Nov-Jan 1977 Schedule
Attached is a scan of the back page of our late November 1977 newsletter. It shows all the places Art had us booked at the time of the printing.
I did a quick calculation and came up with about 100 hours of playing time during the month (Nov 23 – Dec. 23). Sometimes there were more, sometimes there were less in the 6 years I was with the band.
If you do the calculation for the 6 years (100 hours a month, times 12 months, times 6 years) you will come up with about 7200 hours. This does not include the hours of rehearsals and time in the recording studio which probably put us close to 10,000 hours. Nor does it include the years Silver Laughter played before Ken, Paul and I got in the band. And then there are all the hours we each spent in other bands playing and rehearsing.
Why do I mention this? Because Malcom Gladwell wrote a great book called “Outliers” which talks about the “magical” 10,000 hours rule. In it he talks about how the Beatles got there by playing all those hours in German nightclubs. This put them head and shoulders above the rest of the groups in Liverpool at the time.
It is my belief that we were just short of making it big, and had we made another album and stuck together one more year, we probably would have made it. We had the experience and momentum on our side. I’m just saying…
Mick Orton
Categories: History, Memorabilia
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