Garry Blackburn started in the music business at Island Records in 1982, where he soon worked his way up to becoming Head of Promotion. In 1985 he left to form a partnership and the Anglo Irish Promotion and Management Company began, promoting Billy Bragg, The Housemartins, The The and The Beautiful South, plus managing The Redskins, Mel & Kim and Then Jericho. In 1990 the partnership was dissolved with the Irish half continuing independently with management while Garry continued with the promotions company now called Anglo Plugging.
Also in 1990, Karen Williams joined to assist with TV promotion, Karen had started in the music business in 1987 at BMG Marketing, then moved to Island Promotions in 1989, before moving across to Anglo. In 1991 Garry was joined by Dylan White to assist with radio promotion. Dylan had previously been a musician followed by band management and the setting up of his own independent record label.
Together Garry, Karen and Dylan steadily built up a roster of highly successful acts, which gave them the reputation of being at the cutting edge of UK promotion. In 1994 Dylan was voted Music Week's 'Plugger Of The Year' and was featured on the front cover of The Observer Newspaper reviews section. He also managed to win 'Plugger Of The Year' for the second time at the 1995 awards. As more work came in, including the promotion of the NME Brat Awards and the launching of 'Loaded' magazine, the company grew. Roland Hill joined the radio department and Mike Mooney the TV department. Regional radio promotion was also started, this being done by Lesley Woodall and Jonathan Payne.
Now to prove it wasn't just Dylan, Anglo won Best National Promotions Team at the Music Week Awards in 1997 as well as the 2nd place Airplay Award for 'Return Of The Mack' by Mark Morrison and 3rd place for ‘Give Me A Little More Time' by Gabrielle.
The company then expanded further into the dance world promoting events such as Creamfields and Muzik Magazine with its own dance awards night. Karen Williams left for pastures new and Nathalie Mirkin now assisted Mike Mooney with TV Promotion and Rob Lynch assisted Roland Hill with Radio promotion. Other staff fell by the wayside and new young guns were brought in. Hazel Charik, Bally Cheema, Simon Ward, Tony Pope, Simon Poole, Nic Austin, Paul Fells, Sam Mercer, Matt Stuart, Jo Bongiovanni, Jay Cox, Ben Pester and Jenni Crouch have all played their part.
Garry also continued to manage Norman Cook, re-mixer and member of Freakpower, Pizzaman, plus The Mighty Dub Katz. Norman also created Fatboy Slim, who in 1999 became a household name and enabled Garry to expand the management company. This left Dylan to become head of promotion which led to him and his new team once again picking up the Music Week Award for Best National Promotions Company in 2000.
With the expansion of the internet, Anglo launched its own on-line promotions department dedicated to this area of promotion. Initially run by Luke Best, followed by Manish Arora and Jessica Bailey, it’s now run by Nick Alsey. Desires for pastures new meant that Roland Hill and Mike Mooney left, but new young blood was found for the Radio and TV departments. Bjorn Hall, Clare Beaumont, Julie Thompson, Victoria Gratton, Brad Hunner, Glen Newsam and Tom Koenig all joined, plus back up staff Simone James, Laurence Emmett, Aleisha Chambers, Alice Schofield, Rebecca Braley, Andy Palmer, Nicola Martin, Sally Hearn, Alex Fordham, Bobbie Lane, Linda Jansson, Jaye Barratt, Neha Patel and Riley Difford all signed on the dotted line.
At the 2001 Music Week Awards Anglo were again nominated for Best Independent Company and Best National Team as well as picking up the 3rd place airplay award for 'Rise' by Gabrielle.
The skill has always been breaking new artists such as Suede and Oasis, but when U2 and Depeche Mode come to your door you do feel you're getting somewhere! Now not wishing to sound predictable but Anglo won their fifth Music Week award for Best National Promotions Team in 2002. Anglo Regional were also nominated for the first time.
The hits and events such as We Love Homelands and Guilfest have kept on coming and are listed in the back catalogue section.
At the Music Week Awards in 2003 Anglo were the only independent team to be nominated in the Best National section plus were again nominated for Best Independent Promotions Team. The same was repeated in 2004.
More changes to the squad were to follow, with Michelle O'Connor coming to the TV department bringing with her, Capital FM's Party In The Park, The Nationwide Mercury Music Prize and The Teenage Cancer Trust gigs. Gemma Cropper who had previously worked for 19 management also joined her as the TV department lost both it's previous players Nathalie and Victoria. Tom Koenig switched sides and started making radio programs and Bjorn Hall went out on his own.
2005 began with Craig McClintock joining our Radio Department, this meant he could join us for our sixth win at The Music Week Awards for Best Independent Promotions Team. We were also the only Independent team nominated for Best National section. The hits and events kept on coming and now included Global Gathering, Dylan was also asked by the UK Radio Academy to make a documentary film on how playlists work, he then presented this and chaired a panel which included Heads of Music from Radio 1, Radio 2, Emap and GCAP at the Radio Academy Day in April 2005.
Then came 2006 and the Music Week Awards, where for the seventh time Anglo won Best Independent Promotions Team and were also nominated in the Best National Team section.
The Nationwide Mercury Music Prize, which we promoted, also gave us our 3rd win in a row: Franz Ferdinand, Antony and the Johnsons and now Arctic Monkeys!
The year though ended with various team members deciding to go it alone, Rob Lynch, Brad Hunner, Craig McClintock and Michelle O’Conner all left and other staff moved on into different music and media areas. New back up staff, Leanne Kendall, Sema Gurlek and Anne Reid joined along with dance plugger Stephen Nixon.
2007 began with the discovery that Music Week had done away with the award for Best Independent Promotions Team, this left Anglo and the other winners over the years realizing that our lack of advertising spend had been noted! Anglo were still nominated in the Best Regional Team section but didn’t stand a chance against the major labels.
As 2007 progressed it was decided that Anglo needed to operate as a much smaller team like its competitors most of which Dylan had trained! So it was down sized to just Dylan doing national radio and TV with Julie and Jessica doing regional radio.
The current squad is:
Dylan White - National Radio and TV
Julie Barnes - Regional Radio and Regional TV
Jessica Bailey - Regional Radio and Regional TV
Stephen Flannery - Accounts Manager
Leanne Kendall - Accounts Assistant
THE ANGLO METHOD
At Anglo we provide national and regional, radio and TV promotion. In consultation with artist management, press agent and record company we will assess the areas of exposure that can be realistically achieved whether an artist is looking for their first radio play or are about to embark on their 10th album launch. Each project is approached on an individual basis, as it's important to assess what the correct exposure would be to achieve the desired effect.
With a promotion company you are primarily buying time, contacts and expertise, which can include doing radio edits, many of which you would have already heard! As success increases so too does the workload and time involved dealing with that artist, it doesn't get any easier once you have a hit!
The media is constantly changing with new radio stations, TV shows, websites etc… It's vital for us to stay on top of all these developments, which means we can be best informed when it comes to selecting release dates or the timing of announcements or events.
We use computer tracking to list all radio station plays, as it's crucial to have daily information in the early stages of breaking a record, particularly on regional radio. We also have our own website which contains our artists' info and has links to other music sites.
This website is intended for those in the media, who take biogs, tour news, press releases etc. from it and those that subscribe to it receive a weekly news update.
To sum up, promotion is a cross between the climbing of Mount Everest, a game of football and a war.
But we all enjoy the challenge!
ANGLO PLUGGING - 020 7384 7373
firstname@angloplugging.co.uk
FULHAM PALACE, BISHOPS AVENUE
LONDON, SW6 6EA
