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Unusual Rock Trivia?

Not everyone knows this about Flea and this fact is just too pun-worthy to pass up. The bassist of Red Hot Chili Peppers is certainly interested in bugs, but not his namesake. He is an avid beekeeper, It turns out he got up to about 200,000 bees.
Interesting, unfortunately the link doesn't work for me? Now that's some honey!

I have spoken with some local Bee keepers around here and the Honey Bees are pretty docile to handle.
Get an outsider Bee in there and it's crazy!
 
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Yeah, I think it’s a broken link. Try Billboard’s. Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea Becomes a Beekeeper

Got it! Thx! He's got his little puffer.

Now I see why Fleas Bee's are the Bee's knees (What does that even mean? LOL)
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Not everyone knows this about Flea and this fact is just too pun-worthy to pass up. The bassist of Red Hot Chili Peppers is certainly interested in bugs, but not his namesake. He is an avid beekeeper, It turns out he got up to about 200,000 bees.

Interesting, unfortunately the link doesn't work for me? Now that's some honey!

I have spoken with some local Bee keepers around here and the Honey Bees are pretty docile to handle.
Get an outsider Bee in there and it's crazy!

He should have partnered with Sting.
 
Roy Orbison started his musical career at the ripe age of 6 years old when he got his 1st guitar for his Birthday. In high school, Orbison and some friends formed the band Wink Westerners. They played country standards and Glenn Miller songs at local honky-tonks and had a weekly radio show on KERB in Kermit, Texas.

They were once offered $400 to play at a dance, and Orbison realized that he could make a living in music. He enrolled at North Texas State College in Denton, planning to study geology so that he could secure work in the oil fields if music did not pay. He then heard that his schoolmate Pat Boone had signed a record deal, and it further strengthened his resolve to become a professional musician.

He heard a song called "Ooby Dooby" while in college, composed by Dick Penner and Wade Moore, and he returned to Wink Westerners with "Ooby Dooby" in hand and continued performing with them after his first year. He then enrolled in Odessa Junior College. The group won a talent contest and obtained their own television show on KMID-TV in Midland. The Wink Westerners kept performing on local TV, played dances at the weekends, and attended college during the day.

While living in Odessa, Orbison saw a performance by Elvis Presley. Johnny Cash also toured the area in 1955 and 1956, appearing on the same local TV show as the Wink Westerners, and he suggested that Orbison approach Sam Phillips at Sun Records.

Orbison did so and was told, "Johnny Cash doesn't run my record company!" The success of their KMID television show got them another show on KOSA-TV, and they changed their name to the Teen Kings.

They recorded "Ooby Dooby" in 1956 and Phillips offered the Teen Kings a contract.
The Teen Kings went to Sun Studio in Memphis, where Phillips wanted to record "Ooby Dooby" again, in his studio. The song was released on Sun 242 in May 1956 and broke into the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 59 and selling 200,000 copies. Much influenced by Elvis Presley, Orbison performed frenetically, doing "everything we could to get applause because we had only one hit record".

Orbison also began writing songs in a rockabilly style, including "Go! Go! Go!" and "Rockhouse". The band ultimately split over disputed writing credits and royalties, but Orbison stayed in Memphis and asked his 16-year-old girlfriend, Claudette Frady, to join him there. They stayed in Phillips' home, sleeping in separate rooms. In the studio, Orbison concentrated on the mechanics of recording. Phillips remembered being much more impressed with Orbison's mastery of the guitar than with his voice. Sun Records producer Jack Clement told Orbison that he would never make it as a ballad singer.

Orbison was introduced to Elvis Presley's social circle, once going to pick up a date for Presley in his purple Cadillac. Orbison wrote "Claudette"—about Claudette Frady, whom he married in 1957—and the Everly Brothers recorded it as the B-side of "All I Have to Do Is Dream". The first, and perhaps only, royalties Orbison earned from Sun Records enabled him to make a down payment on his own Cadillac. Increasingly frustrated at Sun, he gradually stopped recording. He toured music circuits around Texas and then quit performing for seven months in 1958.

This is actually the beginning of a long, somewhat sporadic career full of triumphs and heartache.






The Big O did make it as ballad singer and was a prolific writer and performer. Orbison died of a heart attack at the age of 52, at his mother's house.
 
"Our Lips Are Sealed" is a song co-written by Jane Wiedlin, guitarist of the Go-Go's, and Terry Hall, singer of the Specials and Fun Boy Three.

The Go-Go's supported the Specials on the latter's 1980 Seaside tour of England. According to Jane Wiedlin, she and Terry Hall had a brief affair despite his being in a relationship with another woman at the time. After Wiedlin returned to the United States, Hall mailed her some lyrics, and this led to their co-writing the song. The Go-Go's version is significantly more upbeat than Fun Boy Three's, which Wiedlin describes as "great" but also "gloomier".

It was first recorded by the Go-Go's as the opening track on their album Beauty and the Beat (1981) and was their debut American single in June 1981. The single eventually reached the top 5 in Australia and Canada, and the top 20 in the United States. Originally written and performed with three verses, the song appears in an abbreviated version on Beauty and the Beat. Most of the song's vocals are performed by lead singer Belinda Carlisle, with co-writer Wiedlin singing the bridge.

In 1983, Hall's band Fun Boy Three released their version of "Our Lips Are Sealed". Issued as a single, the track became a top-ten hit in the United Kingdom, besting the recording by the Go-Go's which only made it to No. 47 in the UK.


 
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Bonnie Raitt’s 1991 hit “I Can’t Make You Love Me (If You Don’t)” was inspired by a man who was in court for shooting at his girlfriend’s car. The judge asked the man if he had learned anything, and the man replied: “I learned, your honor, that you can’t make a woman love you if she don’t.” But what’s even more fascinating is that the song was written by former NFL lineman, Mike Reid, who was the #7 draft pick in 1970. Between seasons, he was a pianist for various respected symphony orchestras across the U.S. He also won a Grammy for writing a country song in 1984, making him the only NFL player to do so, ever. In all time. Throughout the universe.

Mike Reid was born and raised in Altoona, PA. I live about 45 miles from Altoona and play there often and musicians from that area knew him. He also released some songs on his own and wrote many hit songs for other acts including 12 #1 country chart songs. While playing football at Penn State University, he received his B.A. degree in music in 1969.
 
Henry Gross is best known for his 1976 hit "Shannon". While many people thought the song was a love song to a woman, it was actually written about a dog.

According to Henry on his website:

"When I was twenty-one years old a wonderful girl came into my life by the name of Kathy Reinmann. As if having her in my life as a friend, a wife and a friend again for the next twenty-three years, until she died of lung cancer in 1995, was not enough, she brought along with her a two-year-old Irish Setter named Shannon. She was an uncannily human-dog whose ability to manipulate her human counterparts cannot be understated.

I was touring around the country quite a lot in 1975 promoting an album called HENRY GROSS, the one with the yellow cover on A&M Records. I had the pleasure of doing long strings of dates with The Beach Boys, a group whose music always inspired me, Carl Wilson, lead singer on God Only Knows and Good Vibrations, was warm and welcoming from the very first show I played with them.

Carl invited me to his house in Los Angeles to spend a day talking guitars, cars, and rock & roll. While he was preparing lunch his two Alaskan husky dogs reached up on the counter and inhaled our food. Carl was so nice he couldn’t stop apologizing but I told him while admiring the military perfection of the raid executed by his huskies, that I had an Irish Setter at home named Shannon and had seen this act many times before! He was quite moved as he told me that he had an Irish Setter named Shannon that had been killed only recently when hit by a car. We spent the rest of the day jamming and driving around Carl’s world, which as a friend and to be honest, a Beach Boy’s fanatic, was quite a thrill."

At the age of 18, Henry Gross was a founding member and guitarist of the band Sha Na Na and performed with the band at Woodstock. He left the group for a solo career and became an in demand session guitarist for acts such as Jim Croce, Andy Kim, Judy Collins, Cyndi Lauper, Mary Travers, Jonathan Edwards, Henry Paul, Blackhawk, Southside Johnny, Garry Tallent, Rob Stoner, and others.

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Henry Gross is best known for his 1976 hit "Shannon". While many people thought the song was a love song to a woman, it was actually written about a dog.

According to Henry on his website:

"When I was twenty-one years old a wonderful girl came into my life by the name of Kathy Reinmann. As if having her in my life as a friend, a wife and a friend again for the next twenty-three years, until she died of lung cancer in 1995, was not enough, she brought along with her a two-year-old Irish Setter named Shannon. She was an uncannily human-dog whose ability to manipulate her human counterparts cannot be understated.

I was touring around the country quite a lot in 1975 promoting an album called HENRY GROSS, the one with the yellow cover on A&M Records. I had the pleasure of doing long strings of dates with The Beach Boys, a group whose music always inspired me, Carl Wilson, lead singer on God Only Knows and Good Vibrations, was warm and welcoming from the very first show I played with them.

Carl invited me to his house in Los Angeles to spend a day talking guitars, cars, and rock & roll. While he was preparing lunch his two Alaskan husky dogs reached up on the counter and inhaled our food. Carl was so nice he couldn’t stop apologizing but I told him while admiring the military perfection of the raid executed by his huskies, that I had an Irish Setter at home named Shannon and had seen this act many times before! He was quite moved as he told me that he had an Irish Setter named Shannon that had been killed only recently when hit by a car. We spent the rest of the day jamming and driving around Carl’s world, which as a friend and to be honest, a Beach Boy’s fanatic, was quite a thrill."

At the age of 18, Henry Gross was a founding member and guitarist of the band Sha Na Na and performed with the band at Woodstock. He left the group for a solo career and became an in demand session guitarist for acts such as Jim Croce, Andy Kim, Judy Collins, Cyndi Lauper, Mary Travers, Jonathan Edwards, Henry Paul, Blackhawk, Southside Johnny, Garry Tallent, Rob Stoner, and others.

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That is a great 1 hit wonder and his falsetto!
 
Re: Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way”

This popular song was inspired in part by Mel Brooks' movie Young Frankenstein, in which a character mimics another's distinctive gait after being instructed to "walk this way." Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler wrote the first lyrics that night at his hotel, but he left them in a taxi the next day.
 
Re: Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way”

This popular song was inspired in part by Mel Brooks' movie Young Frankenstein, in which a character mimics another's distinctive gait after being instructed to "walk this way." Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler wrote the first lyrics that night at his hotel, but he left them in a taxi the next day.
Makes me want to write a song called “Sedagive”. :laugh:
 
When John Lennon found out that schools offered classes dedicated to discerning the meanings behind The Beatles’ lyrics he decided to pen “I Am The Walrus”a song that defies interpretation.

And what better way to find inspiration for a meaningless song than to drop acid? In a 1980 interview with Playboy, Lennon explained that the first two lines of the song were jotted down while on two separate acid trips.

But even with the inclusion of nonsensical phrases such as “yellow matter custard” and “crabalocker fishwife,” Lennon was unsuccessful in his mission. Today, a quick Google search reveals an impressive array of fan interpretations and conspiracy theories dedicated to the bizarre lyrics.
 
When John Lennon found out that schools offered classes dedicated to discerning the meanings behind The Beatles’ lyrics he decided to pen “I Am The Walrus”a song that defies interpretation.

And what better way to find inspiration for a meaningless song than to drop acid? In a 1980 interview with Playboy, Lennon explained that the first two lines of the song were jotted down while on two separate acid trips.

But even with the inclusion of nonsensical phrases such as “yellow matter custard” and “crabalocker fishwife,” Lennon was unsuccessful in his mission. Today, a quick Google search reveals an impressive array of fan interpretations and conspiracy theories dedicated to the bizarre lyrics.
I'm guessing Lennon knew people would attempt to interpret the lyrics no matter how nonsensical they may be.