As well as letting the rock rags know about their new name, the Carlton quartet began a graffiti campaign to publicise it. It was usually just the word News, but occasionally became something like 'How aNewsing'. Most went up in Carlton, Fitzroy, Collingwood, and Richmond. But the rash also spread as far south as St Kilda. Most importantly, it worked. Through February, even the mainstream media ran brief stories on the phenomenon and/or the band. After a while, it was rumoured that even our intelligence service, ASIO, was interested. In fact, the campaign was hijacked; after the band put up some examples, fans copied the idea and spread the News much further. The culprits were thought to be politicos of one kind or another, but no one ever knew. It seems that also around now, News considered moving operations to USA believing it to be more fertile ground. This was an especially tempting vision, after the cold front they constantly met as Babeez. Fortunately for us the idea faded.
The first show as News was on February 11th, at the Pram Factory. Again, for those unaware, the Pram Factory was a Carlton Hippy scene venue set up in the early 1970's. It was run by the Australian Performing Arts Group along arts factory lines. Late in its' life it provided a venue for local bands including Stiletto, High Rise Bombers, and others. In late 1977 Gavin swung two shows there via acquaintances, their first being with the High Rise Bombers. They were totally old wave and admitted a total inability to understand the News approach: "They thought we were a bit of a joke. They were still on the hippy thing and couldn't understand where we were coming from. They also couldn't understand how we could go about actively 'un-idealising' hippy consciousness. The Carlton music scene disliked us because they thought we were destroying music" [Gavin]. Despite the usual slew of technical problems and John (AKA John from the Suburbs) still being new, News carried the night. Shane Maloney, writing for The Age (17/2/1978), said: "They won a grudging and eventually enthusiastic response from the 200 strong audience". At the Pram Factory then, that was good going. Gavin, now very much the manager, also pulled a few supports at Hearts, a regular venue in Carlton. Promoter Adrian Barker was basically sympathetic to News from the start. Bruce Milne was also positive about them in his fanzine Pulp. This popular support, plus the attendant wave of publicity with the graffiti campaign brought the cautious as well as the punk faithful to gigs. Here began the sizeable and constant following that News always enjoyed.
This crowd would soon become at least slightly distinct from the local punk throng by virtue of following News as opposed to... certain other bands. But first, another sideline by News members deserves mention. February 21st saw the first (and last?) stand of The Young Ones who were Bruce Milne, Ian 'Ollie' Olsen, Phillip Morland and from News, Julie and Jarryl. Their set was sixties pop covers, the sort of material Babeez and now News were dabbling in. The Young Ones debut at the Tower Hotel included versions of 'Then He Kissed Me' and 'I Got You Babe'. Nice!
