Rick’s Musical Ramblings Of Facts
Not Known To The Average Music Fan
By Rick Van Vliet
Let’s do an alphabetical approach.
A. The original singer for AC/DC was a guy named Dale Evans. You can find him on YouTube singing, “Can I sit next to you girl?” He wasn’t bad but, Didn’t have the grit that Bonn Scott did. Scott was the limo driver for AC/DC before taking center stage.
B. “She came in through the bathroom window..” was inspired by a real event. A woman put a ladder up to the Beatles Paul McCartney’s bathroom and entered his home. She stole a picture of Paul’s father, some of Paul’s clothes and pictures taken by Linda Eastman (later to be Linda McCartney)
C. Writing songs, songs that will go down to be classics is hard. If not, we’d all do it. Chicago’s biggest hit is 25-or 6 to 4. Few understand what that song is about. It’s about having writer's block! Think about the lyrics……
”Searching for the break of day
Searching for something to say
Dancing lights against the sky
Giving up, I close my eyes”
And if you’ve found yourself back in the day sitting cross legged on the floor looking at a non digital clock in the predawn hours wondering if it said 3:35 or 3:36? Or to say in another way, 25 or 6 to 4, you’d understand how the writer felt.
D. Jim Morrison of The Doors suffered from stage fright. In the beginning of singing for the Doors Morrison would alternate closing his eyes and turning his back to the audience to cope with his affliction. He later conquered this with drugs and alcohol.
F. Peter Frampton and David Bowie went to grade school together. They both attended the Bromley Technical School. Frampton also credits Bowie with giving him his credibility back after inviting him to play guitar on Bowie’s Glass Spiders tour.
G. Randy Bachman of The Guess Who tells a story about where he got a title for one of his songs. Quoting an article from his Wikipedia page. “He was walking down the street with a stack of records under his arm, when he saw three "tough-looking biker guys" approaching. He felt threatened and was looking for a way to cross the street onto the other sidewalk when a little car pulled up to the men. A woman about 5 feet (150 cm) tall got out of the car, shouting at one of them, asking where he'd been all day, that he had left her alone with the kids, didn't take out the trash, and was down here watching the girls. The man was suddenly alone when his buddies walked away. Chastened, he got in the car as the woman told him before pulling away: "And one more thing, you ain't getting no sugar tonight". The words stuck in Bachman's memory.”
H. The Band Heart received inspiration from an unusually rude person for arguably their biggest hit. A music promoter asked Nancy Wilson how her lover was. She Replied, “Mike’s fine.” The promoter countered, “No! I mean your sister! Haha!”
The Wilson sisters were bothered by the insinuation that they were lesbians incestuously. Ann that night wrote Barracuda to deal with the anger she felt. People think the riff was a Led Zeppelin rip off. It wasn’t. But, it was a rip off admitted by Heart. Their guitarist Roger Fisher liked the riff from a Nazareth song “This Flight Tonight” and used that as a base for Barracuda. Listen to that on YouTube and you can see for yourself.
I. Dave Ingel wrote the lyrics to a song. He sang them for his drummer who was writing down the lyrics as he sang them. Ingel was very drunk and instead of “In the garden of Eden” the drummer heard it as- “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” so it just stuck that way becoming Iron Butterfly’s biggest hit.
J. The Golden Gate Rhythm Section started out after the band that backed Carlos Santana for the Santana III and Caravanserai albums disbanded. Members Neal Schon (guitarist) and Greg Rolie (vocalist and keyboards) form the Golden Gate Rhythm Section and the group changed their name to Journey after filling out their lineup. They later added singer Steve Perry and forged a career that ended with induction into the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.
K. Many people know the song but, few know what is about. When the Kinks released (L.O.L.A) Lola it was banned in the Uk. Why? The song told from the singers point of view recalls one night on the town as a young man that went wrong. Lola had a dark brown voice, She picked him up and sat him on her knee, she squeezed him so tight she nearly broke his spine/she walked like a woman but, talked like a man. Get it? Lola was a drag queen and the young man didn’t know it and almost fell for his Lola
L. A local band called “One Percent” was playing a club one night in front of a full house of people from the area. Most had gone to the same school and had run-ins with the local high school teacher Leonard Skinner. The band yelled to the crowd that they were Leonard Skinner and the crowd yelled back a positive response! Skinner was known to have hassled students for having long hair making their lives particularly rough. They “southernized” the name and they became Lynyrd Skynyrd.
M. The band Molly Hatchet got its name from a prostitute who allegedly mutilated and decapitated her clients. Who knew?
N. Enter Dave Grohl, after the Disbandment of Nirvana, he wrote all the lyrics, all the music and played every instrument himself on the Foo Fighters self titled debut album. After Nirvana frontman Curt Cobain’s suicide Grohl was lost musically. If he sat behind a drum kit it reminded him of Nirvana and the painful way the band ended. He was asked to drum for Danzig and also Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers which declined to do. He filled in for a few sessions on other people’s tracks as favors and wanted “some sort of cathartic therapy.” to get him back into the music scene again. He recorded the whole album in just 6 days, thus “The Foo Fighters” were born. Also…..the name Foo Fighters comes from what WWII pilots called what we today refer to as UFO’s.
O. Ozzy Osbourne is not his given name. His birth name is John Michael Osbourne. The name Ozzy came from elementary school kids calling him Ozzy to tease him but he liked the name so it stuck. Also, some of Ozzy’s songs are dedications. “Mama I’m Coming Home” is for his 2nd wife Sharon, “Suicide Solution” is dedicated to former AC/DC frontman Bonn Scott and “Goodbye to Romance” is dedicated to his former band Black Sabbath.
P. Former Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett was a very talented musician and songwriter in the very early days of Pink Floyd. He also loved drugs to an excess. Once Syd had gone missing for a few days, upon his return they said the light in his eyes had just gone out. He had taken too much LSD and it fried his mind. He was never the same and his band mates were forced to hire David Gilmore to play along with and eventually replace Syd. In Syd’s later life he would wake up and paint a painting all day only to burn it that night. To have one of those paintings would be cool to any collector.
Q. The film Bohemian Rhapsody took creative liberty with the Live Aid show done by Queen. In the Movie, Freddy finds out and tells his band mates that he was HIV positive then they kick ass and do the show. This is false! The show was in 1985 and Freddy was diagnosed in 1987. So, while he may have already been infected, he or the band didn’t know.
R. Red Hot Chilli Peppers bass player Michael Peter Balzary better known as Flea has extensive acting credits in movies to his name. He has been in well over 30 movies either as an actor or voice over work. Some of his biggest movies were Back to the Future 2 and 3, The Big Lebowski, Babylon, Toy Story 4, Inside Out, and Baby Driver to name just a few.
S. The song “Come on Feel the Noise” is obviously associated with Quiet Riot but it's a remake from the band Slade. Slade recorded it in 1973 and Quiet Riot in 1983. The Slade version is worth a download.
Quiet Riot knew a good formula when they saw it. They also re-recorded “Mama we’re all Crazy Now” for their next album which was a Slade original from 1972. Slade was not a success in the US market but they were huge in the UK.
T. T Rex aka Marc Bolan and David Bowie were viewed in the glam days of British rock as musical rivals. Bolan made it big first while Bowie, comparatively, struggled to find his niche. They were both led by publicist Keith Altham.
Altham said their relationship was that of rival brothers, both pulling for one another. A 1973 interview of Bolan by a then 16 year old Camron Crowe tells a different tale. Bolan compared Bowie to Donnie Osmond saying, “I don’t consider David to be even remotely near big enough to give me any competition. At the time the feud story hit England, my records were number one, and they stayed number one while David’s never came near '' Bolan continued, “I don’t think that David has anywhere near the charisma or balls that I have. Or Alice has. Or Donny Osmond has got. He’s not gonna make it, in any sort of way!” Having said all that, Bowie later found success with his Ziggy Stardust incarnation and rocketed up the charts and with the critics. In 1977 Bolan called a truce to the feud and invited Bowie to perform on his new TV show called “Marc” Bowie did the song “Heroes' ' and performed the show's closing song with Bolan called “Sleeping Next to You”. With the Hatchet buried they both started work on a song called “Madman”. It was never released because just 9 days after performing the Marc show together Bolan was killed in a car crash. Bowie, Rod Stewart, Tony Visconti among others were mourners at Boland's funeral. Marc Boland’s son Roland was just a toddler at the time of his fathers passing. Bowie invested in a fund to help Roland and his mother Gloria while Marc Bolan’s assets were frozen.
U. Matthew Shafer aka Uncle Kracker got his start as a Turntablist for Kid Rock. His brother and Kid were in a turntablist competition in Clawson Michigan. Uncle Kracker broke out on his own with a redneck rock titled album “Double Wide ''. His biggest hit on this album was “Drift Away'' a song recorded by Dobie Gray in 1973. Uncle Kracker updated the song and in a touch of class had Dobie Gray sing on the re-recording as a guest singer. Uncle Kracker has had other hits that charted such as “Smile” and “Good to be Me” which features his friend that gave him his start, Kid Rock.
V. Gene Simmons thought the world of a raw unsigned band he heard one time at a club that blew him away with its potential. The band, formerly called Mammoth, was now known as Van Halen. The guitarist would play mind bending strings and turn his back to the crowd so they couldn’t get a jump on how he did it. He wanted so badly to sign them under the Kiss umbrella. At the time Kiss was run as a democracy of the 4 members and their manager Bill Aucoin. Aucoin and Stanly were not impressed and Frehley and Criss were just not interested, they were busy being the most obnoxious rock stars they could be at that time. Simmons still paid for Van Halen to do a recording session at Jimi Hendrix Electric LadyLand studios in NYC. A lost Van Halen track for VH enthusiasts is from these sessions. It’s called “House of Pain '' it's a hard driving song that needed a little production and would have been a hit. As Gene said of the song, “The version of House Of Pain they recorded with me is the most powerful thing they ever did. It erupts from zero to 60mph in a second. Play it loud; it’s like a steamroller over your face and the band performed it completely live in the studio.” Warner Bros. Signed Van Halen very shortly after and the rest is history. But, Gene Simmons is credited in the liner notes of people to thank on their debut album Van Halen.
W. Stevie Hardaway Morris is not a name familiar to most of us but, as a blind 11 year old signed to Motown he stood out. Ronnie White heard an 11 year old Stevie playing harmonica and singing. His response became this talented boy's name. The boy became Little Stevie Wonder…. White said, “Boy! That kid is a wonder!” The name stuck!
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X. I’m using an out here, what is the Roman numeral for X? It’s 10. So here I insert 10cc. In their big hit, “I’m not in love” the songwriter/ keyboardist Eric Stewart was 18 and his girlfriend Gloria was 16. A few year later they got married and 3 years after that she said, “You don’t say, I love you, much anymore.” The singer was in love with her but, was more then in love with her then it sounded like in words… so, I’m not in love (because that wasn’t enough word wise) became the title of the song he was writing. This was so important to his heart and how he wanted to display and articulate how he truly felt about his wife. It had to be right! They made several attempts but the words and feel were not quite right. Upon more tinkering they were adjusting the lyrics from a middle section that went: “Don’t feel let down. Don’t get hung up. We do what we can – do what we must.” That wasn’t cutting it and they felt discouraged. They were about to scrap the song all together but songwriter Eric Stewart walked around the studio and heard his secretary Kathy signing it and the window cleaner humming it. So, he knew he had a tune that would work but needed more voices. He thought about a choir but worked with what he had. Overdub voices and to top it off, the voice of his reluctant secretary Kathy doing the voice of, “Big boys don’t cry...Big boys don’t cry.” After they were done they thought, “What the Hell have we done?” It was 6 minutes and 12 seconds. Not single size at all. They listened to it back in playback and stood by their work. Upon its initial release it went to number 29 in the UK and the record company asked the band to cut it down to single (3:15) size. Stewart responded with the following,”Would you ask Mozart to chop Symphony No 4?” Good for him! 3 weeks later it was number 1 around the world. The song was recorded in 1975 and 51 years later Stewart has said,” I love you.” To his wife Gloria every day since.
Y. Without Neil Young there would be no “Sweet Home Alabama “. Neil Young wrote the song “Southern Man” as a way of opening eyes to racial inequality in the south. Lyrics include:
“I saw cotton and i saw black
Big white mansion and little shacks-
Southern man when you pay them back?
I heard screaming and Bullwhips cracking-
How long? How long?
How long?”
Well obviously this didn’t sit well with all southerners. Lynyrd Skynyrd chose to write a response song. Thus “Sweet Home Alabama “ was born. It was a rebuttal to Neil Young and everyone that has a narrow view of the south. They even included a section in the song all to itself: “ Well, I heard Mr. Young sing about her
Well, I heard old' Neil put her down
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
A Southern man don't need him around, anyhow.
There are lots of stories on the web about a feud between Ronnie Van Zant of Skynyrd and Neil Young. Truth is Neil Young loved Sweet Home Alabama and both artists had tons of respect for each other. There are many pictures of Neil Young performing in Lynyrd Skynyrd T shirts and Ronnie Van Zant singing on stage with A Neil Young T Shirt on. Van Zant is even wearing a Neil Young T shirt on the cover of their album Street Survivors.
Z. Where did the name Led Zeppelin come from? Jimmy Page had formed a new Band after the breakup of The Yardbirds. They included Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. They were first Known as The New Yardbirds. According to legend Keith Moon said that they would go over like a Lead Zeppelin. They changed lead to Led so people wouldn’t pronounce it “Leed”
