Slave drivers

beefheart and, i guess, markesmith count here.

MC Hammer fined his dancers when he saw them making mistakes or wearing proper trousers.

The prophet Jason Pierce sacked half his band after they asked him for proper contracts.

Ricky T, you're CLEARLY not read The Prophet Jason Pierce's side of the story, don't make me go having to slap you for slander.

Ever heard that famous tape of jazz drummer Buddy Rich berating his band?

"Two fuckin' weeks to make up your mind whether you want a beard or you want a job. I'll not have this trouble with this band. This is not the goddamn House of David fuckin' baseball team. This is the Buddy Rich Band; young people...with faces! No more fuckin' beards. That's out! If you decide to do it, you're through. Right now! This is the last time I make this announcement. No more fucking beards. I don't want to see it. If you guys don't want to shave it off, I'll treat you just like they treat you in the fuckin' Marine Corps. This is the way I want my band to look. If you don't like it, get out! You've got two weeks to make up your mind. This is no idle request. I'm telling you how my band is gonna look. You're not telling me how you're gonna look, I'm telling you. You've got two weeks to make up your fucking mind, if you have any mind. (pause) There's too much freedom in this band. It's taken away. You're not going to do what you want to do, but what I want to do, as long as you're takin' my fuckin' money..."

It goes on and on and on after that too. the whole thing's transcribed over at http://www.humblepie.com/buddy.html

Sweet Jesus.

Anton of Brian Jonestown Massacre. Though half the charm was the near carnival atmosphere the band held on stage.

That Buddy Rich thing was fuckin beautiful. All I can hear now is Mr. Burns telling Don Mattingly to get rid of his sideburns.

Sun Ra...although he wasn't exactly a slave driver, he certainly exercised a lot of control over the members of the Arkestra, banning narcotics and alcohol, disdaining them from bringing women around, etc.

Greg Ginn, for whom Black Flag was a full-time job...and more!

Favorite Brian Jonestown Massacre moment- the leader (Anton?) making everyone in the band do shots before the show. He called the dazed, sweating maraca player a "pussy" and practically forced the drink down his throat. I really felt sorry for the guy, he was in bad shape.

hey Fritz there's a great record that incorporates that Buddy Rich rant & bits of live recordings of Buddy R. as part of a noise jam..."Buddy-Dik" by Hot Clam Combo...on the other side of the record is "A Liver Supreme" by Ecstatic Frank Ensemble...amusingly, band members are credited as "Ian Penman", "Biba Kopf", "Mark Sinker" etc...hey maybe it's the REAL Mark Sinker! I don't know! let's ask him!

1 time I saw King Loser - I'd been kicked out for, oh for not working hard enough probably - & Celia was playing really badly, completely out of it - but she kept turning round to the drummer & pulling angry faces & stomping her foot on what I guess was meant to be on the beat so the audience would think, oh it's the *drummer* fuckin up. *I* could tell who it was tho.
Anyway it was a motherfucker of a bunch of hard work working for those stupid junkies, I watched this & remembered all the wonderful times & murmured my thanks to those rascals God & Jesus.

Another good example is the French band Magma: Gong's Daevid Allen, quoted in the booklet of the CD reissue of their "Camembert électrique" CD says what follows about them: "(...) they were like our shadow. There was Gong, colourful, anarchic, all going in different directions, but trying to pull it together. Magma were all incredible musicians, but totally disciplined, Vander [Magma's drummer & leader] would hit them with a stick if they played a wrong note. It was like ying and yang".