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Thread: Bands who got a 'lucky' break ?

  1. #51
    Member Ten Thumbs's Avatar
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    Neil Young was looking for some guys to jam with and found The Rockets. He asked some of the members to become his new back up band Crazy Horse.
    Last edited by Ten Thumbs; 11-02-2013 at 02:20 PM.

  2. #52
    Progga mogrooves's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ten Thumbs View Post
    Neil Young was looking for some guys to jam with ....
    .... and Nils Logren went looking for Neil Young.
    Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes

  3. #53
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Baribrotzer View Post
    The Violent Femmes:

    The VFs started out as buskers, who played on the streets of Minneapolis and passed a hat. One day, they were playing for a line of kids waiting to get into a Pretenders show, and noticed that a group of four or five guys, and this one really hard-looking woman, were just standing there, watching them, and not moving with the line. Then, in between songs, the woman walked up and said, "Hi, I'm Chrissie Hynde. Wanna open for us?"

    Supposedly, as they were trying to thank her afterwards, she said, "I didn't do this because I'm a nice person. I'm not. I did this because you're good."
    I'd heard (and forgotten) about this story
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

  4. #54
    The Shondells by meeting Tommy James.
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

  5. #55
    All those Mersey Beat bands who got songs Lennon and McCartney gave away.

    Especially, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

  6. #56
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    The Velvet Underground - when Andy Warhol decided to "sponsor" them.

  7. #57
    Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes

  8. #58
    Oh No! Bass Solo! klothos's Avatar
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    Stevie Ray Vaughan got a nice boost in public popularity playing guitar on Bowie's "Lets Dance", didn't he?

  9. #59
    Never knew that and I have the cd... then again I don't have any SRVs!

  10. #60
    Member davis's Avatar
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    An unnamed woman, when found by Tom Petty

  11. #61
    Quote Originally Posted by klothos View Post
    Stevie Ray Vaughan got a nice boost in public popularity playing guitar on Bowie's "Lets Dance", didn't he?
    I'm not sure that he got a boost in popularity as in people ran out and buying copies of Texas Flood or going to see SRV in concert after they found that was him soloing on Let's Dance itself and China Girl (shit, I almost said China Doll...wrong dead guitarist there!). I don't think the kind of people who bought those singles were the kind of record buyers who even cared that there were guitar solos on the songs, much less who played them.

    What happened was SRV's manager somehow got him onto the bill of the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival. Now apparently SRV didn't go down too well, but two people in the audience were impressed. One was David Bowie, who wanted SRV to play on his next album and tour (SRV rehearsed with Bowie's band, but dropped out before the tour even got started) and Jackson Browne, who loaned SRV the use of his recording studio, gratis, for a couple days.

    Now, there was a degree of high profile PR relating to playing on the Bowie record (and then also agreeing to, but then dropping out of, the tour), but I think the Jackson Browne connection was a bigger point, because the demos that were recorded at his studio were then heard by John Hammond (who was a legendary talent scout credit discovered all kinds of people, ranging from Charlie Christian to Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin to Bruce Springsteen), and it was Hammond who signed SRV to Epic Records. Epic then remixed the demos and they were released as Texas Flood.

    I think if SRV got a boost in popularity, it was more related to being a total road dog who toured constantly and also because MTV played the stupid videos heavily.

  12. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by davis View Post
    An unnamed woman, when found by Tom Petty
    ??????

  13. #63
    Oh No! Bass Solo! klothos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by klothos View Post
    Stevie Ray Vaughan got a nice boost in public popularity playing guitar on Bowie's "Lets Dance", didn't he?
    Quote Originally Posted by GuitarGeek View Post
    I'm not sure that he got a boost in popularity as in people ran out and buying copies of Texas Flood or going to see SRV in concert after they found that was him soloing on Let's Dance itself and China Girl (shit, I almost said China Doll...wrong dead guitarist there!). I don't think the kind of people who bought those singles were the kind of record buyers who even cared that there were guitar solos on the songs, much less who played them.

    What happened was SRV's manager somehow got him onto the bill of the 1982 Montreux Jazz Festival. Now apparently SRV didn't go down too well, but two people in the audience were impressed. One was David Bowie, who wanted SRV to play on his next album and tour (SRV rehearsed with Bowie's band, but dropped out before the tour even got started) and Jackson Browne, who loaned SRV the use of his recording studio, gratis, for a couple days.

    Now, there was a degree of high profile PR relating to playing on the Bowie record (and then also agreeing to, but then dropping out of, the tour), but I think the Jackson Browne connection was a bigger point, because the demos that were recorded at his studio were then heard by John Hammond (who was a legendary talent scout credit discovered all kinds of people, ranging from Charlie Christian to Bob Dylan to Aretha Franklin to Bruce Springsteen), and it was Hammond who signed SRV to Epic Records. Epic then remixed the demos and they were released as Texas Flood.

    I think if SRV got a boost in popularity, it was more related to being a total road dog who toured constantly and also because MTV played the stupid videos heavily.
    Which is why I said "boost in public popularity" ..... He probably would have been popular regardless, but the David Bowie song certainly pushed him over the line into the public spotlight faster than without it
    Last edited by klothos; 11-06-2013 at 11:26 AM.

  14. #64
    Member Man In The Mountain's Avatar
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    District 97 - when John Wetton sent an e-mail to order a t-shirt.

  15. #65
    Obviously, ELP had the biggest "Lucky" break.




  16. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by klothos View Post
    Which is why I said "boost in public popularity" ..... He probably would have been popular regardless, but the David Bowie song certainly pushed him over the line into the public spotlight faster than without it
    I'm not sure many even knew he played with Bowie until after the fact. I do know that he opened for the Moody Blues in '83 before most ever heard of him. I don't know if that was the entire tour, but he did open for them in Pittsburgh, a concert for which I had to give my ticket away. As much as I regret missing the Moodies, I never was much of an SRV fan.
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

  17. #67
    FanTASTIC story about the Violent Femmes! Wow, very cool! I know who they are, but wouldnt know their music if it mugged me, but i love a great story like that!
    My take on SRV, was he got a lot of publicity for bailing on Bowies tour. I heard more about him AFTER that than before. I didn't know anything about him before. I always felt he was an idiot for doing that, and thought much more highly of Earl Slick for doing it on the dime when he replaced Vaughn. Of course, after Texas Flood came out, he was impossible to ignore. Very interesting tid bit on Browne and the studio signing etc.

  18. #68
    Blue Vino...after they were unceremoniously kicked out from the exclusive ProggressiveEars club membership they become #1 ranked progressive band in Ohio & Las Vegas (as proven by their personal evidence on their very own webpage)

  19. #69
    Oh No! Bass Solo! klothos's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ronmac View Post
    I never was much of an SRV fan.
    same - I like his tone, but that was about it (and I MET him...and Tommy Shannon...and Reese)....Blues is one of those styles of music where I'd rather play it than listen to it....Its fun to play, especially modern- and urban- blues which often breaks away from the traditional I- IV- Vs and will employ other rhythm patterns besides the traditional 6/8 or shuffle approach -- but its a chore for me to just listen to Blues.....except for Albert King and Albert Collins - like thema LOT: they are the only listening exceptions for me.....and maybe I'll throw Little Charlie and The Nightcats in the listening pile, too

  20. #70
    Triumvirat's lucky US break was opening for Fleetwood Mac in the mid 70s.

    Yes' lucky US break was opening for Jethro Tull in 1971. It was Yes' first US tour and JT had just released Aqualung.
    "Always ready with the ray of sunshine"

  21. #71
    Member emperorken's Avatar
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    How about Yes as opening act at Cream's farewell concert in 1968 before the first album was even released.

  22. #72
    It's my understanding that Bowie's a bit of a cheapskate. I think that's likely a reason why SRV left. I recall reading somewhere that Bowie paid his players, like 300 bucks for gigs, which, in all honesty, doesn't sound right to me.
    "The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"

  23. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by ronmac View Post
    It's my understanding that Bowie's a bit of a cheapskate. I think that's likely a reason why SRV left. I recall reading somewhere that Bowie paid his players, like 300 bucks for gigs, which, in all honesty, doesn't sound right to me.
    I heard that same story in regard to that tour. The idea was, supposedly, hey, I'm launching your career with this- I don't need to pay you! Don't know if it's true or not though.

  24. #74

  25. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by gpeccary View Post
    My take on SRV, was he got a lot of publicity for bailing on Bowies tour. I heard more about him AFTER that than before. I didn't know anything about him before. I always felt he was an idiot for doing that, and thought much more highly of Earl Slick for doing it on the dime when he replaced Vaughn. Of course, after Texas Flood came out, he was impossible to ignore. Very interesting tid bit on Browne and the studio signing etc.
    The story Bowie tells is just as the band was getting ready to leave for the airport in NYC to go to Europe (where the tour was starting), SRV's manager called a business meeting in the lobby of the hotel. He basically tried to renegotiate SRV's pay. The result was that Bowie's road manager told the bus driver to "Take Mr. Vaughan's baggage off the bus, he won't be going to Europe with us". Bowie himself wasn't present, having already decamped for Europe so he could do press before the tour started, and was furious when he heard his road manager had acted unilaterally without consulting him first.

    Bowie's people literally had to fly Earl Slick in, who basically listened to cassettes tapes of the rehearsals on the plane, to learn all the segues and everything. He never actually performed a proper rehearsal with the band before the tour started!

    Now, the story that Chris Layton and Tommy Shannon tell is that during those tour rehearsals, they were getting regular phone calls from Stevie Ray saying that "This is a mistake, I shouldn't be doing this". I think what happened was he didn't realize how much of a "production" the tour was going to be. They apparently wanted him to do choreography (I imagine kinda like the stuff R&B bands used to do back in the 60's), which he was never able to do the way they wanted, etc.

    The other thing is, I suspect he may not have expected the Epic deal to come through as quickly as it did, and he may have realized that he was scheduled to be on tour with Bowie when the album was to be released, and maybe he felt he needed to figure out how to get into a situation where he was working his record on the road, rather than Bowie's.

    So I suspect SRV went to his manager and said "You gotta get me out of this", and the manager waited until Bowie wasn't around and said "OK, just follow my lead", and they engineered a means of getting Stevie Ray fired.

    I remember reading an interview with Carlos Alomar in the mid 80's, where he was asked about that whole debacle, and I think Carlos said that SRV had personality problems besides everything else. It's now a known fact that SRV had a substance abuse problem, so that may have been an issue even back in 1983. He specifically said the day Muddy Waters died, SRV didn't come into rehearsal because he was in mourning.

    I remember reading about SRV in Guitar Player (August 83, the issue with Muddy Waters and Johnny Winter on the cover) at the time, so I guess I kinda knew about SRV playing with Bowie right when Let's Dance was released, but I don't imagine I represented the typical radio listener of 1983 (or any year, for that matter).

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