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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | GaryPig@aol.com |
| Subject | Re: Raspberries 'overnight sensation' |
| Date | Sat, 15 May 2004 13:02:40 EDT |
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<< I used to know a guy who worked for Billboard in the early '70s, where his
job was to call various record stores to ask them how certain records were
doing, sales wise. He was a huge fan of The Kinks' "Lola", and admitted to
fudging the data that he would report to the higher-ups at Billboard >>
On a terrifyingly similar note David,
Edgar Breau (later of Simply Saucer)
used to round up all of his friends on weekends and,
disguising their voices and changing their names and addresses,
would flood the request lines of their local radio station (CKOC, I believe
it twas?)
and slowly but surely they helped "Lola" climb to the # 2 position in
Hamilton, Ontario.
Then, thanx to this,
the song was belatedly added to the playlist of mighty 1050 CHUM-AM in nearby
Toronto
where it too became a hit (...tho Edgar and Co. deny making any calls THERE
;-)
A couple'a years later, when the Muswell Kinks played a Toronto bar on their
gala Return to North America tour, Ray made a point of acknowledging from the
stage that it was indeed the Hamilton/Toronto area that broke "Lola" in this
part of the world, as by then it had become a U.S. hit as well, enabling the
band to barter a much better deal as they moved on over to RCA.
God Bless The Kinks of course,
and Saucer Edgar as well,
Gary "and Whatever happened to that site with the index of all the
mistranslated Japanese lyrics off the backs of those orange-vinyl Taiwanese Beatle and
Beach Boy pirate pressings the GI's brought home from Nam back in the day?"
Pig
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