Moments That Rock

By This Day in Music Books and Tony Michaelides

With an irrefutable reputation achieved over fifty-plus years working with a stellar cast of clients which included U2, The Stone Roses, David Bowie, New Order, The Police, Depeche Mode, Simply Red, Bob Marley, Massive Attack, , REM, Matchbox Twenty, The Pixies, Elvis Costello, Genesis, Johnny Cash, Whitney Houston, Annie Lennox, Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel…..and many more, it is not for nothing that U2's manager, Paul McGuinness, has said, "Tony Michaelides has long been one of the UK's foremost record promoters and undoubtedly one of the best that U2 have had the pleasure of working with."

Tony is acknowledged by both the artists he has nurtured and by his peers for the wealth of experience he has gained through an illustrious career that spanned more than three decades. His first foray into the music industry began in 1974 working as a sales representative for Transatlantic Records before he took on a similar role at ABC Records. In 1978 he made the move to Island Records and to work in their promotion department.

 

Tony set up his own promotions company, TMP. His first two clients naturally, were Island and A and M Records. Over the next 25 years TMP became one of the most highly respected and successful promotion companies in the UK. During that time, in 1984 Tony was invited to replace Mark Radcliffe on one of the UK's most popular radio stations, Piccadilly/Key 103 and for the next 12 years presented his own music program, 'The Last Radio Program,' which was a Sony nomination for 'Best local radio show.'

 

As his operation expanded TMP undertook all regional promotion activities at Factory Records and over the next 10 years worked with Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays, James etc. During that time Mute Records also approached him to handle their artists which included Depeche Mode and Erasure.

1997 marked a personal highlight in Tony's career when he was asked to be the publicist for David Bowie's 'Earthling Tour,' responsible for all press, radio, and television. The following year TMP expanded their operations into working with more American clients, most notably Lippman Entertainment, one of the world's most successful management companies and the opportunity to work with multi platinum act, Matchbox Twenty. They also became the UK consultants to Warner Chappell's LA office and Atlantic Records in New York.

 

In 2004 Tony was granted a Green Card as an "Alien of Extraordinary Ability," for services to the music and arts, an accolade awarded to a small percentage of people who have reached 'The Pinnacle of Excellence in the Field of Endeavor.'

 

With a wealth of stories accrued from working with some of the world's leading artists it became abundantly clear that these stories should be shared with a larger audience. A new day had dawned, and as Tony says, "I learned from some of the greatest people to have ever graced the music industry, the likes of whom will never exist again. And to be now given the opportunity to inspire others with the stories has become both a pleasure and a passion." It's what he likes to call 'Moments That Rock', and which coincidentally became the title of his podcast together with his new book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: This Day in Music Books
• Release date: Jul 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201666316

Book preview

CHAPTER 1: GROWING UP … KIND OF!

Everyday pleasures can be everyday treasures

Growing up in the Sixties was both a pleasure and a passion. As a 13-year-old there was nothing I wanted more than to be a professional footballer and grace the hallowed turf of Old Trafford, The Theatre of Dreams. The home of Manchester United. I’d practise for hours on the playing field down the road from where I lived. It was commonly known as Gatley Hill, probably because it was the only hill in Gatley. It was only a 15-minute jog from my house, so it acted as the perfect warm-up. It was total dedication, I can’t remember ever missing one of those sessions, come rain or shine. However, what I do remember is there was more rain than shine! It was tough, but it was complete and utter enjoyment. I was a man on a mission, secretly hoping for the day when the phone would ring, and it would be a talent scout for United. Maybe he’d been watching me for a while and would offer me a trial. I’d lie in bed at night counting the hours and dreaming of that monumental day. And then fall asleep and fantasize about the day I would run out from the players’ tunnel and wave at an adoring crowd chanting my name. I stopped, glanced behind me and began to applaud back at them. By now the stadium was a cacophony of sound. The crowd loved it ... and so did I. Was destiny finally calling? Or was I just an over-zealous football fanatic with my head up my ass?

Getting down and dirty

This was where I felt at home, or at least that’s what this young teenage kid thought. Up until then the field near where I lived had been my sanctuary, my happy place, my hallowed turf. This was amateur football at its finest and maybe I was destined to be one of amateur football’s finest protégés. I was practising free-kicks and bending them before Beckham, quite why I have no clue, I ended up playing centre-half and never got the chance to take another. To add to the confusion, when I went out on the field with my brother Michael, there were just the two of us and, being the youngest, I was given the task of goalkeeper. Surely no kid that age wanted to be a goalkeeper. You craved the limelight, and not many goalkeepers got that. This left me with the unenviable task of flinging myself across the goal trying to save his free kicks, which I have to say were pretty good. Let’s just say that for a novice, I did my best. The bottom line, however, was that this allowed him to take the free kicks that I’d been practising in my spare time. I was a cheeky, little smartass too, because there would be times when I headed the ball off the line just to show him I was wasted in goal. When I smacked my head against one of the posts one time, that was the end of my outfield player dream. At least for a while.

Let’s face it, he was older than me and probably smart enough to realize he needed a fall guy in order to stand out. Clearly he was after the glory, and he got it, at least from me. A few years later, he was in Manchester United’s youth team, revelling in the glory. To this day I think he deliberately aimed his free kicks in the direction of the muddiest puddle he could find. This was very perplexing for our poor mother. Why, when we got home, was he all clean and I was covered in crap? Drenched in mud from head to toe, nothing else seemed to matter. I would come home, bathe and go straight to bed and dream that one day I would be a professional footballer and play for the mighty Reds. This was my destiny and getting covered in crap was merely the battle scars from my initiation. Turns out, destiny had lied. Nevertheless, as much as I had dreamed of footballing fame and being a goal scorer extraordinaire, I hope my brother appreciated I gave him the first steps up the ladder.

The Theatre of Dreams, home of Manchester United

Weekends were football, football and more football. I was playing two games on a Saturday, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Back then I used to play centre-half for Cheadle Vale, quite a decent Cheshire League side, the second game more a kickaround with a bunch of friends who put together a team and arranged weekly fixtures against opposing local sides. Two games in a day seems ridiculous, looking back, but I saw it as an apprenticeship. I was young and running around like a lunatic for most of the day seemed like necessary training for my big-time dreams.

It was an hour’s drive between the two football grounds, with me driving and no time to shower. I must have stunk, the drivetime just enough for the mud on my legs to go crusty. I could then flick it off, change and get ready to go out and get covered in crap all over again. If the traffic was bad, I’d arrive late and have to run out onto the field after the game had begun. I think they were shocked if I ever arrived on time, but I didn’t like that - coming on after the game had started made me feel like a substitute. Me, a sub? No way, when you’re supposedly bound for glory. I needed to be in the starting line-up each week. The following day, Sunday, it was back out onto the football field to do it all over again. It was comforting to know that I was not alone, all my friends chasing the same dream. Football, football and more football. It seemed perfectly normal for all of us to have these dreams. We did after all come from a city with a great footballing past. So why shouldn’t we be the next footballing legends?

‘Hey, Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me.’ – Bob Dylan

I never had, or never will have any regrets about the time I grew up in. It was a wonderful period for so many reasons. Sorry I can’t give you any stories about an unhappy childhood, because there wasn’t one. I was a happy child, still am. There are no stories about Dad leaving home when I was three, Mum having four jobs, seven of us sleeping in the same room. We never starved, always wore clothes that were our own and never needed to rely on neighbours’ cast-offs. And thankfully I never spent a night sleeping in anyone’s car. On the contrary I have very fond memories of growing up, first as that passionate Manchester United fan convinced that the God of football would find a place for me in my favorite team. Sadly, that wasn’t to be, and as you get older you look back and think, was I slightly delusional? No way, we were young, and you had to have dreams.

Photo op for me, minutes before kick-off at an important cup semi-final

My football obsession, at least with regard to playing professionally, started to fade as I became seduced by Roger McGuinn’s 12-string Rickenbacker, when Mr Tambourine Man played a song for me. Every jingle, jangle morning I would come following. He was my piper playing my tune. I was 12 and far too young to ever dream of being a lead guitarist. I had to wait for that. And wait and wait and wait… and even then it was only ever the bass guitar. My rationale was that I probably had a 60 percent chance of learning how to play a six-string guitar but as the bass guitar only had four strings maybe that would ramp it up to 75 percent. Logic? Not really, because McGuinn’s 12-string would have meant my chances were zero. With regard to singing, that began and ended in the bath. I used to listen to the old transistor radio we had in the kitchen for my entertainment, whilst ploughing through my homework. This one time though, I was in the living room when I heard that distinguishable jangly guitar. I dashed into the kitchen and for some reason blurted out, Mum, what’s this. It’s amazing!. She glanced across at me as if I’d lost my mind.

She was more a Maria Callas fan, together with a secret penchant for Athenian bouzouki players. I think McGuinn’s Rickenbacker had too many strings for her. She was about to get educated, although being sent to my room to listen to ‘this rubbish’ was probably closer to the truth. Much as I loved my mother, I was soon secretly falling in love with The Byrds. My birthday was only a couple of months away, so this was the right time to ask for a turntable for my birthday. My parents were into opera and classical music, so any thought of me playing my music on their equipment would have only led to arguments and large doses of Clorox. When it came to music my brother was the complete opposite, a diehard Elvis fan, in fact that was all I ever heard him play. He even looked the part, slicked-back hair, tight pants and winklepickers. Even though we were at the infancy of new, exciting music it began and ended with Elvis for my brother, so we never really had anything in common with regard to music.

My music education was really my own doing, as was the case with my closest friends. It was music that brought us together, so as the years rolled on we’d be going to the same concerts and sharing new records we’d discovered with each other. Strange when you think of how Elvis inspired so many others wanting to form bands to be performers in their own right, lighting the fuse for us to be on the lookout for all that was to come. My brother never had the curiosity that most of us had, I think he opted out of music for girls and football. Never a dull moment though, if he couldn’t play one, he could play the other.

But let’s rewind a little to my formative years, before music, football and girls came into my life. I was eight, so had very little interest in all that back then. What do I remember about my childhood? To be honest, not much. I remember going off with my mother and brother Michael to Greece every summer after we broke up from school. It was usually for six or seven weeks, and we’d go to Athens, where my mother was from and where she still had family. To be perfectly honest, I was never that close to my father, he didn’t come with us, but in his defense, six weeks off work wouldn’t have been possible. I vaguely remember a few weekends away to English seaside towns. Remember and memorable are distinctly different however.

Greek is the word

Mum met my Dad when he was based in Athens during the Second World War. They married when she was 17 and she gave birth to my brother one year later. The war had ended and it was back to the UK for this family of three, where they took up permanent residence. I was still six or seven years away from being born when they relocated to the UK.

Writing this reminds me I need to do an Ancestry.com deep dive into my family roots. What I do know is that my mother’s father was the dentist to the King of Greece and my uncle, on my mother’s side, was the Greek Ambassador in London. Intriguing enough that it urges me to want to know more. I do remember that my father was a clerk for a textile company based in Manchester for most of his life, working in the same office as his uncle. Ironically enough, my PR company’s office was a couple of hundred yards away in Princess Street, Manchester, but by the time I set up there he had long since passed. What I also remember is that in his latter years he opened a clothing shop in Moss Side, not far from the city centre, where he’d spend too many hours. We were never anywhere near close on connecting through music. He was into opera and classical, and I was not. On the contrary, if I was ever sat in front of the TV on a Thursday evening watching Top of the Pops, he’d invariably have something to say, usually, "What is this crap you’re