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Philips was setting up a new ‘underground’ label called Vertigo when we were looking for a deal. We were a perfect fit. But the funny thing was that Vertigo wasn’t even up and running in time for our first single, ‘Evil Woman’, so it was originally released on another Philips label, Fontana, before being reissued on Vertigo a few weeks later.
Not that it made any f**king difference: the song went down like a concrete turd both times. But we didn’t care, because the BBC played it on Radio 1.
Once.
At six o’clock in the morning.
I was so nervous, I got up at five and drank about eight cups of tea. ‘They won’t play it,’ I kept telling myself, ‘They won’t play it...’
But then:
BLAM...BLAM...
Dow-doww...
BLAM...
Dow-dow-d-d-dow, dooooow...
D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d
DUH-DA!
Do-doo-do
DUH-DA!
Do-doo-do...
It’s impossible to describe what it feels like to hear yourself on Radio 1 for the first time. It was magic, squared. I ran around the house screaming, ‘I’m on the radio! I’m on the f**king radio!’ until my mum stomped downstairs in her nightie and told me to shut up.
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