Here we have three promotional radio adverts from the 1970s designed to make the record buying public on both sides of the Atlantic rush out to the nearest store, grab the lapels of an unsuspecting member of staff and demand that they be provided with the finest King Crimson albums known to humanity!
“The reason I chose these was because I thought how funny they are, and how dated they sound” says Mr.Stormy, recovering from the rigours of delving deep into the DGM archive. “The US SABB Ad. just cracks me up, with its ‘mind-bending’ female voiceover. Just great stuff!”
The first advert dates from early April 1973 and as the smooth-voiced presenter indicates, Larks’ Tongues In Aspic was just out. Having completed their first European tour without Jamie Muir, the band and material were settling down very nicely. Note the emphasis on the credentials of the new line-up. Clearly it was felt that the addition of Bruford and Wetton would give the album some extra commercial legs. LTIA got up to 61 in the US album charts.
The first advert for Starless And Bible Black yields an interesting approach from Atlantic Records. Dig the phased voice telling us that the album “swirls and glides through your mind.” Clearly they’re going for the “cosmic, dude” end of the market with this one. The far out script, and as Mr.Stormy says, the mind-bending FX gave SABB a toe-hold in the American album charts at number 64.
The equivalent advert for the UK audience is far more diffident, with what sounds like Radio One DJ Pete Drummond delivering a no-nonsense script that allows for one superlative only. It would have been running on commercial radio in the UK sometime during March and April and may well have helped the record reach a giddy 28 in the album charts.
These tracks are available for download as part of a bumper collection of Mr Stormy's Monday Selections - his first year of random romps through the murky, cavernous DGM archives, torch in hand, fedora upon his head.
