reserved to deg30

	£		37
	$		50

Os APOLLO STARS

"Meu Querido Portugal"

"Portugal Minha Canção"

LABEL:  RISO & RITMO

CATALOG:  1351

FORMAT: 7" VINYL

RELEASED YEAR: 1974

COUNTRY: PORTUGAL

COMMENTS:   A BIZZARE STORY: Church of Scientology (CoS). A name pratically unknown to the majority of the portuguese. And yet, thousands of people in Lisbon [capital of Portugal], have already been approached by this organization: it is this same Church that has that habit of distributing, near several subway stations, some panflets alleging, quoting Einstein, that we only use "10% of our mental potential". Using this tactic, Scientology makes a first contact with the potential followers and also tries to sell the cult sacred book, written by Hubbard, "Dianetics - The Modern Science of Mental Health". This book has a portuguese edition, by "Europa-America" editors, and in some libraries of our country we can find Church publications. Riot in the 70's Scientology was founded in 1954, in the United States, and about a decade later started trying to expand to the Caribbean, Europe and North Africa. Ronald Hubbard bought the Apollo ship and, in the end of the 60's and beginning of the 70's, visited several sea ports of countries going through political or economic crisis, where he expected to find suitable conditions to establish the Church. Portugal was important at that time. In the Church's calendar for 1995 most of the photographs are from ports visited at the beginning of the 70's: Setubal, Lisbon, Porto and Funchal [all ports of portuguese cities; Funchal is the capital of the portuguese island of Madeira, in the Atlantic Ocean]. In this calendar is also stated that Hubbard compiled a "historical series for the Maritime Museum of Lisbon" and there is a mention to the "remarkable portrait of Marcello Caetano" [the last leader of our 50 year dictactorship]. On the cover, the Tower of Bethlehem [Torre de Belem - Monument in Lisbon]... William Robertson, Captain of the Apollo at that time [founder of the Free Zone splinter group in 1982], revealed that in 1972 Hubbard rented a movie theatre in Lisbon where all the crew attended the world premiere of the movie "Butterflies are free", from director Milton Katselas (a scientologist). There is also another report, according to which Hubbard had rented a theatre in Portugal, about the same time, for the recording of an album of his private band, the Apollo Stars. When visiting sea ports (sometimes very frequently), the ship always rose some suspicions about his mysterious activity. But, the scientologists always answered with the same story: they were training executives in management techniques. At the 3rd October 1974, in Funchal, the Apollo Stars were scheduled to appear in a concert. Once more, the boat story sounded false and, in a political reunion of the MRPP [a left-wing political party], the rumour was spread that the boat was from the CIA (after the end of the dictactorship the left-wing parties were fighting against the interference of the United States in internal affairs). An angry crowd decided to attack the ship (with stones, sticks and other objects) and even throwed to the water 2 motorcycles and 2 small cars belonging to the crew. After the fight between scientologists and local people (that, apparently, lasted for more than one hour) the ship had to abandon the port. There are strong indications that Hubbard was aboard the Apollo at that time and this incident was the end of his approaches to the countries of Europe and North Africa.

CONDITION:

 RECORD IS NEARMINT

 COVER VG+ TO NEARMINT

GRADING SYSTEM:

MINT

STILL SEALED, I ONLY USE THIS

WHEN A RECORD IS UNOPENED FOR BOTH RECORD & SLEEVE

NEARMINT

RECORD IS PERFECT / SLEEVE IS PERFECT, SOMETIMES STILL IN SHRINKWRAP

VG+ TO NEARMINT

HAS SOME MINOR PAPERSCUFF- SIGNS OF PUTING THE RECORD IN AND OUT OF IT'S SLEEVE / SLEEVE HAS MINOR WEAR

VG+++

RECORD HAS VERY LITTLE  SIGNS OF BEING PLAYED, SOME VERY LIGHT VISABLE SCUFFS THAT MAY SOMETIMES BE AUDIBLE .../ SOME LIGHT WEAR ON THE FRONT SLEEVE OR VERY SMALL SPLITS OR WRITING, BUT VERY CLOSE TO VG+ TO NEARMINT

VG++

RECORD HAS SIGNS OF BEING PLAYED, VISABLE LIGHT SCUFFS THAT MAY SOMETIMES BE AUDIBLE .../ SOME WEAR ON THE FRONT SLEEVE OR SMALL SPLITS OR WRITING

VG+

VISABLE & SOMETIMES EVEN AUDIBLE SCUFFS / SCRATCHES , BUT MOST OF THE TIMES STILL SELL-ABLE TO CLUB DJ'S BECAUSE OF LOUD PRESSINGS & STUFF / SLEEVE IS PRETTY MUCH USED (SEE ITEM DESCRIPTION)

 VG

SCUFFS & MARKS OR SKIPS, SOLD "AS IS" ,MOST OF THE TIMES FOR THE JACKET OR AS A MUST-HAVE TO FILL YOUR COLLECTION / SLEEVE IS PRETTY MUCH USED (SEE ITEM DESCRIPTION)