Well look at that - if you were in Liverpool in January and you were "new talent" Stiff Records was looking for you. There was always that possibility. Your friends would be in a band and you knew that record companies were coming to see them. The A&R geezers were pretty obvious, too. They would have long hair and look nervous.
One night an A&R guy said to me, "if you dance, I'll sign them," and he wasn't kidding.
I was told that A&R people had a quota to fill.
But you could have done that job. It was easy to see who was popular and who wasn't.
There was a very strong reaction to bands back then. If you didn't like the band, you sat down. If, heaven forbid, they wore flared trousers, we would go down the front and stand there with our fingers in our ears mouthing, "you're shit" and "get off" and stuff like that. If we liked the band we were all over the floor like bargain hunters in a sale.
The films mentioned at Covent Garden's film club are probably on you tube. i'll go and have a scout around.
I can't imagine any of my friends back then being interested in the fact that George Harrison played at his local pub...
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