Unusual Rock Trivia?

[Son of Wobble]

Not trivia, but one of my favorite Rolling Stones anecdotes (as reported in the closing pages of the epic biography,
"Old Gods Almost Dead"): A guitar collector manages to corral Keef getting in limo so as to request an autograph in sharpie on the collector's guitar.
While the collector is distracted calculating the increase in value Keef's autograph on the instrument is apt to bring,
Richards takes the opportunity to climb into his limbo with the axe and drives away with it.

 

[carsbybigd]

Huey Lewis played harmonica on Thin Lizzy's "Live and Dangerous". I just learned that within the last year.

He ( Huey) was in a band "Clover" who was opening shows for Thin Lizzy

 

[FatStringer52]

In an interview with High Times magazine in 1977 Ted Nugent tells how he avoided the draft. Ted knew he was on the verge of making it the music world. Thirty days before his physical he stopped grooming himself -- no shaving, no showers, no brushing his teeth, letting his long hair get oily and matted, etc. Stopped eating nutritional food 2 weeks prior and survived on junk. The week before he stopped going to the bathroom. He did everything in his pants. Needless to say, he was in pretty bad shape when he showed up for his physical and was humiliated, cursed, pushed around and kicked. The result of all of this was a 4-F classification, Unfit for Military Service.

This is just the highlights of the interview. If you're interested in reading the entire story, I found an excerpt pertaining to his avoiding the draft online here:

Ted Nugent Dodged the Draft?

Is it true? I don't know. I have been told that Ted has since said that this was all made up. But to date I have not seen anything, personally, that would confirm or discount the story. Regardless, it is a pretty good tale!

 

[tangentmusic]

Jimmy Page was at a pub discussing his vision for the New Yardbirds with some fellow musicians.

He wanted this new band to be blues based rock with an acoustic side too.

"That'll over like a lead ballon" someone said.

"More like a lead zeppelin" someone else chimed in.

That person - Keith Moon... supposedly

 

[AztecViking]

Maybe not so odd butt Phil Collins was an early live drum tech for Bill Bruford when he was in Yes. Bruford was a bit older and was the first drummer Collins asked to help him on drum chores once he took over the lead vocalist chair from Peter Gabriel in Genesis. Bruford being older and "more experienced" had a somewhat "entitled" attitude once he was playing live with Genesis and took a decent amount of ( un-asked for ) liberties in the "improvisation" department. Much to the chagrin of the rest of Genesis who were very used to playing things in a very set and "composed" way every night live. Bruford and Collins still have houses within walking distance of each other in England and remain good friends.

 

[slagheap]

Doug told this tail at the TBGT at my house.....when Doug Wimbish recorded the bass tracks for Sugar Hill records he was paid by the track. Although songs like Apache sold millions he was paid 50 bucks for creating and performing the bass lines. He got 50 bucks for each finished track. He used to try and do MANY songs in one day to earn enough to make rent!!

doug wimbish is a badass. he's on a ton of sessions.

 

[slagheap]

He also played bass on the studio version of "Gimme 3 Steps"

that's the ONLY thing so far

It's a fantastic bass line if you play it correctly. Sadly, few play it correctly.

i do.

 

[Hahaha]

Half the lyrics for Folsom Prison Blues were lifted out of Crescent City Blues. Johnny Cash settled out of court when he was sued.

Jimmy Page played guitar on Goldfinger.

John Paul Jones produced some Herman's Hermits records.

 

[squidtastic]

Police trivia:
1) The lyrics of "Don't Stand So Close To Me" were based on Sting's actual experience as a teacher.
2) Stewart Copeland is technically American, but he grew up in Africa and the Middle East -- his dad was in the CIA.
3) Andy Summers played (briefly) with Eric Burden And The Animals.

 

[AztecViking]

Somewhere back in the early 70's Chester Thompson of Frank Zappa, Weather Report and live Genesis fame was at the end of his rope of music/drumming being a paying career for him and was about to completely give up music and become a school bus driver in Baltimore MD. But he heard that Frank Zappa was auditioning drummers out in Los Angeles and made a last ditch effort to "make it" as a musician. He did the audition, made the cut and became the first incidence of Zappa using two live drummers at once for his touring act. ( the other drummer being Ralph Humphrey ) Zappa, who had previously had Mahavishnu Orchestra as their warmup act, felt a very strong need to have a drummer who could compete with both the raw power and rhythmic acumen of Billy Cobham and Chester was that man! ( McLaughin and band had more potent stage presence than Zappa's and Zappa felt THREATENED!!!! )

 

[AztecViking]

John Mc Laughlin of Mahavishnu Orchestra was the studio guitarist on the 1965 What's New Pussycat recording session for the Woodie Allen Film of the same name featuring Tom Jones on vocals and Burt Bacharach as composer/conductor. Before emigrating from England to the USA to play with Miles Davis on his seminal and quite controversial Bitches Brew era "jazz" releases John also gave lessons to a young guitar student named Jimmy Page and played in a jazz combo with Jack Bruce on upright bass before Jack switched to playing electric. That was before any bands named Cream or Led Zeppelin existed.

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[Kubicki Fan]

Howard Stern's interview of Don Felder is chock full of trivia one of which is that Don gave guitar lessons to young Tom Petty for over a year, down in Florida.

 

[BASSKADET]

Toots Thielemans played with Jaco and on a Billy Joel song. I was fortunate to see him in the mid 70's at Sandy's Jazz Revival in Beverly, MA.

 

[hrodbert696]

Police trivia:
1) The lyrics of "Don't Stand So Close To Me" were based on Sting's actual experience as a teacher.
2) Stewart Copeland is technically American, but he grew up in Africa and the Middle East -- his dad was in the CIA.
3) Andy Summers played (briefly) with Eric Burden And The Animals.

Summers titled his autobiography "One Train Later." The Animals had broken up and he was back in London and about to give up on music altogether. He was on a train platform when off hopped Copeland, who knew him from when they had played an orchestral show in Germany before. Copeland told him he had a new band started but the guitarist needed some help getting up to par, could Summers stop over and give him some tips? He did, but after a while the other two just fired the old guitarist and replaced him with Summers. So if he had taken one train later, he wouldn't have run into Copeland and the Police never would have happened.

 

[AztecViking]

Two great musicians who were thoroughly terrified of the early bands they were in...

Jerry Goodman on violin when playing with Mahavishnu Orchestra.

He said that he was a constantly a nervous wreck when playing with MO live because McLaughlin, Jan Hammer and Billy Cobham were such complete and utter musical monsters. In my book Jerry is the biggest violin monster out there in the early fusion world and he never gave himself proper credit in that regard.

Terry Bozzio who essentially said the same thing when playing with Zappa.
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To paraphrase "There was way too much pressure to be completely awesome". Or words to that effect. In the "Drummers of Zappa" video Terry implies that it was a relief when Zappa died because he ( Terry ) was no longer constantly on call like a medical doctor "to be completely awesome". I don't think he was saying that he was glad Zappa died. But he was saying it was some sort of relief to not always have some sort of 'perfection' expected of him.

 

[Honch]

Phil Collins was an extra in the movie "A Hard Day's Night", as a boy in a crowd scene.

Not only that, Phil was a child actor, just 3 years prior to Genesis/Flaming Youth, in a tv series called "Calamity The Cow". Now, can you spot him?



He made 30 minutes in total for all series, but got into a "brawl" with the directors and producers of the series, he's only at the beginning of the series and the very end. Awwwwhhhhhhh... he's sooooooo cute! One of the few occassions he looked tall!

 

[mcarp555]

The Boyd sisters both had Top 40 hits written to/about them. The first was "Jennifer Juniper" written about Jenny Boyd and a hit for Donovan. And, as most know, "Layla" was written by Clapton about Pattie Boyd.

And "Something" was about Pattie as well.

Jenny Boyd was also married to Mick Fleetwood at one time. Mick also had an affair with Stevie Nicks.

The bass player on the beginning of Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" is Klaus Voorman, bassist with Manfred Mann. Klaus also used to see the early Beatles play in Hamburg. His girlfriend at the time, Astrid Kirchherr, ended up being engaged to Stu Sutcliffe, the original bassist for the Beatles (who died of a brain hemorrhage in 1961). Klaus also designed the cover of the Beatles' "Revolver" album and played bass on many solo Beatles albums.

Paul McCartney owns the cufflinks Buddy Holly was wearing when he died in a plane crash. Buddy bumped his part-time rhythm guitarist off the flight so he could get to the next gig ahead of the rest of the band. That guitarist was Waylon Jennings.

 

[Honch]

Keanu Reeves and System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian shares the same town of birth, guess where ? You probably won't ever be able to guess it unless you look it up. The most unlikely of places, especially at that time.

 

[TyBo]

[


Lowell George was also in The Mother's of Invention until Frank Fired him and told him to go home and start his own band.
Neal Schon was 15 when he turned down Eric Clapton's offer to join his band and went with Santana instead.

...
Neal Schon was also a teenager at Woodstock when he played with Santana.

I think Schon joined Santana after Woodstock. He wasn't very prominent with the group, for the most part, though obviously Santana saw a lot to like there. When he jumped into Journey with co-founder Greg Rolie, his style really took hold, and that was that.

 

[squidtastic]

So if he had taken one train later, he wouldn't have run into Copeland and the Police never would have happened.

So glad he was punctual! His sound was so distinctive... it's hard to imagine the songs sounding as special with a "typical" guitarist.
The Police were the first band I was (almost) fanatical about. I know far too much useless info about them.