Meeting Famous Musicians and Musical Heroes

[Mr. Shankly]

I'm curious, Who has met a famous musician in real life? This could be one of your heroes or just a random encounter with a famous or semi-famous musician or group.

I'll start:

1. Sometime in the mid 90's, I met Peter Buck and Mike Mills of R.E.M. outside a Radiohead concert in Seattle, WA. Anyways, I was on what would later turn out to be a terrible first date, but the two good things that came out of it were seeing Radiohead on the Bends tour (awesome!) and meeting two of my heroes. Also, pearljammer13 will appreciate that Peter Buck was talking to Mike McCready at the time, but will probably not appreciate that I completely snubbed Mike McCready to talk to Mike and Peter. The date I was with encouraged me to go up and talk to them, so we chatted with Mike Mill for a while, who's a very friendly guy. I asked him about the album they were in town working on (New Adventures in Hi-Fi), and asked him if it was going to be like Monster to which Mills quipped: "I'm not going to tell you that!" Anyways, I rudely interrupted Peter and Mike M, and shook Peter's hand and told him how much his music and guitar playing meant to be, gushing like a fanboy. Later, we went to the Crocodile where all members of R.E.M. were hanging out, and I somehow snuck in to see Archers of Loaf. Michael Stipe was in the back of the room wearing a bright orange backpack. I didn't talk to him. As for the date, another guy successfully hit on the girl I was with, and I left without her.

2. Sometime in the later 90's, I met Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore at Bumbershoot in Seattle. They had been watching Roy Harper play. Steve Malkmus was there too, but he was making himself kind of unapproachable. I went up and said hi to Thurston and Kim and I shook Thurston's hand. He was really friendly.

3. In the early 2000's, I worked at a museum with a rock music theme. Public Enemy was playing at the museum that night as part of an anniversary concert. A different band or artist was chosen to represent each decade of rock, and PE was chosen for the 90's. While working a busy shift, I got to listen to a live Public Enemy sound check. Anyways, later on, I ran into Flava Flav in the basement hallway. I told him I thought the sound check sounded good to which he replied, "Man! I had fun, but I didn't have nearly as much fun as I had at the Joan Jett concert last night."

4. I used to write for my college newspaper, and during that time, I interviewed Harvey Danger, Death Cab for Cutie (a little indie band at the time who showed promise), and Doug Martsch lead singer-songwriter of Built to Spill on the phone. Death Cab are really nice guys and so is Doug Martsch, although he doesn't like to talk about himself.

5. Later when I went back to teaching school, and spent a year doing college radio, I got to interview and hang out with The Posies and Lou Barlow (Sebadoh, Dinosaur Jr). I think he actually told me that Dinosaur Jr was getting back together before it was announced to the world! He seemed kind of down on his luck at the time though.

How about you? Who have you met? Share your stories.

[Polythene Pam]

Dam I hope I end up that lucky

Few years back I danced on stage with The Dresden dolls which was pretty incredible

That's it though

On a semi related note

Also had lunch with James Cameron , what a douchebag he is, the whole time he just went on about how amazing Avatar was, when he asked me what I thought of it I told him Terminator 2 was better. That did not go down well...

[Mr. Shankly]

[Polythene Pam]

[Guest]

[Polythene Pam]

[GARY]

[Polythene Pam]

Yes it is, did he direct that?

[GARY]

[Mr. Shankly]