Prog Rockers Entering New & Unchartered Areas

[progeezer]

Barry Melton (lead guitarist in Country Joe etc.) is a SF attorney.

[GuitarGeek]

Barry Melton (lead guitarist in Country Joe etc.) is a SF attorney.

Damn, I forgot about that! I read an article on him in Relix back in the late 80's, at which he time he was running for office. His campaign slogan was "1, 2, 3, 4 Who are we voting for?". As I recall, he was one of the few lawyers in California who passed the bar exam without going to law school.

[GuitarGeek]

Wasn't Allen Sloan (violinist) from Dixie Dregs a Dentist?

As stated earlier in the thread, he's an anesthesiologist. When they did a couple reunion albums in the early 90's, he was billed as "Dr. Allen Sloan".

Former Jethro Tull keyboardist John Evan ran a construction company, according to Wikipedia. In the 25 Years Of Jethro Tull documentary, he mentions working as an interior decorator, and only occasionally mentions his rock n roll past to his customers.

Does being an artist count? Ron Wood and I believe Charlie Watts have both released books of their artwork. Woody did the drawing of Clapton that was used on the cover of the late 80's Crossroads boxset.

[Dana5140]

Phillip Bussonnet of Magma was a high-school teacher. Herve Aknin and Benoit Alziary both teach music, Herve vocals and Benoit all sorts.

[chalkpie]

Mahler was a conductor (of the 'then' New York Symphony). He wrote his symphonies during the summer back in Austria when the Orchestra was in off-season. I know its still close enough, but like Ives (and unlike most full-time composers), composing wasn't his livelihood.

[dropforge]

Former Faith No More guitarist Jim Martin is a champion pumpkin grower dude.

[arturs]

Greg Graffin from punk band Bad Religion was (is still?) a Cornell Univ. Professor. The name meant nothing to me but when I was teaching there a lot of my students had him for biology. Whenever I would make some music references in my classes someone would bring up his name. How you manage to get a PhD in evolutionary biology while fronting a successful punk band is hard to imagine but hey it worked for him...

[GuitarGeek]

Mahler was a conductor (of the 'then' New York Symphony). He wrote his symphonies during the summer back in Austria when the Orchestra was in off-season. I know its still close enough, but like Ives (and unlike most full-time composers), composing wasn't his livelihood.

For the record, Mahler was only the conductor of the New York Symphony during the last couple years of his life. But you are correct that he made his living as a conductor in various capacities throughout his life. He even resorted to converting to Catholicism (though he "remained a Jew at heart") to overcome antisemitism that would have otherwise kept him from some posts.

[moecurlythanu]

Graffin is teaching at UCLA now, as was stated above.

[Yodelgoat]

Phil Collins was excellent in "Buster"

[GuitarGeek]

Phil Collins was excellent in "Buster"

He was even better in A Hard Day's Night.

[Rarebird]

Christoph Noppeney (Hoelderlin) is a pedetrician.

[progmatist]

Maybe off topic, but Charles Ives was an insurance salesman.

Mahler was a conductor (of the 'then' New York Symphony). He wrote his symphonies during the summer back in Austria when the Orchestra was in off-season. I know its still close enough, but like Ives (and unlike most full-time composers), composing wasn't his livelihood.

Alexander Borodin was a medical doctor and only composed in his spare time. That's why his body of work is pretty small.

Many romantic era composers had second jobs to support their composing habit, the most common job being teaching. Tchaikovsky was only able to become a full time composer due to financial support from Nadezhda von Meck. Edward Elgar met his wife, Caroline Alice Roberts because she was one of his piano students. That's just 2 examples.

[BrianG]

Philip Glass, the modern classical composer, is also a plumber. Must be that's where he collects gurgles and pipe vibrations for his music.

[Baribrotzer]

Philip Glass, the modern classical composer, is also a plumber. Must be that's where he collects gurgles and pipe vibrations for his music.

I know he was a taxi driver, but didn't know this.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Steven Wilson runs a little-known hotdog-stand at a deserted traffic intersection in Croydon. He usually wears an argyle Goofy-costume while working there, so as to not be recognized by superfans. This is how he collects moneys for SIM-cards to call upon his heroes in order to ask for access to their mastertapes, so that these can be subjected to extremely important remixing. That guy who leads The Tangent apparently works part-time as Wilson's assistant in the back as dishwasher and undercounter accountant.

[Steve F.]

Mike Ratledge also built a phone switching device for Mr. Nice (a famous marijuana smuggler) so he would be untraceable.

Do you have more information about this or a link?

[flytomars]

Do you have more information about this or a link?

No, and god knows I looked everywhere.
I read it in the Mr. Nice book but I had it on a loan so alas cant quote it but youde have to trust me on this one (or read the book, its a hoot )

edit: Ha! I searched long long ago and didnt find anything, but now I did find something -
http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-04-...-floyd-clapton

[alanterrill]

That was interesting - I guess there must be quite a few overlaps between rock musicians and electronics, as in the early days, there was little commercial equipment available and if you wanted a unique sound, it helped if you knew enough to modify your own equipment. VDGG's Guy Evans and Dave Jackson have already been mentioned, but organist Hugh Banton is really the elecronics man in this band -he was working in electronics for the BBC before he joined VDGG and throughout his career with the band was constantly modifyng and building his organs. With Jackson also modifying his saxophone setup there must have been quite a pair -there's a picture of them making up cables together on a tour bus in the VDGG book. Hugh has run his own company building church organs since the late 70's.

[Trane]

No, and god knows I looked everywhere.
I read it in the Mr. Nice book but I had it on a loan so alas cant quote it but youde have to trust me on this one (or read the book, its a hoot )

edit: Ha! I searched long long ago and didnt find anything, but now I did find something -
http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-04-...-floyd-clapton

Sounds like my type of criminal

I mean, if I had to choose one criminal offense to send me to jail, I'd probably go for Mr Nice's record.

Though I'd rather not have his end of life.

[Steve F.]

No, and god knows I looked everywhere.
I read it in the Mr. Nice book but I had it on a loan so alas cant quote it but youde have to trust me on this one (or read the book, its a hoot )

edit: Ha! I searched long long ago and didnt find anything, but now I did find something -
http://teamrock.com/feature/2016-04-...-floyd-clapton

WOW!
Thank you.
I am impressed, as this bit of trivia never crossed my path. I will make sure Aymeric sees it....

[chalkpie]

Steven Wilson runs a little-known hotdog-stand at a deserted traffic intersection in Croydon. He usually wears an argyle Goofy-costume while working there, so as to not be recognized by superfans. This is how he collects moneys for SIM-cards to call upon his heroes in order to ask for access to their mastertapes, so that these can be subjected to extremely important remixing. That guy who leads The Tangent apparently works part-time as Wilson's assistant in the back as dishwasher and undercounter accountant.

Link please......

[zorknapp]

Despite playing in all these bands and touring as much as 4 months a year, I have a whole other life being a lead computer tech behind the worlds biggest SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) projects. I was on the five man core team that started SETI@home in 1999 (and have been helping maintain it ever since). I’m now mostly working on Breakthrough Listen. I’m the guy actually steering the telescope and collecting/reducing data on many of the hot targets in the news lately (including that asteroid that recently entered our solar system).

No we haven’t found aliens yet.

- Matt

That's fantastic that you did SETIatHome! I had that on my computer for years...

Mike

[progeezer]

Link please......

Do you mean sausage link?

[Scrotum Scissor]

Link please......

Steve Nilssen.jpg