What's Your Hometown's ContributionTo Music?

oh and i once lived in a little place called witton gilbert in durham which was home to a few prefab sprouts funnily enough, they called one of their albums "from langely park to memphis"...langely park is a neighbouring town, i suppose from "witton gilbert to memphis" wasn't catchy enough!.....strange ol world

My sister swears that Adam Ant once lived in BS, but there is no evidence of this. A couple of no-hoper indie bands have hailed from this most Daily Mail-ish of towns and maybe even released a few singles back in 1992, but they soon gave up the struggle and went back to their foundation courses.

So it kinda leaves it to me to put it on the map. Although, to be honest, why bother?

Lincoln was a little more promising with a couple of members of B- Movie coming straight outta Sincil Bank, and 'John Peel favourites' The Cigarettes (well he played their singles).

Hometown since 1990, Twickenham, is, of course a hotbed of music. Pete Townshend has lived here for yonks, 'tho he's from Shepherds Bush. Ross MacManus lives three streets away from me, and still gigs round here, as do sixties freakbeat heros The Downliners Sect (see Nuggets 2 box set) and The Strawbs still play in various configurations (incl Dave Lambert also of The Fire of 'My Father's Name is Dad' fame). Robin Guthrie lives and has a studio here. Ian MacLagan of The Small Faces is from Whitton, which is strictly Hounslow, but learned how to bunk off college and drink in The Albany by Twickenham railway station, upon which Rod Stewart was reputedly 'discovered'. I'm not sure if that's true. Also from TW1 - appalling transit van indie fools The Senseless Things. Good name chaps.

Subhumans (punk band from nearby Melksham) recorded their first album there. That's about it.

Peter Gabriel comes to buy his paper from the newsagents. Does that count?

I'm now in Bristol...which people always assume to be a really happening place, musicwise - Massive Attack, Portishead etc. etc., but these people don't actually do anything locally. Indie labels Subway (Flatmates, Groove Farm etc.) & Sarah were also Bristol-based.

As for bands, Pigbag & The Brilliant Corners spring to mind.

Carmel (erm, from Carmel) hails from Brigg, believe it or not...

Also from Grimsby - Steve Currie from T-Rex

dave, as -if- you post here. :) arcade fire is the shit, and they kick leonard cohen and GYBE!'s asses, twice. arcadefire.com for some muffled live stuff. glories will be heard in the coming months.

sean [kyla says hi]

What's wrong with prefab sprout?

I currently live in Costa Mesa, CA, home of Supernova (yay!) and, erm, Sugar Ray. Trust me, I'd do something about that if I could. However, to make up for it, my cross-the-street neighbors Chris and Scott are better known as Papa Byrd, being both good DJs and musicmakers.

Dom, you seem to have some problem with the fact that the gloriously wonderful Bauhaus comes from Northampton.

there was a band called American TV Cops who got played on the radio a bit in the early 90s, and a much better band called gloy, who didn't.

just down the road tho: tamworth....home to julian cope, wolfsbane and birdland.

that part of the midlands is a cultural wilderness. i'm glad i dont live there any more. whinge.

my hometown is too small to have contributed anything. my birth town contributed, doh, slipknot.

Let's see...hmmm. New York City: Kiss, The Velvet Underground, the Fugs, the New York Dolls, Patti Smith, Television, the Ramones, Blondie, Richard Hell & the Voidoids, the Heartbreakers, the Plasmatics, Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law, Cro-Mags, Kraut, DNA, Mars, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks, Pussy Galore, Swans, Sonic Youth, Heart Attack, D-Generation, Helmet, Band of Susans, the Toasters, Urban Blight, the Dictators, Prong, Missing Foundation, Rat at Rat R, Live Skull, Cop Shoot Cop, the Undead, the Black Snakes, Firewater, Skeleton Key, the Lounge Lizards, Suicide, Anthrax, the Beastie Boys, Run-Dmc, LL Cool J, Kurtis Blow, Laurie Anderson, the Strokes, Interpol...oh, fuck, and a bunch more.

10 minute drive (the singer)
20 minutes drive (also the singer - we're proud of this)

San Diego itself is another matter entirely. I didn't live THERE, after all. ;-)

Hoboken's done pretty well for a small town, methinks.

Lisa Germano. I wish I'd known as a teenager there in the late 90s.

My school gave the world Leyton Buzzards/Modern Romance and 2 members of Bark Psychosis but they lived in another local area.

oh, and evan shore from muck & the mires! and mercury caronia, drummer for jon carin's industry, was in a prog band called cathedral whose self-produced lp goes for big bucks.
https://www.discogs.com/release/2901414-Cathedral-Stained-Glass-Stories

the boys from Brave Little Abacus (New Hampshire "midwest" emo band beloved by internet nerds) were a grade or two behind me at my regional high school. band/theater geeks iirc. I didn't really know them, but the lead singer's sister was valedictorian of my class, and the keyboardist and I were members of a myspace group called "The Boys Who Like Jokes" along with like five other members. their legendary live album was recorded at the senior center next to my high school. I wasn't aware of the band at the time so don't have any stories to tell

The Shaggs are probably the most famous band to come out of my home county. I have no idea what to do with this information.

― i ain't marchant anymore (unregistered), Thursday, February 12, 2015 11:17 PM (eight years ago)

I once dreamed of making a pilgrimage to The Shaggs' former home, but sadly

The Shaggs disbanded and sold most of their equipment. A few years later, Betty and Dot married and moved out, and their mother sold the family house. The new owner became convinced that the house was haunted by Austin's ghost and donated it to the Fremont fire department, who burnt it down in a firefighting exercise.

oops, clipped off a relevant part of that quote: "Shortly after the recording session, Austin died of a heart attack at the age of 47."

Not sure I wish to claim DC proper (Duke Ellington, Marvin Gaye).

But I do live a few blocks from Dischord, and recorded at Inner Ear, so I think I can claim about one degree of separation from the Teen Idles/Minor Threat/Fugazi axis, plus the Scream/Grohl/Foo agglomeration. I have played with Skeeter from Scream and with Don Zientara. So.

Will always rep for our DIY scene but nobody ever makes it big here. The only 'famous' acts I can think of are: Tindersticks, Jake Bugg, Ronika, Paper Lace, Sleaford Mods.

Also home to Earache Records, for you metalheads.

Earache My Eye

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c32JxwQeyJs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qpv-lGNXAQ

I'm from a small village in the hills, outside Edinburgh, which gave the world

Boards Of Canada
The Scars (well, 50% of them)
Christ.
Nina Nesbitt

Real hometown (Toronto), many. Current hometown (St. Marys), Emm Gryner, sort of.

depending on which london suburb counts as my actual hometown it's either iron maiden, stormzy, or a certain fascist "bluesman"

They call Alabama the Crimson Tode. Call me fascist blues.

*Tide, gah.

I don't know of any notable musicians from Silver Spring MD, though Stevie Nicks immortalized the town/city in song in Fleetwood Mac's "Silver Springs", which of course has nothing to do with Silver Spring but was named for it. My current address about a 10 minute drive from Silver Spring is a block away from where John Fahey attended high school (and also Jim Henson and Len Bias).

didn't Half Japanese have some connection to Silver Spring (I knew the Fair brothers grew up in Union Bridge, MD). The town I lived in until last year gave the world Lester Bowie.

David Byrne grew up in Arbutus, Md., which is sorta between Columbia and Baltimore. The Fairs lived in Carroll County, near Frederick. My wife is from Mount Airy. South Carroll.

Not helpful for Silver Spring, but in the ballpark.

This reminds me that I was in a grade-school class with Rebecca Gibb, later drummer for Harlow, and Pat Smear's wife.

i'd tell y'all but then you'd be able to figure out my hometown, which isn't big, and i'm clinically paranoid. i just find it endlessly amusing that my hometown has actually contributed to music and not just to pablo escobar's retirement account

Same. There’s a major pop star from my hometown but I don’t wanna talk about it

XP to Tom D - this is very obscure but Paisley was home to this guy also -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOniGvP4eCE

Specific neighbourhoods are typically hard to pin down within this sprawl but the interweb tells me that Percy Grainger, Daevid Allen, Kylie Minogue, J G Thirlwell, Dame Nellie Melba, Helen Reddy, Flea and various members of Air Supply and the Birthday Party were born somewhere around here, for starters. (This game is less interesting if thinking in terms of largish conurbations, admittedly, but there's also little risk to anonymity lol.)

Mine's where Colin Meloy grew up and got his first Replacements album, and where Charley Pride played baseball and first started performing. A truly formative town.

Both Taylor Hawkins and Jon Davison of Yes would have been surfer kids around Laguna Beach when I was in high school. Ty Segall also comes from Laguna but a generation later.

i'm from east dulwich in london. nitin sawhney and glenn tillbrook are both from here, and king krule spent a lot of time in east dulwich growing up

a good friend i went to primary school with is in a band called curser who seem to be doing well :)

i think another friend played (plays?) bass for Lynks Afrikka

How could I forget Chou Pahrot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBW88fVZBMg

https://www.discogs.com/release/7640579-Last-Laugh-Glee-Switch-EP - famous for 15 people...

more famous, fka twigs went to school there.

KC and the Sunshine Band
Vanilla Ice

Stevo, owner of Some Bizarre records who famously didn't pay Coil the money he owed them

Bang on cue someone's just posted this on Facebook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64SaD04-BrU

Wilson Pickett and Tommy Shaw (you didn't say it had to be good music only).

Also myself if you count music writers, or is that more a contribution to writing? Hard to decide.

Years after I graduated, Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy graduated from my high school.

(I'm more proud of the fact that I commonly see Cyril Jordan who lives in my neighborhood. He greets me with 'Hey Bud!")

I feel like I can use "island" to mean town here otherwise it'd be insanely unfair (tho if anyone knows of Água de Pau's contribution to pop do lmk!)

So diasporawise Nelly Furtado's parents are from S Miguel. I can't claim Nuno Bettencourt (from Terceira), sadly.

Locally though Zeca Medeiros has to be it, Portugal's answer to Tom Waits:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy43saw2xRo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quj6eIYVUoA

Trent Reznor is from my county. A town-ish over. Graduated 22 years before me. Seeing him play tonight in BK.

GG Allin went to school in the same town as me! I discovered several years ago his gravestone in neighboring New Hampshire was constantly vandalized by his fans, which given his reputation had me pitying the groundkeeper of that cemetery.

I was born in Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, which in musical terms is to the best of my knowledge known only for space rock(?) band The Telescopes. Grew up in Sale, in the south-western suburbs of Manchester - musicians with local connections include Andy Rourke of The Smiths, Chris Sievey of The Freshies/Frank Sidebottom and solo performer David Gray.

Jared Leto went to my high school

I did finish high school in Pueblo, Colorado, which if I remember correctly had some connection to Tommy Bolin.

Very cool to see what I think is this board's third Puebloan upthread. Since posting more than two decades ago, I have learned that Pueblo also produced Blaine Reininger from Tuxedomoon and can mostly claim The Space Lady (born in town, raised in Las Animas). A real local pipeline there for ending up doing synth stuff in San Francisco.

Jim Krueger, who wrote "We Just Disagree", is from my hometown. my Mom actually managed his binge drinking-themed band for a while, before he died of alcohol poisoning

I grew up in a village, so my home village's contribution to music is nil, although to be fair the Christmas do occasionally has some good local talent. The nearest city, Salisbury, is of course the birthplace of Dave Dee. So the story goes, while training to be a police cadet he was called to the scene of a car accident just outside Chippenham - it was a taxi taking Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent from a gig in Bath back to London. Vincent was badly injured and Cochran died in hospital, and while waiting for his next of kin to be tracked down Dave Dee learned to play Cochran's impounded guitar.

I have nothing against Dave Dee, but on a scale of one to ten Gene Vincent's rock coolness factor was quite near the top, although he did have an unfortunate habit of threatening to shoot people, while Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, and Titch were near the bottom.

However Wiltshire's other city, Swindon, is surprisingly fertile. It's the home of Billie Piper and XTC. Apparently Oasis is named after the Oasis Leisure Centre:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/articles/aaeb1fba-2291-4696-98f9-ad601893831c

Inspiral Carpets played there while Noel Gallagher was one of their roadies, and he liked the name. In 2009 the Oasis Leisure Centre gave off powerful mental waves that caused Morrissey to collapse:
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/oct/24/morrissey-the-smiths-collapse-swindon

He has not played live in Swindon ever since.

Why is Swindon such a titan while Salisbury is the opposite of a titan? I assume it's because the M4 motorway goes through Swindon, linking Bristol with London. Occasionally the gods stop for a rest in Swindon, and where they spread their pollen, musicians grow.

I have nothing against Dave Dee, but on a scale of one to ten Gene Vincent's rock coolness factor was quite near the top, although he did have an unfortunate habit of threatening to shoot people, while Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick, and Titch were near the bottom.

Hey, don't dissin' DDDBMT.

Also Colin Newman was born in Salisbury, which is pretty cool. He didn't grow up there though.

Pantera

Warren, Ohio. Not sure who is more embarrassing to say was born in the hometown that I left when I was 2, Dave Grohl or Mom's Apple Pie.

From the darkest depths of South-Eastern Finland: Unholy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIzef-aLP_o

that rules

think mine is the jcb song