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Lame brushes with fame... Which of your musical heroes have you met?


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Meeting, or even just finding out more about your musical heroes can be a tricky proposition. You love their music, you have a strong emotional connection to some of their songs... but none of this is any kind of guarantee that the person behind this music will be someone you like. As often as not (ime) they can be quite annoying. Sometimes even annoying enough to make me push their stuff to the back of my various stores of albums.

 

So, your mission, should you choose to participate in this thread (and I hope you do), is to recount for our general entertainment any occasion on which you have met one of your heroes. Whether they turned out to be nice, interesting, rude, whatever. Even if it was just a completely lame encounter and you didn't speak at all, they all count! In fact, the lamer the encounter the better - again just my opinion, which is just as well given that most of mine have been pitifully, woefully, piss weak.

 

 

Souptin's piss weak brushes with fame (part one):

 

1. Unless you're the same age as me, and were into UK punk / new wave you'll have to google. The lead singer and songwriter, Mark E Smith of The Fall. I went to see them play at the Hammersmith Palais, 1986. Before they came on stage I felt a call of nature and went to the toilets. Standing next to me at the urinals was, yes, Mark E Smith himself! He saw that I had recognised him, nodded briefly, zipped up and left. It is quite possible that some of his splashback hit me.

 

2. I crossed the road, while carrying a guitar, in front of a Rolls Royce limo that had Freddie Mercury sitting in the back! The location was historically significant for Queen - it was Prince Consort Road, London, which has the Albert Hall and the Royal College of Art on one side, and Imperial College on the other (when the band was originally formed, Freddie was at the RCA, Brian and John were at Imperial). But enough history, back to my pathetic brush with fame. Freddie looked out the car window at me and I looked back. Our eyes met and we shared a moment of unspoken respect of two fellow musicians. Or maybe he was stoned and just staring blankly, I really don't know.

 

3. I used to help out at gigs in my college. I designed the posters and on the night manned the door and helped the bands load and unload their gear. On this particular occasion the headline band were reggae legends Misty in Roots. As the band walked in (there were like 15 of them at least!) one of them - a very young, very shy bloke with a saxophone - noticed that there was a "Jazz Band" on the billing. He asked me what this jazz band were like and if it would be ok if he listened to them. The other Misty members laughed (kindly) at him and told me "Heh, he likes jazz!". I showed him the room were the jazz band were setting up (they weren't really a jazz band, more like an economy size Big Band sort of thing, fun to dance to but frankly a bit cheesy). He opened the door, listened for a few seconds, then shook his head sadly and closed the door again. So who was that shy, jazz loving young man who played sax with a reggae band, I hear you ask... It was Courtney Pine.

 

 

Your turn.

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On a flight from San Francisco to London a few years ago I sat next to Jello Biafra, formerly of the Dead Kennedys. It was rather entertaining. He even sang the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of California, Über alles for me. I didn't get any work done.

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On a flight from San Francisco to London a few years ago I sat next to Jello Biafra, formerly of the Dead Kennedys. It was rather entertaining. He even sang the Arnold Schwarzenegger version of California, Über alles for me. I didn't get any work done.

 

Awesome. I am deeply, profoundly jealous of that. Didn't he have a go at politics for a while?

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Met Carole King about 10 years ago when she visited where I live. Very nice, but obviously just trying to be polite.

 

Sat next to the singer Noa at a Sting concert, but didn't bother her b/c she was obviously just there as a fan to see the concert.

 

Introduced myself to the Jazz saxophonist John Handy at a club in NYC many years ago when his band was on break. He was polite, and then I told him I loved this album of his:

 

cover.jpg

 

 

Karuna Supreme - John Handy | Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards | AllMusic

 

Since the album originally sold about 100 copies :), he seemed very surprised and pleased, and thanked me.

 

Years ago my sister met Springsteen a couple of times and both times he went out of his way to be nice and have an actual conversation with her.

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As I sang opera professionally for several years, I've met, studied and / or sung with many of my childhood heroes:

 

Placido Domingo

Jerome Hines

Aprile Millo

Leontyne Price

Diana Soviero

Bianca Berini

Ermanno Mauro

Gilda Cruz Romo

James McCracken

Arleen Auger

Giuseppe Giacomini

William Walker

Jean Kraft

Frederica Von Stade

others I can't remember :/

 

Most of them are very nice / approachable and great fun at a late supper ;)

 

I also sat next to Lou Reed at two different Laurie Anderson concerts and directly behind Linda Evans at a Yanni concert (a very different kind of "musical" experience) :(

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Christmas vacation, ten days at the Fountainbleau Hotel, the Boom Boom Room (night club) Miami Beach, I am twelve or thirteen years old (1950s) sitting ringside to the stage having dinner alone as my mother is ill in our room and wanted me to keep the reservation.

 

Tony Bennett is the headliner. At the time, most of my music listening experiences include hours of Jazz on AM radio with Symphony Sid, known then as the Dean Of Jazz Radio, on WADO, 1280 on your dial in NYC, the best Jazz program I can remember. The program I listened to for years and taped on a real to real introduced me to the Jazz greats, Miles, Parker, Monk, Moody, from Allison to Zoot Sims. William B Williams on WINS AM radio had a program devoted to Sinatra, the American Songbook and all the great singers, Ella, Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Clooney, Matt Monroe, Epstein, Tony Bennett and many more great singers of Jazz and Amaerican Standards.

 

I am sitting a few feet from Tony Bennett singing with extraordinary talent and presence. First time ever for me for a live performance that lasted well over an hour. I am knocked out by his performance and applaud enthusiastically during the whole set, uninhibitedly caught up in the performance. I might have even stood up at the end. I think I ate the dinner I ordered.

 

The next morning, having breakfast and sitting with friends from NYC who were also vacationing with their parents, Tony Bennett walks into the hotel restaurant. The buzz quieted down noticeably. My friends commented that Tony Bennett just walked in. He walked straight to my table and up to me. Now, there is silence in the room. Surprised to find myself face to face with Tony Bennett, I stand up. Not knowing what to say, I introduce myself to remind him I had attended his performance and exclaimed how much I enjoyed his set. "Yes, of course, I remember you..." And then he returned the appreciation I had shown him by genuinely thanking me for being such a good audience, shaking my hand. The exchange took only seconds but he was sincere.

 

Years later, we leased an office suite in the same residential building where he lived and also had a office. Many times, my wife and I would share an elevator ride with him and exchange a friendly look, but I never identified myself as that young boy who had met him decades earlier. Not sure what stopped me. Still enjoy my collection of his songs, especially the sessions with Bill Evans I discovered listening to Symphony Sid.

 

There are more stories including Mel Tormé, Carly Simon, and Martin Sheen, while not a musician, but a brilliant actor I met at a Mobil Station while we fueled our cars and chatted briefly about Apocalypse Now.

 

Enjoy the music,

Richard

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Martin Sheen, while not a musician, but a brilliant actor I met at a Mobil Station while we fueled our cars and chatted briefly about Apocalypse Now.

 

Heh! You met Martin Sheen at a petrol station and, of all possible things, you talked about Apocalypse Now? Brave, very brave! One wrong word and your car would have be doused in fuel and set alight as he screamed I love the smell of napalm in the morning! :D

 

But seriously, love the stories. Thank you all for replying :)

 

Very good point raised by firedog about "being polite" - probably an essential defence mechanism for all famous people. But good to hear real world accounts that show them in a much better light than media reports that love to focus on enormous egos and tantrums.

 

Another one from me, not strictly musical but there is a music side to Robbie Coltrane (probably nowadays best known as Hagrid from the Harry Potter films)

 

He must live somewhere in my area. Maybe three or four years ago I was stood in the checkout queue at my local Homebase (DIY store). The person in front of me in the queue was huge, almost a giant. He was buying some Dulux white emulsion and a couple of brushes if you really want to know. When he gets his turn at the checkout (at which point I recognise who he is) he pays with a card, and the girl at the checkout sees his name on it and says "Oh yeah, it really is you... I thought so". He replies, amused, "Yes, I am me. I suppose I'm pretty hard to miss".

 

(the music connection - he took the name "Coltrane" from John Coltrane. Also he was the singer in the Magestics, a fictitious band in an old UK tv show "Tutti Frutti")

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Cool story about Tony Bennett, Richard.

 

I had met a number of celebrities when I lived and worked in NYC in the corporate/industrial film business. I did a film shoot with comedians Fred Willard (This is Spinal Tap, Modern Family), and Louie Nye. I did a photo session with Karl Malden. I had a conversation with Charles Durning in an elevator at Silvercup Studios. I photgraphed an all-day charity golf event with former NY Giant Lawrence Taylor. I made eye contact with, but did not speak to, Joe DiMaggio, in the lobby of the NY Sheraton, and Joe Namath, on the street.

I stood right next to actor Peter Boyle for an hour while watching the NY Marathon.

But the biggest thrill was when I saw novelist Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. sitting on a park bench reading a newspaper. I couldn't resists approaching him and introducing myself as a lifelong fan. He was very gracious, and we had a lengthy conversation.

 

I also sat next to NY congressman Charles Rangel on a flight from Barbados, and admonished him for not bringing our troops home from the Middle East.

 

More to the point of this thread, I've met and had conversations with a number of musicians, mostly "B-list" artists, who now play smaller venues, and sign CD's in the lobby afterwards. People like John Hammond, Chris Smither, John Sebastian, Chris Hillman, Roger McGuinn, Rory Block, Sue Foley, etc.

 

Oh, and mandolinist Barry Mitterhoff of Hot Tuna lives in my town, and I speak to him often.

 

I've also had email exchanges with a few artists, and through flattery, managed to wheedle autographed CD-R burns of some of their out-of-print albums from them. Notably, Cidny Bullens and, of course, Wendy Waldman :>)

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I moved from Utah to London after high school and was working as a waiter in a restaurant called The Video Cafe, which was owned by a music mogul. The restaurant was located right off the Oxford Circus tube stop by the Palladium Theatre. This was in the 80's. The schtick/draw for this place were the music videos being played on all walls, and it had a VJ.

 

The owner would host private parties for celebrities/musicians. I personally waited on: The Specials, Bananarama, Madness, The Police, Motorhead, George Michael , UB40, Fine Young Cannibals and Strawberry Switchblade. I don't know if waiting on a table qualifies as "meeting" though. The owner was quite particular that we not bother the celebrities, and remain professional at all times.

 

However, these private parties would sometimes carry on into the late hours and people would get piss drunk. On one of these occasions, Motorhead broke into the room where we stored the alcohol. As the owner had left for the evening, a few of us started drinking with Motorhead in the alcohol storage room. Lemmy, the lead singer of Motorhead, was really, really cool. For a kid that grew up in Utah (the Osmond family being the closest thing we had to music celebrities), I was pretty star struck.

 

Let's see, that is about it.... oh, and I used to sell ladies shoes at Nordstrom and once sold shoes to Adam West (aka Batman) and his wife..... and while living in Santa Monica, California, I saw Axl Rose in a convenience store. He was buying porno mags and booze. I just shook his hand. No big deal.

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I only have a few encounters. My wife and I were vacationing with my family in Maui. We decided to go to this little burger bar for lunch. While we were eating, James Hetfield (Metallica) sat down next to us with his family. Being a huge metal fan and Metallica fan, I really wanted to say hi. Since he was on vacation and was there with his family, I didn't think it would be right to interrupt them and passed.

 

Another time my wife and I were flying from Chicago to Vancouver to go skiing. Once we were on the plane we realized that James Brown was in first class. He just did a show in Chicago and was going to do another one in Vancouver. He seemed really cool and spent a lot of time talking to the people that came up to him. This was shortly before he passed.

 

I was on a project one time at Warner Bros. in Burbank and met a few movie / TV stars, but nothing too interesting to speak of.

 

If I were to really run into one of my music idols I don't know what I would do. Part of me would want to approach them and chat, but I am always weary they would turn out to be a jerk or something and ruin the music for me.

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So how did an opera singer end up at GTS? Just curious :)

 

To make a long story short ;) I wasn't very patient. I spent the first five years out of college as a "starving artist" (though I was singing a lot, was barely making it) and eventually decided I needed a better career option. Started out as an accountant, but liked playing with gadgets (computers / networks, etc.) more than I liked accounting. So 20 years later, I'm an IT transition manager.

 

Had I spent more time building my singing career, I'd probably have done well (not top-flight, but certainly good enough to sing regionally and teach), but I'd never have been a regular at the Met :/ Just as well, really, though I'll always miss singing - don't get to do it much these days, as my "day job" involves frequent, spur-of-the-minute travel overseas, and I'm never guaranteed available for rehearsals, or even performances.

 

Just to get my toe back in the music making "pool", I'm considering buying a (digital) piano and likely a clarinet this year - if I can't sing any more, at least I can play a bit ;)

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

I've had a few small brushes with musicians over the years.

 

While at college in the mid Seventies, training for a career as a radio DJ (which never happened) I was able to get interviews with some of the acts that came through town. I spent several hours with the members of the band Badfinger, interviewing them, discussing their music, their ties to the Beatles and Apple records. Really nice guys, especially Joey Molland, and they later invited me to see their show backstage. I was greatly saddened to hear of the suicide of Pete Ham just a few months later.

 

Perhaps a year after that, I spent most of an afternoon interviewing and talking music with Roger McGuinn who had founded the birds, and was starting out on a solo career. I introduced him to my two main instructors, who then subsequently filmed a live appearance with him that evening, which was broadcast locally.

 

I had a brief interview with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, who was a brilliant guy, but didn't really want to discuss much about his music, at least that day.

 

While visiting Toronto in the early eighties, I was at a famous record store there and the members of the band Renaissance, then a favorite of mine, were autographing albums. I managed a brief chat with their singer, Annie Haslam, and, after the signings were finished, bought her a glass of wine down the street before they had to leave for that night's concert.

 

Many years later, in 1995, I had the opportunity to meet Sarah McLachlan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just prior to her concert at Hill Auditorium. Incredibly real person and very kind. I was fortunate enough to have about ten minutes with her, through a connection with her then tour manager.

 

About nine years ago, I was in an Irish Pub in Montreal owned by a friend, and the Irish group, the Cranberries came by after finishing a concert. We drank pints with them for a long while, although, sadly, Dolores O'Riordon had to leave early as she was offered a trip back home on a private jet and wanted to see her young child.

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Decades ago, I bumped into Kurt Masur after a concert. I was walking into the concert hall while he was walking out. He asked me if I was looking for an autograph; I replied that I was looking for my keys, which had fallen below my seat; he looked surprised, almost disappointed.

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I got to meet James Brown very briefly back stage of one of his shows. At the same show I was sitting next to Barbara Mandrell (and didn't even know who she was.)

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Heh! You met Martin Sheen at a petrol station and, of all possible things, you talked about Apocalypse Now? Brave, very brave! One wrong word and your car would have be doused in fuel and set alight as he screamed I love the smell of napalm in the morning!

 

That was Robert Duvall who delivered that famous line, not Martin Sheen. :)

 

In the early 1970’s, I met a member of the English rock band Slade in the bar of the small hotel I was staying at in Amsterdam. He was surprised that I had never heard of the band as they apparently had a number one hit in England around that time. I told him that I had been travelling for a while and wasn’t up on current pop music. We discussed music for a while and I recall disagreeing with him when he questioned why Bob Dylan was such a big deal.

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My wife and myself got to meet Derek Trucks and Sue Tedeschi following their performance at the Mahindra Blues Festival here in India back in February. Derek did not speak much but Sue was a darling. They had just performed a solid 3 hour set and were waiting to get to the after party so we did not intrude. Great people and a great band - huge I must say - almost 12 members. They were spread over a huge stage and put on a great show.

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I stood in line behind Bono at a store in Singapore airport a couple of years ago. I was buying a packet of chips. Cannot recall what Bono bought. Others in the queue did not appear to be the types to know U2 and did not notice. I left him alone.... People can be a bit irritable half way through a string of international flights. :)

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  • 1 year later...
Laurie Anderson

 

Of which, I noticed this new (25-minutes) upload :

« Listen to the story of how Laurie Anderson became the iconic multimedia artist she is today, why she prefers to keep things simple, and how she began telling stories as a child—and never stopped : “I try to make stories that really engage my mind.” »

[video=youtube;dUo-dqMriY8]

 

«

an accurate picture

Sono pessimista con l'intelligenza,

 

ma ottimista per la volontà.

severe loudspeaker alignment »

 

 

 

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I met Jessica Lange and Sam Sheppard at a beach bar in Barbados in 1985, exchanged pleasantries and talked a bit about movies. Then I stopped boring them and went away.

That I ask questions? I am more concerned about being stupid than looking like I might be.

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It was the summer of '69. I was 16. And I was going to finally get to see my musical hero, Frank Zappa (and the Mothers) perform at Majestic Hills in Lake Geneva, WI. I bought "Freak Out" when it first came out. It was my first album purchase and I was hooked...bought every record, played them all to death, and was presently absorbed in "Uncle Meat". My girlfriend and I arrived early and decided to check out the side stage area to see if we could glimpse the band. We had just reached the curtained entrance area, and there he was, standing by himself, arms folded, staring off into space, just a few feet away. My girlfriend said "Go talk to him!" I froze, said I wouldn't know what to say and would probably come off as a hopelessly lame devotee. She said "I'll talk to him. What do you want me to ask him?" I said ask about the set, what are they going to play tonight. So she strolled on over and engaged in a brief back-and-forth, came back over to me. What did he say? "He said they were going to play a lot of tripping music and my trip would be very groovy." Is that all he said? "No. He asked me what I was doing after the show. I said going home with my boyfriend". No doubt, a lame brush with fame.

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