What's your favorite piece of absurd music trivia?

Forget the Jackson 5, all nine of Joe and Katherine Jackson's children have had singles reach the Top 40 as solo artists. Every one of them. I find that incredible.

All 9 Jackson Family Siblings Have Now Had Solo Hits on the Billboard Charts »

 

They were a colorful bunch.

 

No, Blind Faith did it first; they played MSG before their only LP came out. It gets a mention in the Ahmet Ertegun bio The Last Sultan.

 

Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck were born within 12 miles of each other. Kinda like NFL QB's born in western Pennsylvania....

 

Banjo was the lead instrument in a British Invasion hit that I won't name, speaking of trivia...

 

It was Michael Nesmith

 

Their nearly-concurrent deaths last winter reminded me of the trivium that Lemmy gave Keith Emerson the (SS?) knife that Emerson jabbed into his organ keys while in The Nice.

 

The Violent Femmes' debut is the only LP ever to be awarded a platinum album without reaching the Billboard album chart. (It finally made the chart after being certified.)

 

He's also a voracious reader and posts his reading list to his website.

 

Only the first comic, but, yes, it's not an urban legend. The story was included in the comic book along with photos of them having the blood drawn.

 

That's not exactly trivia, is it? Nobody hid the fact that Buster was David. Also, he only "came up with" the song in the sense that he covered Arrow's original version. And technically speaking, soca is not "Latin" as it comes from Trinidad, which is an Anglophone country.

 

The story I read (Possibly apocryphal) is that one of the filmmakers came to his house to ask him to write a song for the movie. He wrote the first two lines on a piece of paper and said "Here, take this to McGuinn".

 

Weird, I was just reading about Blind Faith's Hyde Park show, and tour of the US last night!

 

According to wiki, "After Scandinavia, the band toured the United States, making their debut at Madison Square Garden on 12 July before more than 20,000." The record was released in August, 1969.

I'll bet the New Barbarians are the only band to have headlined at MSG without ever releasing and album during their career.

 

Don Was produced an album in April of 2010 for an unknown Pennsylvania band called "The Rustlanders" at East-West Studios in Hollywood. The Rustlanders had financial backing to pay Was his fee of $250,000, but due to the keyboard player saying the word "F**K" into his microphone ("How the F**K are you people tonight?") at an upscale, private Super Bowl gig a few months earlier, the financial backers 'backed-out' and Mr. Was only received about $75,00-125,00 (my memory is a bit foggy).
Long story short, Don Was could not proceed with the mixing of the tracks (or having them mixed). He did shoot a full-length documentary that would have accompanied the release of the album, documenting the rise of a band that Mr. Was considered "the next 'The Band'". T'was not to be.
The Rustlanders did play a showcase gig at The Mint while they were recording the album. They broke up a year or two after the recording...likely to never return to those tracks or to finish the mixing and mastering.
As far as I recall, Mr. Was was very cordial to the band and encouraged them not to lose faith.
I'm posting one of the tracks below. It comes from a CD-R I was given of the songs, although it's a rough mix and certainly not a final product...Just straight from the reel-to-reel and given a quick reference mix. Not sure of the lyrics or the song's name (I forgot it). So I made one up based upon what lyrics I could make out.
Enjoy...since we can't buy their music...we can get a small taste...

 

Mott the Hoople is mentioned in the lyrics of two U.S. top 40 hits. T. Rex also is mentioned in the lyrics of two U.S. top 40 hits, one of which is by Mott the Hoople.

 

That's a bigtime Hazmat or bio-hazard, at least technically, and pretty creepy to boot.

 

I thought it was only Gene that had radioactive blood? I'm guessing Ace and Paul had poisoned blood but I'd think Peter's 90% proof blood would be safe enough.

 

During the Dutch music invasion of the 1970's, All the groups sung in English.

 

Townes Van Zandt once fell off a 4 story building just to do it.

"I lived on the fourth story of this apartment building, and at one point during one of these parties I went out and sat on the edge of the balcony and started leanin' backwards. I decided I was gonna lean over and just see what it felt like all the way up to where you lost control and you were falling. I realized that to do it I'd have to fall. But I said, 'Hell, I'm gonna do it anyway,' So I started leanin' back really slow and really payin' attention, and I fell. Fell over backwards and landed four stories down. Flat on my back. I remember the impact and exactly what it felt like and all the people screamin'. I had a bottle of wine and I stood up. hadn't spilled any wine...."

 

That was nearly a Robert Wyatt story...

 

No idea, but I got that from his documentary - Be Here To Love Me.

TVZ was one helluva story teller. Also, confirmed crazy **

 

Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter. Not sure why you wouldn't name it.

 

I assumed it was the Hollies' Stop Stop Stop...

 

Mrs. Brown was earlier, but I think the Hollies song also pre-dates The Monkees.