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Rock & Roll Myths

McAvennie_ said:
The Manics are releasing a new album later this month with the lyrics coming entirely from a binder of songs handed by Richey to the band just days before he disappeared.

Thanks for this. Just yesterday I was wondering what happened to them. I'll have to look out for it. (I tend to potter in the kitchen, singing If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next.)
 
johnnyboy1968 said:
Re Pink Floyd, the most loony legend concerning them must be the supposed links between The Dark Side Of The Moon and The Wizard Of Oz. David "not Dave" Gilmour seemed rather exasperated about the whole thing in a few interviews I've read which brought this up, but if anybody wants to give it a try, handy instructions can be found at http://classicrock.about.com/library/mi ... rdofoz.htm

The post-Floyd Syd Barrett seems to have spawned a mini-cottage industry of rumour and myth all of his own, what with all those lurid tabloid tales about him barking like a dog at his neighbours, painting his fridge green and the like. The one about him turning up unannounced during the recording of Wish You Were Here, confused and wanting to know where to plug in his guitar, was sort of confirmed by a snap of him in Nick Mason's recent Floyd biography. The saddest came about after the death of his mother - allegedly, without her to make sure he took his medication, he'd ended up blind and prone to lapse into diabetic comas, but more recent photos have shown him out and about in Cambridge, in truth, looking not that much worse than any of the other members of the band.[/url]


I heard the fridge was pink, told to me by a bloke who claimed he used to deliver Syd his newspaper, (I actually have no reason not to believe this as he was a honest man and lived near the ex-floyd member).

I remember vaguely seeing Syd out and about in Cambridge, nothing out of the ordinary.
 
Full story:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20784457

Successful solo artists are twice as likely to die early compared to those in bands, the journal BMJ Open reports.

The study looked at the careers of 1,400 European and North American rock and pop stars who were famous between 1956 and 2006.

The chances of a European solo artist dying young was one in 10 - and twice as likely for those in North America.

Experts suggest that peer support from band mates may be protective.

The cut-off point of the study was 20 February 2012 - at which point 137 performers had died prematurely.

These included solo artists like Elvis, Jimi Hendrix, rapper 2Pac, Michael Jackson, Amy Winehouse and Whitney Houston.

And band members like Kurt Cobain from Nirvana, Sid Vicious from the punk group Sex Pistols and Stuart Cable from Stereophonics.

The stars' achievements were determined from international polls and top 40 chart successes, while details of their personal lives and childhoods were drawn from a range of music and official websites, published biographies and anthologies.

The average age of death was 39 years for European stars, with those from North America being six years older on average.

Solo performers were about twice as likely to die prematurely compared to those in a band, irrespective of whether they were European or Northern American.

And while the chances of a European solo artist dying young was one in 10 - it was double that for American solo artists at one in five. The authors speculate this may be due to longer tours in North America plus variations in access to health care and exposure to drugs...

39 isn't 27, but this would appear to lend credence to that rock and pop stars dying young cliche. One in five US soloists dying young sounds almost like an epidemic!
 
How does one categorize band members versus soloists in the case of a famous individual performer who always plays in / with a band (like Hendrix or Joplin)?

... And how does one categorize those who go back and forth from bands / collective projects to solo ventures?
 
I think the moral is, if you're in a band, don't split up or you're in trouble, look at The Rolling Stones, still going strong in their nineties. Except Brian Jones, who left and look what happened to him.
 
gncxx said:
I think the moral is, if you're in a band, don't split up or you're in trouble, look at The Rolling Stones, still going strong in their nineties. Except Brian Jones, who left and look what happened to him.

He was murdered?
 
I have a book all about it. :shock:
 
i heard it reliably at first hand that during an early sugarcubes gig bjork ( as she was to become ) squatted down on stage and defecated and then proceeded to dance around it through the rest of the gig ... i heard this at university in either 89 / 90 / 91 from a close pal who was there at the gig ... this was when they were a little indie band way before she got huge on her own without the assistance of einars trumpet solos !
 
also to clarify the posts concerning the dame clare torry and pink floyd / great gig in the sky lawsuit ... pretty sure from lots of stuff down the years that she remains on good terms with both factions ( waters / floyd proper ) sure that i read the legal application was lodged following lengthy talks about a settlement and was agreed all round as the right and proper course of action so that the legal teams involved could progress to closure ... i mean she did make that song
 
oh yeah i also have some low-level touring rock-and-roll stories myself from down the years which are not so much excessive but are excessively funny however im not sure they would quite qualify as urban legends ... i mean it wasnt even urban music ... anyone who has an insight into what it takes to put a band out on tour overseas and the potential for magnificent pitfalls ... add to that that you go weeks stony broke and then suddenly youre flush with money in some exotic city ... recipes for disasters right there
 
I do recall hearing of Motley Crue touring with Ozzy Ozbourne. At one point Ozzy dared of the Crue members to go outside and have a pee in front of an old lady stood at a bus stop. Mortified, but not wanting to be outdone by Ozzy he proceeded to do so. Ozzy was a bit miffed that he had actually gone through with it. So he ran outside and started drinking it!

I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it does sound like Ozzy type of behaviour.
 
Any mention of the old lady's reaction?
 
Spudrick68 said:
I do recall hearing of Motley Crue touring with Ozzy Ozbourne. At one point Ozzy dared of the Crue members to go outside and have a pee in front of an old lady stood at a bus stop. Mortified, but not wanting to be outdone by Ozzy he proceeded to do so. Ozzy was a bit miffed that he had actually gone through with it. So he ran outside and started drinking it!

I have no idea whether this is true or not, but it does sound like Ozzy type of behaviour.

Meh, Motley Crue are mere amateurs. I want to hear stories of Pete Way from UFO on the road. He's the only person Sharon banned from partying with Ozzy because he was "a bad influence".
 
This story comes from a FOAF who was supposedly a crew member for Ozzy on gigs.

When setting up, a smallish rectangle of white carpet was placed on stage by the mic for him to stand on. By the end of the gig the carpet was soaking wet. Apparently Ozzy pissed himself copiously during performances.
 
Considering his massive alcoholism that one might be true. Although wouldn't a yellow carpet have been more prudent?
 
In 1977 when The Damned were gigging in London, singer Dave Vanian used to climb out of a coffin at the start. He couldn't understand why he couldn't get a taxi after the gig after deciding to take it home. If you recall how he looked then I really can't think why.
 
Songs written by John Lennon are fair game for references and interpretations.
He tended to write from his own experience saying 'I like to write about me, cos I know me'
She Said She Said from Revolver was inspired by the actor Peter Fonda, who freaked Lennon out by saying he knew what it was like to be dead, Lennon changing the gender in the song.
I Am The Walrus is generally regarded as a rebuke to the 'message seekers' being primarily nonsense written by Lennon with help from Pete Shotton.
However, the late Ian MacDonald in his book Revolution In The Head about the Beatles music (and I highly recommend it) wrote that a careful reading reveals that whatever the original intention, the lyrics could be interpreted as Lennon recalling his schooldays and his treatment by teachers.
There is probably a good book to be written about the people and times in Lennons song, although it won't be by me!
 
Still reading that Bob Stanley history of rock and pop, and I got to the anecdote about how Black Sabbath got their name. According to this, it was because it was the title was a chapter in a Dennis Wheatley book, and later the night it was chosen by Geezer Butler, he fell asleep with the book beside him, then woke up in the middle of the night to see a hooded figure at the foot of his bed. The book was gone!

But I heard they'd chosen the name because it was on a cinema advertising the Mario Bava film Black Sabbath. Anyone heard either way?
 
gncxx said:
But I heard they'd chosen the name because it was on a cinema advertising the Mario Bava film Black Sabbath. Anyone heard either way?

I've definitely heard Ozzy saying they were named after the cinema poster on at least two different documentaries. Never heard the other story before.
 
GG-Alllin, heroin addict, punk rocker, scooped up his own crap off the stage and into his mouth so he could spit it at his audience, sometimes physically assaulted his audience, both male and female .. usually performed nude. a large chunk of his gigs were performed when he was on the run from the police or when he had escaped from prison, the list of his actions were insane. He overdosed and had been boasting about killing himself leading up to it. Buried by his friends nude from the waist down with gifts of drugs and porn etc chucked into the coffin. He was a bit dodgy.

There was a documentary I saw made about GG, I think it was called Hated ? ..
 
Here's an extract from the Wikipedia page on Allin.

The bit I've put in italics puzzles me -

The funeral took place on July 3, 1993 in his native New Hampshire, at the St. Rose Cemetery, Littleton.

At his funeral, Allin's bloated, discolored corpse was dressed in his black leather jacket and trademark jock strap. He had a bottle of Jim Beam beside him in his casket, per his wishes (openly stated in his self-penned acoustic country ballad, "When I Die").

As part of his brother's request, the mortician was instructed not to wash the corpse (which smelled strongly of feces) or apply any makeup.

Allin's funeral became a low-level party. Friends posed with his corpse, placing drugs and whiskey into his mouth. As the funeral ended, his brother put a pair of headphones on Allin. The headphones were plugged into a portable cassette player, in which was loaded a copy of The Suicide Sessions. Allin was buried in his mother Arleta's plot beside his grandparents.

The body would surely have been prepared for a post-mortem examination like anyone else's, including being washed. The mortician could have left out embalming and cosmetic work but the body would already be clean.
 
escargot1 said:
The body would surely have been prepared for a post-mortem examination like anyone else's, including being washed. The mortician could have left out embalming and cosmetic work but the body would already be clean.

Maybe someone else had a shit on him. It could have been one of his post-mortem requests.
 
I thought that too - nowhere do we hear that it was his own excrement. :lol:
 
One of the stories in his film (and the Murder Junkies) has him paying a prostitute to p**s in his mouth while he was eating a cheese burger ... the rest of the story isn't very nice ... :shock: :lol:

edit: that documentary is on youtube .. I know we're all adults here but please be cautious if viewing :twisted:
 
Not only was Allin planning to commit suicide, he was planning to do it onstage during a performance. Then he overdosed in private, the end.
 
davidplankton said:
gncxx said:
But I heard they'd chosen the name because it was on a cinema advertising the Mario Bava film Black Sabbath. Anyone heard either way?

I've definitely heard Ozzy saying they were named after the cinema poster on at least two different documentaries. Never heard the other story before.

Yeah, it was a new one to me too, but the book presents it like it's a well known tale.
 
gncxx said:
Yeah, it was a new one to me too, but the book presents it like it's a well known tale.

I can only check The Devil Rides Out and To The Devil a Daughter, but neither have a chapter entitled Black Sabbath. The closest is a chapter in TDRO called The Sabbat. Of course Wheatley wrote loads of novels and I have no way of referring to them all.
 
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