Talking to musicians (GOOD/BAD STORIES???????)
FunkyFlatulent
1,106 Posts
I know this comes off a little stan-ish so bare with me.. I just find it interesting.With myspace around and all those things, I'm just curious if anyone wants to share any good or bad stories about artists? Who helped you out was friendly etc..I JUST got a myspace but as far as rap goes.. vance wright was cool and definitely friendly. I had some questions for special ed lol. HE WAS EXTREMELY nice and replied. Easy Moe Bee totally ignored me. One thing I do find is that A LOT of musicians have no idea about their music. They don't remember much about it and have no idea how to get a lot of their own stuff. Most i've met don't even own much of their musicand end up asking me to send them stuff.Anyways.. I know a lot of us try to hunt down the raer..Who's had luck or met any genuinely nice? or a dickhead. share that too.
Comments
-I went backstage after a Pharoah Sanders concert who was just probably tired or pissed but wasn't feeling me talking to him which is OK. I just thanked him for the best concert I had ever seen and was out.
-After a show at the Village Vanguard, I met the 2 remaining Heath Brothers, Ron Carter, and Kenny Barron. All incredibly nice.
-At Amoeba L.A, I was exiting the building looking at the records on the wall and not paying attention to where I was going and accidentlly bumped into Bjork who after I quickly appologized was really cool.
Iggy Pop-cool as a motherfucker
Carla Thomas-cool as all get out
Ann Peebles-cool as all get out
Eddie Bo-cool as all get out...
John Cale-miserable dicktard
Damn, I'm jealous.
L Kravitz - no personality or presence whatsoever
MJB - I was scared sh*tless, had already done the pre-interview by phone, but I was sweating the face-to-face. She was very nice and I was in heaven.
The Roots - all super-nice and that really helped when I had to go and ask them to ask members of their crew to stop hitting on the teenage girls volunteering to help with the audience.
Ronnie Hawkins - exactly what you would expect: chill, professional and a dream to deal with. Him and his people smoked out the dressing room with weed more than any other band.
Lou Bega - arrogant prick and where is he today? Yea.
Dilated Peoples - super nice and stayed behind talking to fans til the last one
Wilco - so nice, it was like they were in a cult. Jody Stephens actually remembered to send me a 45 of Big Star's Don't Lie To Me! Yippee!
Guru - Really nice and humble guy. Hung out at the same table in some Vegas strip club one year.
J5- All cool guys, super nice.
Dialated Peoples - Really great people, let me hang on stage and shoot photos one Warped Tour.
Andre Williams - Great interview, nice guy, had some great stories.
Wanda Jackson - Really appreciative of fans and loved to talk with everyone.
HR from Bad Brains: Nice but skittish, likes to hug you and tell you he loves you.
Dr. Know from Bad Brains - Loves Cymande and loves to talk about old funk and soul.
Jesse Gresham - Was surprised people remembered his record, and was more than happy to talk about the New Orleans/ Mississippi music scene .
The Bad:
Dick Dale - A Dirty Old Man. Asked if he could stare at the bar managers's breasts because it "calmed him down" while he was getting paid. Had tons of outlandish requests such as no one could directly look him in the eye.
John Spencer (of Blues Explosion & Heavy Trash) - Very diva like, complained about everything.
I know I have a bunch more, if I think of them I'll put some more up.
Peter Hook (New Order/Joy Division): Spoke to him for a while after an in-store they did years ago. Despite doing his best to project the image of being a miserable bastard to the world he really was a nice guy. Happy to have a chat. Although I think I might have been quite the gushing fan boy at the time...
Blockhead: Spoke to him back and fourth over myspace a couple of times, we talked ableton related things. Seemed to be genuinely interested which was nice.
Xavier de Rosnay (Justice): Spoke to him in a club about Hall and Oats drum samples for a few minutes. He seemed quite surprised that someone wanted to talk production with him rather than just run up to him screaming 'omg, you guyz are like the best evar'.
Gary U.S. Bonds - As nice as they get
Tommy James - Polite and very quiet
Jewell Akens - Top Notch
Chuck Berry - Possibly the biggest asshole I've ever met
Fats Domino - Treats everyone like family
Jay Black of Jay & The Americans - Schmuck
Trini Lopez - Great
Bobby Patterson - Super nice
Millie Jackson - Strange
Jonathan Davis of Korn - Stranger
Those are some that stand out.....now off to barf some more.
A few I had interactions with:
1) UB40 - great guys. a bunch of alcoholics but great guys. put absolutely everyone working at the hotel on their guest list.
2) Bryan Ferry - toured with his two kids (registered as Master William and Master Peter and a nanny. a bit stand offish.
3) Fleetwood Mac - their road manager BEGGED one of our bartenders to find coke for the band. He knew where to cop but didn't like Fleetwood Mac and liked his job so he plead ignorance.
4) George Peppard from the A-Team stayed in the hotel (with his cat) for almost two weeks. Odd bird but very nice.
5) Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil - nice guy. loves to talk politics. very tall.
6) Michael Jackson - never saw him but his road manager bought us all dinner and put us on the guest list. MJ would only eat food prepared by his personal chef who had full run (at great cost) of our kitchen. He also would only go up to his room via the service elevator and he would not get into the elevator until the second service elevator was down and open and he could see that it was open. We installed a dance floor in the room connected to his suite (again at great cost) in case he wanted to practice. he never used it. he drew horses heads in pen on his bed sheets which one of our housekeepers saved and is probably selling on e-bay.
7) Martin Mull, Fred Williard and Richard Belzer. talked to all three separately and all were funny and pretty cool especially Belzer.
8) Demond Wilson- stayed for a week at the hotel I worked at in Atlanta. went through LOTS of kleenex and I don't think he was crying.
9) Sam Kinison - a bellman went up to his room to deliver something and couldn't see him the weed smoke was so thick.
10) Judas Priest - by far the nicest band I ever dealt with. very polite and nice.
I did an interview with Thes and Double K last year and dudes were on point even if I was completely disorganized. After the interview Thes handed me a copy of Lifestyle Marketing before it dropped.
De La: Interviewed them in their hotel suite -- Dave and Maceo were beyond cool; laid back, talkative, sipping drinks, cracking jokes. Pos -- moody, sat in his chair stewing about something.
MC Hammer: Interviewed him randomly when he was promoting his life story VH1 movie. He was all caught up on himself and didn't want to give me a moment, a reporter at the college newspaper at the time, a second of his time but basked in the attention of a few fans. It was especially odd, considering I happened to be wearing an Oakland A's T-shirt.
Roni Size/Represent: Hung with Krust mostly who was very friendly. Roni was kind of a dick -- but it's OK; they were getting ready to perform and seemed very hyped and very weeded.
Everybody I know who has encountered that dude says he's a complete choadsmoker.
I think I've had almost uniformly good interactions with artists, but that's in part because most of my interactions were interviews for magazines, so they were just taking care of business.
Damn dude really?
I usually go out my way to try and get those done for cats regardless of the circumstances (which if we are on tour are usually fu**ed up anyways). If it was in a green room somewhere and I bounced it's probably because dudes were smoking, which I am allergic to (seriously). I don't remember straight up dissing anyone to there face when they asked me for a radio drop (And have no idea why I would have) but if that was the case then I guess I owe you a beer.
lemme know
Mats Gustafsen and Barry Guy - Only wanted to talk about how air conditioners made the world hotter
Charles Gayle and Evan Parker - Talked about Junior Walker for 2 hours when I asked them about their influences. Unexpected, but interesting.
Cecil Taylor - Said one word to me, "No".
Charles Lloyd - Passed me a giant joint, signed my copy of Forest Flower and said, "you better not put this on eBay." LOL.
Abdullah Ibrahim - Just looked at me and I left the room. Dude is intense.
Leroy Jenkins - Asked me if I believed in ghosts.
Billy Bang - Told me I had to bring him a shrimp po-boy or he would not do an interview. I brought him the sandwich and he still refused to do the interview.
Peter Kowald - After doing a solo concert in an art gallery, he asked me to take him out drinking "in the black section".
Interviewed Uri Caine, absolutely nice guy. Signed a dozen of his CDs in my collection. And even dedicated a bit of his Mahler-inspired improvisation at the gig. Even invited me to dinner with his touring crew.
UNKLE - alright, but their only concerns was where the coke was (this is sans Shadow btw).
J5 - very solid, very welcoming.
Janes Addiction - stand offish, but not dicks. got to seem them practice backstage before a gig once.
Herbie Handcock - very cool and humble.
Primus - Les is just as odd as his music.
I feel very little dude-ish.. So far my encounters are bugging three or four people on myspace for music.
Slash - Drunk (at 3pm), but nice enough
Max Weinberg - Cool and funny guy, loads of stories
B-52's - Nice people, way more normal than their act
Tony Orlando - Nice guy in a totally "VEGAS!! SHOWBIZ!!" kind of way.
Fishbone - Met these guys in a few different situations, they've been cool sometimes and dicks others. Back in the day all they were interested in was partying with local chicks.
Ornette Coleman - I was intimidated to talk to him and waste his time (I worked in athe building he lives in), but eventually got over it and got to chatting with him whenever I saw him. He once asked me to come and play with him at a rehearsal, but I wouldn't take him up on that.
Ghostface - Standoffish and not approachable, but came over and thanked everyone individually for working hard on a photo shoot for him. That was classy.
I've seen Kenny Parker do that to people. That is one dude I would not fuck around with in the slightest.
I think something about how I asked you for the drop made it seem like I didnt know that much about your music (although I had played some of your 12's on the air), and you gave me a drop to the effect of "the only dj around who doesnt own a PUTS album!". For real, I didnt play your shit much after that, but I've moved on.
I will take you up on that beer next time your in NYC, and I did eventually cop Lifestyle Marketing.
Arthur Lee - Paranoid
Bobby Hutcherson - Very nice
Milt Jackson - Also very cool. Signed my copy of an old 10" MJQ LP
Sky Saxon - In a whole other world
Andy Bey - Very, VERY nice dude. Super humble
I was record shopping at Arons (RIP) in LA and saw that Fred Schneider was digging next to me. I asked him what he thought of this one record (I can't remember which one) he said it was crappy and handed me Kraftwerk Autobaun and said "You'll love this." I thanked him. He was super cool and I remember he was wearing a "chik chik chik" shirt.
I say we make an exception. Tell it!!!
hahaha, wow. It was probably around the time there was a mandated "boycott" on PUTS in NY. no excuse though, def. when you were already playing our records. My bad - beer due.