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Thursday, September 18, 2014

#11 With an Anvil: That Time The Necros Outsold U2, Michael Jackson, and Fun Boy Three #tbt

Recently unearthed RockPool Chart from 1983

Back when people still bought records, several organizations made a viable business out of reporting the sales numbers. One of them was Rockpool, an agency who devoted at least part of its energies to tracking  the latest trends in the independent and alternative scenes. It's no secret that these results were often less than clinical, and the numbers could easily be manipulated to reflect the the tastes of the store or distributor employee tasked tabulating the results. Whatever the case, scoring well on both coasts made a nice addition to the press kit.

This example, dated July 24, 1983, came our way via John Brannon (Negative Approach, Laughing Hyenas, Easy Action) and Larissa Stolarchuk / Strickland (L7), who found it on the desk of Detroit  promoter Vince Bannon at the original Clutch Cargo's, Located at 64 W. Elizabeth Street in downtown Detroit. John and Larissa where living in the building at the time, and promptly put it in the hands of  Corey Rusk, head honcho of Touch and Go Records and former Necros bassist.