Ive met a raft of famous musicians one to one(some fleeting some actual in actual conversations).
They include
Miles Davis (Birmingham Ronnie Scotts Club 80’s)
Vangelis (London Cafe early 80’s)
Sir Simon Rattle- conductor of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra(Birmingham on a train back home 90’s).
Lots of Synth groups when they were starting out in small clubs.
Black Sabbath members in Witton Social Club 70’s
Lots more i cant remember but i do have great memories of the conversations i had with them…
It wasn’t professionally but one time as a student I was drinking in a London hotel bar and the band Blur came in.
Damon albarn looked at me and asked if I was an actor, to which I replied ‘no’.
His response was that I ‘should be.’
I didn’t twig at the time but on reflection I think he may have had me mixed up with a young Ryan Gosling.
The first part of this post is true. The second may not be.
Ian Gillan (hitched a lift in his Rolls Royce in 70s)
Dr Lonnie Smith (post Ronnie Scotts gig, about 2010)
Johnny Winter (post gig, maybe 15 years ago)
George Porter Jr (post gig, UK, 2014)
Dwayne Burnside (jammed with him, maybe 2008)
Adrian Legg (maybe not so famous, when he hosted folk club sessions, 70s)
met mike paradinas, ceephax, n some others at my mates gigs.
I supported rob playford, coldcut, max tundra, n a bunch of other not quite so famous jungle n triphop heads back in the late 90s/ early 2000s.
Supported Tarrie B from Tura Satana and My Ruin fame as a nu-metaler in my teens. Supported Zion Train as a dubstepper in my 20s. Met Fink outside a gig once. Lovely chap. Not very famous people tho. Once served and assisted John Cleese as a hotel receptionist once tho. I even showed him how to use email on his brand new MacBook back in the day.
Kawabata Makoto, Nick Reinhart, John Clardy, Posthuman and Luke Vibert. i’m sure there are others but my mind is mush… weirdly i was on acid every time, bar Kawabata.
Makoto is great - I’ve encountered him many times and he’s an actual hero.
Nice; I went to one of their front room gigs where Molara’s mum was cooking dinner in their house in Tottenham ; the cops showed up, ignored everyone toking away and just asked that the noise be kept down.
I ran into Lemmy at a Young Gods gig upstairs at the Astoria; I thanked him for telling people seig heiling at a Motörhead gig to stop doing so - he said “It’s not about the politics; it’s about the music”.
I tried sitting in on a game of Texas Hold’em with Steve Albini and other members of Shellac, but it was in their chalet at ATP where they hosted a game every night, so I was completely hammered by this point and could barely stay seated, let alone play cards coherently.
Oh man… I’ve met quite a few, some just fleetingly, some with actual conversations.
David Byrne (in a Portland sushi restaurant)
Autechre (@ Winter Music Conference circa 1997)
Rozz Williams (of Christian Death, R.I.P.)
Trent Reznor (music store in 1991)
Mark Broom (had lunch in NYC)
Billy Corgan (before Smashing Pumpkins, when he was in a goth mid-80’s band called The Marked)
Peter Hook (New Order afterparty)
Skinny Puppy (multiple times over the years)
Courtney Taylor-Taylor (pre-Dandy Warhols)
Legendary Pink Dots (crashed at my house once)
Boy Harsher (in line for the bathroom before a recent show in Orlando)
Amon Tobin (merch table)
John Famiglietti of HEALTH (merch table)
Bill Leeb and other Industrial luminaries
Gridlok, Dieselboy and other D&B producers
Tons of underground rock/punk/metal bands in the 90’s
…and, virtually, so many amazing musicians on this forum.
In 2013, I had the chance to hear Brian Ferneyhough’s 30 minute orchestral work “Firecycle Beta” at Märzmusik in Berlin, and to get an autograph from the master himself on a score I brought with me.
