Was asleep for a grand total of two hours before the dogs decided to do their chain barking thing- You bark, now I’ll bark, now we both bark, now you bark, now I’ll bark, now we both bark, hey, wtf were you barking about? I dunno? You? Tag, you’re it. Meanwhile, Tunch scratches the shit out of me running for cover, I wake up and relieve the aged bladder, can’t fall back asleep, and here we are. So I started listening to music:
I can’t remember if I ever told you about the time Todd Rundgren called me an asshole or not. It was in the summer of 87 or 88 back when I was a long hair working as a roadie for a company called SMAVSCO (Sandy Margolis Audio Visual Company) out of Hyde Park, NY, with my best friend Jason Adams, and we were both basically stack monkeys, erecting the speaker platforms and climbing the structures to hang lights. At any rate, one July 4th we ran the sound and lighting for the days events at Woodstock, and after all the shows were over, Jason and I were left, stoned to the bejeezus, to play this pre-planned speech of inspirational jingoistic bullshit over the beginning of the fireworks. I was at the soundboard, running volumes, as the “ask not what you can do for your country” and the “They’ve left the surly bonds of earth” and other quotes from Presidents overplayed the beginning of the fireworks, and this douchebag came up and proceeded to dress me down for playing music and speeches over the sonic booms of the fireworks, called me an asshole, and left. I looked over at Jason and said “Was that the dude from Utopia? WTF?”
It was. So there was my brush with greatness.
freelancer
How the Holy Fuck did you transition from THAT into a full-blown wingnut by the time 2002 came around and you started this place?! I’m baffled.
I am glad that you came around and have been cool enough in your 10 year history to have reformed since then and have since tolerated wise-ass pissants like myself to have a place to hang on the web in the interim.
Feed the kids a beggin’ strip or something and get some sleep, sir. Have a good night.
If insomnia still has you in her grasp, there’s this:
http://youtu.be/1NRsPDhyHrc
or this:
http://youtu.be/fUDiAmaQ0Vw
Take care.
JGabriel
John Cole @ Top:
If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t be surprised if Balloon Juice is filled with people who have been called asshole, or sundry other obscenities, by various rock stars or other famous people over the years.
For instance, I got called an asshole once by Mark Eitzel of American Music Club.
It was pretty innocuous. I’d been there to see a friend perform, and I had to leave afterwards for a previous engagement. Eitzel was up right after her for an acoustic solo set. I sat through one or two of his songs, then got up to leave. I didn’t leave during a song because it was a small room, and I didn’t want to distract from the songs.
Anyway, as I’m standing to leave, Eitzel asks me if the show is really that bad.
“No, it’s great,” I say, “I was just here for Lianne (the friend who played the opening set), and I have to meet a friend.”
“Yeah, whatever, bye.”
Then, after I left the room, he said to the rest of the audience, “What an asshole,” and a few other insults I don’t remember (’cause I wasn’t there). Not good-naturedly either. Heard about it later from friends who stayed, and it was big news for a couple days on the bulletin board service we all frequented at the time. This was sometime in the mid-90s.
Apparently Eitzel has — or had — a reputation for that kind of behavior, because another friend who was a writer for the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, et. al., shot me an e-mail asking if he could use it for a story he was thinking about writing on Eitzel’s audience interactions. Don’t think anything ever came of that, though.
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M. Bouffant
Brush W/ Greatness.
JGabriel
Also, John, Rundgren kind of has a rep. for being a dick to people too. So there’s that.
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tofubo
saw a tubes/utopia double bill in ’86 or something
i recall that there was a big huge beach ball thrown about the audience during one of the songs by one of them, no dogs barking or anyone calling out someone for being an ass tho
Citizen_X
Who the fuck complains about sound drowning out fireworks? Whatta dick move.
Personally, I’d probably rather be called an asshole by Mark Eitzel, though.
Comrade Javamanphil
@JGabriel: Just ask Andy Partridge.
Comrade Javamanphil
Pretty sure you have mentioned this in a comment thread before and I know we discussed it on twitter as I am a committed Todd-head (but fully aware of his less than inspiring personal nature.) Nice to see Todd on the front page though.
My musician-asshole story happened to a friend but I got to witness so I’ll take it. We were at CMJ in NYC in 1991. We had just gotten our conference material and were taking in all the madness going on around us when my friend spotted Johnny Rotten walking past. My friend yelled “John-nee!” to which Johnny replied “Ass-hole!” Made my friend’s entire weekend. (My brush with fame at the same conference came in thanking Jello Biafra for “just being you.” His response was something along the lines of “who else would I be?”)
THE
I liked Can we still be friends.
Linda Featheringill
A brush with Rundgren is not a brush with greatness. Good businessman, not a great artist.
He apparently was a good dad for Stephen Tyler’s kid, though. There’s that.
Raven
I said hello to Alfrie Woodward once.
JGabriel
@Linda Featheringill:
Rundgren has had his moments. I think Something/Anything? counts as a pretty great work of pop/rock art.
And then there’s Rundgren’s production work on XTC’s Skylarking, their best album thanks in part to his production — whatever Andy and Colin think of Rundgren personally.
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Joey Maloney
Pablo Picasso was never called an asshole.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I met Yngwie Malmsteen backstage in the mid-80’s but he never called me an asshole. We just intro’ed each other and shook hands. Nuthin’ special.
Maybe I should have punched him in the neck. ;)
How you went from that to wingnut is beyond me. Maybe you quit smoking it? Maybe you got hold of some PCP laced shit? ;p
Stinkfut
I’ve had two brushes with greatness, and they were literally back to back.
15 years ago, I had the good fortune to be living in Maui. One day, I was hitch hiking on Hana highway, and a guy in a convertible Mercedes pulls over. I walk up to his car and just as I’m about to hop in, he hits the gas and takes off. Looked me over and didn’t like the cut of my jib, I guess. Don’t really blame him. The driver was Magic Johnson.
The very next car to come down the highway pulls over, and I hop in. The driver of this car is Mick Fleetwood. After the usual hitch hiker pleasantries, I asked him what it was like sticking it in Stevie Nicks.
“like Christmas morning for your cock,” he said.
“Do you have any blow?” I said.
He pulled over and told me to get the fuck out.
hamletta
@Linda Featheringill: GFY.
Todd Rundgren is a fucking great artist, and was a pioneer in technology. He was also a great producer who brought The Tubes from SF freakshow to the Top 40.
He also had a great tenor voice back in the day. Singing along with A Capella and Human Touch gave me the confidence to lend my voice to my church choir.
hamletta
@Odie Hugh Manatee: God, I hate that motherfucker.
And so did everybody else.
So I treasure my “Yngwie Who?” T-shirt all the more.
Warren Terra
Willard “Mitt” Romney announces he’s sewn up the Washington Post endorsement for President:
Since the WaPo is an intellectually and morally bankrupt institution that’s already shown it will eagerly ignore the plaintive cries of what little is left of its conscience to support its parent corporation’s highly profitable business of fleecing the unwary and disadvantaged, this bodes excellently for Mr. Romney – especially because Mr. Obama’s administration has fitfully gestured in the general direction of wanting to stop these bastards.
Indeed, there are similarities and synergies that emerge when you examine Kaplan and Bain: both depend on betraying and impoverishing large swathes of the population in order to enrich a few vultures at the top. It’s the Republican philosophy writ large.
JGabriel
@Warren Terra:
Yeah, but did he call anyone from BJ an asshole?
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kdaug
Sleep, or don’t. Drink, or don’t.
There is no try.
hamletta
@Warren Terra: I know my hometown paper has fallen, but assuming a connection from Full Sail to the WaPo is a stretch. It’s just fucking stupid.
They’ll probably endorse Mitt just because—if they endorse anyone at all.
But tying it to that bullshit school in the back of Rolling Stone is a stretch.
JGabriel
hamletta:
Actually, we already know that WaPo will engage in extremely unethical behavior with respect to its educational business — such as publishing repeated editorials praising for-profit education and excoriating policies to take federal funds out of the business, without disclosing their own relationship to Kaplan.
To suggest that WaPo may decide, “Yay, Mitt!” on the basis of his advocacy of for-profit education really isn’t that much of stretch.
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Odie Hugh Manatee
@hamletta:
He’s talented but was late to the metal game and is too full of himself.
My date was impressed at the backstage meet and that’s all that really mattered to me at the time.
Score! :)
Villago Delenda Est
All my brushes with greatness have to do with the military. Handing a field telephone to Stormin’ Norman Schwartzkopf when he was a mere 1 star; then MG William Livsey charging HARD at me on the other side of the line in a pickup football game in Bad Kreuznach, Germany, when he was 8th ID commander (I handed him field telephones on multiple occasions as it turns out, too…you do that a lot when you’re a Forward Area Signal Platoon Leader of the Division Signal Battalion), and watching parts of a Seahawks game in the kitchen of the 9th ID Divarty Commander’s quarters during a Christmas Party with then MG Shalikashvili before he was reluctantly dragged back into the living room by his wife to socialize. He insisted that everyone refer to him as just plain old “General Shali”, he appreciated that all those vowels often cause Americans to get tongue tied.
Oh, yeah, and Admiral Grace Hopper handed me a nanosecond once. Impressed my IT geek friends tremendously.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Linda Featheringill: I would concur with hamletta that Rundgren is a great artist but I also get that many people don’t hear what I hear in his music. His catalog is deep, varied and full of frustrations and wonder. But to call him a good businessman is really ridiculous. He made a career out of destroying his commercial potential and almost intentionally alienating his fan base. His ventures into Internet distribution in the mid 90s were visionary and a complete disaster commercially. See his website. Follow the subscribe link and you get to a service called Patronet which I believe has been under construction for about 13 years now (and is still not accepting new subscribers at this time!) He eventually resorted to selling backstage, all-access tickets to the faithful to help pay his mortgage.
Villago Delenda Est
@Comrade Javamanphil:
“I hate my frickin’ ISP”
Carrie
A friend of mine in need of bladder relief in a Toronto bar nearly wet himself when out of a stall walks Geddy Lee. Friend goes “Holy shit, I’m your biggest fan” and sticks out his hand for a handshake. Geddy responded with “Uh that’s great, but can I wash my hands first?”
harlana
duly impressed!
“Can We Still Be Friends?”
harlana
@JGabriel: nobody famous has ever called me an asshole. :(
what the hell am i doing wrong?
scav
@harlana: Whatever it is, we’re both doing it wrong — I can’t even remember being within sight of anyone famous. I’m 100% sure I can claim being one floor below Stephen J. Hawking, but that’s about the best of it. Even my sister got to bug Gates for a massive check he had to sign himself, but me? nada. Oh, well, I saw John Anderson while campaigning once. Assuming what that’s why he was wandering around outside Parliament (UK). Oh be still my beating heart.
JGabriel
@harlana:
Here in NYC, it’s pretty easy to get called an asshole by famous people. They’re kind of all over the place.
Edited To Add: Also, does Eitzel really count as famous, or just well-known within the indie scene?
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Carrie
Also, I once met Tim Burton. He didn’t call me an asshole though, I’m sure he thought I was lovely.
catclub
@Villago Delenda Est: “Oh, yeah, and Admiral Grace Hopper handed me a nanosecond once. Impressed my IT geek friends tremendously.”
Man, you buried the lede.
PeakVT
An early-morning Krgthulu post points to an entirely new line of attack on Romney.
Ben Cisco (mobile)
My brush with fame was during my college days. We had a concert on campus, usually something along the lines of Bocephus on the quad. Well, once we had Stacy Lattisaw scheduled and she canceled. These out that the guy who came to save the day was Roger Troutman of Zapp. I got to spend over an hour with him. Really cool guy. Turns out he was a zoomie back in the day, as was I. Great times. Was truly saddened to hear of his death years later.
hamletta
@Odie Hugh Manatee: He told my best girlfriend to bring him a burger with onions just so, and if she didn’t, he’d smash it in her face.
She was the rep of the local concert promoter, a genius of both acoustics and logistics. She’s also well-loved because she’s sweet as pie.
Karma, man.
kerFuFFler
My dog barked at Bing Crosby in an ice cream parlor in Guadalajara in the 70’s. So much for my exciting life….
My dad, however, was one of the first interrogators to interact with General Yamashita when he was first captured. My dad remembers that Y communicated in the form of a haiku something to the effect of “water under the bridge.” (By the next morning Y had been whisked off to a new location where more senior personnel could interview him.)
Odie Hugh Manatee
@hamletta:
He probably laughed about it afterward, thinking it was funny. That’s his personality. I think he more or less flopped was because he preceded his fame; he already thought he was king shit so just bask in his glory already!
Yeah, a puff in the pan of music. I should have punched him in the neck, for your friend anyway. :)
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@JGabriel:
That’s an understatement: Todd is an asshole, plain and simple. I know this how? I know people who’ve worked closely with him over the years. One of the session guitarists for a touring show Rundgren was involved with back in the Oughts described an encounter between Rundgren and one of the other “named” acts, damn, I can’t remember now who it was, bass player, that’s all I remember and it wasn’t Entwistle. Anyway, the story centered around this guy literally trying to throttle Rundgren to within an inch of his life after one show.
And that’s just one story. I know another famous producer who also worked on similar gigs with Rundgren during the same time frame came out of the experience also wanting to throttle the asshole.
Back in 2000, I remember a little boy, maybe 8, was with his parents after one of these gigs. Mom and Dad were talking about the show and all the boy could say was “Todd who?”
That always brought a chuckle to my heart considering some of the “Todd is God” fan reviews of the previous night’s shows I read: Todd was brilliant, everybody else stunk. “Everybody else” included people like Ann Wilson of Heart.
There are a number of musical “stars” who have a well-deserved rep of being some of the biggest flaming assholes alive: the late James Brown was one, Prince is another. Rundgren is in “good” company.
AliceBlue
@Joey Maloney:
Love the Modern Lovers!
When I lived in NYC in the late 70’s/early 80’s, I used to see Tom Waits all the time–in the bookstore, subway station, etc. I think he lived in my neighborhood. I saw David Byrne a few times, too.
No name-calling though.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: I did a shot with Shali.
muddy
About 15 years ago I was in Atlanta with my son and his friend, they were about 15, full goth boys, or maybe it was Mansonites then. Outside the hotel a limo pulled up, the driver got out and asked them if they knew how to get to the Hard Rock cafe (all those Peachtree streets and most of them one-way). The kids had been walking around all day while I did business so they knew and told him. As he was getting back in the limo, the driver says, “Hey, want to meet Bruce Springsteen?”
“I guess.” says muddy-son. The back window rolls down, and Bruce sticks his arm out to shake hands, and introduces himself. Muddy-son shakes his had (firmly as taught by mom) and says, “I’m muddy-son+surname”, in a tone that suggested complete equality, and honestly I think just doing it to be polite to an old man.
Much snickering erupts from inside the limo. “Wrong generation, man!” etc. I got a big laugh out of it and said his friends probably teased him about it later, pretending they mistook him for the waiter or something.
When I told my brother, he was pissed and said how dare muddy-son act that way to Bruce! I said they are both just people, and muddy-son was polite, I was glad my kid felt that he was just as good despite not being famous.
trollhattan
Dick Dale threatened to kick my friend’s ass. Fairly recently, I should add. My friend wasn’t entirely sure he was kidding.
dance around in your bones
I kissed Mojo Nixon once. He had just done a show in a small bar/club in San Diego, and was hanging out in the bar afterward. I just ran up and gave him a big smacker on the lips and he was quite gracious about it. NOT an asshole.
That was the same night I lost one of my snake barrettes and was crawling around on the floor looking for it, and someone asked me what I was doing and I said ‘I lost my snake’.
Things got interesting.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Mojo is a national treasure. Too bad he doesn’t play/tour hardly at all. I guess the radio gig in San Diego pays the bills without the grind of touring small clubs nationwide.
JWL
Wikipedia: “Dick Dale (born Richard Anthony Monsour on May 4, 1937..”.
Anyone over the age of 70 who threatens to kick someone’s ass is OK with me.
Linda Featheringill
@dance around in your bones:
LOL! Best story in the thread! Good for you, Dance!
dance around in your bones
@comrade scott’s agenda of rage:
He is so great. I used to see him a lot in the SD area, he had a song called ‘Don’t Eat Crackers In My Bed’ and he’d have an actual box of crackers onstage and would shake it over the audience.
Also, ‘Stuffin’ Martha’s Muffin’…..
Egypt Steve
Saw Todd Rungren at Indiana University a few months ago; a prof. of Rock & Roll in the music school invited him in for a short-term stint as a visting lecturer. He did a couple of public events, which were interesting. In one, he reminisced and dished on everybody, including as I recall Paul McCartney and Jimmy Page, both of whom he apparently really loathes. Then a couple of days later, he did a “composition” seminar, played some stuff on the piano, sang some stuff. It was interesting but all kind of half-assed; he didn’t really prepare for it, as far as I could tell.
dance around in your bones
@Linda Featheringill: Those were the days, my friend ;)
smintheus
@Linda Featheringill: The Animals, there was a band.
ETA: “dead before your time”, not “die…”
FlipYrWhig
Not that many brushes with fame for me. I met C. Everett Koop at an event. Much later, working for an art museum, I got to share an elevator with Laurie Anderson and say “excuse me” to get past a conversation between the museum director and… Patti Smith.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Back in ’85, my band opened for Samhain, who’d just released their first album. After our set, two of us went into the restroom to splash some water on our faces, and there’s punk rock icon Glenn Danzig- all 4′ 11″ of him- putting on his makeup. We tell him that we think the new album rocks. Danzig, checking out his mascara in the mirror, never looking at us, said to us in a quite disdainful tone, “I don’t rock,” turns and leaves without attempting to make eye contact.
Asshole.
Quaker in a Basement
I stepped on Tom McGuane’s toe.
Viperbuck
In 2000 or so, 90 year old Gloria Stuart came to town on a book tour promoting her autobiography. Her host brought her to the cafe where I worked and by a stroke of luck she was seated in my section. I hadn’t seen “Titanic” so I was initially clueless as to her identity when I took her drink order, however my bartender filled me in when I picked up the lady’s glass of chardonnay.
When she ordered that month’s special salad I complimented her on her choice and proceeded to inform her that I’m sure she would enjoy it as it was made with 100% romaine lettuce – and no iceberg.
She laughed, bless her soul, but I would’ve understood if she had called me an asshole.
JF_Lovely
Kind of a reverse asshole musician story.
Friend of mine knows Tim Robins in New York where he now lives. Tim goes out on tour with his band “The Rogues Gallery” a fair bit I guess.
Anyway my buddy was back in town last year from NY where Tim was playing at this big blues festival we have every year. So they’re on pretty good terms and all so Tim texts my buddy that we can go back stage after the show. So me, buddy, my gal, his gal all go back with Tim and the band. My buddy is drunk and stoned and acting like a major asshole. Cringe-worthy enough that I though we would get asked to leave.
Neither Tim, the band, the manager, or anyone else said boo. Tim was very classy and very tolerant of my buddy. Made sure we got beer, refreshments, food, and a toke (Tim wasn’t toking though).
Cain
I was called an asshole by the lead singer of Everclear. He mistakenly thought I was cutting in line for dinner when I was just ordering something to go which was a separate line.
Sean
Not a musician encounter, but this crowd will appreciate this:
When I was in Young Americans for Freedom in the early 90’s I met G. Gordon Liddy at a CPAC-like event in DC. I went up to him, introduced myself, and he warmed visibly when I dropped the name of my utterly discredible affiliation. (A couple of years earlier, national YAF had been disbanded because too much of the Bradley/Olin/whoever foundation money had gone up the noses of the future leaders of the conservative movement. Then, as now, the right could give less of a shit about anything as long as you mouth the proper words.)
Anyway, I’m still shaking Liddy’s hand (strong grip!), when I ask him if he’s interested in speaking at a fundraiser for YAF (G-Lid: “I’d love to!”), and then I add: “and there’s one detail that will really make it special: we’re going to hold it at the Howard Johnson’s across from the Watergate!”
His hand went limp for a nanosecond before he politely said “No” and executed an about-face. But in that moment, he flashed me the clearest “I would beat the hell out of you right now if I could get away with it” look I had ever seen. It chilled me. You get a real “this is not a good person” vibe from that guy.
+3