They make good music, but you'd never want to meet them .

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You admit that they're total assholes, but can't deny they create music you enjoy.

Steve Albini for me. I've seen interviews and stuff and I just want to kick him in the nuts, but I cant deny my love of Big Black.

― David Allen, Friday, 11 April 2003 03:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Bob Dylan

― Evan (Evan), Friday, 11 April 2003 03:13 (twenty-two years ago)

Nick Cave

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 11 April 2003 03:20 (twenty-two years ago)

Clarification: not that Nick Cave's an asshole. He just seems like he'd be no fun at a party.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 11 April 2003 03:21 (twenty-two years ago)

Everyone except Robert Wyatt.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 03:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Steve Albini's whole "bitter tough guy" schtick is such a joke. Have you ever seen any pictures of the guy? He's like this puny pussy-ass nerdboy with glasses!

― Evan (Evan), Friday, 11 April 2003 03:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Maybe he has a gun

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 11 April 2003 03:50 (twenty-two years ago)

But Lou Reed, right?

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 11 April 2003 03:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Darby Crash. Most punkers for that matter--Gregg Ginn and Mr. Shouty Shout probably weren't much fun either.

― Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Debbie Harry. The older she gets, the more unpleasant she seems.

― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:09 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought Chris Stein was the annoying one in Blondie

― Andrew Thames (Andrew Thames), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:10 (twenty-two years ago)

Lou Reed? Why meet Lou Reed? So you could have the very special honor of him being disgusted with you, too?

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Sinead O'Connor.

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:13 (twenty-two years ago)

I've heard Nick Cave has a rather quick witted sense of humor according to people who met him on the Lollapalooza tour.

― paul cox (paul cox), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Have ya'll read the interview that's between Mark E. Smith, Nick Cave and Shane McGowan? It's archived on a bunch of N. Cave sites. A pretty amusing read, certainly.

― Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:17 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, but get a few whiskeys in him, and it's "Who's the gaunt guy over there who won't stop talking about God and death and guilt?"

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't envy the job of transcribing Shane McGowan.

― paul cox (paul cox), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Jeez. Or being within ten feet of him. If the rotten-tooth smell doesn't drive you out of the room, he'll eventually attack you.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:21 (twenty-two years ago)

I wouldn't want to meet Lars Ulrich, because he'd probably hit me after I told him he was a cunt.

― paul cox (paul cox), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:32 (twenty-two years ago)

That could be a whole separate list. "Bands who would kick your ass after you yelled, 'You suck!' at them."

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:35 (twenty-two years ago)

The Fall own this thread. Thom Yorke I guess. Dan Bejar seems difficult.

and i can name several hip NYC combos who I know on a hi-bye basis who are rather unpleasant assholes. Guess who

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Friday, 11 April 2003 04:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I never wanted to meet Mark E Smith til I actually met him and he was a perfect, if sullied, gentleman. Although he did spent our time together delighting in flicking beermats at two members of Ash who were in the same pub, and two days previously he'd tried to put his fag out on a Loaded journalist's forehead. Oh, and shortly after we met he allegedly bashed his girlfriend over the head with a hotel telephone. So perhaps he doesn't like girls. Or journalists. Or Irish indie popsters. God, it's hard, this.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 11 April 2003 07:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I met MES when I was 17; he was absolutely lovely. If he wants to stub out a cig on a Loaded writer's forehead it's fine by me - it's not as if anything is going on behind the skull...

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 11 April 2003 07:31 (twenty-two years ago)

Liam Gallagher

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 11 April 2003 09:43 (twenty-two years ago)

who is nick cave?

― RJG (RJG), Friday, 11 April 2003 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Massive Attack

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 11 April 2003 09:46 (twenty-two years ago)

i met Peshay for an interview once and he was quite arrogant and irate, although this may just have been to do with the fact that we were criticising his DJ set because the beat hadnt seemed to change once and we were expecting more variation. but i listend to his album 'Miles From Home' for the first time in ages the other day and it sounds a lot better than i'd previously thought.

He also slagged off James Lavelle (due to their contractual conflict i guess) so I've always been wary of meeting him as well

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 11 April 2003 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i've heard Alison Goldfrapp and Miss Kittin are quite stroppy as well

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 11 April 2003 09:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Scratch Alison of your stroppy list - she's great.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 11 April 2003 10:05 (twenty-two years ago)

oh yay

― stevem (blueski), Friday, 11 April 2003 10:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I knew someone who hung out w/DeLa backstage. He said they were totally dicks, but I guess everyone can't be Pollyanna at all times.

― oops (Oops), Friday, 11 April 2003 14:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Mick Jagger, absolutely.
Usher, too!

― Nordicskillz (Nordicskillz), Friday, 11 April 2003 14:59 (twenty-two years ago)

I would prefer not to meet any musicians, I wouldn't want to meet someone whose music I adored only to find out they were a cretin. It would just ruin the music for me.

― Nicole (Nicole), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Mick Jagger actually seems really personable and intelligent in person, if that MTV "A day in the life of..." series is to be believed. I'd probably just stammer though, in fact I'm certain of it.

― Amateurist (amateurist), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it depends on the context you'd meet them in. I never do meet & greets, they're total bullshit.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:03 (twenty-two years ago)

in all of the boredoms interviews i've read they seem quite difficult.. but then i'd get pretty pissed off if some geeky white boy kept asking me about the 'anal by anal' 7"

― schnellschnell, Friday, 11 April 2003 15:24 (twenty-two years ago)

Steve Albini is one of the nicest people I've ever met and had the pleasure to do business with, especially when compared with other "rock" people. A true gentleman with gigantic amount of patience and very little ego.

― hstencil, Friday, 11 April 2003 15:48 (twenty-two years ago)

I've talked/hung with Albini a couple of times, and I dunno, he seemed all right to me. We talked about books and stuff, food, etc.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Friday, 11 April 2003 15:52 (twenty-two years ago)

Ryan Adams.

― Charles McCain (Charles McCain), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh, I know for a fact (two sources who can coroborate) that Mos Def is one of the biggest assholes in the biz...but his music sucks too so who cares

Re: Nick Cave - does anyone remember the 120 Minutes where Billy Corgan was interviewing all the Lollapallooza acts? He interviewed Nick Cave and asked him something about being from England. Nick Cave was like "We're from Australia." Billy Corgan said something like, "oh sorry, I'm just an American kid, it's all the same to me" and Nick humorously deadpanned "well...it's not" and seemed super irritated.

Richard Hell is a shithead too.

― roger adultery (roger adultery), Friday, 11 April 2003 16:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Musicians.

― Cozen (Cozen), Friday, 11 April 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Roger calling Mos Def a shithead only makes me that much more interested in meeting him.

As for the thread question, my answer is, um...James Brown.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 11 April 2003 17:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Lou Reed obviously.

Mark E. Smith - I have heard from numerous sources is an utter cunt but my only experience of him is sitting watching the closing stages of the 1986 World Cup Final (don't ask), I think he only said, "That were never offside" and stuff like that.

― Dadaismus, Friday, 11 April 2003 17:07 (twenty-two years ago)

two years pass...

Musicians.
Seconded with two major exceptions :

1) you are a musician yourself and could potentially collaborate (or whatever you people call the instrument-mediated coital process that is collective music-making)

2) you are meeting for non-professional, non-musical discussion/activities. Like, you don't even know or care what they do.

I find that if you really like their music, a meeting probably brings complete disenchantment at best (lasting friendships cannot be that frequent or necessary even) and loathing at worst, depending on their behavior. If you secretly enjoy debunking your idols because you put them so high in the first place, it's also a bit of a vicious circle. Reminds me of what the (British) musical press is famous for.

There could be more assholes within musicians than in the average population I think, because of that attention-grabbing, ego-thing blahblah ALTHOUGH I'm grateful they're musicians and not cops -or criminals, for that matter. It's not like musicians have the plague or anything but if you like their music, I say don't meet them or wish for it.

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:05 (nineteen years ago)

I would prefer not to meet any musicians, I wouldn't want to meet someone whose music I adored only to find out they were a cretin. It would just ruin the music for me.

-- Nicole
Now that's taking it a bit too far... fanspeak

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:16 (nineteen years ago)

Yes, look at what a skinny fucker I am:

http://www.thequeenbee.org/files/steve_albini.jpg

― Steve Albini, Monday, 17 October 2005 22:19 (nineteen years ago)

Hmm I guess I asked for it by reviving a good thread with a shit title.

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:22 (nineteen years ago)

Although the fact that Steve Albini said this makes me want to thank him.

Steve Albini: "if my band was going to put a song up on the Internet...we would get nothing (if it were free)
which is not that much worse than a penny...and the great advantage to the customer would be that they
wouldn't have to pay a dollar in order for me to get nothing...

― Steve Albini's Friend, Monday, 17 October 2005 22:23 (nineteen years ago)

I met Albini once and he was perfectly nice. It's wierd that people think he's some big raging asshole....everyone I know that's met him mostly says he's a nice dude.

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:26 (nineteen years ago)

Oh yyeah, and his arithmetic piece on "what the band really makes/owes in the end" also remains pretty relevant. Can't be arrrrsed to google it. BTW there was fuck-all of an anti-googling policy up in this bitch back in the oh-three..

Basically all this name-calling and name-dropping sucks ! It was a shit thread !

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:27 (nineteen years ago)

Had a once-in-a-lifetime chance the other week to meet a particular musician I revere (probably foolishly, but still). I let it slide because 1) the person is widely and believably reputed to be a major asshole (but then I am too in my own small way, I'm afraid, so whatever), and -- more to the point -- 2) just then, purely by coincidence of course, I was experiencing the abrupt onset of something akin to a medium-size seizure. So I just stood there and hyperventilated. Immediately afterwards I regretted missing the opportunity, but I am now very glad about how it went, or rather didn't go.

On the other hand, I would be delighted to meet Steve Albini. I did call him a hippie to his face once while he was onstage doing a mid-show Q&A, and he took it with good grace: "Yeah -- HIBBING! HIBBING, MINNESOTA!" What a card.

― xero (xero), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:33 (nineteen years ago)

Haha yes the seizure thing, where you have to visualize them taking a shit for a second before you talk to them.

― blunt (blunt), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

That would have made things much, much worse from the point of view of my autonomic nervous system, already involuntarily on DefCon 5 at that moment. I remain certain that the situation's actual outcome was the best possible one.

― xero (xero), Monday, 17 October 2005 22:45 (nineteen years ago)

shouldn't ray davies be up there on the list with lou reed?

― carly (carly), Monday, 17 October 2005 23:28 (nineteen years ago)

I've heard Ira Kaplan is one huge raging a-hole...yeah, Bejar comes off like a jerk too, doesn't he?

― douglas eklund (skolle), Monday, 17 October 2005 23:37 (nineteen years ago)

I don't really like meeting famous people at all, frankly. I dunno. Maybe it's because so few of them have anything articulate to say about why they're famous in the first place. I interviewed Lyrics Born once and it was so shitty I couldn't even print it. He was talking on a cell phone in his car and couldn't be asked to, you know, give a polysyllabic answer or enunciate. Then his label rep was all "Why didn't you run that article? We cleared his schedule to talk to you?" I think we got blackballed by Quannum after that.
On the other hand, Jordan Knight was gracious and self-deprecating, so much so that I couldn't write the attack article that I had kinda tried to ambush him with.
The worst are cocky local bands. Wait until you're more than Pitchfork-famous, Thunderbirds are Now, before you become total dickfors.

― js (honestengine), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 00:37 (nineteen years ago)

neil young. I just wouldnt have much to say to the guy. it would be really awkward and he'd probably scare me a little bit.

― AaronK (AaronK), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 01:32 (nineteen years ago)

of course, everyone on this particular internet message board dedicated to music is a fucking saint.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 01:35 (nineteen years ago)

I kinda wanna meet hstencil, but I'm afraid that it will tarnish my image of him.

― js (honestengine), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 02:00 (nineteen years ago)

i'm a fucking saint.

― hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, 18 October 2005 02:01 (nineteen years ago)

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