<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps you have seen the cover of the album <\/span>Goodnight Vienna.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0It pays homage to the 1951 Sci-fi classic movie <\/span>The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0There in the doorway of the prototypical 1950\u2019s flying saucer stands the nine-foot tall robot Gort. \u00a0Next to him, with helmet tucked under the arm of his silvery spacesuit stands (no not Michael Rennie who played Klaatu the spaceman in the movie) none other than Ringo Starr. \u00a0<\/span>Goodnight Vienna <\/span><\/i>was, after all, Ringo\u2019s 1974 solo album so it does make sense that it isn\u2019t Rennie gracing the cover. \u00a0This image of Ringo as Klaatu was one of the first clues that reporter Steve Smith used to kickstart gold record level sales of an eponymous album by a band that no one outside of their parent record company had even seen. \u00a0How Smith came to be the catalyst that would help propel this mystery album by the equally mysterious band Klaatu into the stratosphere, if not at least low Earth orbit, is indeed a long and winding road.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Smith told <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i> that the Rhode Island newspaper he worked for, <\/span>The Providence Journal<\/span><\/i>, would receive stacks of albums from labels hoping the paper would publish a review of one of their records. \u00a0The piles of LPs leftover were there for the taking and he picked up the 1976 self titled release by Klaatu in part because he liked the stylized sun artwork on the cover. \u00a0Unbeknownst to him, the same record had been released in the band\u2019s native Canada under the title <\/span>3:47 EST <\/span><\/i>(the time the Earth stood still in the movie) and had already garnered some favorable reviews: \u00a0\u201cAn impressive sci-fi answer to Bowie,\u201d is how <\/span>The Trouser Press<\/span><\/i> called it and <\/span>Record Monthly<\/span><\/i> said it was \u201ca terrific concept album.\u201d \u00a0What Smith heard was an album that sounded a lot like the Beatles, so on February 17, 1977, he published a review under the title, \u00a0\u201cCould Klaatu Be Beatles? Mystery is a Magical Tour.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0CRM<\/span><\/i> quoted Smith\u2019s 1977 review as saying, \u201cThe track <\/span>Sub-Rosa Subway<\/span><\/i> is completely Beatlish. The vocals are \u2018exactly like McCarney\u2019s\u2019, the drumming \u2018like Ringo Starr\u2019s\u2019 and \u2018the guitar work like George Harrison\u2019s and John Lennon\u2019s\u2019. \u00a0(The song) <\/span>Doctor Marvello <\/span><\/i>sounded like <\/span>Blue Jay Way<\/span><\/i>-period George Harrison \u2018with the rest of the Beatles backing\u2019. \u00a0Other songs had \u2018digs from The Beatles\u2019 past, such as singing through fuzz effects, Yeah, Yeah Yeahs, and unmistakable harmonies. \u00a0Summing up (and hedging his bets), Smith concluded that this mystery band could be 1. The Beatles. 2. A couple of The Beatles with other people. \u00a03) A Beatles-backed band. 4) A completely unknown but ingenious and talented band.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Smith contacted Capitol Records (hmmm – also The Beatles\u2019 U.S. label) to learn more about this band, they told him they had no information about Klaatu. \u00a0Naturally Smith didn\u2019t believe them for a minute, thereby fanning the flames of his theory that Klaatu was actually some sort of covert Beatles project. Capitol did tell Smith that they had signed Klaatu from Frank Davies whose Daffodil Records label had released the band\u2019s record in Canada.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Smith contacted Davies and learned that Klaatu had recorded at Rush producer Terry Brown\u2019s studio in Toronto. \u00a0When word got around that Terry Brown had worked as an engineer at London\u2019s Olympic Studio\u2019s (home to some legendary Beatles recording sessions) and that Davies was originally from the UK and worked for EMI Records (The Beatles European label), the rumour mill began to grind furiously. \u00a0The mystery train that was <\/span>Klaatu <\/span><\/i>began to gain momentum, spurring the previously sluggish <\/span>Klaatu <\/span><\/i>album sales began to soar.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Capitol Records execs hadn\u2019t lied to Smith when they said they had no information about the band. \u00a0When Davies was shopping the band for a US label, A&R rep Rupert Perry only had to hear a few tracks to convince himself that he wanted to sign them. \u00a0When he requested a meeting with the band to sign the contract, Davies refused. He explained this refusal to bring Klaatu in thusly: \u201cI\u2019d warrant that they were signed to me, my label and my production company. \u00a0The lawyers will be involved – my lawyers, their lawyers. They\u2019re signed to you through me and that\u2019s that.\u201d While it was an unusual moved for Capitol to sign an unknown band sight unseen, they liked the record enough to send it off to radio stations with Smith\u2019s glowing review. \u00a0It was a bit of a gamble, but odds are they were hoping the \u2018Is it or isn\u2019t it The Beatles?\u2019 mystery would fuel album sales. Luckily, the gambit worked for the label, but it would turn out to be a less than fortuitous turn of events for the band\u2019s future album sales.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Klaatu came about when John Woloshuk and guitarist Dee Long began working at Terry Brown\u2019s Toronto studio in 1974. \u00a0By the time drummer Terry Draper joined the project in February of 1975, they were already deep into recording the <\/span>Klaatu<\/span><\/i> album. \u00a0Knowing they would not be able to tour the album as a three piece band, they made a conscious decision to not identify themselves on the album sleeve. \u00a0Starting with this little air of mystery wasn\u2019t at all intended to be a PR move. As Davies told <\/span>CRM<\/span><\/i>, \u201cKlaatu weren\u2019t going to go down the tried and tested route. \u00a0The guys wanted to try a new approach. They wouldn\u2019t do photos, or interviews, or have a bio. \u00a0I was cool with that. It was different. They weren\u2019t going to play live, either.\u201d Woloshuk, the band\u2019s bassist, vocalist, and keyboard player summed it up pretty well: \u00a0\u201cWe were three unknown guys from Toronto and didn\u2019t want the focus to be on us as individuals. We really wanted the music to be the focal point. Also, we knew that the music we wanted to record couldn\u2019t possibly be replicated on stage by three people.\u201d \u00a0Smith shared some of his Beatle clues with Davies who told him coyly that he\u2019s \u201cpretty accurate.\u201d Davies wasn\u2019t about to squash a PR juggernaut with a little thing like the truth or facts.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Word of The Beatles-Klaatu mystery finally reached The Fab Four themselves. \u00a0Paul McCartney sent his old EMI colleague Davies a postcard that said he was, \u201chaving a laugh watching all the rumours swirling.\u201d \u00a0Capitol was keeping its cards close to the vest by saying as little as possible, but they did take out some music trade magazine ads showing the Klaatu Sun from the album cover with the cryptic slogan, \u201cKlaatu is Klaatu\u201d. \u00a0\u00a0A radio station program director in Washington, DC finally took the matter to Congress; the Library of Congress, that is. A little research revealed the songs on <\/span>Klaatu<\/span><\/i> were copyrighted to Draper, Long, Woloschuk and Dino Tome, not The Beatles. \u00a0Klaatu had caught wind of The Beatles thing while they were in England recording. \u00a0Upon returning to Toronto, they found the whole thing had exploded beyond anything they had imagined when they laughed off the first hints they heard about themselves being The Beatles. \u00a0Even though the music was good and sounded Beatley, the magic PR mystery bubble burst and as Terry Draper says, \u201cWhen people found out we weren\u2019t The Beatles, they thought we\u2019d perpetuated the rumour and duped them, and that came back to haunt us.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Woloshuk goes on to say, \u201cThe whole world resigned themselves that we weren\u2019t The Beatles. \u00a0<\/span>Rolling Stone <\/span><\/i>magazine gave us their \u2018Hype of the Year\u2019 award!\u201d \u00a0The album they were working on in England when The Beatles myth exploded was called <\/span>Hope<\/span><\/i> and it was released in September of 1977. \u00a0It was a good album, but every good review was countered with two articles decrying them as a \u00a0\u201cHoax!\u201d or a \u201cScam!\u201d. Again, Woloshuk reflects back at the whole affair with a great deal of honest irony: \u00a0\u201cTo engineer the press furor that happened was way beyond our level of intelligence. Nobody could have planned that. \u00a0We were the victims to the rumour. I see the gold records on my wall and I know what we accomplished. We got very good at what we were doing. \u00a0It\u2019s a shame that we weren\u2019t allowed to have a place in the music industry workforce. We were forced out of it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As for the man who stated the whole \u201cIs it the Beatles?\u201d ball rolling, Steve Smith still likes the band and wishes that they had been given a more even chance: \u00a0\u201cI feel kind of bad about what eventually happened when they got pooh-poohed. After it came out that they weren\u2019t The Beatles, nobody wanted to hear it any more, \u00a0I thought they were a really talented band.\u201d Klaatu can\u2019t be too hard on Smith. If he hadn\u2019t plucked their album off the discard pile at the <\/span>Providence Journal<\/span><\/i> at the start, Klaatu\u2019s first album wouldn\u2019t have made a blip on the music business radar to begin with.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Capitol still had faith in the band. \u00a0Unfortunately, they tied conditions to their support of the band\u2019s future recordings. \u00a0Rather than have Klaatu continue their successful path aping Lennon and McCartney, they hooked them up with producers and studio musicians while pushing them to make more of a pop record. \u00a0It didn\u2019t work. Another album was tied to a requirement that they tour behind their next record. They expanded their line up with three members of the defunct Canadian band Max Webster and spent nine months touring as an opening act for Prism or headlining their own shows. \u00a0While they had fun touring, Draper says, \u201cWe couldn\u2019t make the leap from playing in bars to seated venues. We filled seats because people came to see the novelty act that was once thought to be The Beatles.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Someone in the Capitol Records marketing department really disliked the band so they sat on the records. \u00a0They were able to climb into the Canadian Top Forty with their song <\/span>Knee Deep<\/span><\/i> from their 1980 release <\/span>Endangered Species<\/span><\/i>, but it is hard to sell records that are not shipped. \u00a0By 1982, they were done.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Beatles influences came honestly. \u00a0As Woloshuk puts it, \u201cI\u2019m probably one of the biggest Beatles fans in the world.\u201d \u00a0Draper adds, \u201cIf you are going to steal – or learn – you steal from the best. Nobody\u2019s going to steal from a bad band.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Klaatu\u2019s members still make music and manage the affairs of the band (visit <\/span>www.klaatu.org<\/span><\/a> if interested in remastered albums or DVDs). \u00a0The resurgent interest in the band started in the 1990s and continues up to the present. \u00a0Frank Davies points out that, \u201cThey held a convention in 2005 here in Toronto for Klaatu fans. \u00a0People came from all over the world. The band played unplugged and the fans loved it.\u201d \u201cOur fans tend to stick with us even though we haven\u2019t had any new Klaatu product out in decades. \u00a0Our fans are extremely loyal,\u201d is Woloshuk\u2019s final word on the state of the band.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Prior to seeing the <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>piece on Klaatu, I only knew the name from <\/span>The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0Richard and Karen Carpenter (yes, the sticky sweet singing siblings from The Carpenters)<\/span><\/p>\n heard a track from <\/span>3:47 EST <\/span><\/i>called <\/span>Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft<\/span><\/i> brought in by their guitar player. \u00a0They covered it and Klaatu\u2019s members are still earning royalties from this unlikely recording of one of their tracks. \u00a0The track became an international hit for The Carpenters and appears on their <\/span>Greatest Hits<\/span><\/i> album. \u00a0As Woloshuk points out, \u201cIt took a lot of courage for them to do that. \u00a0It definitely been our most successful earner from our entire catalog.\u201d Now that I have ordered Klaatu\u2019s debut album we will get it on the air so we can all see and see what we missed!<\/span><\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 The 1974 touring version of Klaatu performing\u00a0California Jam<\/em>\u00a0on\u00a0Keith Hampshire’s Music Machine