Okay, I can play. At the 1982 World's Fair held in Knoxville, TN, I rode a swing chair ride with Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and Michael Anthony. There may have been six or seven of us riding at the time. Not many. David Lee Roth was elsewhere. The band had a concert that evening at the local coliseum.
Bruce since then, which it's been at least 15 years since that happen, my sister moved to Destin in the panhandle, while I live on Captiva. Needless to say we don't get together like we use to. Kid's, filling up the bucket of life has gotten in the way. But her husband and I have pretty much the same taste in music. I just can't relate to him in any other way. He's a surgeon and they are a different kind of cat. By the way I don't know if this counts, but it should, after the Hysteria concert and we were backstage, lot's of everything going on, after getting their auto's on my shirt, me, my 2 friends, Steve Clark and Rick Savage all burned downed a couple of real sweet pocket rockets that we had. They were blitzed.
Dont feel bad. I was told by a girl one time that I looked like Mel Gibson. She was drunk, high and being held upsidedown by her boyfriend at the time so Im pretty sure I dont really look like Mel Gibson.
The fact that you keep popping in to provide hints and build up mystery tells us only that you want to spill your secrets. So, either do so, or validate elsewhere.
Neil Young and Pearl Jam were playing a show on the Mirrorball tour in Dublin in August 1995. It was a Saturday. There was a sci-fi convention in the venue next door that same afternoon. The concert hall and exhibition area were (and are) part of the same complex, but are completely separate buildings, and are on separate sides of a road. My then girlfriend was going to the sci-fi convention, and Dean Stockwell, riding high on the success of Quantum Leap, was going to be there. Figuring that, as a visitor, he'd be unaware of the fact that Neil would be playing in a hall about three minutes away, I told her to ask Dean Stockwell if he was going to the Neil Young gig, considering they go way back. She wasn't aware of this fact herself, not being especially familiar with Neil Young. I figured if he knew it was on, grand, but if he didn't, at least then he'd know about it. The chances of anyone ELSE mentioning it to him were slim. So, she goes up to get her photo signed at the meet and greet and duly asks him if he's going to the show. "Neil Young? Neil Young is in town? He's a good friend of mine...." [proceeds to look around for staff to clarify this and to make the necessary arrangements]. So, thanks to my tip-off (albeit not conveyed directly by me), I figured Dean and Neil got to meet up that weekend. But I always thought it'd be nice to have some confirmation... Fast forward a few years, and Jimmy McDonough's book, Shakey, comes out. The book includes some first hand interviews with Stockwell, including one where he specifically mentions the backstage cameraderie that he observed between Neil Young and Pearl Jam before they went on stage in Dublin.
You work in a record store in Berkeley, you expect to encounter shoplifters and street crazies, keep an eye out for sketchy characters. One such character showed up at "The Musical Offering", a CD store/Cafe specializing in "Early Music." So I keep close tabs on this one mook with a criminal vibe. Turns out to be producer Sandy Pearlman. Turns out he has a deep interest in renaissance music, in particular Elizabethan. So we end up seeing a fair amount of each other that summer of an early music festival where I'm doing a lot of concert recording, having conversations about recording technique, the melancholy of the later Elizabethan era, John Dowland and and John Dee. A few years later, I 'accidently' run into him in NYC and the conversation continues. This is like Broadway and 90th, he says that Peter Serkin lives a few blocks away.
As a fine dining server I have waited on lots of famous musicians but one of the ones where I acted the lamest (in the spirit of the thread) happened very recently. I got this table with a family of three in the corner at a small bar table. It's not very well lit there and this family was dressed very slovenly and seemed lost being at this fancy restaurant. I went up to talk about the menu with them and they seemed like downtown San Francisco tourists who accidentally ended up eating with us when they would of preferred something more casual. They ended up getting burgers and making a mess of their table. I thought the father was very nice and I gave them free giant cookies to take home when they didn't want dessert and was convinced they were just confused, lost tourists until the guy gave me his credit card to pay, and I see his name is David Crosby. Well I never let on as a server when you are waiting on famous people, but this time I couldn't resist since I had just bought a copy of If I Could Only... right before work. I of course had to run to grab it and get him to sign it. He loved the coincidence of someone buying his random album right before he came in to eat. All in all a very pleasant experience meeting a sixties legend.
My Mom was friends with Del Shannon's Mom I was asked to use a spotlight to follow Neil Young on stage (my friends boyfriend did the staging) I ate chicken wings with Jackson Browne backstage I had coffee with Alice Cooper as we waited in line to sign up for a golf tournament I had beers with Dennis Tufano and Carl Giammerese (The Buckinghams) If those aren't lame I don't know what is.
I have a couple. 1. Old school mate of mine is cousins with one of the guys from Hootie and the Blowfish. 2. Science teacher in Junior High was a bassist for Hall and Oates in the 70's. 3. (Non Musical) I live in Whoopie Goldbergs old apartment.
Not really. Do you remember him from there, or was he just someone you recognized from your Yearbook?
I previously listed 4 events mostly as a musician, As a music fan, I went to see Sean Lennon in Woodbridge at Vintage Vinyl in Woodbridge NJ. I went into the store before the show to buy the CD/ticket. The band was setting up in the stage area in the back of the record store, but Sean was at the front counter buying vinyl. I stood behind him, as there was no one else in the show, waiting to buy my ticket. I did a poker face because I tend to go "Chris Farely". He bought his stuff and went to the back, I quietly waited my turn. Later I did get a photo op and autograph.
I have a ton of experiences and run-ins with musicians since I was a child. First off, living in Tarzana, California in 1969, Johnny Mathis' brother was living a few houses down with us (and they were an inter-racial couple) and I remember seeing Mr. Mathis getting out of his car and walking across the street to the house. I can then jump to the mid-1980's being at Tower Video on Sunset blvd and I got accidentally bumped by someone while I was looking at the VHS tapes for a rental and the person said "Oh, I'm sorry! Excuse me!" and it was David Bowie. I didn't know what to say. I just nodded with a shocked look on my face! I won't even go into the Flipside years since I was lucky enough to meet most of the punk rock heroes that I had fawned over when I was a teen, but the biggest exception was meeting Nirvana and Kurt Cobain, especially, when L7 had a party at Pete Stahl from Scream's house in North Hollywood when they got signed to Slash Records. This was in early 1991 and we all ended up drunkenly dancing and pogoing to (I kid you not!) KC and The Sunshine Band in the wee hours of the morning. Will never ever forget this party!
I bumped into Bruce Foxton of the Jam when coming out of the mens toilets of a tiny pub in Nottingham, around 1994. He was playing a gig there with Jake Burns from Stiff Little Fingers. I was a bit drunk at the time.
Just remembered another one... two members of the group 'Scouting for Girls' went to the same school as me. (If you've never heard of them, don't worry, you ain't missing anything)
I did not hang around with him, but I do remember him - and his sister June. Later on, while working in a neighborhood drug store as a delivery person, I had the task of "supplying" drugs to the Rundgren household. In high school, Todd was surely "different". You mention the yearbook - he's listed as "not pictured". Harry
Cool. You might dig this footage of the Upper Darby High May Day celebration: Yeah, one gets the impression Todd was a giant geek by any standard. Memorizing Gilbert and Sullivan operettas is not a normal high school activity.
The guy who has played drums in various bands I've been in for the last 20 or so years (and we are currently in the same band) was once in a band that opened for Hootie & The Blowfish just before their first album exploded. That band then got a different drummer (creative differences) and became Luster, who were on the "Empire Records" soundtrack and did an album for A&M. I taught at the same school as Luster's lead singer/guitarist's (Will Marley) mom.
I actually got to meet Ray plus the rest of Dr. Hook backstage (at the York Barbican, I seem to recall) just after the Completely Hooked compilation had come out and subsequently gone massive here in the UK - he was a true gentleman, upgrading my whole family's tickets to the very front and even sending us a signed picture of the whole group, which my mother's probably still hoarding along with her other treasures (working at a large motorway service station, she's met of great celebrity customers over the years, including plenty she considers regulars). I'm pretty sure he was singing the chorus to Sexy Eyes looking right at her that night. I've shared this story before on here as well, but my tutor at Leeds College of Art and Design in 2003 was none other than Ricky Wilson of a local band then known as Parva, who had just recorded their first demo. In addition to recalling the morning he was leaping off tables following a rather crazy weekend in the company of a singer whose name I couldn't possibly reveal openly, my favourite memory is when I supplied him with a copy of the DJ Mic Luv SMiLE bootleg after he learned that I was a Beach Boys fanatic - this was late in the year, when Brian Wilson's announcement to perform the album as a finished piece had already happened. Not long after this, I was placed in a position where I had to choose between my studies and personal life. Sadly, my own group* went on a lengthy hiatus around this time, meaning that I couldn't accept an offer from my New Media tutor to support his group at the show where they were offered a contract, soon becoming the Kaiser Chiefs. In one of his earliest post-fame interviews, Ricky even spoke of his brief period as a teacher, including a reference to the fertile Leeds musical scene. For those who collect NME back issues, I'd sure love even a scan of the part where he mentioned "that drummer kid in the Radiohead t-shirt," because that was me. I'm not sure of the exact connection, but the actress Elsa Lanchester is a distant relative on my mother's side, and I know my grandmother was a close friend of Christopher Lee, believe it or not. Indeed, she once convinced him to appear at a charity event (for the Leeds hospital where she'd been doing her training) in his full Dracula outfit, terrifying many of the patients. I could also tell a few great stories about a close family friend who's since left the music world to become an executive or the producer my mother worked for as a studio assistant back in the late '70s, but I'd have to ask her since I can't remember their names. Sorry, guys... *Apart from me still having all the master tapes for our recordings in an upstairs cupboard of my house, the only reminder I have of this band - our logo, once foolishly tattooed onto my left forearm in a moment of summer heat induced madness - has since been covered, much like the original butcher sleeve. P.S. My uncle is also now a talent agent who formerly toured with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards. My family's actually got some pretty good connections when I think about it!
A variety of lamenesses: I used to bump into T-Bone Burnett from time to time in Cambridge, MA in the early 80s. Thanks to a friend who worked security at the Orpheum (I can only imagine his stories), my girlfriend and I visited him backstage when he was opening on Elvis Costello's first solo tour in 1984 I think. (Aimee Mann walked past me wearing a leopard-print Jackie Kennedy-style dress ensemble, complete with, yes, a leopard-print pillbox hat.) T-Bone said we were the first people to ever ask to visit him backstage. Elvis stuck his head in to say that T-Bone's set was great, and T-Bone let us watch the first 3 songs of Elvis's set from backstage with him. Said girlfriend and I got married in 85, and are still together. Coincidence? I think not. A Tom Dowd story that starts as a Katherine Harris story that took place years before her role in national history. Too long a story to explain how I wound up dancing with her at Jeb Bush's first inauguration ball as governor of Florida...it had to do with my wife, actually...anyway...while we were dancing, we talked about the then-current swing revival, and whether or not Squirrel Nut Zippers were being ironic. We decided that they probably kinda were, while, IRONICALLY, The Stray Cats were probably not. That's sort of a musical claim to fame, yes? Definitely lame. So there was an event related to a Florida musician's hall of fame thing that she hosted (a special exhibit for the Florida Artists Hall of Fame? Something like that), and she introduced me to Tom Dowd, whose birthday it was (Oct 20). We were talking about Criteria and his thoughts on The Fillmore Concerts release (I refrained from phrasing it as, "What the hell were you thinking?"), when he introduced me to Sam Moore, who was walking by. "Tell him Happy Birthday! His birthday was last week!" says Tom. Tom was all about the birthday wishes, so when he introduced me to Bo Diddley, he said "But I don't think his birthday's anywhere near here. Hey Bo! When's your birthday?" (In December.) I've forgotten my own birthday a couple of times, but I'll never forget that October 20 was Tom's.
I had a friend in grad school who once had sex with Fleagle of the Banana Splits (not in costume. I asked).
