‘Well I Can’t tell you what I think I can do if I hadn’t heard it can I?’ ‘No, I just need you to get them on the radio, I need interviews and I need them on daytime. This is Loius Walsh and Ronan’s new boy band. They’re going to be huge.’ I paused, was I hearing him correctly? He was asking me to get a band no one had heard of or heard anything by, least of all me, on the radio to be interviewed! He had to be kidding. I’m sure this was him out to prove to Louis Walsh who had chosen to sign his band to Simon just what he could do. I uttered the same curiousity, ‘You are joking aren’t you?’

I was wasting my time. We were destined for a trip round the houses by way of anything resembling a conversation. Simon Cowell wanted me to call local radio stations, stations that rarely played anything that weren’t hits and set up a bunch of radio interviews with a boy band no one had ever heard of. He didn’t think it mattered that the radio promotion guy, never mind the radio station had been allowed to hear them.

It makes me laugh now but the look on Lee and the others who I had working for me was hilarious. I put the phone down and shouted across the room. ‘Are you ready for this? Simon Cowell wants us to get interviews for Westlife.’ Reverberating across the room came the reply’ Who the fuck are Westlife.’ Oh I wish I’d have said that to Simon! All for one and one for all we couldn’t believe what he was asking of us. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, trust me there isn’t a conversation we need to go and do it.

You couldn’t reason with Simon over something like this. Never mind Randy Jackson, enter THE dog with his bone, Westlife. Just to think, Boyzone, the only band ever through generations to be a serious threat to Val Doonican were heading for longer woolier jumpers and semi retirement and he (Simon Cowell) had a grip on his babies. And we were the babysitters. He was in diaper heaven. Herein began his stampede and complete domination of the pop charts. He had previously done an amazing job with Robson and Jerome, more of which I’ll recite later, had some continued success with 5ive but now he had the one that he thought would do it for him. Unlike Robson and Jerome who took a lot of persuading, kidnapping, harrasing all by his own admission as they were successful actors and already stars. Simon needed them to make a record , they couldn’t give a toss!

Writing about this all (and they’ll be other stories I’m sure!) makes me smile and makes me understand even more what was it that made Simon Cowell different from the rest. He doesn’t understand the word no! To make it even more hilarious is that we managed to get some interviews for Westlife although we needed Ronan Keating in there as well doing the interviews, that maybe swung it a little as he was ‘famous pretty’ instead of ‘who the fuck are you pretty.’  Hell, what I am saying. None of them are pretty to me. I’d like to think though that the radio stations were doing it for us and not for Westlife or for Simon Cowell. In those days people knew who we were when you called the radio stations and hadn’t a clue who Simon was. How funny is that, if he had tried to call people directly they probably wouldn’t have taken his call!

I had a great time earlier in the week when I went over to see my friend Paul’s band ‘Jealous’ playing in Orlando and met some really nice people. I had to laugh though, I was invited on to a panel where they were discussing everything from the current scene to how an Orlando band perceived going to the UK and vice versa. All was fine until the moderator Chris asked me a question and the tape ran out. I apologized but told him ‘You asked me what was Insights from the Engine Room all about then. Bad question!

To be frank though (Frank who?) I’m really not apologizing at all, on the contrary I’m really pleased I’m in total promo mode. I’m on the verge of a new career and I’m letting nothing slip. If people are interested to hear what I’ve done over the past thirty odd years then I’m happy to talk to them. When all is said and done, once a promo guy, always a promo guy.

I spent a huge part of my working career setting up radio, TV(and in the early days press) for up and coming acts which included multi million selling acts like U2, Matchbox Twenty etc and I know as well as anyone the importance of having the media buy in to what you’re doing. Back in the day it was very different but when it all comes down to it nothing really changes, it’s still about getting in front of the right people. Back then it may have been a TV show or on the radio, now it could be a blogger, podcast or somewhere else on the internet. It may be somewhere else altogether but one thing I know for sure, as one thing becomes popular something else comes along to replace it. You contantly need to be on the look out. What’s right for your career might be wrong for someone else’s. Let one person know and they’ll tell someone else, one becomes ten, ten comes a hundred. But you need to start somewhere.

Writing the book, telling stories and offering up advice from my side of the fence has given me an overwhelming urge( Now if there was ever a need to change my name by deed pole it should be Tony Overwhelming, it’s got that ring to it!) I digress, an overwhelming urge to help bands on the way up and to put some ideas in their head, send them away with something to think about. You can have the most talented , creative people in the world who just haven’t afforded themselves the time to think,’ right, what next?’

As the website takes on a life of it’s own and I hunt down the people who know the answers to a bunch of the questions let’s see if we can make a difference to someone and help to give them the motivation. Not just the motivation, there are plenty who have that but are sadly lack in other areas. Let’s see if we can help them to make others believe in them in the way they believe in themselves.

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.

David Fricke had just written a review of the re issue of U2’s first album, ‘Boy’ for rollingstone.com and it prompted a response from the band’s singer. How cool.

Entering the blogosphere, a review of BOY from the singer who was one at the time of recording. ‘We the members of said post punk combo are very complimented by DAVID FRICKES 4.5 star review of our debut, an album we always believed in. I remember now a generous JON PARELES review from the VILLAGE VOICE in 1980, a line something along the lines of “this is peter pan, I hope they break up before they grow up.” Anyway, as my band mates and I attempt to finish our most complete and radical album yet, here’s my why and what i think is right and wrong about BOY having listened to it for the first time in over twenty years if you start from the pseudo british accent and the little reported fact that the singer sounds like a girl, things don’t look too promising …the annoying gene is present in self consciousness and self immolation… you do want to give the singer a slap for lots of reasons but let’s start with the pretentiousness….the singer has obviously been listening to SIOUXIE AND THE BANSHEES, JOY DIVISION and a few others whose combined archness and artfulness was just too much for the freckled face teenager from northside of DUBLIN. Neither fully protestant or catholic, IRELAND had left the boy with a face like a baked bean and in search of a nonregional identity. A theme that continues to the present.
You can have everything the songs, the production, the face, the attitude but still not have “IT”. U2 had nothing really, nothing but “IT”. For us music was a sacrament,an even more demanding and sometimes more demeaning thing than music as ART, we wanted to make a music to take you in and out of your body, out of your comfort zone, out of your self, as well as your bedroom, a music that finds you looking under your bed for God to protect your innocence…

I’m proud of this little Polaroid of a life I cant fully recall. As well as the ability to make embarrassing mistakes, the demands of a great debut might be fresh ideas, fresh paint and sometimes for its canvas, a fresh face.

I miss my boyhood.’

Bono, 3rd August 2008

You can read the full reply on rollingstone.com

It reminded me so much of when I heard ‘Boy ‘ and the feelings that it evoked. I thought it was amazing how it stirred a reaction in Bono so strong. It reminded me too of how much blogging makes you miss your childhood, but in the fondest of ways.

‘For I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now’ Bob Dylan 1964

There’s also a plan to re launch the radio show, there seems to be a good response from the Facebook page and a few e-mails so more than enough reason to have some fun. I’ll keep you updated when I know a little more. I’m dusting down some archive interviews too from around 20 years ago with REM, U2, Leonard Cohen, Bryan Ferry, New Order, Frankie etc etc and thought it may be nice to put some clips up.

The internet is such a powerful voice and I’m excited as much about learning about it as doing it. There seem so many avenues available now so that when you have something to say you can be heard. The same applies to bands and the ability they have through the net to market themselves, build a fan base and reach out to people with more information, content,ideas and just about everything else they have going on than any record company could dream of, plus of course the ability to sell their songs, merchandise etc. They control the content and the delivery. Nice!

I have a lot of ideas I want to include in here so I need to sit down and device a structure, a little dangerous I hear you say. Those that know me  anyway, and probably everyone else who has worked me out. When I say structure i probably have a different meaning, I couldn’t get too organized or it would all fall apart, it’s more me jotting down the stories and an order. The problem I have there is the one I always have, as I write one another one comes in to my head, and it’s a different one. Maybe I leave well alone.