Dec 262008
Looking back over this fun, chatty thread from 2007, I took time to remember some names of Townspeople who’ve moved on from regular participation in the Halls of Rock. I also wondered what RTH Member Fun Facts we may not know about those of you who’ve been participating since this thread first ran. Let your fun facts rip! Let this Battle Royale resume!
This post initially appeared 7/25/07.
Townsman Trolleyvox says:
Fun fact: my dad’s old painting teacher taught Peter Wolf at the MFA’s Museum School.
I say:
Fun fact: my grandmother taught Frank Gorshin how to act.
Hand over the belt!
Give it up, Riddler’s teacher!
Fun fact: My mum always reminisces about seeing the Stones at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit, but her other favourite story is the time when her best friend Karen made out with Iggy Pop in a church basement in Detroit in the 60s.
Yeah, it kinda grosses me out too. But, hey – Iggy Pop! Hawt! I wish I had a teacher story, but apparently all I got is Hot for Teacher. Oooh!
my father boasts that he and his friends used to “slap bobby rydell around” in junior high.
who else among you was parented by someone who used to beat up a post-elvis / pre-beatles crooner?
hand the fuck over the fuckin’ belt.
I love Bobby Rydell – that’s so mean! Someone hand Ismine the fuckin’ belt!
i dunno, sally…
sure, beating up on a shmaltzy, second-tier teen idol, whose era nearly signalled the death knell for rock and roll, is no doubt a noble pursuit.
i almost choked on my milk the first time i heard my dad, who’s quite the gentleman, use that phrase: “yeah, we used to slap bobby rydell around.” he was even glowing a little when he said it. in subsequent conversations i’ve been able to coax from my dad that bobby was quite the arrogant little twerp at the time. but since, fences have been mended, and there’s a picture of recent vintage of an older bobby and my dad arm in arm on our mantle.
of course, violence is not the answer…
makin’ out with iggy…in a church basement no less! there’s a case to be made for that, too.
I just think of Bye Bye Birdie when I think of Rydell;) A nerdy teen dream! Violence may have been the ONLY answer Saturn… 😉 I wonder if Iggy Pop was a sexy kisser, or if he was just all over the place with his young adult arms and… TMI! In a church basement no less…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BD_XCECbAEU
“Since we’ve come back from our message Iggy has been in and OUT of the crowd three different times…! We seem to have lost him and we’re trying to get a light on him now…!”
Fun Fact (possibly previously mentioned here on RTH): my parents saw the Who perform Tommy at the old Electric Factory in Philly.
Fun Fact: Bill Halley and his Comets played at my mom’s high school (Chester High)
Funny Fact: Moon Unit Zappa admired my yellow socks once.
Fun “fact”: We have a family friend who SWEARS she saw The Beatles perform at Philly’s Electric Factory in their Sgt Pepper suits in 1967.
I say that we have a family friend who apparently took a lot of acid in 1967.
Back in the late 70’s when I was still in high school on Long Island, we had an english teacher who was Bun E. Carlos’ uncle!
I got nuthin’, but Frank Gorshin’s Cool Factor is off the charts, I say give the belt back.
Fun fact: my first college English professor performed at Woodstock as part of Sha Na Na.
Non-musical fun fact: my creative writing mentor at Eastern New Mexico University first coined the term “genetic engineering.”
Fun fact everyone here has heard me mention a million frickin’ times already: among my father-in-law’s photography credits are the cover photos of Joan Baez’s first two albums, although he considered her fairly hacky as a singer.
Fun facts that are the closest I ever came to action with a relatively famous musician: the singer from Book of Love kissed me once, for reasons I still cannot adequately explain, and I once accidentally felt up Barbara Manning and yes, it was an accident.
However, none of these beat mackin’ on Iggy.
I am forbidden to reveal the name of a friend who did three remarkable things:
1) He stole his dad’s car on new year’s eve at 15 and saw the Turtles at the Whiskey and they debuted “Happy Together.”Most importantly he never got caught!
2) He is on the inside cover or first page of the Life Magazine Woodstock edition, being sprayed with water and laughing his head off right in front of the stage.
3) At the Atlantic City Pop Festival he leapt on stage and kissed Janice Joplin on the lips.
Anyhow, I have nothing to rival these, myself.
My dad, a retired home inspector, once inspected a home for Joe Perry. Alas, Mr. Perry did accompany my dad on the inspection.
Oh, and he also inspected the home of the manager/svengali of New Kids on the Block.
My mom was in a school play with Leonard Nemoy, age 4. All she remembers is that Nemoy was a tiny kid with a runny nose.
“Alas, Mr. Perry did accompany my dad on the inspection.”
Oops, I meant did NOT.
Stupid brain.
“and I once accidentally felt up Barbara Manning and yes, it was an accident.”
I love Barbara. Well, well well. Anyway. Do you have the SF Seals album? The one where she covered S.F. Sorrow? I’ve been on a hunt for that because mine went ‘a missing, I’d say I’ve been on the hunt for about 5-7 years now. Damn.
My dad was friends with Otto Ridarelli (Bobby Rydell’s father) and when I was about 6 or 7 (1961-62) we went to visit them in South Philly. Bobby played drums for us in the basement.
I don’t know about him being a twerp but he was nice to us then as well as almost 40 years later when we stopped backstage at one of his Boys of Bandstand shows in Connecticut.
And he may have almost spelled the death of rock & roll (actually, I think that’s a pretty ridiculous statement) but he is quite an entertainer in a Sammy Davis/Bobby Darin mode.
As a child I played a very brief part in the stunningly bad Sonny & Cher movie “Chastity.” (Titled well before their daughter existed.) As it contained a brief lesbian shower scene, it was rated X at the time. So I can say that I was in an X-Rated movie with Cher.
Shut UP – that’s awesome maudlin. So bad it’s good.
Here’s my lame fun fact –
My great uncle was Shirley Temple’s manager. When my dad was 16, he accompanied her on a summer promotional tour.
Here’s one on behalf of our friend Ken Cills –
His parents hung in a bar with The Beatles in Miami Beach in Feb 1964. The Fab’s were down there for their second Ed Sullivan appearance
Sammy, you really do need to get me a digital copy of your work with Cher. I’ve seen it, people, and this guy had the goods!
massiocchi,
i like the image of bobby playin’ drums in the basement!
i wonder if my dad knew any massiochi’s?
to set the record straight: said allegations of twerpishness were against the junior high aged rydell, not rydell ca. ’61. i suspect my dad embellishes for entertainment’s sake. and really, weren’t we ALL twerps in junior high? after all, they wound up friends. he was at my christening.
nor did i say “he spelled the death of rock and roll”. i said “his era nearly signalled the death of rock and roll”, not really the same thing.
This may not be as good as making out with Iggy Pop in a church bathroom, or whatever, but I bet I’m the only Townsperson to have reached base safely against former Phillies closer Mitch Williams. I won a bet in the process, after he nicked me with a fastball on the brim of my helmet.
You got to first base with Mitch Williams? That’s as hot as making out with Iggy.
Nice, BigSteve. Does it make it hotter or not that John Kruk was watching?
Super hot.
“i wonder if my dad knew any massiochi’s?”
If we are talking South Philly from the ’30s on, it would be inevitable; my dad was one of 15 kids.
“nor did i say “he spelled the death of rock and roll”. i said “his era nearly signalled the death of rock and roll”, not really the same thing.””
Sorry for the misquote (and you are right they aren’t nearly the same thing) but it doesn’t seem to be much more of a defensible statement.
Al Masciocchi (just to get the right spelling on the record)
My dad sold weed to Mickey Dolenz in front of a hotel on Rittenhouse Square.
My mom saw the Doors at the Phila Civic Center and took some pretty good pics of it.
My friend Marc found Samuel L. Jackson’s wallet in an airport. He returned it, and as a reward, SLJ gave him a big bag of magic mushrooms.
My friend Henry got punched in the jaw by Steven Stills for drinking the last beer on the CSNY and Joni Mitchell tour in the early 70’s
Same friend, Henry the Electrician, hid in a VW mini bus alone with Grace Slick waiting for the Hell’s Angles to go home from Altamont Speedway. He tried to get with her, but it didn’t work out.
Shawnkilroy said:
My friend Marc found Samuel L. Jackson’s wallet in an airport. He returned it, and as a reward, SLJ gave him a big bag of magic mushrooms.
I say:
Now THAT’s a story!
This may not really be the same thing, since it’s not rock-related, but I witnessed clarinetist George Lewis’ jazz funeral in 1968.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had a job bagging groceries at the Piggly Wiggly. One day, a Saturday I think, we looked out in front of the store, and a jazz funeral starts coming by. I learned later that it was for the famous George Lewis, one of the last of the old-time jazz musicians, who had played in Bunk Johnson’s band in the 40s. This is him filmed at Preservation Hall in 1962:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WjvJwtPLyg
You’ve got to understand that in 1968 white kids living in Algiers (across the river from downtown New Orleans) didn’t know anything about old-time jazz except for Al Hirt and Pete Fountain. Jazz funerals nowadays are announced in the paper, and they get police escorts, and they’ve turned into tourist events. But back then people like me didn’t know anything about this.
I was the slow, mournful part of the funeral I saw, and I can’t describe to you how strange it was for everybody to come out and stand in front of the store and see a group of black people walk slowly down Gen. Meyer Ave., which was not exactly (yet) the black part of town, with a jazz band playing. It was like being let in on a secret.
Here’s some historical footage of old-time funerals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asNTSJGAivQ
And here’s some footage shot earlier this year by someone who lives overlooking the St. Louis #3 cemetery of the kind of music I would have heard (Just a Closer Walk with Thee).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOFB8yapTIU
One of my friends apperentally got bass lessons from the bassist of the Buzzcocks (family freind) once, but it didn’t work out.
I’ve told this story on another music site but I think it’s worth telling again.
I live in a quiet inner ring suburb of Minneapolis for about the past 10 years. Not a lot of celeb or music related sightings. However, about 7-8 years ago we became friends with a couple who had moved in the area at the time (and have since moved away). Anyway, they were great people and we’d go out to eat with them, hang out talking in the yard and so on. For whatever reason we’d never been into their home until we knew them for at least a year maybe 2 years. So we sit down in his living room and hanging up is gold records of Simon and Garfunkel and another of Bob Dylan’s. Naturally, curious I ask Tom where he got them and he says “Oh they were my dads. He produced those records and got gold records for them. He had more of them that my sister has”. He went on to tell me how he produced not these two but also a few more of Dylan’s, Zappa, Velvet Underground and some jazz greats. I was floored per he’d NEVER mentioned this to me prior to my stumbling upon this. Later that night I educated myself about his dad (Tom Wilson) and how he produced the first Velvet Underground album, was largely responsible for Simon and Garfunkel’s sound and clearly had some influence in Dylan’s “going electric”. So to me this was a very memorable moment and one where I learned more about a man who’s name, I believe, should be more well known then it is.
Speaking of Iggy. A friend of mine told me he was invited backstage of a show MANY years ago. Iggy was crawling around on all 4 barking like a dog and so on.
Another Iggy story is again from many years ago. My brother had wrote him a fan letter of sorts. Over a year later my brother get’s a hand written letter from Iggy that is rambling and very strange (and funny). I’d be able to quote it better but I only saw it once and then somehow my brother lost it!
Seeing the headlines today reminds me that I worked out a couple of times with Eartha Kitt. I used to belong to the New Orleans Athletic Club, a very old gym on the edge of the French Quarter, across the street from the Saenger theater, where Ms. Kitt was appearing in something for a week. I said hello to her once, but she was wearing huge shades, and I don’t think there was any response.
A lot of famous people used to go to this gym. Peter ‘Robocop’ Weller was a regular. I once saw Alec Baldwin all alone in the boxing ring, watching himself shadow box in the mirror. He was beyond good-looking, and his hair was so black it was almost blue like Superman’s.
After I quit going to this gym, Ray Davies was supposedly a regular there during his New Orleans residency. I don ‘t know how I would have handled seeing Ray on the treadmill, so it’s probably good for him I was gone by then.
Oh yeah, I saw Greg Dulli playing basketball there once.
As a bartender In SF in the late 80’s/early 90’s, I served Les Claypool, the bass player for the Smithereens, Perry Farrell and his trusty drummer, Bobby McFarrin and Wavy Gravy (although I almost kicked Mr Gravy out before I recognized him because I thought he was a homeless guy, and then I felt like a dick for it).
Tom Waits and Jim Jaramuch stopped in one day with a woman who I assume was Kathleen Brennan but I’m not certain. I wasn’t working but I stopped in to gawk.
Bartender to the Stars,
cm
OK, I have two from up north:
1. My mom sang “Snowbird” before Anne Murray. Gene MacLellan was a drinking buddy of my dad’s.
2. A woman who everyone refers to as “My Aunt Shirley” (she wasn’t my Aunt, just my mom’s good friend) wrote “Something to Talk About”.
Cool stories are coming in from this Flashbacked post. I’m digging them, and the reference to the Buzzcocks’ Steve Garvey reminds me that he once did a contracting job in my Mom’s house during a stretch when my wife and I were living there between a move back to the area and before our move into our house. I was at work that day, but he struck up a conversation with my stepfather after seeing punk albums sitting by the stereo. Shortly thereafter I couldn’t find my copy of Captain Beefheart’s Mirror Man, with “Kandy Korn,” the song that obviously influenced Buzzcocks’ “Why Can’t I Touch It.” There was only one logical conclusion: Steve Garvey stole it! About a year or more later, long after we’d moved into our home, I found the album, misfiled. Garvey was not guilty. Once again, I had jumped to a ridiculously wrong assumption!
To think that your mom could have been imortalized by an SCTV skit, Northvancoveman!
Did you guys get SCTV in the States? I thought it was just in Canada…
I don’t know if this qualifies as anything but in the mid to late 90’s my good friends were in a band in Vancouver that Everyone thought was going to be huge.
Unfortunately the lead singer and main songwriter left to become a Lutheran minister in Saskatchewan right before they got a record deal. Anway, Neko Case and Carl Newman and Nardwuar (who deserves a post on his own) would always be at legendary band house parties. Those parties were crazy…it’s hard for me to tell because I’m not really into “indie” rock. Are Neko and Carl famous?
Neko and Carl are as famous as just about any indie rocker can get. The New Pornographers sell out here in cleveland, and Neko does on her own, too. Not the basketball arena, but if The Beachland wasn’t so instrumental in getting them noticed around here, I bet they could do well at The House of Blues.
So I guess they’re famous to some of us.
Well Carl’s a nice guy; no Nathan Katrud stories here. He used to have a band called Zumpano we would go see. He had funny little intros to the songs. Neko was always kinda shy and quiet. She has a friend named Carolyn Mark who can really wail…
I once thought Brian Wilson was being stand-offish with me, but turns out I was speaking into his deaf ear. He was super-nice once he turned his head.
Yes! We DO know about Neko Case and SCTV. Have you Guys heard of The Hooters or Rocky?
just messin.
I used to drive nights for yellow cab while going to school. One evening I was flagged down by none other than ‘Sir Denis Eton-Hogg’ from Spinal Tap – Patrick Macnee.
Of couse at that time, in my mind it was actually ‘John Steed’ from ‘the Avengers’ that I had picked up.
I was quite disappointed that he didn’t breathlessly tell me to ‘step on it and follow that car’.
I guess that the only bigger disappointment was that Mrs. Peel wasn’t with him in full leather trim…
Jay Schwartz of Secret Cinema also has a pot story of Mickey Dolenz in Philly. I think he described him stopping the cab he was riding in when he saw Jay (who must have looked like a proper hipster back then) and ran up to him to ask if he knew where to get some pot.
AndyR and I were in a cover band with the bassist from the Afghan Whigs. When they were touring Philly, the band crashed at the Head house. It was prior to their highest level of success. Had I known, I would have kissed more ass.