Fact #170433
When:
Short story:
Fresh from an earlier gig at The 8th National Blues Festival, Tyrannosaurus Rex play at The Middle Earth Club, in the New Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, England, UK, Europe. The band will find greater success after changing their name to T. Rex.Full article:
Marc Bolan (Tyrannosaurus Rex) : John Peel got a copy of Hippy Gumbo and played it on Radio London (the pirate station) and literally got thousands of people writing in. He came off the air and that was the end.
And then the Middle Earth opened and they asked John to do something there for nothing, and we went along and just played. They never had any mikes down there or anything. And it became sort of fashionable I suppose, and after a while we were packing it solid 2,000 people and we'd got about ten quid. It slowly grew and we had college people calling in and then in one week we had four record companies that said "Hey we want to sign you up and make you a star".
Apple were interested, so I obviously I said, "Oh yeah!" But it didn't feel very good. It felt a bit lame and untogether. And Tony Visconti, who was working for Denny Cordell then, came down and was really excited. Regal Zonophone had just started with Procol Harum and The Move and Joe Cocker, all upcoming big acts. And I went up to their office and they were the only people to let me do an album.
I said "I don't want to do a single, I want to do an album", and in those days everybody did singles and not albums. Pink Floyd was about the only lead band to have an album out at that time.
We did the album and fortunately, it was a big album.
(Source : not known)
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And then the Middle Earth opened and they asked John to do something there for nothing, and we went along and just played. They never had any mikes down there or anything. And it became sort of fashionable I suppose, and after a while we were packing it solid 2,000 people and we'd got about ten quid. It slowly grew and we had college people calling in and then in one week we had four record companies that said "Hey we want to sign you up and make you a star".
Apple were interested, so I obviously I said, "Oh yeah!" But it didn't feel very good. It felt a bit lame and untogether. And Tony Visconti, who was working for Denny Cordell then, came down and was really excited. Regal Zonophone had just started with Procol Harum and The Move and Joe Cocker, all upcoming big acts. And I went up to their office and they were the only people to let me do an album.
I said "I don't want to do a single, I want to do an album", and in those days everybody did singles and not albums. Pink Floyd was about the only lead band to have an album out at that time.
We did the album and fortunately, it was a big album.
(Source : not known)