Sep 262009
“…shield…blanket of love…”
Yes!
Mar 132007
Say what you will but please be original.
26 Responses to “All-Star Jam”
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I’m still reading my Badfinger biography (and loving it). It’s just getting into Joey Molland’s role and when he came into the band. Ron Griffiths (original bass player) just got the chicken pox and was kicked out of the band. Tom Evans switches over to bass after being praised by McCartney on his “skills” on “Rock Of All Ages” (written for Magic Christian – the movie). This allows an easier door for someone to come in on guitar instead (I guess the London-scene bassist pool was somewhat lacking). They asked Hamish Stuart to join before the switchover (at that time of Marmalade, and not Average White Band).
My point: Hamish Stuart was almost in Badfinger, but at the last minute they didn’t have the money to get him released from his Marmalade contract (10,000 pound).
So I was thinking: how many other “almost” stories are there of weird people “nearly” ending up in certain “classic” bands.
Hopefully I’m not being too vague/non-descript in my thoughts – it’s late, I have to work in the morning. Anyone got any other “almost in a band” weird stories? I guess I’m not talkin’ Stuart Sutcliffe stories here.
Berlyant: I’m still looking for my NBTurks interview. I haven’t forgotten and will report!
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p.s. this clip is AWESOME!
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The original lead singer in King Crimson was meant to be Judy Dyble, formerly of Fairport Conversion and later of Trader Horne. The one song she ever recorded with them, an early version of “I Talk With the Wind,” is utterly gorgeous but suggests that they would have been a VERY different (although possibly better) band if she had stuck around.
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Great thread suggestion within an All-Star Jam, Townswoman Sally! This is exactly one of the uses we’d hoped people would find in this section.
I had no idea McCartney was tied to Hamish Stuart way back in the Apple days!
Bryan Ferry was also supposed to have tried out for King Crimson, but according to him, he failed miserably.
I’m sure I’ll think of better “almost band” stories than Ferry’s failed audition and Stephen Stills’ failed Monkees audition. I’m sure others here will think of even more.
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GREAT stories so far guys – look forward to more “almost” stories if you think of them:)
they would have been a VERY different (although possibly better) band if she had stuck around.
On the flip-side, for Badfinger at least, I’m glad that Hamish wasn’t as I can’t imagine Badfinger would be better off without Molland then, although his later efforts bug the shite out of me.
I had no idea McCartney was tied to Hamish Stuart way back in the Apple days!
I’m glad you brought this up actually, because this raises an off-topic question for me, as in: how did they get introduced? It says in the book that the band had Hamish as their first choice, not who actually suggested him or what the connection was, or if they already knew of him (simply knew of him via his band “Marmalade”)… Hmmm… Thanks Mr. Mod!
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Didn’t the Marmalade do a cover of “Ob La Di Ob La Da” that McCartney was fond of? I assume that’s how they met, but I’d had no idea Stuart was in the Marmalade.
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Richard Thompson was asked to join The Eagles, a jarring combination of styles.
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I’d never heard about Richard Thompson being asked to join The Eagles. Weird.
Of course in the punk era there were some almost-band configurations, that precursor to The Clash being the first that comes to mind. Wasn’t Chrissie Hynde nearly a member of a Class of ’77 UK punk band?
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Didn’t the Marmalade do a cover of “Ob La Di Ob La Da”
I haven’t heard it, but my “source” says yes:)
From Wickedpedia:
Marmalade’s record label, CBS, threatened to drop them if they did not have a hit, and after the failure of another self-penned single later that year, “Man In A Shop”, insisted they record more chart-oriented material. They rejected “Everlasting Love”, which became a Number One for Love Affair, but later gave in to pressure and recorded a cover version of an American hit by The Grass Roots, “Lovin’ Things”, which reached number 6 in the UK Singles Chart in the summer of 1968. After a lesser hit with the follow-up “Wait For Me Mary-Anne”, which only made number 30, they enjoyed their greatest success with their cover of The Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da”, which topped the UK chart in January 1969. As the first Scottish group to ever top the UK chart, the week it went to the top spot, they celebrated by appearing on BBC1’s music programme Top Of The Pops, dressed in kilts.
That’s kind of a find. I would have kept assuming (like there’s only one Scottish band for that era – dumb assumption, I know), that The Bay City Rollers would have been the first Scots to top the charts, but that’s later in the 70s.
Wasn’t Chrissie Hynde nearly a member of a Class of ’77 UK punk band?
For 20 points, The Damned!
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Holy cow. That video. I haven’t even had coffee yet, and I just got trapped like a hypnotized chicken in front of that Frank Black video, and now this! The Frank Black hurts. It totally inflamed my long-dormant 7th grade awkward-at-the-dance scar tissue. Ow. Ow. Ow. He even embarasses my subconcious. And I *like* the Pixies. I don’t go there for any more depth or reality than I get from the Archies, but I enjoyed them. Anyhow, I went right to this vid. Shoo-ee! I have always been a fan of the Indian school of Kabuki On Defibrillator choreography, and this is a tour-de-force of same. Thanks for the destabilizing start to the day. A real relief after all the Hall of Fame hoo ha. The commentary was probably at least as entertaining without the imagery. BTW, they had a story on it in the paper here, and included a picture of Eddie Van Halen. He’s got the shrunken voodoo head thing going to rival Mr. Richard one of these days. Yikes.
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The Marmalade (which I enjoy pronouncing as “the Marmalahhhhd”) is one of my fave second- or third-string 60s bands. I bought this great comp of their psych period stuff, and a good two-thirds of it is top-notch.
I enjoy the stories about all the weird replacement guitarists the Stones were meant to have “considered” before going with Ron Wood. These supposedly included Roy Buchanan (?!) and my man Rory Gallagher!
Of lesser import, but still interesting: During XTC’s long hiatus in the 90s, Colin Moulding was approached by Dave Gilmour to fill in for Roger Waters on the hugely successful “sorta Pink Floyd” tour of that era. The way Colin tells it, he needed the bread, enjoyed touring, but once he sat down to figure out all the bass parts, he got lazy and realized he just couldn’t be arsed.
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Robert Fripp was asked to join Yes when Peter Banks left the band…
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The Marmalade (which I enjoy pronouncing as “the Marmalahhhhd”
I am enjoying walking around the house and saying this out loud (it’s completely annoying my younger brother who is trying to enjoy Dan Ackroyd in Doctor Detroit) “Marmalahhhhd…”
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(it’s completely annoying my younger brother who is trying to enjoy Dan Ackroyd in Doctor Detroit)
Your brother is watching Doctor Detroit?
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There’s the Jimi Hendrix/Randy California (of Spirit) story (wikipedia version): Randy was born into a musical family in Los Angeles, and spent his early years studying varied styles at the family’s Hollywood nightclub, the Ash Grove. He was fifteen years old when they moved to New York and he met Jimi Hendrix in 1966. He played in Hendrix’s band Jimmy James & the Blue Flames that summer. The stage name “Randy California” was given to him by Hendrix to distinguish him from another Randy in the band (who Hendrix dubbed “Randy Texas”). When Hendrix was invited to come to England by Chas Chandler, Randy was not allowed to go (by his parents) and so missed out on what became the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
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The Frank Black hurts. It totally inflamed my long-dormant 7th grade awkward-at-the-dance scar tissue. Ow. Ow. Ow. He even embarasses my subconcious.
Are we looking at the same thing? I’m just looking at a B&W clip of him pointing at words in a book, pretending to fly and cutting a giant aspirin in half.
Cool song though. I’d forgotten about it.
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Wasn’t Peter Frampton in that mix of guys being considered to join the Stones at some point (either after Brian or after Mick T – more likely after Brian, I don’t really know)… or did I make that up?
Speaking of whom… I saw Peter Frampton a theater in Lancaster PA a few months ago and he was incredible. I’m serious…
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Did anyone get the re-release of Fripp’s Exposure? I love the album and really love Darryl Hall’s vocals on it, which the re-release has more of. worth it?
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Sammy, did you get turned onto Exposure in that little bedroom that was next to the kitchen at Theta Xi? You know the one I’m talking about. That’s where I first heard it. I’ve never upgraded from my vinyl copy. Can’t say I loved Hall’s vocals on that one, but there were some good moments.
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Can’t say I loved Hall’s vocals on that one
Your loss.
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Your brother is watching Doctor Detroit?
Sorry Oats, just got your message;) Yeh, we found it in the “on demand” section on cable today! I remembered it, but he didn’t so we started watching it but then I had to run into work;) Howard Hesseman from WKRP! Awesome! And a very thin Ackroyd, didn’t remember him as that thin!
The stage name “Randy California” was given to him by Hendrix to distinguish him from another Randy in the band (who Hendrix dubbed “Randy Texas”).
Great wickedpedia grab BigSteve, making me laugh: “Randy Texas, meet Randy California” Seems like a very Hendrix thing to me! Man, that’s the thing about musicians now vs. musicians then… it seems everyone needed (or maybe wanted) to get mum and dad’s approval before going off to tour or to get signed…?
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Sally C sez:
it seems everyone needed (or maybe wanted) to get mum and dad’s approval before going off to tour or to get signed…?
I say, rather nerdily:
That shouldn’t have been too hard for Randy C — his mum was shackin’ up with the bald dude who eventually became the drummer for Spirit!
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That shouldn’t have been too hard for Randy C — his mum was shackin’ up with the bald dude who eventually became the drummer for Spirit!
Yeh, what I don’t understand is how can you have artistic parents in the 60s and them not not allow you to go off to “hone” your musical abilities in a new band… forget the mechanics apprenticeship, ‘Mum, Dad – I’m going professional!’ Then again, maybe it just had to do with sex with the bald guy.
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Yeh, what I don’t understand is how can you have artistic parents in the 60s and them not not allow you to go off to “hone” your musical abilities in a new band… forget the mechanics apprenticeship, ‘Mum, Dad – I’m going professional!’ Then again, maybe it just had to do with sex with the bald guy.
I think it just had to do with the fact that he was 15 or 16 years old. “You can move to NYC, but London? Are you crazy?”
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I think it just had to do with the fact that he was 15 or 16 years old. “You can move to NYC, but London? Are you crazy?”
Ohhh. Yeah, that’s quite young, and very funny BigSteve;)
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Here’s another Hendrix-related ‘almost’ story. Yesterday I came across a very nice interview with record producer Chris Thomas (Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, John Cale, Pretenders, etc.). He started out as a bass player, and he told this story:
“Yes, and there was a lot going on in that area, around Ealing. Before The Who were The Who, they were the High Numbers. And before that they were The Detours. The Stones were playing down the road. The English Birds, with Ronnie Wood, were around. Jim Marshall [of Marshall amps fame] was the local shop. I used to know Mitch Mitchell. Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames had been disbanded, and one day Mitch came up to me and said, ‘You play bass don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I’m going to Germany to rehearse with this American guy who plays guitar behind his back and with his teeth and stuff.’ I thought this guitar player must be some kind of exhibitionist, so I said, ‘Thank you very much, I’ll stay here.’ Then a few months later I was watching Ready, Steady Go! and there was Jimi Hendrix doing Hey Joe with Mitch on drums. I thought, ‘Oh Christ!’ [Laughs]”
The whole interview is reprinted at http://www.procolharum.com/99/chris_thomas_mix.htm
I would like to take this opportunity to speak of the magic that is the new Big Star box set from Rhino.
With all this Beatle talk, it almost went overlooked (even with me), but it’s pretty special in its own right.
The set will probably not shed too much light on the entire Big Star experience, but it’s a dream come true for hardcore fans like myself. The Alex Chilton demos (most of them for the third album) are pretty cool considering what they became. The most fascinating is “Lovely Day” before it became known as “Stroke It Noel.” There is a Chris Bell-sung early version of something that later became “Watch The Sunrise,” which adds some humanity to the entire Big Star canon. The lyrics are terrible and it’s terrible sung. If this had been the released song, it would have been fine, but knowing what it became, it makes you apporeciate the final product even more.
The live disc is not really essential to anything other than it’s unreleased Big Star. One would have liked to have heard the famous rock writer’s convention gig, but this is a set from the guys (minus Chris Bell) opening for Archie Bell and the Drells (!) in front a crowd that can best be described as “indifferent.” It’s not the best performance, but Big Star have never been known for their live prowess. It’s rough and sloppy.
The packaging is awesome. The discs themselves are little repros of the old Ardent labels. It packaged like an old reel-to-reel. The booklet has some great info, alot singing the praises of engineer John Fry (One of the best things about Big Star to me has been that sound. Those are some well-recorded records for me.). Their are some photos that have never been seen, too.
I suppose the biggest missing piece from this set is the proposed DVD inclusion. I know there’s more footage out there. I can only hope that Rhino is saving this in order to milk more cash from my dry pockets.
It’s an important set that’s long overdue and it serves as a fine tribute to one of the greatest overlooked bands of all time.
TB
Man, I watched that video for 1:35 then bailed. Someone should tell them that for everyone that turns to the lord after listening to that crap, that there’s another that eats a baby after listening to Slayer.