Anurag Jain's Blog
Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Dire Straits in Bangalore!

One of my favourite bands Dire Straits are gonna be Bangalore in March 7, 2005! For tickets (Rs 2500, Rs 1000), call 080-25705858.

Know Dire Straits' early days' story? Here's the neat trivia that I have taken from Richard Branson's biography (Losing My Virginity)

One day while in bath, Arthur Frolows, who helped Simon Draper - top guy at Virgin Records, and who also happened to be Richard's cousin - with spotting new bands, heard a new band called Dire Straits singing Sultans of Swing on the radio. He leapt out of bath and talked to the radio station. He discovered that the band had not yet recorded their music in a studio, but this song was a love recording specially commissioned by Charlie Gillett, the radio show host. Virgin went after the band and the evening before they were due to sign contracts, Richard and team took Dire Straits to a Greek restaurant to celebrate. At the end of the meal, the Greek owner offered them all marijuana joints. Everyone smoked a joint and the evening wound down. The next day Dire Straits called Virgin up and said they were going to sign with Polygram. No reasons were given. It was only ten years later that Richard read a book about Dire Straits which explained what had happened: "The band did not sign with Virgin since they thought that Virgin had plied them with drugs before the signing to befuddle them." That well-meaning gesture by the Greek manager cost Virgin Records over 500 million pounds!

(Click on pic for bigger version)


0 comments                                                                                              

Comments: Post a Comment


Home