Jono talks with Steve about new album "Stranger Comes to Town"
To listen click here and then scroll down - broadcast on March 29th
"For Sale. Baby Shoes. Never Worn"
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Sunday morning. Woke to find several inches of snow. Frozen ponds. But even that won’t spoil my mood. The response from our website users to the Priority Sale of Birmingham Symphony Hall tickets has been a real charge, giving me and those involved a rush of excitement. I hope most got the seats they fancied, but it’s not a perfect world, so I imagine some had to settle for less. But that is a wonderful hall, with hardly a bad seat in the place. We have a sizeable budget for national advertising, but at this rate we might just save most of it! Think we’ll wait a few weeks – it isn’t even actually officially on sale yet – and see the figures then. Might be able to run a couple of ads with “Sold Out” splashed diagonally across them! All vanity to one side, I really will want the nation to know!
Intro
I’m not normally a big fan-type person. I don’t even go to concerts. This all changed when I discovered Steve Harley.
I discovered him by accident a little over a year ago. I was on Facebook when a friend-of-a-friend posted a music video of Steve singing “Make Me Smile.” It was the one where he was wearing the brown bomber jacket with the fox collar. I like my friend’s taste in music usually, so I listened to it. This time, I liked it so much, I listened to it twice. Later, when I had some free time, I looked up Steve Harley on YouTube. I believe the first song I heard there was “Sebastian” from the old Live from London DVD. My mouth fell open. I thought, “WHY on EARTH have we never heard of this guy? He’s brilliant!!”
I spent weeks after that, approximately two hours every night, searching out every video I could possibly come up with. I felt like an archaeologist, unearthing treasure after treasure. I couldn’t believe the body of Steve’s work. There was so much of it, it was very varied, and there wasn’t a bad song in the entire repertoire. Then I came across an interview—I believe it was in Ireland—where after the interview, the interviewer asked Steve if he had a website and Steve answered that it was www.steveharley.com. I went there and registered, then held off for three days. I knew I had to say something because I was so moved by his music, performances and persona. Finally, I introduced myself and Steve sent me a free DVD!! He even wrote on the website when time passed and I hadn’t received it yet, asking me if it had arrived. Who does that? Who cares about his fans enough to write whether or not they had received a complete gift from them? Someone special with a big heart, that’s who. And the rest of my presence on the website is history.
tasteful-shortage
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