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www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pH3F2fWoHk27 Mar 2009 - 3 min - Uploaded by trigger123w
The song from the latest lynx bullet advert by The Seeds, calledCan't Seem to make you mine. Legal ...
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The year was 2008 and I was wandering London checking out the music scene, having just launched my book on the history of rock . Thanks to an old mate of mine, a prominent London celebrity psychologist Andre Van Graan, I was invited to a
BBH private party and man what a party, every model in London seemed to be there. It was there that I was introduced to this really cool dude called
Jim Carroll with a hairstyle somewhere between
David Sylvian. and sixties icon
Adam Faith. Jim really knew his music from the back of his hand which is why Andre introduced me as a rock musicologist. As the evening progressed and drinks and Bolivian marching powder overflowed, Jim hustled me into a corner (house music thumping away) and asked me what number would I use if I was looking for a zany cult sixties song, but emphasized he did not want British artists . I suggested "I Had Too Much To Dream last Night" -
The Electric Prunes and a
Seeds song called "Can't Seem To Make You Mine". A year or two passed, can't quite remember but lo and behold there on TV, the
Lynx Bullet Ad with the
Seeds as a jingle.
I immediately contacted
Carroll which took a year, thirty emails and 18overseas phone-calls and finally he replied, although he said he could not remember my name, but asked my address, three weeks later an envelope arrived with a 200 pound note in it. I recently found out that
Sky Saxon the author of the song had passed away, but previous to that was still living in a one bedroomed apartment with his lady, with dreams of owning a house in Europe ....
Man ........Oh man ...what a world we live in !.
Nike Football Write The Future "Hocus Pocus"
But the story does not end there , from that point onwards I crossed the waters to Amsterdam, my regular playground for music exploration and there lay my beloved Dutch book distributor, 'Fame Records'. At that stage South Africa was big news regarding hosting the
World Cup the following year, so relishing in this long deserved consolation I was boldly frequenting various media parties thanks to
Fame Records who escorted me around as a celebrity of some sort, largely because of my past Amsterdam association with the late
Arthur Lee of the group
Love. At one such party I was complimenting and at the same time admonishing the Dutch for not using their own bands in local Ads which caught the attention of a representative of
Wieden & Kennedy. I was
specifically referring to the Dutch band
Focus, knowing quite well that the
Focus bassist
Bert Ruiter was present and so wanting to meet him. Later I met songsmith
Dan Wieden ("Just Do it") who put the song "The Morning After" on the map and again in for the kill,
'Ok so why hasn't "Hocus Pocus" ever been used internationally as a jingle, the fastest riff ever ? , Dan replied,
'you fucking right man, you fucking right', and whammy it appeared on the
Nike Football jingle
Write The Future. The
Focus guitarist
Jan Ackerman is my witness to this event and yes I was paid. In the past 10years I have passed on perhaps a hundreds songs to agencies with little or no kick back, other than lunch, drinks and an occasional cheque for a thousand rand etc, but I am only to blame for not getting my ducks in a row. In the gloomy past I recall referring
Bobby Darin's "Splish Splash" and referring
Alan Parsons keyboardist
Duncan Mackay to
Michel Herbelin in London and something did occur. Duncan wrote the foreword for my rock history book! Also referred were countless blues songs with no credit or rare songs, but often what would happen is that the agency gets a local cover band to emulate it 'slightly' to save costs, just outside the parameter of royalty credit, now that pisses me off like really seriously.
Anyhow for whatever its worth I am still the break forth freaking out of box & mind genius when it comes to finding the right song.
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The author, a not very healthy Sky Saxon undergoing chemo- therapy
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