Well, I record on song demos that get sold off to artists. A few of the songs ended up making it to artists that get some national AirPlay. My tracks are a thing of the past by that time but it was cool when I found out those songs hit.
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Saw Charlie Byrd play a small club in the Twin Cities about 30 years ago. Between sets, my buddy and I head to the bar for a libation. A couple of folks away stood Charlie, waiting patiently to order his drink! We bought him one and chatted with him for a bit. I had taken lessons from one of his proteges when I was in my teens, so we had a decent conversation starter. Nice guy, friendly, gracious, and unassuming. You would have never guessed what an incredibly talented guitarist he was by talking with him.
My band opened for Badfinger about a decade before I joined... or so they say.
I HAVE a story about my sister back around 75 or so. a great singer a 5 octave range would have done well in the voice.
anyway she was invited by the vice president of Columbia records for a audition and was offered a contract.
her husband a good double bass drummer as if they needed a drummer. was told we have plenty of drummers turned him down and he block my sister from signing on if he couldn't sigh up she couldn't.
anyway she was invited by the vice president of Columbia records for a audition and was offered a contract.
her husband a good double bass drummer as if they needed a drummer. was told we have plenty of drummers turned him down and he block my sister from signing on if he couldn't sigh up she couldn't.
- Dec 21, 2007
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- Lark in the Morning Instructional Videos; Audix Microphones
Sadly, I have no musical "almost made the big time" stories. Got to play with some great cats, though.
A few notable brushes with fame, though:
Met Sean Connery in L.A. while I was loading out from a gig...
Played frisbee with Jackson Brown - didn't know it was Jackson Brown (thought he looked too much like Jackson Brown and was too kicked back and unassuming to be Jackson Brown)...
Had David Bowie come to a gig of mine (after hours club, after a concert of his)...
Played a couple of gigs with Walfredo Reyes on drums and Lenny Castro on percussion. Never did get invited to join Santana, though...
Am visible as the hippie junkie in line to buy smack in the film "Sid and Nancy"...
A few notable brushes with fame, though:
Met Sean Connery in L.A. while I was loading out from a gig...
Played frisbee with Jackson Brown - didn't know it was Jackson Brown (thought he looked too much like Jackson Brown and was too kicked back and unassuming to be Jackson Brown)...
Had David Bowie come to a gig of mine (after hours club, after a concert of his)...
Played a couple of gigs with Walfredo Reyes on drums and Lenny Castro on percussion. Never did get invited to join Santana, though...
Am visible as the hippie junkie in line to buy smack in the film "Sid and Nancy"...
Well I don't know about almost famous, but I've had some brushes with famous people. Been very fortunate living in and playing music in So Cal and many of my friends are accomplished musicians, so I've had lots of opportunities to meet people through them. Have met and talked to Max Bennett a few times, friends and acquaintances with people who have toured with Lita Ford, Eric Burden, Animotion. Met and chatted with Jeff Coffey at NAMM this year. But I do have a couple of stories of note.
I play trombone as well, and in one group I play in we had Bill Watrous as a guest artist come in a few years ago. The after rehearsal lunch & beer crew decided what the hell, let's invite him to join us, and he did! I had met him a few times previously, but 6 of us having lunch with a music legend and getting all sorts of great stories was an incredible event.
When I was still in college, I was visiting my mother who was very ill and hospitalized at UCLA medical center. I get into the elevator and there was a younger couple in there, the guy had long hair and fancier clothes. We started talking and he turned out to be one of the DeBarge brothers, visiting one of his relatives in the hospital. Chatted as we stopped at almost every floor on the way up, and by the time I got out he said hey, you should come join our next tour doing security (I'm a big guy). He seemed pretty serious about it, but at the time and everything else going on, I just couldn't wrap my head around it.
I play trombone as well, and in one group I play in we had Bill Watrous as a guest artist come in a few years ago. The after rehearsal lunch & beer crew decided what the hell, let's invite him to join us, and he did! I had met him a few times previously, but 6 of us having lunch with a music legend and getting all sorts of great stories was an incredible event.
When I was still in college, I was visiting my mother who was very ill and hospitalized at UCLA medical center. I get into the elevator and there was a younger couple in there, the guy had long hair and fancier clothes. We started talking and he turned out to be one of the DeBarge brothers, visiting one of his relatives in the hospital. Chatted as we stopped at almost every floor on the way up, and by the time I got out he said hey, you should come join our next tour doing security (I'm a big guy). He seemed pretty serious about it, but at the time and everything else going on, I just couldn't wrap my head around it.
I was there the day Bowie's latest guitar god discovery was moving out of his old Sound Museum rehearsal space. He was moving to London finally, couldn't happen to a nicer fellow. I got his large Woodstock chimes from the discard pile, still have them in the basement. I don't subject the neighborhood to them as it's windy these days and who needs harmonized whammy bar theatrics in 2018.
In hindsight, I was lucky he was talking to someone else... he easily could have kicked my ass, or more likely had a "guy" that would do it for him. He was one of those guys I pretty much worshiped... but I couldn't see him kicking the ass of a 10th grader. Scaring the .... out of one... with just a look... easily
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You must be a Vancouverite? I remember two of these bands... I was only in Vancouver for a short time in the early 2000s, I worked for a while with one of the Dons from the Sons of Freedom (who suffered a similar fate to your friends), I think he played some bass for Art Bergmann too....
Me to, but over the years I worked with a lot of players famous in their own minds..
Well, you just had to ask, didn't You. Okay, I admit it. I couldn't resist answering.
My Bay Area based garage band that had been gigging a hundred shows a year or more for five or six years finally broke up when the bass player quit because we were doing things he didn't approve of on account of his religion. Then I got a call from Bob Blodgett a promoter I knew who was setting up a big outdoor festival in LA. He had the Byrds, Grateful Dead, etc., all the big Northern and Southern California groups booked, and he wanted to put my band in there so he could promote us now that he was in LA. Bob had always been a fan and would come up with super great gigs from time to time. Yahoo! I'm going to hit the big-time now! Or at least, that's what I thought.
I told Bob the band wasn't together anymore but that I would put something together. He was good with that and told me to let him know as soon as possible what the name of the band was going to be because he was almost ready to start the publicity. So I got the drummer and the other guitar player from the old band, found a bassist and started rehearsing a forty five minute set for the big show. I decided to call the band Morning Glory. Well, you would have had to have been there to know that if you consumed enough Morning Glory seeds, they had hallucinogenic effects. So the name fit right in with the counter culture scene. Wow, man!
Just when we were starting to get tight and sound good, the bass player quit! That is, two weeks before we were supposed to play on stage with the top groups on the west coast. I might have used the wrong approach when he quit. I said, “What's the matter, don't you want to play in front of ten thousand people?” Didn't work. So I had to call Bob and let him know what happened, and another band took on the name Morning Glory and played the festival. It wasn't easy to find a good bassist back then. I vowed never to be in a situation where the bass player quitting could ever do that to me again. Well, just dang those bass players anyway! So I started playing bass!
Please excuse me for not mentioning names because of what happened, but after the big L.A. show debacle there was a fellow musician who had started more or less an acoustic orchestra that he fronted on vocals and acoustic guitar, and they had become very popular. With good reason. He used to dress like a pirate on stage and had great stage presence and original material but his group had dissolved when several members left town for college, etc. I knew I could draw a crowd and so could he, so it seemed like a marriage made in heaven for us to get together because I had original material too by then. I liked his band so much that when I was given a little tour of Pacific Recording I told Fred Katero how good they were, and he did a complementary demo for them. So that's when I met my swashbuckling fellow music maker, when they recorded the demo. After his group dissolved I asked him if he wanted me to put together a backing band and we could share duties as vocalist / songwriters. He thought this was a good idea, but didn't have a name for the group. So the Desperate Indians were born.
There was a new club on University Avenue in Palo Alto called the Poppy Cock, and I booked us in there for a weekend, Friday and Saturday. Same other guitar player, same drummer (who was his brother). So there it was, Desperate Indians up on the big billboard they had, and we made sure the word got out. Friday night the place was packed. I told the club owner it probably wouldn't be as crowded Saturday night, but the place was even more packed on Saturday night than it was on Friday! A lot of people who were there Friday night came back Saturday night and brought their friends with them! It was like magic! Unbelievable. I had the connections and this time, judging from the reaction of the crowd, we had the music too.
A week later I got a call from the other guitar player. Yeah, you guessed it. My new friend whom I had come to genuinely like and admire had od'd on heroin. I had a real hard time with that. I always did okay but this man had talent, creative insight, charisma, charm, women, apparently some money and the whole world in the palm of his hand. But the needle won, and the Desperate Indians were no more.
After that happened I didn’t feel like playing out any more, but I continued writing probably for cathartic reasons as much as anything else. About a year later I was introduced to Harry Sitam who was the chief tech at Wally Heider Recording in San Francisco. Someone had told him about me and my semi-illustrious music career, and I was offered the complementary opportunity to record at Studio B which at the time was the premier recording studio in Northern California. Back then studio time like that was hard to come by even if you could afford it, which I couldn’t, and I did three 16 track sessions there four or five hours each which would have been prohibitively expensive if I had to pay for them myself. The focus that develops is like being in a trance, you go outside of yourself and come up with things you didn’t know you had in you. I guess I was supposed to shop the material…
How close did I get to becoming famous? I don't know. I got to semi-famous I'm pretty sure. Be happy. Play music. Know, though, that love and joy comes from within yourself. And nowhere else.
My Bay Area based garage band that had been gigging a hundred shows a year or more for five or six years finally broke up when the bass player quit because we were doing things he didn't approve of on account of his religion. Then I got a call from Bob Blodgett a promoter I knew who was setting up a big outdoor festival in LA. He had the Byrds, Grateful Dead, etc., all the big Northern and Southern California groups booked, and he wanted to put my band in there so he could promote us now that he was in LA. Bob had always been a fan and would come up with super great gigs from time to time. Yahoo! I'm going to hit the big-time now! Or at least, that's what I thought.
I told Bob the band wasn't together anymore but that I would put something together. He was good with that and told me to let him know as soon as possible what the name of the band was going to be because he was almost ready to start the publicity. So I got the drummer and the other guitar player from the old band, found a bassist and started rehearsing a forty five minute set for the big show. I decided to call the band Morning Glory. Well, you would have had to have been there to know that if you consumed enough Morning Glory seeds, they had hallucinogenic effects. So the name fit right in with the counter culture scene. Wow, man!
Just when we were starting to get tight and sound good, the bass player quit! That is, two weeks before we were supposed to play on stage with the top groups on the west coast. I might have used the wrong approach when he quit. I said, “What's the matter, don't you want to play in front of ten thousand people?” Didn't work. So I had to call Bob and let him know what happened, and another band took on the name Morning Glory and played the festival. It wasn't easy to find a good bassist back then. I vowed never to be in a situation where the bass player quitting could ever do that to me again. Well, just dang those bass players anyway! So I started playing bass!
Please excuse me for not mentioning names because of what happened, but after the big L.A. show debacle there was a fellow musician who had started more or less an acoustic orchestra that he fronted on vocals and acoustic guitar, and they had become very popular. With good reason. He used to dress like a pirate on stage and had great stage presence and original material but his group had dissolved when several members left town for college, etc. I knew I could draw a crowd and so could he, so it seemed like a marriage made in heaven for us to get together because I had original material too by then. I liked his band so much that when I was given a little tour of Pacific Recording I told Fred Katero how good they were, and he did a complementary demo for them. So that's when I met my swashbuckling fellow music maker, when they recorded the demo. After his group dissolved I asked him if he wanted me to put together a backing band and we could share duties as vocalist / songwriters. He thought this was a good idea, but didn't have a name for the group. So the Desperate Indians were born.
There was a new club on University Avenue in Palo Alto called the Poppy Cock, and I booked us in there for a weekend, Friday and Saturday. Same other guitar player, same drummer (who was his brother). So there it was, Desperate Indians up on the big billboard they had, and we made sure the word got out. Friday night the place was packed. I told the club owner it probably wouldn't be as crowded Saturday night, but the place was even more packed on Saturday night than it was on Friday! A lot of people who were there Friday night came back Saturday night and brought their friends with them! It was like magic! Unbelievable. I had the connections and this time, judging from the reaction of the crowd, we had the music too.
A week later I got a call from the other guitar player. Yeah, you guessed it. My new friend whom I had come to genuinely like and admire had od'd on heroin. I had a real hard time with that. I always did okay but this man had talent, creative insight, charisma, charm, women, apparently some money and the whole world in the palm of his hand. But the needle won, and the Desperate Indians were no more.
After that happened I didn’t feel like playing out any more, but I continued writing probably for cathartic reasons as much as anything else. About a year later I was introduced to Harry Sitam who was the chief tech at Wally Heider Recording in San Francisco. Someone had told him about me and my semi-illustrious music career, and I was offered the complementary opportunity to record at Studio B which at the time was the premier recording studio in Northern California. Back then studio time like that was hard to come by even if you could afford it, which I couldn’t, and I did three 16 track sessions there four or five hours each which would have been prohibitively expensive if I had to pay for them myself. The focus that develops is like being in a trance, you go outside of yourself and come up with things you didn’t know you had in you. I guess I was supposed to shop the material…
How close did I get to becoming famous? I don't know. I got to semi-famous I'm pretty sure. Be happy. Play music. Know, though, that love and joy comes from within yourself. And nowhere else.
I never got almost famous, but one of my guitars did. 
It was the 1959 Gibson J-One-Sixty-E that I had bought for $200 in 1980 from a cowboy in Kamloops (original owner!) - with a nifty little Vox tube combo included. I played it for nearly another decade, made a few recordings with it, steadily working my way up to full-blown starving artist, and with my Rickenbacker bass already in the pawnshop, regretfully put it up for sale in the Vancouver Buy&Sell.
I had a little 8-track half-inch studio in New Westminster at the time (very crude, egg cartons on the wall!) and who comes in to look at the thing but Bob Rock. To this day I think of him as a bit of a cheapskate, because he chewed me down on my asking price because "he didn't want to take the original chipboard case". In retrospect I wish had turfed him out then and there, but ya know - I had rent to pay...
Anyway, fast forward a bit, and lo and behold, I see my old friend "Jose" front and center on MTV. Unmistakable wear patterns near the soundhole!
I looked it up, and sure enough, Bob had engineered a couple Bon Jovi albums just before the Blaze Of Glory film soundtrack was done. I imagine he just lent the guitar to Bon Jovi for the video - but who knows, maybe he sold it to him...
It was the 1959 Gibson J-One-Sixty-E that I had bought for $200 in 1980 from a cowboy in Kamloops (original owner!) - with a nifty little Vox tube combo included. I played it for nearly another decade, made a few recordings with it, steadily working my way up to full-blown starving artist, and with my Rickenbacker bass already in the pawnshop, regretfully put it up for sale in the Vancouver Buy&Sell.
I had a little 8-track half-inch studio in New Westminster at the time (very crude, egg cartons on the wall!) and who comes in to look at the thing but Bob Rock. To this day I think of him as a bit of a cheapskate, because he chewed me down on my asking price because "he didn't want to take the original chipboard case". In retrospect I wish had turfed him out then and there, but ya know - I had rent to pay...
Anyway, fast forward a bit, and lo and behold, I see my old friend "Jose" front and center on MTV. Unmistakable wear patterns near the soundhole!
I looked it up, and sure enough, Bob had engineered a couple Bon Jovi albums just before the Blaze Of Glory film soundtrack was done. I imagine he just lent the guitar to Bon Jovi for the video - but who knows, maybe he sold it to him...
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- Oct 7, 2000
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Truth be told, I'm only now starting to come to terms with the fact that my entire life has been an "almost famous" story. It's been (and still is) a great learning experience for me. I started threads on this about a dozen times and always deleted them because they would wind up being name dropping extravaganzas. I think they'd also be unbelievable to people who don't know me. My close calls started in 1979, and are still going until today, having had what I consider 2 close calls in the last year and a half, alone.
One of the guys I play with regularly played with Mountain/Leslie West way back when. When Leslie started playing again he called him back on board (same time we were doing some tours and shows). Then something happened where the Rev (Leslie's bass player) couldn't do shows and he needed someone. My pal jumped into the spot, and Leslie played minus his backup guitarist. With all due humility I'm a much better bass player than my pal who jumped in (and he'd tell you that too), but he didn't want to lose the gig and didn't pull me on board - which he considered. He's a GREAT guitarist and has some skills Leslie requires for the bass job (a lot of improving on the spot), but yeah... He did all the shows playing roots for the most part.
Some more name dropping... a year and a half ago I put together a Deep Purple/Rainbow tribute. I decided to do it because I was doing shows with one of the guys who toured with Rainbow for a bunch of years in the 80s, and he was totally onboard with the idea. I had a great lineup. Original drummer from White Lion, the guitar player was Ace Frehley's guitar tech who is another guy I've done shows with on and off for about a decade. The band wound up playing only one show, but we had an awesome time (sans the Rainbow dude who couldn't make it). I made clear to the guitarist that I was available in a heartbeat if Ace ever needed someone last minute. It was duly noted, and I was happy about that cuz I know/knew the guy respected my playing, and we got along great. He called one day with a gig opportunity! For the band I'm currently playing in. I'm making more money with this than I would have made had I ever gotten to play with Ace, but dang... to play with the heroes you grew up with. I realize I may have never had a shot anyhow (guitar tech doesn't make the call, Ace does), but it's a frustrating feeling to know these people are within arm's reach. I called a guy (another guitar tech I was playing with around the same time) while I was driving home from work one day and asked what he was up to. He said he was sitting on a bus with Ace, talking. He had filled in for the regular guy for a few shows.
Oh yeah... then there's the dude who started playing with Gn'R while I was doing tours with him.
Can't make this stuff up.
And my 1979 story started the whole thing. Too long to tell here right now, so in the spirit of the OP I'll leave it blank...
One of the guys I play with regularly played with Mountain/Leslie West way back when. When Leslie started playing again he called him back on board (same time we were doing some tours and shows). Then something happened where the Rev (Leslie's bass player) couldn't do shows and he needed someone. My pal jumped into the spot, and Leslie played minus his backup guitarist. With all due humility I'm a much better bass player than my pal who jumped in (and he'd tell you that too), but he didn't want to lose the gig and didn't pull me on board - which he considered. He's a GREAT guitarist and has some skills Leslie requires for the bass job (a lot of improving on the spot), but yeah... He did all the shows playing roots for the most part.
Some more name dropping... a year and a half ago I put together a Deep Purple/Rainbow tribute. I decided to do it because I was doing shows with one of the guys who toured with Rainbow for a bunch of years in the 80s, and he was totally onboard with the idea. I had a great lineup. Original drummer from White Lion, the guitar player was Ace Frehley's guitar tech who is another guy I've done shows with on and off for about a decade. The band wound up playing only one show, but we had an awesome time (sans the Rainbow dude who couldn't make it). I made clear to the guitarist that I was available in a heartbeat if Ace ever needed someone last minute. It was duly noted, and I was happy about that cuz I know/knew the guy respected my playing, and we got along great. He called one day with a gig opportunity! For the band I'm currently playing in
. I'm making more money with this than I would have made had I ever gotten to play with Ace, but dang... to play with the heroes you grew up with. I realize I may have never had a shot anyhow (guitar tech doesn't make the call, Ace does), but it's a frustrating feeling to know these people are within arm's reach. I called a guy (another guitar tech I was playing with around the same time) while I was driving home from work one day and asked what he was up to. He said he was sitting on a bus with Ace, talking. He had filled in for the regular guy for a few shows.Oh yeah... then there's the dude who started playing with Gn'R while I was doing tours with him
.Can't make this stuff up.
And my 1979 story started the whole thing. Too long to tell here right now, so in the spirit of the OP I'll leave it blank...
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All 3 of us in my current band have had "almost famous" moments.
Our drummer subbed in Joe Cocker's band (in Sheffield, UK) while Joe's drummer was hospitalised following a road accident and was later asked if he would like to join permanently when Joe moved down to London. He turned it down because he had a steady job and was recenly married and knew that the record company would put their own players in (which the duly did). About the same time he was also offered a position in "The Grumbleweeds", a UK comedy band that are still around I believe. He also turned them down.
In the 80's our guitarist turned down the offer of backing a local country singer, Tammy Cline, who went on to have some success. He was a confirmed metal head at the time and was having non of this "country rubbish", his dad went mad when he found out!
In 1974 I was approached at a gig by Bill Nelson (Be Bop Deluxe) and offered the bass position when he was looking to reform BBD after he had sacked the whole band. I declined as I was about to get married and had a good job and a nicely accruing pension (that I am now living off).
Things would no doubt have been very different had I (or any of us) had accepted, better or worse we will never know.
Our drummer subbed in Joe Cocker's band (in Sheffield, UK) while Joe's drummer was hospitalised following a road accident and was later asked if he would like to join permanently when Joe moved down to London. He turned it down because he had a steady job and was recenly married and knew that the record company would put their own players in (which the duly did). About the same time he was also offered a position in "The Grumbleweeds", a UK comedy band that are still around I believe. He also turned them down.
In the 80's our guitarist turned down the offer of backing a local country singer, Tammy Cline, who went on to have some success. He was a confirmed metal head at the time and was having non of this "country rubbish", his dad went mad when he found out!
In 1974 I was approached at a gig by Bill Nelson (Be Bop Deluxe) and offered the bass position when he was looking to reform BBD after he had sacked the whole band. I declined as I was about to get married and had a good job and a nicely accruing pension (that I am now living off).
Things would no doubt have been very different had I (or any of us) had accepted, better or worse we will never know.
When my ex wife worked as a waitress c.1980, she waited on B.F. Skinner every week day, same back table away from noise, same time like clockwork. I'm not sure if his menu behavior was as rigid, but it probably was, there was a great meatloaf sandwich and the chef, a classical piano and cello playing Harvard music school dropout who learned cooking in New Orleans, would have made anything for B.F. Skinner. In this kitchen I first heard the Swans Filth album on either MIT, Harvard, Tufts, or Emerson college radio which was the best thing I had heard so far including the MC5, Miles Davis, and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.
