Feporuary 23, 1990. This Weel

ee hes tat Ya

THE LAST WORD

o these four boisterous guys, these...louts, in
their cheap flashy suits and hair down over
their collars, come roiling into this very posh
penthouse floor office which happens to be-
long to the marketing manager of EMI Records. They
are laughing and wisecracking and generally behav-
ing in a fashion obnoxious enough to get them turfed
out of a dockside pub. Their chances of favourably
impressing the assembled recording industry moguls
must be deemed...remote.

human evolution. For every great flowering of human
endeavour, there must be an awful lot of seed that
falls upon stony ground.

Think of the mouldering bones of all the sailors
whose ships disappeared over the Western horizon
before Columbus went and came back, proving it
could be done.

Think of the near-misses in history — the skipper of
the PT boat 108: the unsung heroes of the charge of

=

passengers, unable to breathe, would suffocate.

The doctor also poo-pooed the possibility of any
steamship ever crossing the Atlantic since it would
require more coal than it could carry.

Somwhat later, a scientist by the name of Simon
Newcomb harrumphed to the press that the ages-old
dream of heavier-that-air flying machines was just
that — a dream — “impractical and insignificant, if
not utterly impossible.” <
Professor Newcomb made

God knows how they got past
the receptionist. They have (of
course) a demo tape that they

know the record men are going

to love. The marketi —— Tere BE. = |
er takes “ ine ce ce —Basie-Blaelc

vagabonds the old don’t-call-us-
we ll-call-you routine and

By ARTHUR BLACK

that pronouncement in 1901,
about 18 months before a pair
of brothers named Wilbur and
Orville made famous a place
called Kitty Hawk.

Ah, yes, history in her perver-
sity, makes it easy for us to be
spectacularly wrong.

shows them to the door.

When the door hisses shut there are great rollings
of eyes among the stogie-smoking executives lounging
around the office. Kids these days. Honestly.

Ho hum. Another unmagical moment. The punk
quartet might have been dazzling and attractive and
captivating. They weren’t. The record executives
might have had an intuitive hunch about the kids.
They didn’t. The demo tape might have been a blazing
work of undeniable genius. It wasn’t. Three of the four
top executive music producers at EMI did the market-
ing manager a favor by listening to it.

They all agreed that it stank.

And the fourth executive music producer? Well, he
was on holiday.

So ends another non-chapter in the history of

The Heavy Brigade; the martyrs who gave their all to
take the Bridge on the River Ken.

Spare a thought for our own Gordon Lightfoot and
his perfectly good singles that never quite enjoyed the
success his other records did. ’'m thinking of hard-to-
find numbers such as — Canadian Pathway Trilogy,
The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzpatrick and Black Day
in early April.

Spare a kind thought too, for Doctor Dionysys
Lardner. Dr. Lardner was (and ’m not making this
up) a professor of natural philosophy and astronomy
at University College in London during the early
1800s. He is primarily remembered for his exquisitely
argued and eminently reasonable assertions that high
speed rail travel would always be impossible, as

Such as the schoolmaster
who labelled little Tommy Edison retarded. Or the
Munich school teacher who warned a 10 year old
student “you will never amount to very much”

Such as the musical tableau I mentioned way back
at the beginning. Remember? The music moguls vs.
the four louts?

Well, the louts were loutish alright — but they were
also persistent. When they heard that three of the
company’s top music producers hated their demo tape,
they didn’t slink away with their tails between their

_legs. They insisted on playing it for the fourth music

producer — the one who'd been away on holidays.

A fellow named George Martin.

And that’s how the Beatles got their first record
contract.

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the cutting edge in hair technology

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(Re-arrange these words to make a correct sentence)

Pretty easy, wasn’t it?

But for those 20,000 it would have been impossible.
They suffer from a disability that lacks public
recognition, professional support
or educational help.

Learning Disabilities Week would like to
change all that.

LEARNING DISABILITIES WEEK
March 5 - 12, 1990
Gn March 9, as part of our fund-raising activities
you are invited NOT to attend
eA “NO SHOW” DINNER e
Tickets $ 25
Save cab fares, bar charges, babysitting!

Call 595-5611 to make your donation.

Your Understanding Will Help Others Understand Too!

REBECCA AND GARY BRAILSFORD

Ocean City’s top realtor and MLS Platinum Award Winner
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