plonkers. He cheated, she put on sunglasses to hide the swollen eyes……and they lived happily ever after. He showed remorse. He had to, she’s the bigger meal ticket now. It won’t be long before he pops up in the audience of X Factor for a personality remake. We’ll have a load of close ups of him,  they’ll tell him  to smile and applaud enthusiastically and he’ll jump up and down so the camera can catch him. It’s called grooming.

Before long it’ll become the two of them. They’ll want to put them in the jungle, ‘I’m an ass Cole, get me out of here.’ The TV program makers nowadays need the easiest, dumbest material to work with, they’ll be welcomed with open arms. They put them in a bath with cockroaches ( insert your own choice of footballers here) and they’ll make them eat things that wriggle. She’ll scream and he’ll sneak off and shag someone and the ratings will hit the roof. He’ll be sorry. He is sorry, very sorry. And then it’ll be over and they’ll go home richer and happier because the publicity will be everywhere. What supermarket wouldn’t want them to open their new perfume department. And then there’s the books

Do I sound bitter? Never, just disillusioned. I’d love to meet the person who first thought all this shite was an idea worth pursuing in the first place. He (it’s bound to be a bloke) should be flogged, publicly. The ratings would be excellent. Worse still why is a public accepting of this. What’s wrong with you Britain, you pay your license fee and you let them do this to you. At least in the USA you don’t have to pay for cable if you don’t like it. ( I don’t) Neither do I have 400 channels, all of them showing varying degrees of crap. People are going to the gym nowadays to work on their wrists so they can channel hop, it’s tiring. I make better TV in my head and it’s free. Pop round sometime.

It’s always interesting to observe from a distance and comment on something you haven’t actually seen but by all accounts, it’s not that hard. Same female judges who just seem to look the part, not that either has any relevance in being able to mentor or guide anyone. They are both nothing short of average, why would anyone give a flying fuck about any advice they gave them. After all no one in their right mind would aspire to wanting to be them….or would they? Has Victoria Spice, sorry Beckham( better brand) shaped the future for the female icon. Wherever she got the name ‘Posh’ from I have no clue unless pops having some dosh allows you to claim the title. Posh must mean wealthy, it used to mean upper class. Mmm, not quite sure where that fits, she’s not that…

This is sure to continue ( I haven’t even mentioned Simon Cowell! )but now I must return to more mundane things like sorting out my life. It’s there it just needs some order. What I can promise you is plenty more from Blog Tone. It all started here for me in Blogsville, I loved it and it lead to my book and already I have more I’m itching to write. I don’t seem to get the time to blog. I’m an idiot, pass me a football and make it a posh one.

 

 

 

 

 

this show seems to be the UK’s American Idol.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, TV , Cheryl Cole, Simon Cowell, Victoria Beckham, X Factor

U2. Me2, them too and you too.

It’s incredible to see the media go in to free fall when the U2 show comes to town. As an exercise in how to promote your show no one does it better and no one will ever do it better. It’s close to an invasion, no matter what may be going on in the world they literally command centre stage. U2 is the number one news story. In a day when records, sorry CD sales are at an all time low it’s the only way you can hope to trigger off what meagre sales are out there. Let them know you’re here. And when it comes to record sales even U2 are finding it hard going, the public has not fallen in love with their latest album/ CD. However,  wild horses wouldn’t keep those same people away from the live show.

The band are taking plenty of flack for the carbon emissions from taking this gargantuan beast on the road and you can understand why. Personally though, I believe  The Edge when he says they will offset that carbon footprint in some way. They’d probably already thought about it long before all the knives came out.  Unfortunately at around the same time he bought 156 acres on a cliff in Malibu overlooking the Pacific Ocean to build an eco friendly  home. Well five in fact, his own 10,000 square foot palace and another four to flog. Nice work if you can get it! He does want to make it his main homestead though and having seen the place I think I would too! Needless to say the activists came out in force stating that to build whatever he was building they would need to flatten a part of the cliff to build an access road.

No matter what anyone says about U2, whether it’s the new album, the carbon non friendly size of the tour or anything else for that matter the one thing you can’t ignore is the experience almost every single person who attends the show takes home. For them it’s worth every penny. U2 bring them a happiness that a lot of other bands don’t and for them it’s the best night of their lives. Paul McGuinness  has been quoted as saying they don’t break even until the back end of the US tour so you cannot argue about their desire to give people an experience second to none. The Edge on the edge. Of a cliff.

I don’t think the tour will have a significant effect on their record sales either and I’m sure they know that better than anyone. Their motivation will be their desire (no pun intended) to give something back to the people who have stuck with them forever, it’ll be trying to let them experience something unique, something completely different…….to anything. Add to that the corporate, footballer world flocking to the U2 show as the place to be seen and we have ‘the event’. It’s kinda funny too, what about those who haven’t seen a live show before? Where do they go from here, anything is going to seem sub standard after Claw Wars!

And where do U2 go from here, the return of The Claw? I don’t think so , it won’t be anywhere other than rest for a while and I think we can all allow them that indulgence! But what next, where can you go. Personally I think it’ll be stripped right down and four guys will take their songs to the masses. U2 have reached such a level now that being the ‘hottest ticket’ they could do anything. They’ve earned it. They haven’t earned it because of a gigantic claw and a production of epidemic proportion, they earned it from 30 plus years on the road. They’ve earned it from playing every tiny club that wanted to book them to every fan who wanted to see them. They’ve earned it from signing every autograph for every one of those fans who believed in them enough to give them a chance to do this. And through it all they stuck at it. They posed for every picture with every fan no matter how exhausted they were after giving their all in a performance, and for many years to under a hundred people and not a hundred thousand. They stepped out front to meet and greet the fans for as long as it was safe to do so. They paid their dues, they have earned it.

For me U2, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Bruce or Led Zeppelin don’t have to prove anything to me or anyone else. They earned it, damn right they earned it. It’s called a work ethic and it’s called graft. Blood, sweat and tears. It’s called taking chances and making mistakes and it’s called entertainment. It isn’t about any one tour, it’s about understanding why you came in to this business and giving people something they have earned. The opportunity to take their hard earned cash and spend it how they want to. And if that is on two hours of a thrill of a lifetime who are we to judge?  When entertainers get this big let’s not lose site of the fact that they are still meant to entertain. It’s what they do and it’s what they should always do.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Risk, Uncategorized , David Bowie, led zeppelin, touring, U2, u2 360 tour

Moving,shaking and anticipating

And so to new beginnings. Happily settled in to my new place I feel alive. Unpacking was easy, I gave nearly everything I had away. I think I’m going through my Brian Eno minimalist period and yes, less is definitely more. Or more or less. I think it’s the perfect inspiration for what I’m doing now and no excuse for not to getting back to writing. In fact once the book comes out ( 2 to 3 weeks now methinks) I’m ready to get on with part two! I did a presentation in Tampa a few weeks ago on 24 Hour Party People and it was only afterwards that I realized there’s nothing on Factory in the book! Nothing about the madness and the mayhem, absolutely nothing but in the general context of the book, lessons learned from rock and roll maybe Factory didn’t teach me anything! A lesson in how not to run a business that’s for sure! 

I remember some of the great moments at Factory and the look on their faces when their records started to take off. Tony Wilson’s look of utter amazement thinking ‘How did that happen?’ That excitement sadly was the beginning of the end. We all knew they never should have moved to an office with such an insane overhead but you couldn’t tell them anything. That was the beauty of it. It wasn’t an arrogance, Factory did what Factory did and for a while it worked wonderfully. And we all loved it. It was a time and it was a place and I loved nearly every minute of it. I say nearly because I don’t think I really loved it when the collapse came and I was owed a horrendous amount of money. My immediate concern then was how I was going to keep myself afloat and my own staff in a job. Factory went, I cashed in some insurance policies in bought a barge, went off to Bali and Lombok for a holiday (not on the barge I hasten to add), shoved some money in to my company, TMP dusted myself down and careered on for another ten amazing years. It’s the things that seem the most daunting at the time that make you stronger, more resilient. When the dust finally settled I thought if I could survive that I could survive anything. 

Factory was more a way of life, not to dissimilar to Island Records in some ways in that it was a bunch of people putting records out they liked, records they’d be proud to have in their own record collection. They thrived on loving what they did. It wasn’t a job, music and records was their hobby. Everything was so very different back then where  the media would respond to quality and respect what those pioneer labels were trying to do. They would join in their success. They weren’t hell bent on creating trends for people to follow they just loved it when they heard something original, something that moved them enough to write about it.

And we went from that to journalists trying to make a name for themselves by being controversial and writing reviews that would get them noticed rather than the music. And quite often reviews that you couldn’t understand. I’d find myself reading stuff and thinking ‘Does he like this’ ( I say he because it always seemed to be guys writing all the ‘look at me, aren’t I great’ pieces.’

And so change started to happen and the music business began to change………..and my God did it change! What did happen seems to be a daily conversation with the people I talk to. We are all older and more reflective, we look back and think ‘Wow what a roller coaster of a ride.’ Over the coming weeks I’ll share some of those thoughts and look back. Should be fun. Main thing is I”M BACK!

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, View from the room, record companies , 24 Hour Party People, Factory Records, Island Records, tony michaelides, tony wilson

Houses of the Holy

Another excerpt from the book if for no other reason than someone asked me. Writing all this stuff up has brought back a flood of memories so I’m reaching out to a bunch of friends to help me remember the half of it. It’s a time I’m desperate not to lose any of them!

Book should be out May /June….. even quicker if I get round to replacing my laptop and a spot of writing in more exotic places than my kitchen.

So hear as a sprightly baby of fifteen years old did I get to meet the great Led Zeppelin…

I had tickets to see Led Zeppelin which my friend Ken had bought. They were playing the Free Trade Hall, June 1969 and I could barely contain myself with the excitement. Led Zeppelin in my home town just prior to world domination and I had a seat so near the front I could watch every Jimmy Page grimace and every Robert Plant gyration. I could smell the sweat off Bonzo as he thrashed his drums like a maniac. John Paul Jones’ bass lines went up my leg and in to my belly. This was something else, this was rock heaven. If the bass got so heavy and made me sick at least it was rock puke.

After the show we waited around and asked the old bloke in the foyer (I think they call them security now) if we could take a couple of posters down from the wall. He politely agreed and there we stood with two glorious Zeppelin posters, the one with the orange Zeppelin on the cover.

They didn’t sell merchandise back then so this glorious poster I had before me was set to become a major rarity and worth a small fortune. I got divorced, from wife and poster and the rest is history, or it could have been. Farewell my retirement fund.

We sneaked back in to the empty auditorium and watched as the roadies packed up the equipment…… Now this was rock and roll, this was serious. The Marshall speaker stacks were huge, I would have done anything to touch them, even if one could just fall over and land on me. Oh for the blood of Zeppelin……….

Suddenly out of nowhere Robert Plant appeared, leant down and nodded at us, ‘Want me to sign those fellahs?’ he asked. Dumb question Robbo, I kept calm secretly wanting to make him feel the pop star. No sooner were we staring at his autograph with deep admiration of the task completed than he waved us to the stage door. Now he wanted to see if we would like to meet the other guys…….

I looked at Ken, he looked at me…we looked at Robert (by now he was Robert) I shuffled and wriggled in my Levis to make sure nothing I had expected was going on down there……….

Is this for real? I pinched myself, it hurt. This was for real so why couldn’t I believe it? We had been summoned by royal appointment, His Royal Highness, the right honorable Robert Fucking Plant! If the dog had bollocks…then this was it!!

Led Zeppelin wanted to see us, no one else in the crowd, just us! And never have I EVER used so many exclamation marks in one paragraph! This had to be one of the twelve dreams of Dr Sardonicus, My Dreams of Milk and Honey, The Greatest Story Ever Told.

And I’m not done yet, I will conclude this fab day next time round..

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past , Bonzo, Free Trade hall, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, led zeppelin, Robert Plant

Stories for boys……U2 early beginnings

Again I apologize for the gaps and infrequent blogging, it will improve but have an excuse as I’m frantically trying to finish the book..Insights from the engine room.. sort out promoting it etc etc

Here’s a snippet..

In 1980 I was working with U2, I’d been taking them in and out of radio stations prior to the release of their first single, ‘11 o’ clock tick tock’ and trying to get them in for interviews wherever I could. They released 3 singles in the six months from May to October and we had been working relentlessly driving up and down the motorways to talk to whoever would have us….and then more of the same upfront of the release of their debut album, ‘Boy.’

You hoped all the hard work would pay off and that opportunities would come your way, you’d take some risks, take a chance on something…..it might go pear shaped but you’d never know if you didn’t give it a go…… It’s the reason you try it in the first place.

If you believe it enough you won’t need convincing and you won’t need to convince others.

November that year was incredible. There were a few of us at Island Records who believed in the band and we were all convinced they could be huge. Rob and Neil in the press department had done an unbelievable job getting journalists along to see them play and were starting to get some really good feedback. All their efforts culminated in an NME (New Musical Express) front cover at the start of the year.

At that time there had still been no significant breakthrough with any national radio or television exposure and we all knew we would struggle to survive on press alone. In order to maintain the great press coverage they (the press) would need to see others pick up on the band……… and to get radio and television interested you needed the press, it was catch 22. We were at the crossroads, something needed to give. We needed to get that break otherwise it would be impossible to keep the momentum going.

I received some amazing news. Tony Hale the Radio One producer who was based in Manchester and therefore a contact of mine, loved the band. Were they available to record a session for the Peter Powell show? WERE THEY AVAILABLE……Damn right they were available! Around the same time, maybe a week or so sooner I got confirmation that Granada TV’s network kids show ‘Get it together’ wanted to book them. I couldn’t believe my luck….all my Christmas’s had come at once. I say luck but in all honesty I had been working hard on the band for most of the year, we all had and felt we deserved this break. This was the most significant result we’d had up until now from national radio and TV in the UK……..now we were really starting to get others to believe in them. At this point we were starting to think, just maybe…..

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, record companies , Neil Storey, NME, Rob Partridge, U2

Been gone too long

Haven’t been up here for as few days posting but don’t worry I wasn’t going to leave you for too long. I’ve busy working on my book and dealing with a family illness which has seen the days fly by. The positive in all of it has been that it has allowed me to go through the blogs as I am writing and has exposed a few gaps.

I know that they’ll be people keen to know more of the Factory years and it’ll be a delight continuing that story. They were some glorious years and at a time when the business was a lot of fun. They knew it, they were a label at the right place at the right time and they found some great bands to introduce to the public. . James, The Railway Children, A Certain Ratio, OMD moved on, while New Order, Happy Mondays and The Durutti Column saw it through to the end and felt the emotions with us all. New Order did of course move to London Records but only once Factory were dead and buried. I don’t think the dealings with London toward the end of Factory went quite the way Tony Wilson and the other Factory directors had hoped and sadly it meant an end for bands like Northside and The Wendy’s, The Adventure Babies.

I’ll come back to Factory just as soon as I see where I left off. There were other labels with the same agenda back then and releasing records by artists they loved so we’ll have a look at that also.. I suppose I should comment on The Brits but I haven’t a clue what went on, I’ll need to take a look at You Tube and speak to a few of my pals. I do know that Elbow won best something( band I would have thought??) and that was nice to see especially being together for so long.

I felt especially pleased for Guy Lovelady, not only a lifelong fan but the first person to bring them to anyone’s attention when he signed them to his Ugly Man Records back in the 80’s…at least I think it was the 80’s. I’ll need to ask him. You can read all you would ever want to know about Elbow on Guy’s blog, I’ll get the right blog address for next time but I’m pretty sure if you Google Ugly Man you’ll get directed to it.

That will have to do for now but it shouldn’t take me too long to make a few notes and start to fill in a few gaps from the bygone days of the music industry. Hang in there.

Filed under: About The Engine Room, Journey Through The Past, record companies , Factory Records, Guy Lovelady, Happy Mondays, New Order, OMD, tony wilson

Pity the poor Whitney

Well fancy mentioning the Grammys and forgetting the star turn, Whitney Houston…….that was of course a joke. Whitney Houston has less personality than a lump of lard and far less flavor. What the hell is that all about??….when a hall full of Grammy groupies all feel the need to bring the house down for the woman who last did what??…marry the greatest catch of all time Sir Bobbins Brown? The perfect couple, Mrs yuk and Master plonk (note,deliberate absence of capitals.) Maybe it’s time for Bobby to relaunch his ‘career’ and re release ‘My prerogative’ for the ???? time. Talk about a career on one song…shame about the follow up(s)

Don’t you just love that ‘Clive Davis loves Whitney’ routine. Every opportunity he drools accolades over her, re invents her , she slides away again(thankfully) then it’s Grammy night and it’s all about the ego, Clive Davis and wheeling Whitney out. ( what a great idea for a board game ‘Wheeling Whitney Out’) He even has his own Clive pre Grammys party. Apparently it’s the place to be…well it would be, Clive’s there!

I don’t dispute he did things in his day but he just can’t back off. His obsession with creating ’stars’ (the people we now call ’stars’….. the ones who get manufactured and propelled in to pop stardom and then can’t even get a lift to therapy from the ones who created them.) Their ego’s are too vast they have no time for failures. You’re done, I have my ego to take care of, you’re on your own. Clive just won’t let go, he just can’t bear it if he’s not in the spotlight. He’s done alright out of the business but when did the business last do alright by him and his short term pop star? Carrie Underwood and Kelly Clarkson in a decade? They had a leg up but I think they’re fine doing it their way nowadays. Where the hell are the rest? Swept under the carpet so you won’t ever mention their names again. That really would not do!

Urgh, pukesville…what was all that blowing kisses and mouthing ‘I love you’ between the odd couple.GET A ROOM.! What place does that have?… except of course, a global audience. I’ll cancel cable when we get The Clive and Whitney show’

The good thing is that it’s over..Clive, Whitney, The Grammys, Clive’s party, Clive’s ‘I’m an icon’ award. All done. Lord only knows what next year’s show has to offer. Maybe it’ll be Coldplay, U2, Clive Davis, Carrie Underwood, the list of inevitables goes on and on and on……..oh and Whitney Houston , her new dress and a new way of blowing kisses to Mr Showbiz.

And finally we had Paul McCartney from the greatest band the music business has, or ever will create…….. and on this night of the stars and together with a global audience they forgot to mention it was the 45th anniversary of The Beatles debut on The Ed Sullivan show. The rest as they say was history….the other ‘rest’ wasn’t.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, View from the room, record companies , Clive Davis, Grammys, Whitney Houston

Superbowl Superboss

Tampa is awash with Superbowlites, they’re everywhere and all to see the men with big shoulders running around shouting until eventually throwing an odd shaped ball out of the ground. Everyone jumps up, play stops……. and an entire new team runs on. I don’t understand American football and I don’t think I ever will.

Nevertheless it’s popular. The adds run at $3 million for a 30 second commercial and sadly they were all booked pre recession……$100,000 per second! Rhianna played the other night, The Eagles last night, there’s Fleetwood Mac, Puff Daddy, whoops P.Diddy who turned up in St Pete early this morning for a party. Snoop is snooping around, it’s all going on. Meanwhile I’m checking out Fox Soccer Channel and I think Wigan on the box will do just fine, no problem…..leave ‘em all to paaaaaaaaarty.

…….Oh and then of course there’s The Boss, the man who knows about as much about the game as me, Bruce Springsteen. He’s turned it down a million times but Boss times are hard and like he boldly admits, he has a new album out. There’s no fee but they’ll cover expenses, nice, him and Patti get a hotel room… but then again the audience for his 12 minute half time show is a billion! No need for a sweat drenched 3 hour show. Boss move by Boss man. Nice work if you can get it.

Bruce did a press conference on Thursday and no suprise, it was all over everywhere………it was the first he’d done since 1987 and the media lapped it up. Brucey boy seemed in good spirits and I did like his honesty about not being a football fan and wanting to shamlessly plug his new album. One thing both he and Miami Steve said got me thinking. They said they came out of an era when the music was brilliant and the artists set a very high standard……..and they felt it their job to maintain those standards, they wanted to be great. It’s a wonderful philosophy, admire you’re peers but at the same time try and emulate them.

Springsteen has worked relentlesly for several decades to be where he is. He shunned CBS’s (now Sony) hype campaign and the posters that claimed ‘I have seen the future of rock n roll and it is Bruce Springsteen’ He hated it, he demanded they take them all down. As was the case with his heroes and when he was growing up, he wanted to be judged on merit and not some overhyped record company campaign. He was right, he was more than a commodity, he had a vision and he wasn’t prepared to compromise.The artists that have survived are the ones who had a say in their career, they too had a vision and weren’t prepared to stand back and let the record company turn them in to what they thought they should be, and create something that would make their job easier….make them marketable. They had belief and they had guts and if was going to take time then so be it. It worked then but they won’t let it work now, they all watched as everything came tumbling down. They pushed the self destruct button while blaming everyone apart from themselves.They knew it all.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, Opportunity, record companies , Bruce Springsteen, CBS, Superbowl

Sweet little mystery no more

I woke this morning expecting to see some replies to my e-mails from friends and colleagues…..I log on, nothing! I grumbled to my mother who is staying with me at present while cursing the internet. Bless, she offered to take me in to town to see if I could buy the internet….

The cable guy, Verizon Fios guy to be exact appeared with new router, a tweak here, an extra box there and we are back on. I log on and there before me a bunch of e-mails from my old cohorts at Island Records with the header ‘John Martyn 1948 to 2009′ and the inevitable news that he has died. Maybe some of you here in America might not have heard of him but John was a giant, I’d like to say a gentle giant and at times he was, at other times a ferocious beast. Sadly at times the demon alcohol took over and he was erratic and scary. Whichever John Martyn turned up he was always a total genius, a brilliant guitarist and a fantastic songwriter. If you don’t know him you’ll know Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Dave Gimour and others who played with him or recorded his songs and their versions of ‘Sweet little mystery’ and ‘May you never’ John Martyn’s songs were timeless songs. Sadly another one gone who seemed to be around as long as you had been into music and collecting records.

John Martyn had many music biz friends who were also fans,he was very much admired. A rare talent and another one who won’t ever be replaced. Like many others I am saddened by his loss yet not totally suprised, he ravaged his body and it just eventually gave up. Just a few years ago he had a leg amputated and though not entirely sure this may have been alcohol abuse related. He joked about it. His cause of death was cited as pneumonia, how much of anymore could his body have taken, his immune system must have packed up years ago.

John Martyn had demons but a sensitivity in his songwriting that you don’t often see. ‘Some keep diaries’ he said….’I write songs’ Chris Blackwell, the guy who first signed him was a good friend and originally could not release his ‘Grace and Danger’ album as he found it too upsetting, he had known John and Beverley both. John pleaded with him as it as a carthatic release for him, he needed it……Chris eventually obliged. It was a moving piece of music and as always with John Martyn it cut straight from the heart. Nothing about John Martyn was ever safe…… yet always sacred.

I worked with him in the seventies and eighties. He made me laugh and he made me cry. He would go in to a radio station and leave us all gasping for breath with some mindblowing guitar and another time he would sit outside in my car refusing to move and refusing to let me take him in for a pre arranged interview. Another time he announced he didn’t want to do anything in Scotland and wanted to go see his dad who still lived there in Glasgow. Testing times for an embryonic plugger. How do you explain to someone sat in reception that your artist will not budge. How can you answer ‘Why’?….and if I was to confront him and tell him not to be silly I was terrified of the consequences, I put up and shut up. Driving him in my car once from one radio station to another his accent changed, we hit Glasgow and he became Glasweigen! We did the interview and he wanted a drink, it was 10-30am and I was petrified. Working with John Martyn could be hard but at other times wonderful. He could be so warm and friendly too, delighted to see you.

I remember once when he played Manchester Polytechnic, he walked out on stage blind drunk clad in great coat, slided his guitar alongside his amp took two steps to the side and promptly puked up. Once over he dragged his shirt sleeve across his mouth, took two steps forward and took off in to song like nothing had ever happened! Some hapless character, mop in hand slipped on to the stage having been assigned puke retival duties. The set was blistering.

John Martyn is now gone but won’t be forgotten. Along with Bob Marley and Robert Palmer the mainstay of early Island is disappearing but with it too come fond memories of what made this the greatest label ever…. the people. Memories too of Martyn’s press officer for so many years who dealt with his erratic behaviour so well, the much loved Rob Partridge who slowly slipped away and left us just before Christmas.

For all of us who were there so many things remind us of all the good times we shared. It takes every kinda people.

Don’t worry ’bout a thing……..every little thing gonna be alright.

Filed under: Journey Through The Past, PR, record companies , Chris Blackwell, Island Records, John Martyn, Rob Partidge

Radio revisted, perhaps?

I’ve been thinking it might be time to give radio another shot…….I did my first show in 1984 and my last in 1996 so that makes 12 years on and now 12 years off, so 2009 could spell a new beginning. We all know how radio has become crap and the only good radio is the stuff you need to hunt down…..so I can’t lose, I’m either crap like everything else or I become sought after, hunted down. I’ve been toying with the idea for a good few months. It was originally prompted around 9 months ago from an old friend, Guy back in the UK who said ‘Have you ever thought of doing your show again?’ I said no. He asked why and I said I didn’t know. Then I got excited we had a play around at doing it, made a bit of a false start and it kind of fell by the wayside. I think now the time could be right though. It is after all Year of the Tone so I can at least participate. If you think it’s a totally dumb idea then please let me know……. and I’ll remove you from my Christmas card list.

I don’t see anything in Tampa filling the gap, bit like the dentist I went to……. so maybe I should do a show focusing on the new blend of bands coming throught the UK. I have plenty of friends who would be only too willing to help so maybe we should give it a go and see what happens. There’s a cool local station here called WMNF which has a wide variety of shows so maybe they’ll be interested, we’ll give it a whirl and if they say no then we’ll think again…and still do it. I have to admit it would be a gas tapping in to some old pals in the UK and searching for some of the best bands, and I’m positive they would be grateful for some action over here.

I started a group on Facebook a few months ago, The Last Radio Programme mainly so I could recollect some stories from back in the day and blog about them. I was reminded of some funny episodes….I think every time I turned up it was potentially a funny episode anyway! I always thought when Mark Radcliffe went off to London to work for Radio One and I inherited his radio territitory, i.e. the gap he left, that if it lasted 3 months and I brought the station tumbling down then it would be a laugh and at least I could include it in my resume……but twelve and a half years must have meant I got something right. I remember I was the only plugger who could guarantee people at least one play!

Radio has changed radically but the diffence between traditional and the rest is vast. There must be a place for me to float in radio ocean…..after all my last tune on my last show was Neil Young’s ‘I’m the ocean’ Float on, Tone.

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Journey Through The Past, Radio Ga Ga , Last Radio Programme, tony michaelides, Tony the Greek, WMNF