meeting musicians you like

I resisted the urge to talk to Jason Spaceman as he was shopping for records with Thighpaulsandra when Spiritualized came through town maybe four or five years ago. I was really hungover (it was Nov 1) and also stoned. They played a great show that night.

Meeting and playing with Comets on Fire was great, though.

I once met Stephin Merritt and it was awkward. After that I was kind of turned off to the idea. But then I met Ian Mackaye and it was AWESOME.

I ran into Mark Robinson (Unrest, etc.) at a community yard sale recently...(turns out he lives very close to me)...great guy, he indulged me while I blathered on about the first Grenadine LP, and wound up buying several of his personal CD's...I buzzed all weekend about that...

I saw Deb Googe (My Bloody Valentine) in a bar once, but was too shy to approach her...(same with Robert Plant, though he had an entourage of sorts)...

I've had good and bad experiences, and while I'm generally hesitant about just going up and saying hi or whatever, it's cool if you happen to be stood at the bar or or whatever and end up chatting.

Meeting R@t Ba5t@rd was the best. What a character! Had a great story about Bl0wf1y supposedly torching a studio...

I told John Paul Jones that if he stuck to the mandolin he just might make it someday. He lolled, but only slightly.

Marc Ribot was nice, and dropped his boarding pass and didn't pick it up. It was old anyway. Why did he have it?

Lou Barlow sneakily touched my butt and was short. Somewhat dud.

i've met a decent number of my favorite musicians, theyve almost always been pretty cool guys. that said, theyre people who move relatively few units in obscure subgenres of music, so there's probably not too much ego there anyway.

Oh yeah: Matthew Sweet is an asshole, even to kids. And makes stupid records.

I met J.G. Thirlwell/Clint Ruin (Foetus) after a particularly audience combative show. It was scary.

Tod A. from Cop Shoot Cop, on the other hand, was one of the nicest dudes I've ever met.

xpost this is true about M. Sweet. Also, steals drugs from people if he gets the chance.

Musicians that I look up to but aren't famous famous have generally been great.

Also the most famous dudes that I have met have also been the nicest and most humble (exhibit A - Steve Gadd).

I'm friends with someone who makes great records/remixes, but when we hang out, I've totally separated that from him. I generally don't have a desire to meet famous authors or musicians, except for the few where I think they'd be extremely like minded and there might be something intellectually beneficial from a discourse.

Hanging out with Kelly Riles from Velocity Girl was a great half hour of time well spent, as we were enthralled with the epic tale some homeless guy was telling us.

And at a 10,000 Maniacs concert, my girlfriend-at-the-time stepped on Michael Stipe's foot as we were leaving. He said "ow!" and we apologized profusely.

(I met J0hn D when I was really young and he congratulated me on skipping Driver's Ed to take Latin and was very nice.)

I physically felt myself get weak in the presence of Emmylou Harris.

Jim Thirwell is one of the nicest "known" musician's I've met.

Ooh, what was she like, Johnny?

Her hair's not just bright, it's radiant. Her stare is deep and her handshake is firm, but warm.

This was at a Steve Earle Q&A I went to some years ago, but I still swoon thinking about it.

One of my friends broke his foot and went to an Evan Dand0 show on crutches. After the show some roadie got on the mic and asked "will the guy on crutches please report to the stage". Evan wanted to know if he had any prescription painkillers. He did, so he hung out in Evan's hotel room, while Evan played guitar and showed him pictures of his girlfriend. Apparently Evan seemed really lonely and it was sorta sad. He was "nice" though. I'm convinced that any star who says anything more than "hi" gets called "nice".

i walked into robert smith before and fell. he laughed at me.

Not a musician, but D.A. Pennebaker is a space case.

My friend Willie C., who in his youth was the world's most avid Kurt Cobain fan, actually weasled his way backstage before a show on the In Utero tour and met him in the lounge. Willie pulled a Sharpie pen from his pocket and approached Kurt with it. As Kurt readied himself to sign Willie's t-shirt, Willie surprised him by saying "Would you like me to sign your shirt?" And he did. And Cobain played that night's show with Willie's autograph on his own shirt.

Robin Zander is one of the nicest people I've ever met anywhere. Rick Nielsen is nice too but a little gruff.

My mom went on a date with Rick Nielsen in high school. I asked him about that when I met him and he didn't remember (not that I expected him to). Then he offered me a hit of the fattest joint I'd ever seen.

To be fair to Thirlwell, some douchebag skinhead guy had been heckling him all night and tried to get up on stage so they could fight, at which point, JG brained him with a mic stand. So one could understand why he wasn't in the best of moods.

I avoided trying to sleep with a girl because she slept with a bass player I like.

Had a 30 minute conversation with Jussi from Circle about the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, it was time well spent.
M1ke P@tt0n - nice, bit intense
King Buzzo - sarcastic, laid-back
Dave Lombardo - metal dude
Buzzcocks - pleasant bunch of geezers
Yoshida from Ruins - aargh

I met Keith Tenniswood a few years ago quite randomly at a club in London and literally did the whole hero worship thing and he got embarassed and left. Since then I've decided I'm never going to make a prat out of myself like that again. Hence why when Noel Fielding bought me a pint the other day (don'tcha know), all I could summon up was a quiet "cheers".

Yoshida from Ruins - aargh

EXPLAIN

Dave Lombardo is totally laid back bro. Buzzo is nice and likes to talk about music. I met Matt Groening at Mr Bungle show. He wanted to talk about Boredoms.

My life is somehow better knowing that Matt Groening listens to Boredoms.

So Mike Patton is a bit intense, huh.

Groening is great

Never, ever meet Lou Reed.

in high school i got to stay behind after a Violent Femmes concert for a band meet-n-greet in the then-cleared-out Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor. they were nice enough, but obviously not huge into these things. i vowed to no longer try to meet my musical heroes after that. in fact, it was less exciting than even this clip of Sabrina the Teenage Witch meeting them...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w4g777SHlM

I think anytime you meet someone famous in the role of a fame it feels kind of lame and underwhelming.

I worked with H0llis Queens once and while I didn't dislike her music I wouldn't have called myself a fan. She became a cool friend though and I kind of forgot that she was a famous indie musician.

I've met a bunch of people but it was never a "hey there's someone famous at an show/club/event I'm gonna go say hi" kinda thing.

Shock G came offstage after sitting in on an Aceyalone set and asked me what time it was - I got him to sign my copy of "Future Rhythm" which I had completely coincidentally just purchased that day. He was supercool. Ummm, others I've met through various friends/family: Mike Watt, the ladies from the Gossip, Calvin Johnson, tons of folks in other bands we played with (Beulah, Tight Bros/Karp, a bunch I'm probably forgetting right now).

I've never really met any of my "heroes", but most of them are either a) dead or b) crazy

do you really need to google proof the name of a famous neighborhood?

xpost

i met shock g once! we smoked a doobie.

Gillian Welch is like a dream. She enveloped me in a sinewy embrace after I talked with her. David Rawlings was afraid of me, but still nice, and at least pretended to remember me when I saw them eating at "the 'Roo."

yoshida from ruins is supposed to be nice

this is the second time matt has talked shit about him without explaining why. when i saw him after a show in a small ass club he seemed like a bro.

elvin jones - really nice, incredibly huge hands

I WON'T MENTION IT AGAIN let's just say it's better to meet a musician you admire fleetingly, rather than spending a month in a van with them.

i met AC Newman from the new pornographers, in hoboken's maxwell's,after the show.he was polite, thugh a bit uptight,and we shook heands.later i read that he thought the show was awful ( i thought it was great!),so maybe it was cause of that.
i also talked for a brief 5 seconds to britt daniels from spoon, he was extremely nice.to everybody.

what does he smell or something?

wow, elvin jones! i've met kris kristofferson a couple of times (we're sort of related) and each time I've been cowed into silence ... even though he seems really nice. i always liked the story that jakob dylan told about introducing tom waits to his dad and waits having a close to nervous breakdown. hard to imagine!

it's a bit stupid to talk to an artist after the show, they probably get those boring small talks all the time."i love your work" "thanks" etc...

Matt Groening worked in record stores and wrote a music column for the LA Weekly (?) right around the time he started writing Life In Hell. He's always been a music geek of the Beefheart/Zorn variety. Humanizes him somehow, given that he must be one of the world's richest people by now.

"I think anytime you meet someone famous in the role of a fame it feels kind of lame and underwhelming."

Absolutely, which is one reason it's so hard to talk to bands at shows and meet & greets are always so gross. It sucks to feel like you're in a receiving line. It must be equally awkward if you're a performer who's not comfortable with being the subject of adulation.

"i met AC Newman from the new pornographers, in hoboken's maxwell's,after the show.he was polite, thugh a bit uptight,and we shook heands.later i read that he thought the show was awful ( i thought it was great!),so maybe it was cause of that. "

That's the prob with the after-show stuff. If it's someone you love you may not realize the group had played their worst show in months.

An intense ex-girlfriend of mine once pressed a short story manuscript on Michael Stipe at a public event, and he was a little freaked out and curt with her. Later that evening he phoned her at home to apologize.

Bill Berry is also very human and down-to-earth.

weird, i also had a friend who received a personal phone call from michael stipe at his house, after hanging out outside his hotel and leaving a note for him with the doorman inviting him to lunch the next day.

rather that's "have" a friend.. not "had"... he's still my friend...haha