I’ve been moving furniture around and I’m knackered. I’ve lost half the stuff I put in places to make it easier to find them but I suppose it’s bound to get easier when I eventually do find them. Nevertheless good things happen and Facebook once more re introduces figures from the past and more glorious memories come flooding back. An old TV pal from many moons ago, Sally located me and we have been exchanging e-mails furiously. As she has now spent more time on my blog than I have she’ll be vital in helping me drag out a few more gems, especially from the great times spent on music television shows.
Sally worked at Granada for a good few years and was there 30 years ago when I managed to get a bunch of Irish kiddies a nice little break. I have to admire them for booking U2 way ahead of anyone else around the time ‘I will follow’ came out. Back then U2 were only getting interviews on specialist radio shows so it was very bold on Granada’s part to stick their necks out and book them, especially on a kid’s show. Not only did they get on TV but the show was broadcast nationally.
Looking back at that footage nowadays is incredible and yet so few web sites even list it. We know it exists, we were there. U2 looked so young but then again so did I !!! They were always so grateful for every opportunity, very humble and lapped up the chance to meet the media.They were the perfect band to get on radio or television…you got them on and they did the rest. They made a plugger’s job easy. I’ll get blasted here from Sal if I’m wrong but the show was ‘Get it together’ presented by one of the world’s most famous owls, ‘Ollie Beak.’ The show’s producer was Muriel Young, a lovely lady who sadly passed away a few years ago but someone who I can still picture vividly. She came out of an era in television, the 60’s where some of the most amazing bands passed through their doors. I missed that one professionally (yes, too young!) but still had my radio and TV there to give me the most amazing education.
Television back in the 70’s , especially music television which was where I was hovering was littered with the best bunch of people you could ever hope to meet. I made some great friends there. If you loved music and worked in television you were allowed to work on music programmes. Whoever thought up that recipe deserves a medal, music people for music televsion. Then again the same could be said of record pluggers, we loved music so all day you were exchanging stories, talking about great new records that had come out, booking bands on to shows, doing the work and having great fun at the same time. TV researchers trusted you and no matter how much I wanted to get my bands on to TV I prided myself on never trying to force stuff on them that clearly wasn’t right for the show. There were other places to book other bands so why even try to get an act on a show that wouldn’t be right for their audience anyway, what’s the point?
