John Spencer (of Blues Explosion & Heavy Trash) - Very diva like, complained about everything.
Everybody I know who has encountered that dude says he's a complete choadsmoker.
I have no idea wtf a choadsmoker is, but I concur that he is/was a pill. Russell Simins, on the other hand, was very cool. We had a great conversation that had nothing to do with JSBE and everything to do with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.
I would say the strangest encounter was with Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux. They finished playing and she walked off stage and sat down at the next table chain smoking while the band packed up. She asked for a cigarette after a while and when I didn't have any to spare, we shared my last one. We just sat there passing the thing back and forth, not really saying anything. Which I have to say I am grateful for cause have you seen her? You can't see her eyes at all through her hair! Where would I have looked?? I feel like your first time talking with someone, your only hope at a connection is to make eye contact.
This is really a great thread, guys. I've enjoyed reading it all.
I only have a couple of run-ins to share.
Back in college I helped do sound for a live radio performance for the Greyboy All-Stars. This was in like, '96 before they really really got the hardcore college hippie/phish-head audience. They were all really cool, especially keyboardist Robert Walter, whose work I love. He chatted with me for a minute about the band, working with Greyboy and shit like that. Karl Denson and all them are all bad-ass musicians. I haven't fucked with a show in a minute because of the crowd, but back then they were not to be missed.
Around 2000 I must have interviewed Greyboy, because I can't think of any other reason why we'd be talking. It was in Montreal, and he asked me to score him some weed for later that night. When I went up with him at the party to, um, facilitate the transaction, he brushed me off because he was trying to sweet talk a strikingly unattractive woman. That was the last I saw of him. I can't recall if the party was any good.
This is a little heavier...Around that same time I interviewed these producers named Hadji and LMO who released an EP of d&b with Indian samples in the style that I guess was popular six or so years ago. I knew nothing about D&B (not to suggest that I do now), and all we did was smoke massive joints backstage while they went on and on about the crazy soundsystems people had in the cars in London and how the streets shook in a certain way when they rocked desi breakz. I was baked out of my gourd and thought it was all the most interesting stuff ever. Then they did some sort of DJ set to a mostly empty room and I got a ride home with a cute student reporter from Concordia. That was a good night.
Anyway, I just googled Hadji and LMO to see what they were up to, and I find that Hadji was murdered in a Montreal club in 2006, about six months after I skipped town. Here's to the big blunted sound system in the sky, Hadji.
I hung out with him on dozends of occasions. Usually starting off the evening at the 55 and then doing lots of damage to ourselves at Brownie's afterhours until around 10 in the morning. Often, we crawled out of that place and while I was wating for a cab, he'd try and talk me into coming along to some other bar... I have no idea how this man was able to reach such a high age. real fun to hang out with and extremely knowledgable about many things.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Need to get their shit together: Scarface
Really? How so? I've never met or spoken with the man, but the folks I know who have say he's cool, if a bit sullen/morose.
One unexpectedly good interaction I should highlight was DJ Rap. My friend was DJing a show with her, and I had been hearing all sorts of stories about diva-ish behavior from the promoters and club folks and whatnot. Now I'm at the show to hang with my friend. I don't know d&b...I don't even like it, really, I'm just some dude hanging in the wings. Rap had little reason to even have interactions with me, much less be nice, but she was mad cool to me, very open and accommodating. I was expecting some bitchy little priss but instead met a really cool, engaging person.
She's an old friend of a girl I used to date in the 90s. We only ever hung out a couple of times, because this was around the time she signed to Sony and was starting to get a lot of DJ work overseas, but she was really sweet. By all accounts she used to be a bit wild back in the days when the rave scene was at its peak in the UK. She also did a bit of cheesecake modelling to pay for studio equipment and shit when she was starting out, but I was warned in advance not to mention that, much less that I'd actually seen some of the pictures...
I went to a JTQ gig and spoke briefly with James Taylor: the guy was totally drunk and smiled a lot.... I remember he got 2 seconds of "mental lucidity" when I asked who was his favourite hammond player, then I start mention some names and he said "CHARLES EARLAND IS THE KING"
I was completely off my face with my girl after the V festival last year and we were heading back to our hotel room. I made some random comment to this dude in the lift who turned out to be the drummer from the Pixies. REAL NICE DUDE. stopped and chatted to us for maybe ten minutes.
- I did an article on Charles Wright for Roctober magazine, and he later told me that he was proud that a black man chronicled his story so well...some years later I interviewed Doug & John Clark (from Doug Clark & the Hot Nuts) for the same mag, and they told me the same thing. (The Clarks were so impressed they even offered me a place to stay if I ever make it up to their neck of the woods!)
- Swamp Dogg taking me to dinner after one show he did in Chicago (and his first wife Yvonne, who unfortunately is now deceased, telling me matter-of-factly that for a black guy, I sure know a lot about Swamp's history!)
- the East of Edens Soul Express, my DJ group, getting to open for the Beastie Boys, spinning old soul 45's...the Beasties themselves didn't say much, but Money Mark smiled at me, gave me a fist pound, and just said "vinyl!"
Most of my interactions with musicians have been positive...here's one with a promising beginning and a tragic end...I first met R.L. Burnside when I jammed with him on harmonica at a folk festival workshop in 1994...this was before the indie-rock crowd adopted him and he was just another Delta musician at that point...totally nice guy, and he even wrote his name and address on the back of a promo photo he had with him. Ten years later, I interviewed him for a local magazine, and he gave me short monosyllabic dazed-sounding answers that I couldn't use. While I knew he had been ill, I didn't know he was that far gone. (He died a year later.)
My band did a cover of RAMP's version of 'Everybody Loves The Sunshine' so I sent them a message on myspace telling them about it, hoping they'd check it out and enjoy it. I got a really nice personal reply from John Manuel, and then earlier this year when they came over to the UK I lent them my Solina for their Jazz Cafe gig. I met the whole band and they were all incredibly friendly, making time for all their fans (even the really obnoxious ones with loud voices spouting bollocks backstage). A happy story where a band who recorded an album I love so much actually lived up to all my expectations and more, thirty years later!!!
Frank McComb is also an incredible guy - I've received some really nice replies from him through myspace, as we chatted about Fender Rhodes pianos
And while we all have stories of obscure musicians we've met or become friends with, I can think of one instance where I DATED someone like that...I didn't know it the night I met her, but on our first date she casually told me she sang with some 1980's all-female rock band who had one major label album. This impressed me to no end - while the band were not superstars by any stretch, I distinctly remember Creem magazine running their photo a couple of times, and the teenage version of me thought they were hot. Now here it was 2003, long after their lone album hit the bargain bins, and I'm hooking up with one of them. And she's STILL a hot-looking rocker chick after all these years. Even gave me a spare copy of one of the band's singles. It was cool hearing her tales of musicians she encountered when she was younger - most are unprintable, but it will come as no surprise that she thought Kim Fowley was a solid-gold-plated asshole.
Roy Ayers - chilled and amusing. Charlie Watts - ditto. Chick Corea - chilled and not weird. Kim Clarke from Defunkt - nicest person ever and a wicked bassplayer. Bluey from Incognito - always been super-nice. Mark E Smith from The Fall - drunken and in tears 'cos his bird had run off with the violinist Nigel Kennedy... I had to bounce him from a club. Shaun Ryder - obnoxious. I expected nothing else. Jason Rebello - very chilled, chatted about his time in a Buddhist monastery. Andy Levy from BNH - Has a reputation of being a prick but was the opposite when I've spoke with him. The Rebirth - all super nice last year.
A friend of mine played on the bill at the George Harrison tribute gig in Liverpool a few years back and then went out to the cavern after the gig with Sir Paul and the gang. They were cracking drummer jokes and he said he was just one of the boys - I hope he got a round in.
i met wayne shorter once.. cool, very nice down to earth guy.. deep fella. john abercrombie- also very cool, didn't really comment on the stark reality days though, he was more suprised i had heard it.. pat metheny- nice dude, stuck around for everyone to say hello.. mavis staples- one of the nicest people you could hope to meet.
only musician experience i've really had was shaking prefuse 73's hand at a wicker park show. what sucks is that when i was walking TO the show i saw someone that looked like prefuse talking to 2 older women with no one else around but i thought "naw" that can't be him, and kept walking. later on I see the same dude in a sweatshirt walking onstage and go AWWWWWWWWW NOOOOOOOO!!!
Comments
I have no idea wtf a choadsmoker is, but I concur that he is/was a pill. Russell Simins, on the other hand, was very cool. We had a great conversation that had nothing to do with JSBE and everything to do with Only Built 4 Cuban Linx.
I would say the strangest encounter was with Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux. They finished playing and she walked off stage and sat down at the next table chain smoking while the band packed up. She asked for a cigarette after a while and when I didn't have any to spare, we shared my last one. We just sat there passing the thing back and forth, not really saying anything. Which I have to say I am grateful for cause have you seen her? You can't see her eyes at all through her hair! Where would I have looked?? I feel like your first time talking with someone, your only hope at a connection is to make eye contact.
Around 2000 I must have interviewed Greyboy, because I can't think of any other reason why we'd be talking. It was in Montreal, and he asked me to score him some weed for later that night. When I went up with him at the party to, um, facilitate the transaction, he brushed me off because he was trying to sweet talk a strikingly unattractive woman. That was the last I saw of him. I can't recall if the party was any good.
This is a little heavier...Around that same time I interviewed these producers named Hadji and LMO who released an EP of d&b with Indian samples in the style that I guess was popular six or so years ago. I knew nothing about D&B (not to suggest that I do now), and all we did was smoke massive joints backstage while they went on and on about the crazy soundsystems people had in the cars in London and how the streets shook in a certain way when they rocked desi breakz. I was baked out of my gourd and thought it was all the most interesting stuff ever. Then they did some sort of DJ set to a mostly empty room and I got a ride home with a cute student reporter from Concordia. That was a good night.
Anyway, I just googled Hadji and LMO to see what they were up to, and I find that Hadji was murdered in a Montreal club in 2006, about six months after I skipped town. Here's to the big blunted sound system in the sky, Hadji.
I hung out with him on dozends of occasions. Usually starting off the evening at the 55 and then doing lots of damage to ourselves at Brownie's afterhours until around 10 in the morning. Often, we crawled out of that place and while I was wating for a cab, he'd try and talk me into coming along to some other bar... I have no idea how this man was able to reach such a high age. real fun to hang out with and extremely knowledgable about many things.
She's an old friend of a girl I used to date in the 90s. We only ever hung out a couple of times, because this was around the time she signed to Sony and was starting to get a lot of DJ work overseas, but she was really sweet. By all accounts she used to be a bit wild back in the days when the rave scene was at its peak in the UK. She also did a bit of cheesecake modelling to pay for studio equipment and shit when she was starting out, but I was warned in advance not to mention that, much less that I'd actually seen some of the pictures...
I went to a JTQ gig and spoke briefly with James Taylor: the guy was totally drunk and smiled a lot.... I remember he got 2 seconds of "mental lucidity" when I asked who was his favourite hammond player, then I start mention some names and he said "CHARLES EARLAND IS THE KING"
- Swamp Dogg taking me to dinner after one show he did in Chicago (and his first wife Yvonne, who unfortunately is now deceased, telling me matter-of-factly that for a black guy, I sure know a lot about Swamp's history!)
- the East of Edens Soul Express, my DJ group, getting to open for the Beastie Boys, spinning old soul 45's...the Beasties themselves didn't say much, but Money Mark smiled at me, gave me a fist pound, and just said "vinyl!"
Frank McComb is also an incredible guy - I've received some really nice replies from him through myspace, as we chatted about Fender Rhodes pianos
Charlie Watts - ditto.
Chick Corea - chilled and not weird.
Kim Clarke from Defunkt - nicest person ever and a wicked bassplayer.
Bluey from Incognito - always been super-nice.
Mark E Smith from The Fall - drunken and in tears 'cos his bird had run off with the violinist Nigel Kennedy... I had to bounce him from a club.
Shaun Ryder - obnoxious. I expected nothing else.
Jason Rebello - very chilled, chatted about his time in a Buddhist monastery.
Andy Levy from BNH - Has a reputation of being a prick but was the opposite when I've spoke with him.
The Rebirth - all super nice last year.
A friend of mine played on the bill at the George Harrison tribute gig in Liverpool a few years back and then went out to the cavern after the gig with Sir Paul and the gang. They were cracking drummer jokes and he said he was just one of the boys - I hope he got a round in.
he does play a mean Vivaldi but daaaamnnn.
john abercrombie- also very cool, didn't really comment on the stark reality days though, he was more suprised i had heard it..
pat metheny- nice dude, stuck around for everyone to say hello..
mavis staples- one of the nicest people you could hope to meet.
but the show was