Tuesday, April 03, 2007

jedi mind trick

Air Supply had their sixth and seventh consecutive top five singles on the music charts in 1982. It was only fitting for them to perform at the 25th anniversary celebration of the Children's Miracle Network last night at the Coronado Springs convention center at Walt Disney World. Seeing them in concert reminded me of my Air Supply story.



About once a quarter, Kevin & Bean host a singles party for their listeners. Tickets are given away during their morning show, making sure that there will be an equal number of men and women at the party. During the time I worked on the show in the mid '90s, we had singles parties with various themes including an Oktoberfest, a beach party and a losers singles party on Valentine's night. For the losers party, we found a VFW hall and served macaroni and cheese. David Millman, then a publicist from one of the record companies, suggested we try to get Air Supply to perform. They were on his label. All I had to do was sell Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell on the idea.



I drove to a recording studio in Glendale for my big meeting with Air Supply. I explained that even though KROQ was known for groundbreaking alternative music, many morning show listeners would have listened to their songs when they were kids. Because it was a "losers party" I suggested that Air Supply could be in on the joke rather than the butt of it. Russell and Graham could call in to the show and offer to play at the losers party. They could even record a little blurb for a promo that would run for a couple of weeks while we gave away tickets. Either Air Supply has a good sense of humor about themselves or I did a pretty good sales job because they agreed to perform an acoustic set at the party. Their call-in to the show went well and the promo turned out fine. They must have started listening to KROQ during the next two weeks because I started getting phone messages from their people. Instead of an acoustic guitar, could Graham bring his electric guitar? Sure. A couple of days later they asked if they could bring a keyboardist. No problem. How about a drummer? Before long I had agreed to a full backline. It was worth it. Air Supply rocked the house that night.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Frank Murphy said...

When I sent a photo of Air Supply with Kevin & Bean to the trade magazines, I captioned it: "Kevin & Bean with either Air Supply or Mark & Brian, we're not sure which." A couple of the magazines printed it that way.

4/18/2010  

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