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It was either late 1975 or early 1976 — the memory seems to fade regarding what were then unimportant facts — that Virgin Records managing director Simon Draper first came across a certain Mr P. J. Costello.
"He had done an acoustic demo tape that was played by Charlie Gillett on his radio programme. I heard it, and was interested, and phoned Charlie to get hold of the singer. I met Elvis, or P.J. as he was then, Costello, and listened to more of his stuff. As a result I decided not to do anything about it."
He had unwittingly turned down the singer and writer whom many converts are prepared to crown, as the closest you will get to the future of British rock 'n' roll and, significantly, the only musician to come out of Britain's musical turmoil of the last 18 months who looks likely to convincingly crack open the American market.
Draper doesn't spend his nights crying over his lost opportunity and he is quite prepared to admit that Virgin might not have been the best company for the fledgling Costello. After all, he has had the sweet pill of the Sex Pistols and the prospect of post-legal Devo to ease the memory of his error.
To start a postmortem on punk is to run into a bewildering set of conflicting and contradictory assertions. To those committed to the cause, such an inquest is untimely as they see the corpse still warm and the heart still beating.
An involved insider like Clash manager Bernard Rhodes sees it as a matter of suspended animation, with the life-force of punk having been confused into a weakness that the music industry has taken for a willingness, even desire, to Conform.
But don't be misled, warns Rhodes — punk has just been frozen for the next few years, ready to be woken when the need is there.
The industry that he and the Clash used, and still use, to achieve their declared aims has adopted a kindly, almost benign attitude to the punk puppy that screeched around its feet and savaged its ankles until it took some notice and opened up its cheque book.
Whatever you say about the music, insists the biz, punk was A Good Thing, stirring up a flaccid industry and injecting a dose of strife and steel into music that by general agreement (in hindsight) had a soft pot-bellied spread.
Now that the business men have house-trained the pup (no more stains on the carpet), or smothered the youthful energy with its bland over-financing — as another view would have it — where goes music now? Where are the money men placing their bets by investment over the next few years? Gather close, and you will hear.
Former top racing cyclist John Fruin worked in just about every area of the British music business "before returning to the scene" in 1976 as managing director of WEA Records in Britain. After taking a hard look at the music business he agreed with the American side of WEA not to invest any money in British music for the following 12 months because he believed WEA had a wealth of American talent that had not been developed sufficiently in Britain.
"As punk started to explode, I stayed out of it from WEA's point of view because of our interest in the American side, and instead decided to reorganise our British base in terms of distribution, pressing etc. I did not get involved in the emotional rush after punk — and possibly saved the company half a million pounds doing so, because that is the sort of money other companies were throwing around and losing.
"Certainly at that time, the media did the business a considerable favour by the amount of attention it focused on punk, developing it as a new British form of music — or at least, new for this market. Some of what was written was factual, some was journalistic hype, but it all made a big impression on a very, soft market.
"There was a considerable interest in sophisticated American music at the time, but the stimulus that the punk side gave to British music was great. A lot of money was thrown away, but a lot of talent emerged through it, although with cases like Elvis Costello it might not have been directly linked with punk," said Fruin.
For the future, Fruin sees a closer concentration on British music. "We as a business have started to invest heavily into British music. After the stimulation of punk rock by the press, there has emerged a great deal more interest in the British scene, a scene that was fairly dull 18 months ago — and certainly one that WEA had very little investment in.
"Now that is all changing, and having spent last year and this year building a foundation for the next ten years with a revamped distribution system, building and equipping a pressing plant, installing computers and so on at a cost of a few million pounds, we now see two main areas of investment, both about equal.
"One is the exploitation of the American repertoire that has been broken by the American company, with people like Fleetwood Mac, George Benson and so on, and the other area is investment in British talent with an eye on worldwide sales. Countries like Australia and Japan look to Britain for talent to hear and see, and there are vast markets in such places."
Fruin is looking at two ways of putting his company's money into the back pocket of British talent — first by direct signing to WEA. and secondly by setting up more 50/50 investment deals with production companies like Radar, currently boasting Costello, Nick Lowe and Pere Ubu on its books.
"I am planning more deals like the current one with Radar, where you have an extremely creative person like Andrew Lauder who I can use as a pair of eyes to spot the talent for the future. I couldn't employ someone like Andrew — there is nothing I could offer him. The only way that someone like that can be successful and stay in Britain is to work on something they can build that can be sold to make a capital gain."
While admitting that his strengths lie in the marketing rather than talent-spotting areas of music, Fruin sees two distinct trends over the next few years.
"First, I think the whiter, cleaner edition of punk with bands like the Pleasers and Tonight will find a very wide acceptance around the world — there is already a lot of American interest in Tonight, for example, with Jerry Wexler, the old man of American music, having signed them to WEA in America.
"America is still open for today's version of the Dave Clark Five, and so there is much potential in that area.
"The other trend for the future lies with today's editions of Bob Dylan — the people like Elvis Costello and Tom Robinson. This is the area where lyrics are listened to rather than the emphasis being purely on visual impact.
"I am sure there is a long lease of life in someone like Ian Dury, although whether America will take to him I don't know because they find it difficult to understand him over there, and most of his songs have to be listened to, to understand his cynicism. I am sure he could be very big in Australia, where I am sure they will understand him."
While his investment in British music is heavy over the next few years, Fruin is convinced of one fact — it would not have been there without punk. "Whether we sign direct to our label or through more companies like Radar, if the punk thing had not come up, I would not be investing like this. I would have stuck to our American material."
Maurice Oberstein is head of CBS in Britain, the company that has the Clash and the Vibrators side by side with Tina Charles and Cafe Jacques. He is. certain of one fact: "Every star of the Eighties is in a punk band today."
His belief in the staying power of his CBS signings is mirrored in his view of the future of music — it is all in the hands of the groups that are playing and learning now. While there are plenty of record buyers around who would say that bands like the Clash have had their day, Oberstein sees a continuing growth for Joe Strummer and the lads.
"You look for every artist you sign to be with you for 20 years at least. The commitment is wider, deeper and heavier than just the signing money — you also have to spend money to make the public aware of your art, on subsidising tours and such like. Very often the money spent on recording an album is one of the smallest costs overall. Marketing costs up to three or four times as much as recording an album, so our faith in an act is as a long-term investment.
"For example, we have spent in excess of £250,000 on Cafe Jacques, while their album has not sold anywhere near that amount, but we think the band has genuine talent and a future.
"The Clash album has sold 100,000 records, but that is not successful financially. We all lost money over that because of the money that went into it they toured up and down the country, and lost money with every gig. The members of the band are still on £50 or £70 a week — and that is terrible. But we have no reason to doubt that their next album will not sell three times as much as the first.
"When I think of the Clash, I look at the early Pink Floyd. Could you tell me how far down the road that band would have gone in ten years time? No.
"I feel a similar thing with the Clash. Within the band there is a great musical creativity, and they have the musical strength to be making great music for years to come. If they want to do it I think they will be making great records in ten years time. History tells us that the originals will stay — and the Clash and the Pistols were in there at the start."
With a stable of about 40 British acts to concentrate on — and a promotion and marketing team of 87 people working on them and the American CBS artists with an annual budget that goes well into seven figures — Oberstein is well aware of the effect that money has on the success of music.
For the past four years the total number of records sold in Britain has not just remained stationary but has fallen slightly since a peak in 1974 — which means that all the record companies, either the huge international groups like EMI, CBS and WEA or the small independents, are fighting for a larger slice of a pie that is not growing. Oberstein has a direct businessman's answer to where music is going in the next few years.
"At a time when there has been no growth in the unit sales of records, the biggest growth area has been in those records promoted on television, whether it be the K-Tel type of compilation albums or the ELO types that have a massive promotional push behind them.
"If you look at the charts for the last two Christmasses you find that a good 50 percent of the records that made it were either specifically made for TV promotion or were heavily advertised for that medium.
"That inevitably means the market has moved towards the middle-of-the-road with retrospectives of the Supremes or Buddy
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