Prog Rockers Entering New & Unchartered Areas

[zeprogmeister]

Actually it might be more common for folks from bands to get a non-music job after the band breaks up.

[Dok]

Jeff Beck is a grease monkey.

[Baribrotzer]

Jeff Beck is a grease monkey.

That's his hobby, not his job - he works on his own cars. But for J. Geils, it was his post-RnR job; he ran an auto-restoration company. It is also the business of Rob Dickinson, who was the vocalist for Catherine Wheel and is the cousin of Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden) - he rebuilds older Porsches, and sells them for more than most new Ferraris.

[GuitarGeek]

re: Jeff Beck

[QUOTE=Baribrotzer;769264]

That's his hobby, not his job - he works on his own cars.

I remember seeing him being interviewed by Martha Quinn on MTV, circa 85 or so, and he seemed more interested in talking about his cars than music. He pulls out this vintage auto collector magazine, with him on the cover, with his orange Jackson Soloist and one of his cars, I forget the make and model, but apparently it was from the 30's or 40's. Jennifer Batten once joked in Guitar Player that her long term goal as a musician was to make enough money to buy one of Jeff's cars from him. I always wanted to ask if, when she joined his back up band (saw her play with him twice, circa 1999-2000), did she say "Forget the money, just give me one of your hotrods!".

BTW, I also recall that Jeff almost lost one of his hands in some kind of accident while working in his garage back in the 80's.

Going back to plumbing: Mo Moore, Nektar's original bassist, is a plumber now, has been since before the circa 2002 reunion.

I read a few years back that Peter Baumann runs a think tank now. Not prog, but Greg Kihn had a career in the 90's as a horror novelist. I believe Peter Hammil also has written a few novels.

[Progbear]

Julian Jay Savarin is another novelist. I understand the two albums he made (A Time Before This and Waiters on the Dance) were largely to promote his science fiction books, the Lemmus trilogy. I’ve read them and, believe me, he picked the wrong profession—they are execrable. To his credit, he decided early on that sci-fi was not for him, and wrote action thrillers ever since.

[Mister Triscuits]

Philip Glass, the modern classical composer, is also a plumber.

Morton Feldman worked in his father's clothing factory in Queens, making children's coats.

[chescorph]

Steve Howe acted as a member of the band Tomorrow in the 60s movie Blow Up.

[walt]

David Izenzon played double bass in Ornette Coleman's band for several years.He obtained a Ph.D in psychotherapy,saw patients, and founded Pot Smokers Anonymous in NYC in the mid 70's.

[GuitarGeek]

Steve Howe acted as a member of the band Tomorrow in the 60s movie Blow Up.

Where do they appear in the movie? I know the famous scene with the Yardbirds onstage, with Jeff Beck smashing "his" guitar, was originally meant to feature The In-Crowd (they hadn't yet changed their name to Tomorrow, actually). That's why Beck has that big hollowbody, because it was supposed to be Steve Howe smashing the guitar, but for some reason, Tomorrow were replaced by The Yardbirds. Actually, I believe it's been suggested Michelangelo Antonioni, the film's director, really wanted The Who (if you're gonna have a guitarist smash his guitar onstage, you might as well go with the leading figure in the field, right?), but they were deemed "too unstable" or "too volatile" or whatever, for Antonioni's purposes.

[moecurlythanu]

Maybe they thought Steve couldn't get enough velocity in his swing to smash the guitar?

[arturs]

Steve Howe acted as a member of the band Tomorrow in the 60s movie Blow Up.

You may be confusing "Blow Up" with "Smashing Time." I believe Tomorrow got edited out of Blow Up, but here they are at around 3:00 in ST with Steve getting a pie in the face at 3:09

[GuitarGeek]

Maybe they thought Steve couldn't get enough velocity in his swing to smash the guitar?

Or maybe it's just that The Yardbirds were more famous, and therefore were deemed "better" for publicity purposes or whatever. Honestly, I don't remember that movie being too good, apart from The Yardbirds sequence. The rest of the film seemed to hinge on the David Hemmings character just sort of wandering around London aimlessly. But then, a lot of those "art films" seem to have that effect on me. It's like you're wondering what the point is, half the time.

But I wonder why The In-Crowd were chosen in the first place for that scene. I get the idea that maybe someone figured out The Who were a bit too "real" to film a movie scene, so you get someone else "kinda like The Who, but maybe a bit easier to work with". So how do you end up with a largely unknown band whose guitarist isn't known at all (then nor now) for doing things like smashing his guitar?

I mean, if you said the Antonioni went directly from The Who to The Yardbirds, that would have made sense, since Beck was known to occasionally trash his guitar onstage, but to have The In-Crowd in the interim, to the point that they built replicas of Howe's main guitar (and then had Beck using one of them in the finished film) doesn't make any sense to me. (shrug)

[Scrotum Scissor]

I don't remember that movie being too good, apart from The Yardbirds sequence. The rest of the film seemed to hinge on the David Hemmings character just sort of wandering around London aimlessly. But then, a lot of those "art films" seem to have that effect on me. It's like you're wondering what the point is, half the time.

Blow Up? A complete and utter classic period piece, IMO - and insanely influential not only in 'art deco-cinema' but in its portraits of design, clothing, chargon etc. Arguably the single most important realtime depiction of both Swingin' London as style and as mentality, while at the same time exploring its own narrative psychology from within. The fact that it remains somehow controversial in quality just adds to the timeless appeal - although indeed it is extremely temporal in approach.

It's also a most interesting film to debate!

[GuitarGeek]

Blow Up? A complete and utter classic period piece, IMO - and insanely influential not only in 'art deco-cinema' but in its portraits of design, clothing, chargon etc. Arguably the single most important realtime depiction of both Swingin' London as style and as mentality, while at the same time exploring its own narrative psychology from within. The fact that it remains somehow controversial in quality just adds to the timeless appeal - although indeed it is extremely temporal in approach.

It's also a most interesting film to debate!

If you say so. (shrug) I felt the same way about Zabriskie Point, a largely boring movie, except for the bits where either Pink Floyd or Jerry Garcia are heard playing. It seems like I feel that with a lot of "art films". I recently saw More, which again, it's only the music (played, of course, by Pink Floyd) that's worth anything, in my view. Also, The Deep End, I felt the best part was the bit in the middle that had Can's Mother Sky playing in it. Last autumn, TCM showed several Werner Herzog movies, and again it was mostly the music that was any gig (and that was just the ones that had the Popol Vuh scores, the other films didn't have that going for them).


I guess I'm just not an "art film" kinda guy.

[Mikhael]

Heck, just about ANY prog musician will have to do something else for money. Prog sure doesn't pay enough to live on...

[3RDegree_Robert]

^^^
Word!


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[Rarebird]

A pair of classical musicians I know teach at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.