The Searchers on British TV 13/05/08

[miamiric]

The Searchers carrying out promotion medley of newly released hits compilation CD for morning TV show. Nice to see Frank Allen with Ric 4001 again.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdBPonxX9bc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdT97NrdznE&feature=related

[royclough]

Searchers have entered UK album charts at number 11 this week, their first album chart entry since March 65 - Amazing

[sowhat]

Searchers have entered UK album charts at number 11 this week, their first album chart entry since March 65 - Amazing

Well, if only it had been a new record...
Funny that, a band re-appeared in the charts after 43 years. Could that be a record of a time lapse between chart entries?

[royclough]

Be good if it was Sheena but here in UK there has been a number of TV promotions on Best Of albums and Joe Brown made album charts after a 45 year absence.

Incredibly Marty Wilde who is excellent live by the way last had a hit single in 62 but never had a chart album.

Yet this year he charted in not only Album Chart but also DVD chart.

[rob_mac]

Searchers were on also on BBC radio 2 on the johnnie Walker show last week promoting this. It is now on Youtube and can be found here in 6 parts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj30EwsA ... re=related

Its well worth a listen as they sing a couple of accoutic tracks live in the studio.

from Rob

[rob_mac]

This has now dropped down to number 21 as seen in the local supermarket yesterday.

Now would be a very good time for some label to sign them up and get them to record a new album.

From Rob

[espidog]

Now would be a very good time for some label to sign them up and get them to record a new album.

...but do they have any new material?

[royclough]

Answer is in recording terms yes, there is a lot of numbers featured in the act over recent years that have never been recorded.
Reality is though that it is highly unlikely any label would give them the opportunity.

[espidog]

Well, these days, there's an easy answer to that. If the record companies aren't interested, bypass them. Sell your music on iTunes!

[neilhunt]

One problem I see with iTunes is that I suspect a large portion of The Searchers' target market isn't set up for that. Even so, the main problem that The Searchers have, as I understand things, is that recording takes time, and therefore money, away from touring.

If they take two weeks to record an album, that's two weeks they're not getting paid. So they're looking for someone to advance them enough money to make recording worthwhile. It doesn't seem like they want to self-finance, even though Spencer has his own studio.

I guess they've done alright with the Live CDs, even though they're really poorly put together and, in any case, have long outstayed their welcome. Most people at shows are probably more likely to buy a souvenir of familiar songs than a new CD of relatively unknown tunes.

One other thing - The Searchers don't really have the merchandising thing down - for example, buy their DVD at their shows, find someone to buy it for you, or don't buy it at all. I suspect they could sell quite a few extra copies - at least one, anyway - by taking online orders, but for whatever reason they haven't gone down that route.