Die Another Day: Interesting Music Stories Part III

It's time, whether you are ready or not, for another dip into some interesting stories from the world of music. Some are strange, some are amusing, some are weird - but hopefully all of them are at least a little bit interesting. In case you missed them - you can always read Part I and Part II first.

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When Is A Funeral Not A Funeral?

Answer: When you attend it yourself.

Yes, around 50 years before his ultimate death, legendary musician, arranger, tv mogul and producer, Quincy Jones found himself attending his own memorial service.

Photo: Getty Images

In 1974, he suffered two major brain aneurysms. After the first has been discovered, doctors performed brain surgery to try and save him, giving him a one percent chance of survival. It was during the eight hour ordeal of this first surgery, that they discovered the second aneurysm. Jones would later recall, "It was scary. Like somebody blew my brains out. The main artery to your brain explodes, you know."

On hearing the prognosis from the first operation and realising that the end was almost certainly nigh, many of his friends from the world of entertainment, including Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye and Richard Pryor, started to make preparations for a memorial service to celebrate his life.

The thing was, he survived that first operation, but knowing he needed to go back in for surgery on the second aneurysm, he decided to attend his own memorial service (the doctors told him not to get excited). It was held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, with the great and good of the day all performing (Charles, Gaye, Sarah Vaughan and many more), but his position was precarious enough that his neurologist sat through the event with him.  In 2018, he wrote, "I basically attended my own funeral… It was special to see so many people celebrate what would've been my 41 years of life."

It's just as well he did make it through that, as we might not have had Michael Jackson's seminal work, Thriller, or the USA for Africa charity single, We Are The World (as it was his presence that persuaded so many of the musical greats to join in). As it is, he lasted 50 more years, finally passing on 3 November 2024.

Quincy Jones: Ai No Corrida (Music video)

He also narrowly avoided death in 1969, when he decided to skip a party being held at actress Sharon Tate's house. That was the night that she and four others were murdered by the Manson clan….

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Pre-Teenage Kicks:

In 1982 Evanston (Chicago) a group of punks, many not even teenagers yet, formed a band that had quite an impact on the future of rock music, although nobody would realise that for a few more years to come.

The group was Verböten and consisted of four kids aged from 11-15; Tracy Bedford (vocals), Jason Narducy (guitar), Chris Kean (bass) and Zack Kantor (drums). They only lasted a year or so, but in that time, they managed to get a slot on the NBC Saturday morning show, Kidding Around - and influence one of the biggest names in 90's rock music....

Verboten: My Opinion (Live appearance on Kidding Around, 1983)

When Chicago playwright and screenwriter, Brett Neveu, watched the Sonic Highways documentary about the Foo Fighters, he realised that the band lead singer Dave Grohl was describing as having had such a formative influence on his decision to become a rock musician, was in fact something to do with Narducy, who happened to be his neighbour in Evanston (and have kids at the same school). It turns out that Grohl was in fact Bedford's cousin, and had seen the band perform back in the early 80's at The Cubby Bear, a legendary bar near Wrigley Field. When he saw Narducy playing, Grohl said, "[that] was the first time I ever thought, 'If that kid right there does it, then I can do it too'."

Neveu had always wanted to do a rock musical, and loved Narducy's work (he was the only one of Verböten to go onto be a professional musician) - and so, putting the two things together, he created Verböten: A Story About How Punk Saves Lives, for which Narducy wrote the songs, and was performed at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago in 2020.

What's more, in 2024, 41 years after they had split, the band really did get back together and put out the record they never managed in those teen / pre-teen days. Narducy and Bedford reunited with original bandmate Chris Kean, and stand in drummer John Carroll (playing with Kantor's blessing, who decided not to be involved this time around). It was one of Bedford's friends who had suggested this crazy notion, but Kean and Narducy were soon onboard with the concept.

They didn't think any of the material they had from back in 1983 would be good enough, so Narducy went away and wrote some new tunes. The twelve track self-titled result came out in October 2024. New Noise called it "fun, relevant punk record steeped in nostalgia that deserves a follow-up". They even rounded it all of with a slot at the prestigious Chicago festival Riot Fest last year.

Verboten: Kicking Away (Official music video)

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International Band of Mystery:

Do you remember Ming Tea? They were something of a cross-entertainment supergroup, but you would be excused if you could not place them straight away....

Mike Myers was at the end of his tenure on Saturday Night Live when he came up with the idea for this band, giving all of the members a fake '60's persona and pseudonym. Joining him for this endeavour were Bangles singer Susanna Hoffs, respected alt-rock singer Matthew Sweet, Stuart Johnson and Canadian video jockey Christopher Ward. Myers, for the purposes of this group, called himself Austin Powers (ringing any bells yet?).

Band line-up: Trevor Aigburth (Ward), Gillian Shagwell (Hoffs), Sid Belvedere (Sweet), Manny Stixman (Johnson)

Once the group was up and running, Myers then wife Robin Ruzan persuaded him to write a film based on his fictional persona. Out of that came Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery, which in something of a perfect circle, was directed by Jay Roach, Hoffs husband (and who would end up working on all three movies). The band name comes from the obscure Italian film The 10th Victim, featuring Ursula Andress, which includes a a fictional organisation called the Ming Tea Company.

Ming Tea had a song they wrote, BBC, which was used in the films end credits, which came out in 1997. They then appeared in 'psychedelic scene breaks' in the sequel, The Spy Who Shagged Me. The song Daddy Wasn't There appeared in the last sequel, 2002's Goldmember.

Ming Tea: BBC (Official music video)

Sweet and Hoffs would continue to collaborate after the film franchise ended (in their own names), recording three albums of covers from the 60's. 70's and 80's, called Under The Covers Vol.1 - 3. During this period, Sweet and Hoffs would sometimes use the pseudonyms Sid and Susie, with Mike / Austin joining them once in a while at gigs for a rendition of BBC.

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A Lovely Box of Chocolates:

When he wasn't cleaning windows, this legend of the music halls of Wigan (and beyond) was becoming something of an anti-apartheid hero in South Africa.

Born in 1904, George Formby hit the music hall stage in 1921, recreating the songs and jokes of his late father. By the early 1930's, at the direction of his wife (and manager), he had taken up the ukulele and changed his act, becoming one of the biggest British entertainment stars of the era.

Formby in South Africa (Pathé News clip from his arrival - before things start to get interesting)

It was 1946, and Formby was perhaps just past the height of his fame, but still commanded attention around the world. He was booked to do a tour of South Africa, on which he was accompanied by his wife and manager, the formidable Beryl. Their reception was initially a warm one, but the pair soon managed to ruffle a few political noses!

South Africa at that time, was well into its practice of racial segregation, and that included for entertainment performances - although the actual infamous apartheid policy did not come into effect until 1948. The Formby's most definitely did not approve of the idea of separating audiences based on their skin colour, and flatly refused to perform under such circumstances.

Daniel Malan, leader of the Nationalist Party and apparent all round racist dirtbag (he was soon to become the prime minister and architect of that awful apartheid law), got to hear about the pairs refusal to toe the racist line, and his mood only worsened when Formby embraced a black girl who had given Beryl a box of chocolates. The incensed Malan phoned Formby to complain.

What he hadn't reckoned with though, was just how formidable an opponent he stirred up in Beryl Formby. This, after all, was the woman who protected her husband's career so keenly, to the point where he was by now getting up to £35,00 per show, not a bad amount of loot for the 1940's. Her reply to Malan's complaint should go down as one of the greatest retorts of all time….

"Why don't you piss off, you horrible little man?"

This attitude should perhaps shouldn't be such a surprise when you look at Formby's career. When he played ENSA shows for the troops in WWII (one stat I saw claims he played to around 3 million service personnel during the war), he would insist on officers vacating their privileged front row seats so that regular soldiers could get a better view. In one 1940 film, Let George Do It!, he is parachuted into Germany, where he calls Hitler "a windbag" and punches him clean out.

George Formby: When I'm Cleaning Windows (Film version)

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Musician Throws A Curveball:

With a conservative estimate of well over three thousand songs written in a forty year music career, you may be forgiven for thinking that Robert Ellsworth Pollard Jr was merely a prolific songwriter and frontman. A good chunk of those have been for the band he is best known for, Dayton Ohio's, Guided By Voices - in fact they have put out a measly 41 albums since 1986's Forever Since Breakfast (although it might be 42 by the time I finish writing this sentence). Then there's at least 21 solo albums, and a host of collaborative projects, like Airport 5, Circus Devils and Lexo and the Leapers.

But there was much more to him leading up to all of that. On leaving college, he worked as a teacher at a local elementary school for fourteen years. He always said he liked the long vacations, as they allowed him time to focus on his burgeoning love of music. It was during that job, 1983 in fact, that GBV were born, and he continued to be part-time musician and part-time teacher for a long time thereafter, even after they had begun their recording career (it was well into the 1990's before the band became his full-time job).

But let's go back even further. Having graduated Northridge High School, in the Dayton suburbs, he attended Wright State University in nearby Fairborn. At school, he had been a prized athlete; all-league quarterback in football (second string QB, Frank Myers, later became a country singer, winning a Grammy for his song I Swear), an all-league forward in basketball, and an all-league pitcher and shortstop in baseball.

And it was baseball he pursued at Wright State. He would later recall his pitching style as being eighty percent fastballs (though not as fast as they had been in his school days, following an injury), with an 'imitation slider' and an effective curveball.

GBV: Captain's Dead (Audio only)

In May 1978, Pollard reached the pinnacle of his sporting career, throwing the first no-hitter in the eight year history of the baseball programme at Wright State, in a 9-1 victory over Indiana Central. He said, in typically oblique fashion, "If I had known I was in the process of throwing a no-hitter, I could never have done it. My teammates helped me by not mentioning to me how close I was. I guess they didn't want to put any pressure on me." He thought any chance was gone during the fourth inning, when Indiana's Rusty Goodpaster lined a shot down the first baseline - but luckily Kent Stuck knocked it down and managed to get a force out at second. Head Coach Ron Nischwitz commented, "Bob has thrown the ball well for us this year. That was his fourth fine performance of the season."

In fact, between the ages of 10 and 20, Pollard threw 12 no-hitters, with the the Wright State one being probably the biggest of the lot. However, he eventually gave up college sport, disliking the rigid discipline and training regimen that was expected of a student athlete. His dad was less than happy with that, withdrawing his funding, leaving Pollard to get a job washing dishes to finish his senior year. Of course, college sports loss, is our gain.

Here's a couple more from those early(ish) days:

GBV: Navigating Flood Regions (Live from Austin TX)