Thee FILLMORE HYPE ov nineteenseventy-something

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This was where this not bad-ish pubrock band, Brinsley Schwartz, were put on by their rekord company in fillmore east-or-west-I-dont-remember back in nineteen oatcake. Thee entire brit musick press corps were flown out to witness thee future ov rock'n'roll, the band played a stinker and yeah verily thee vultures did surely decend like thee assyrians wolf/fold etc etc. When I first got into music loving, IE early 1980s, the fillmore hype was still spake of unto blah blah hushed tones of awe! @# ! @# Allegedly is was PROOF PUDDING that the record press was UNCKORRUBLABLE and FOR YOU, THE KIDS! @# ! @# J3AH! @# THEY TRIED T0 F3WL US ! @# NE\/3R AGAIN ! @# ! Now it is ancient history, and v few people will have even heard of it I'm sure, let alone give a fux0r. I suspeckt two things - 1 Thee t3wl ov promotion "OVERSEAS PRESS JUNKET" surely existed long before this and continued to long after. Probably the Brinsleys were pix0red on because they were a little band pushed by a small-time operation (fronted by d robinson, one time co-proprietor ov stiff rekords, whose other boss, j rivierra I once FACT sold a moulton folding bicycle to!@#) so the gentlemen ov thee press were able to come over all hyper-righteous w/o having to ph34r losing access to, like yes, floyd or zep. and 2. I forgot already, & may post it up if I remember. Your thought if you give a phuck please. You dont have to it is not compulsory.

Oh, and Mr Carmody stalwart of this board will soon learn more of the fillmore hype and other prehistoric similar stuff courtesy of one PETE FRAME who has, and always will ROCK! @# ! J34H! @# ! @# ! @#~

― Norman Phay, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

also poss.of relevance = member of BS (thre streokes of 1972?¿!¡) = NICK LOWE

ad they release every track on LP as a single (or b-side if you kno what this is pop- childrenZoR), eg five BS 45s out in one week...

flying ONE journo to honolulu = normal practice
flying ALL of em = ridiculous and greeted as such

― mark s, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

1970: i just looked it up

UK rock press barely existed then, so arguably this tool of promo IN ROCK was new?

― mark s, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Heard about this via Frame's books as well, plus other mentions here and there. The Strokes of 72 -- heh. But at least with the Strokes you could download then and there.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Strokes of '70 = good point, & also what orig. made me think of posting about this once-crucial/now obscure event. As far as what music pubs xisted in 1970, well, er, it was pre-sounds, of course, but NME, Record Mirror, Zig Zag (from whence I found out the complete story of the F.H.) Intl Times(?) off the top of my head, perhaps more as well?

― Norman Phay, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Surely the "download" of 1970 = the LABEL SAMPLER album? EG "Bumpers" , "The Age of Atlantic", "Rock machine" etc etc often v budget price and did IIRC include unreleased tracks by bigger bands to lure punters into getting into less hot acts! It worked on me - I bought "V2" for T Dream "Oscillator planet concert" (something like that anyway - it sux0red, that I do remember) but got into slapp happy and henry cow as a result....

― Norman Phay, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

NME = trade mag not for kids until 1974?
RM = teenybop not pub rock?
ZZ = hmmm yes possibly (but only founded that year at earliest and surely still tiny and of little influence?)
IT/Oz/Ink/Frendz/Time Out etc yes yes but not exactly "rock press" as we kno and wuv it

Actually MM was probably the main recipient. Rolling Stone UK maybe (forget dates of this short-lived title...)

― mark s, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I bow to yr superior knowledge here mr s, tho among the old Zig Zags I have here is one which contains an account of the whole debacle, as well as a later one with a big interview w/ the brinsleys themselves. Edited highlights to follow, tho' not tonight, as I'm off to bed (1.30am here). 'evening all....

― Norman Phay, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

NME = trade mag not for kids until 1974?

The NME was well into its stride as a rockcrit weekly by around 1972 if not earlier. There was also 'Disc & Music Echo'.

― David Inglesfield, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Think it was 1970 that the NME started concentrating on album rock and shifted away from chartpop (certainly that year was the last of the old Poll Winners' Concerts, and it was full of studio-contrived Britgum groups), but this didn't instantly take effect - Cliff Richard and the New Seekers still appeared in the end-of-71 readers' poll. I suspect that was just about the last year that sort of artists could have registered, though.

― Robin Carmody, Friday, 11 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Of course, nowadays if somebody held the least succesful press conference in history, that would be exploited as an event in itself. What was the name of that guy from 'London's Burning' who tried to launch a popstar career, and played a club in Fulham to 11 people? ('5 of whom paid', according to the Sun - whose coverage was probably the object all along. Maybe the thing about Jagger's latest selling a paltry 900-odd copies is a publicity maneuver? More press coverage in the broadsheets than the usual Ron Wood, Jeff Beck or Mark Knopfler albums 'dependably' selling to the same 50,000 people every time)

― dave q, Saturday, 12 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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