9 May 2017 – Robert Miles was born Roberto Concina on 3 November 1969 in Fleurier Switzerland to an Italian military family stationed there. He did not return to Italian soil until the age of ten, settling in the town of Fagagna. Raised primarily on the classic American soul sound of the 1970s, Miles began studying piano as a teen, and at 13 began DJ’ing local house parties. By the late ’80s he was regularly spinning hardcore trance sets at Venice area clubs under the name Robert Milani, eventually adopting the name Miles as symbolic of the musical journey awaiting him. In time, he assembled a basic studio system comprising a sampler, mixer, keyboard, and 32-track digital board, accepting production work with the Italian label Metromaxx.
In 1990, he used his savings to establish his own recording studio and a pirate radio station. Continue reading Robert Miles 5/2017
Tag: 47
Scott Weiland 12/2015
Scott Weiland was born Scott Richard Kline on October 27, 1967 in San José, California. At age 5 he became Weiland when his stepfather adopted him. Moving between Ohio and SoCal in the first 15 years of his life he emerged from the San Diego area as Mighty Joe Young. Weiland’s band landed a contract with Atlantic Records, changed its name to Stone Temple Pilots and cashed in on the burgeoning grunge scene. They took the name Stone Temple Pilots due to their fondness of the initials “STP”.
Adam Yauch 5/2012
May 4, 2012 – Adam Yauch aka MCA (Beastie Boys) was born in Brooklyn New York on August 5th 1964. While in high school, he taught himself to play the bass guitar and formed the Beastie Boys with John Berry, Michael Diamond and Kate Schellenbach.
They played their first show, then still a hardcore punk band on his 17th birthday. At age 22, he and the Beastie Boys, had turned into a hip hop trio and were touring with Madonna in 1985. A year later they released their debut album Licensed to Ill, which was followed by 7 other albums, the last being their 2011 album Hot Sauce Committee Part Two.
Under the pseudonym “Nathanial Hörnblowér“, Adam directed many of the Beastie Boys’ music videos and in 2002, he built a recording studio in New York City called Oscilloscope Laboratories. He also began an independent film distributing company called Oscilloscope Pictures. Yauch directed the 2006 Beastie Boys concert film, Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!, although in the DVD extras for the film, the title character in “A Day in the Life of Nathanial Hörnblowér” is played by David Cross.
He also directed the 2008 film Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot about eight high school basketball prospects at the Boost Mobile Elite 24 Hoops Classic at Rucker Park in Harlem, New York City. Yauch produced Build a Nation, the comeback album from hardcore/punk band Bad Brains. In addition, Oscilloscope Laboratories also distributed Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy (2008) and Oren Moverman’s The Messenger (2009).
2009 was the year that he was diagnosed with a lymph node cancer.
By 2010 The Beastie Boys had sold 40 million records worldwide and in 2011, Yauch received the Charles Flint Kellogg Award in Arts and Letters from Bard College, the college he attended for two years. The award was “given in recognition of a significant contribution to the American artistic or literary heritage.”.
In April 2012, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Yauch was inducted in absentia due to his illness. His bandmates paid tribute to Yauch; a letter from Yauch was read to the crowd.
As a Buddhist, he was involved in the Tibetan independence movement and organized the Tibetan Freedom Concerts in the mid 1990s.
Adam died battling cancer on May 4, 2012. He was 47.
“There is a lot of misconception in all layers of society about what actually brings happiness. We’re caught up in all these promoted ideas that having a lot of money or having somebody beautiful to have sex with or owning some cool objects -a cool car, a cool stereo – a Gibson Les Paul 1957 – a cool house in a cool neighborhood or whatever……… is going to make us happy. All that actually does not bring us happiness. Compassion, empathy, altruism, sharing brings happiness. Those are values that make us smile when practiced.”
Howie Epstein 2/2003
February 23, 2003 – Howie Epstein (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers) was born July 21st 1955 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His father, Sam, was a top local record producer who worked with various rock and roll and soul groups in the 1950s and ’60s. Howie often visited the music studios, watching his father work and occasionally making recordings under his dad’s watchful eye at a very young age. “I would go into the bars with my father to check out the bands he was thinking of working with,” Epstein recalls, “and a couple of times he let me use groups he was working with as back-up musicians for stuff I’d record.”
Jerome Smith 7/2000
July 28, 2000 – Jerome Smith was born on June 18th 1953 in Miami, Florida.
As a session guitarist for Miami based TK Records, Smith’s suave guitar sound first became noticed to disco fans and musicians, when he played the signature riff on George McRae’s hit song ”Rock Your Baby.’‘
In 1974 he was invited by the production team of Harry Wayne Casey (also known as K. C.) and Richard Finch to join the Sunshine Band, together with Casey, bass player Richard Finch, drummer Robert Johnson and conga player Fermin Goytisolo.
His guitar, which was altered in the studio to sound like a synthesizer, provided the hook for ”Get Down Tonight,” the band’s breakthrough No. 1 hit.
Rory Gallagher 6/1995
June 14, 1995 – William Rory Gallagher was an Irish blues-rock multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and bandleader. Born in Ballyshannon, County Donegal on March 2, 1948 and raised in Cork. His father was employed constructing a hydro electric power plant on the nearby Erne river.
Gallagher recorded solo albums throughout the 1970s and 1980s, after forming the band Taste during the late 1960s. He was a phenomenally talented guitarist known for his charismatic performances and dedication to his craft. Gallagher’s albums have sold in excess of 30 million copies worldwide. Gallagher received a liver transplant in 1995, but died of complications later that year in London, UK at the age of 47. Continue reading Rory Gallagher 6/1995
Michael Clarke 12/1993
December 19, 1993 – Michael Clarke was born Michael James Dick in Spokane Washington on June 3, 1946. His father was an artist and his mother was a musician. Clarke ran away from home when he was 17 years old and hitchiked to California to become a musician. In legend, Clarke was said to have been discovered by Byrds’ founder David Crosby while playing bongos on a beach. Reality is that he was discovered by singer-songwriter Ivan Ulz, in North Beach, San Francisco, who introduced him to group members who would become The Byrds in 1964.
Clarke was not an accomplished musician prior to joining The Byrds and his only previous musical knowledge was rudimentary piano lessons he received in his youth. He had never played drums and, after joining The Byrds, not having a drum set, practiced on a makeshift kit of cardboard boxes and a tambourine, but he did have real drumsticks. According to Roger McGuinn, Clarke was hired by McGuinn and Gene Clark (no relation) for his resemblance to Rolling Stones’ guitarist Brian Jones. Actually he had Brian Jones’ hair and facial features and Mick Jagger lips)
Clark was the least talented of the five members that were on the Byrds’ 1965-1967 5 album recordings, as unlike the others, he did almost no songwriting. His drumming was basic and, for the most part, appropriate for the Byrds’ needs, although he was sometimes replaced by sessionmen. Still, he fit in well with the band visually, and proved that his drum skills were not marginal via subsequent hitches in the Flying Burrito Brothers and Firefall, along with session work for several of the ex-Byrds’ solo projects.
Like all of the Byrds, he had little experience playing electric rock & roll music when the band, at that time called the Jet Set, formed in 1964. At least the other four members had a good deal of professional experience as acoustic folk musicians; Clarke didn’t even have that.
Clarke’s strength as a drummer however should be illustrated by his jazz-oriented playing on The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High”, on the Fifth Dimension album. It has sometimes been written that session musicians played much of the music on the Byrds’ early recordings, but with the exception of the “Mr. Tambourine Man” single (on which McGuinn was the only one to play an instrument), research has indicated that the group did in fact play their own instruments in the studio. Suspicion has been directed at Michael Clarke as the least talented of the Byrds’ musicians, but even numerous bootleg tapes have his voice coming in loud and clear with comments and responses as the Byrds work out arrangements. The best of his drum work is certainly contained on “Eight Miles High,” where he pushes the band with a relentless, jazz-like verve, especially during the guitar solo.
In August 1967, during the recording sessions for The Notorious Byrd Brothers album, Clarke walked out of The Byrds and was temporarily replaced by session drummers Jim Gordon and Hal Blaine. Clarke had become dissatisfied with his role in the band and didn’t particularly like the new material that the songwriting members of the band were providing. However, Clarke continued to honor his live concert commitments with the band, appearing with them at a handful of shows during late August and early September 1967. Clarke returned from his self-imposed exile in time to contribute drums to the song “Artificial Energy” in early December 1967, but was subsequently fired from the band by McGuinn and bass player Chris Hillman once The Notorious Byrd Brothers album was completed.
After a year hiatus with a trip to Hawaii, he was back in the studio for a stint with Dillard and Clarke, followed by several years with the Flying Burrito Brothers after their first album, a reunion album with the Byrds, a numbers of years with softrockers in Firefall. In the early 80s he joined Jerry Jeff Walker. After that time he joined ex-Byrds singer Gene Clark for a series of controversial shows billed “A 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Byrds.” Many clubs simply shortened the billing to “the Byrds,” and the pair soon found themselves involved in acrimonious court battles with Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, and Chris Hillman over usage of the group’s name. The Byrds set aside their differences long enough to appear together at their induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in January of 1991, where the original lineup played a few songs together.
Michael continued to tour with a group called “Byrds Celebration”, but his health declined as his drinking accelerated.
He died from liver failure due to more than three decades of heavy alcohol consumption on Dec 19, 1993 at the age of 47.
Alex Harvey 2/1982
February 4, 1982 – Alexander James “Alex” Harvey was born February 5th 1935 in Glasgow, Scotland. By his own account, he worked in a number of jobs, from carpentry to waiting tables at a restaurant to carving tombstones, before finding success in music. He first began performing in skiffle groups in 1954. On Friday, 20 May 1960, at the Town Hall, Alloa, Clackmannanshire, Scotland, Alex Harvey and his Big Beat Band opened for Johnny Gentle and His Group, “His Group” being the Beatles (John, Paul, George, Stuart Sutcliffe and Tommy Moore), on this the opening night – and biggest audience – of the Beatles’ seven-date tour of Scotland with Gentle.
His musical roots were in Dixieland jazz and skiffle music, which enjoyed considerable popularity in Britain during the late 1950s. From 1958 until 1965, he was the leader of Alex Harvey’s Big Soul Band, playing blues and rock and roll songs and spending considerable time touring in the United Kingdom and Germany. He also won a competition, that sought “Scotland’s answer to Tommy Steele”. Harvey became strongly identified with British rhythm and blues music, although he was equally able to play rock songs. He briefly tried a solo approach but when that didn’t work out he became a member of the pit band in the London stage production of the musical Hair recording the live LP ‘Hair Rave Up’ in 1966, which contained Harvey originals and other songs not from the stage show. In 1970, Harvey formed Rock Workshop with Ray Russell; their first, self-titled album contained an early version of “Hole in Her Stocking”, later to appear on Framed. Harvey remained with Hair for five years.
Harvey was also instrumental in the formation of the band Stone the Crows by introducing his younger brother, Leslie “Les” Harvey, to singer Maggie Bell. Also in Stone the Crows was bassist James Dewar, later of Robin Trower fame. Les Harvey was electrocuted in a freak stage accident while performing with the band in 1972.
In 1972, Alex formed the Sensational Alex Harvey Band with guitarist Zal Cleminson, bassist Chris Glen, and cousins Ted and Hugh McKenna on drums and keyboards respectively, all previous members of progressive rock act “Tear Gas”. He built a strong reputation as a live performer during the 1970s glam rock era.
The band was renowned for its eclecticism and energetic live performance, Alex for his charismatic persona and daredevil stage antics. The band had hits with “Delilah” in 1975, and “The Boston Tea Party” in 1976. Alex left the band later that year.
Harvey re-joined the group for 1978’s Rock Drill, but they disbanded shortly afterwards.
Alex Harvey was no punk-rocker, having first broken in during Britain’s skiffle rage in the ’50s (as “The Tommy Steele of Scotland”) and then living on the fringes of the British blues scene during the early part of the following decade. Alex Harvey c. 1975 But when he finally found his moment and grabbed on tight for the ride, it was with the Sensational Alex Harvey Band in the early ’70s, a glam-rock outfit contemporary with Slade and Mott the Hoople. As part of his stage act, Harvey brandished a can of spray paint and used it liberally; the set list included covers of songs by the Coasters and Tom Jones, along with something called “There’s No Lights on the Christmas Tree, Mother; They’re Burning Big Louie Tonight” (references to a version of which may be found in the classic rock’n’roll movie from 1956, The Girl Can’t Help It). Where do you put a guy like this, except in the proximity of the New York Dolls? By the time punk- rock had arrived Harvey was past forty and suffering health problems related to drugs and other hazards of the rock-star lifestyle.
On 4 February 1982, a day short of his 47th birthday, Harvey suffered a massive heart attack while waiting to take a Northsea ferry from Zeebrugge, Belgium, back to England after performing a Belgian gig with his new band, the Electric Cowboys. He suffered a fatal second attack in an ambulance on the way to hospital.
Edith Piaf 10/1963
October 11, 1963 – Édith Piaf born Edith Giovanni Gassion on Dec 19, 1915 became a legendary French singer and actress; one of the most popular French singers of the 1940s and ’50s, famous internationally for her husky, mournful voice and her songs of loneliness and despair.
At aged 14, she joined her father in his acrobatic street performances all over France, where she first sang in public, before going it alone as a street singer at the age of 16.
In 1935 she was discovered in the Pigalle area of Paris by nightclub owner Louis Leplée, whose club Le Gerny off the Champs-Élysées was frequented by the upper and lower classes alike. Louis taught her stage presense and nicknamed her La Môme Piaf …The Waif Sparrow or Little Sparrow as she was only 4ft 8in tall. Continue reading Edith Piaf 10/1963
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