Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

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Grey Owl
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Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#1 Post by Grey Owl »

Gidday All,
It's been raining cats & dogs down here; quite miserable really. :x
So unplanned, I've been inside the house bored & idly shuffling pc photo's into their correct folders/locations.
Came across some back-in-the-day pics which may be of interest to BfMers.
My wife & I were in New York visiting my eldest daughter when a special opportunity came up. :o
It was this guys 90th birthday party & my daughter got tickets from somewhere for us both.
It was the 26th August 2008 at the Iridium Club, 1650 Broadway - a full on party & open mic jam night with Les Paul!!! :shock:
Couldn't believe our luck....... :lol:
Les regularly played there each week.
Les' son Rusty (Les Jnr I think) was his minder & he sat next to my wife Judy and I for much of the evening festivities. He was an interesting guy - very modest & quiet.
After the gig finished, Les stayed and talked with everyone and then sat to sign autographs and have a personal chat with each guest.
Rusty said his Dad never went home, no matter how late in the morning, without spreaking to anyone and everyone who wanted to meet him.
Only a very special artist does that.
Anyway, here are our pics; it was a fabulous raucous & fun filled night for all. :mrgreen:
Cheers

Do you have something similar of guitar players, bands, friends etc?
Let's see them.
Attachments
The Iridium Club, 1650 Broadway, New York.jpg
Les Paul's son at the Iridium Club NY 036.jpg
Les Paul on stage Iridium Club 25.08.2008.jpg
Les Paul at the Iridium Club NY 027.jpg
Les Paul at the Iridium Club NY 020.jpg
Les Paul at the Iridium Club NY 007.jpg
Les Paul and David Weston chat at the Iridium Club NY 25.06.2008.jpg
Iridium Club  Door.jpg
Getting Les' autograph.jpg
David & Les - smile.jpg
Last edited by Grey Owl on Mon Aug 24, 2020 11:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in the same ratio!!

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Seth
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#2 Post by Seth »

That is too cool :thumbsup:
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Bryan Cox
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#3 Post by Bryan Cox »

Nothing as neat as this has ever happened to me for sure. But my coolest experience was when I was a young Airman stationed at F.E. Warren AFB, Wy. I had the privilege of having Brian Leneschmidt as a close friend, mentor, and band mate. He's now in Florida making blues records and living the musician's dream. Check him out: Brian Leneschmidt & Edge of Soul.

Brian used to take me to this hotel called The Hitching Post. A guy named Michael DeGreve played there almost every night of the week and we'd sit in with him on longer-than-life versions of "All Along the Watchtower." It wasn't until years later when Google became a thing and I looked Michael up that I realized who he was.

As an aside, I ran into Jeff Keith from Tesla also at the Hitching Post. And Charlie Daniels (RIP) came into the building when my deployment band was playing in Kyrgyzstan. He shook our hands and said, "you young'ns are pretty good." Totally unrelated, he had bear paws for hands. I've never felt so immasculated from a hand shake.
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Tom Smit
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#4 Post by Tom Smit »

The closest that I have ever been to anyone of any notoriety is being in the same room as Marcus Miller, Victor Wooten, Stanley Clarke, Steve Bailey (and a few other names that I missed). BPL NY.
TomS

Grey Owl
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#5 Post by Grey Owl »

Great responses Bryan & Tom.
Whats BPL please?
Chur
You have two ears and one mouth. Use them in the same ratio!!

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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#6 Post by Bruce Weldy »

A few years ago, a friend of mine invited me to have lunch with him, Doc Severinsen, and Gil Gutierrez. For those of you under 50 - Doc was the leader of the Tonight Show band for decades with Johnny Carson. Doc was/is one of the best trumpet players in the world. It was a lot of fun to talk with him as I was a trumpet player as a kid and still have my Getzen Severinsen model trumpet. I recently found out that is from 1963, the first year they were made and is the tenth one off the production line.

Anyway, Doc was gracious and was a great guy to meet. He was 84 at the time and that night he absolutely played his ass off. Could still hit the high notes.

Gil Gutierrez is someone you've probably never heard of, but he has played all over Mexico, South America, Spain, and even Carnegie Hall. Amazing nylon string guitarist playing Latin Jazz/Fusion, etc. Not only had lunch with him that day along with Doc, but spent more time with him a year later when they came back to town and he came over to a friend's house where we had dinner and then retired to the studio where I recorded him playing some songs by himself......the guy just flat does NOT make mistakes. After we finished one song, he told me that he's left a spot in it for me to play a solo as he knew I played.

Doc and Gil's band was called the San Miguel Five and was an absolutely amazing live performance. I saw them three times when they came to town.....all in the band are world-class players (Charlie Bisharat was on violin).

Over the years, I've opened for some decent sized acts starting with Tammy Wynette back in 1978, but didn't talk to her. I did get to spend some time talking to Cal Smith on his tour bus (he had a huge hit in the 70's with Country Bumpkin) I was 19-20 at the time and he was already a grandfather - but he was humble and very accommodating - talking to all of us in the band.

Also spent an hour or so on the tour bus with a 90s country star named Doug Stone. That was a trip.....the guy was huge in his heyday, and was now playing bars.....However his ego hadn't come down a bit....treated his band like they were his personal servants - when he finished a beer, he'd hold his can out and one of the guys would jump up, throw it in the trash for him and get him another one. He had heard me soundcheck the band I was with that night and he offered me a job on the spot to do a tour to Florida with him. Ha! a month on a tour bus with an eqo that big? Someone wouldn't have made it out alive... :mrgreen:

There was much, much more to that conversation......would have made a great case study for a psychology class about narcissistic behavior. Famous people can be just as screwed up as anyone else....maybe more so.

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Grey Owl
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#7 Post by Grey Owl »

Wow!!! That's about it.
You Just can't buy those type of Passes for love nor money.
Great reflections.
πŸ˜ŽπŸ˜ŽπŸ™‚πŸ™‚πŸ‘πŸ‘
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Bill Fitzmaurice
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#8 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

In High School I was friends with Steven Tyler, Joe Perry and Tom Hamilton, who played in other bands in the area. My mother owned the club where Aerosmith played their first gigs under that name. In the 90s my band was the house band for a local 500 seat club. We'd open for the headliners, then I'd run sound for them. These would have been mostly regional acts, but there were a few national acts. Working for three years at a major venue near me in the early 2000s I met just about everybody who was touring at that time. Nicest guys ever were John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, James Cotton and John Mayall. Winners of the Major Assholes award was The Outlaws.

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Tom Smit
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#9 Post by Tom Smit »

Grey Owl wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:42 am Great responses Bryan & Tom.
Whats BPL please?
Chur
BassPlayerLIve, sponsored by the magazine Bass Player. This particular one that I attended with my son was held in New York, and was the first time that Stanley Clark, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten publicly played as a band.
TomS

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Bryan Cox
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#10 Post by Bryan Cox »

Tom Smit wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 9:36 pm
Grey Owl wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:42 am Great responses Bryan & Tom.
Whats BPL please?
Chur
BassPlayerLIve, sponsored by the magazine Bass Player. This particular one that I attended with my son was held in New York, and was the first time that Stanley Clark, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten publicly played as a band.
I'd give my left...err.....nevermind...to meet Victor Wooten. That dude is a damn wizard. But I'd also have paid good money to meet Leon Wilkeson and many others. My favorite bass players are the ones who place the perfect notes in the perfect spots. So many to choose from. I think an unsung hero in this department is Robert DeLeo from the Stone Temple Pilots.
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Grey Owl
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#11 Post by Grey Owl »

:clap: Bill - that sounds like living the dream man.
You were witness to music history plus, your Mum owned a club! What a buzz.
Tom - that must have been seriously cool 😎😎
Bryan - something to plan for a live catchup in the future methinks.
We don't get many great individual musicians performing in their own shows down this way.
Generally major groups of repute passing through on their way to or from Oz.
Keep 'em coming folks. :clap:
Cheers πŸ˜ŽπŸ˜ŽπŸ˜ŽπŸ‘πŸ‘πŸ‘
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#12 Post by Seth »

So... not a personal experience... but I'll share for the sake of added reading material and entertainment for the group. The owners of the Body Glove brand of wetsuits for surfing and SCUBA diving and related products, twins, Bill and Bob Meistrell (pretty sure they invented the wetsuit, but not positive) were boaters in the area I grew up in. I was certified to SCUBA dive at their shop, Dive n Surf. Anyway, not important... My dad had some business with them at one point and they set up a meeting on their boat down in the harbor. When my dad got there and boarded their boat for the meeting Rod Stewart was there, just hanging out. Dad was pretty pleased to meet him.

Anyway, Bob's wife really liked my dad's music and singing. They used to come to all his shows and bought CD's if they were available. So, at least to her, my Dad's right up there with Rod Stewart in talent.

Kind of a cute story, I guess. The Meistrell's have since passed on. The company went to the kids (in their 50-60's) who sold it. But they kept the dive/surf shop and the boat. We see them over at Catalina Island every so often and always say hello... and they always reminisce a little about how much their mom loved my dads music.

Bob actually died over at Catalina about 7 years ago. Had a heart attack while doing some maintenance in the engine room of his boat.

Don't know how I got so far off track with this story... it was supposed to be about Rod Stewart. Oh well. Story told.
Build in process - 2 WH6, one Alpha 6a loaded, one PRV Audio 6MB250-NDY loaded

Two 2x6 shorty SLA Pro's
One T39, 16", 3012LF loaded
Tall AutoTuba, 20" wide, 2x 8" MCM 55-2421
TruckTuba, 8Β½" wide, 2x 8" MCM 55-2421

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Bill Fitzmaurice
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Re: Musicians, sound engineers, speaker guys etc. I have played with, met, heard in concert etc. etc.

#13 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

Grey Owl wrote: ↑Wed Aug 26, 2020 11:18 pm Bill - that sounds like living the dream man.
You were witness to music history plus
That's the tip of the iceberg. When on the road in a touring band I met many famous people, including most of the players in the NFL at that time, as we often stayed in the same hotel as the visiting team in town. All of the Monday Night Football crew. Howard Cosell was a complete asshole, Don Meredith was a riot, and Frank Gifford was an air head. I was offered, and turned down, jobs by Henry Kloss and Paul Klipsch. I was offered a job in the Nixon White House, which I also was sensible enough to pass on. This all happened before I turned 25.

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#14 Post by Rich4349 »

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: ↑Fri Aug 28, 2020 1:45 pm ... I was offered a job in the Nixon White House, which I also was sensible enough to pass on...
ALSO as a recording engineer?
:shock:
:lol:
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Bill Fitzmaurice
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#15 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

Not exactly. If I had been I'd have known enough to erase a lot more than 18 1/2 minutes.

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