We have collated a number of stories from the world of music that we think are quite interesting. Some of them, while not always directly about the music itself, give you an insight into the artists world, and on occasion are fairly amusing too.
That's quite a big claim, so judge for yourself....
Guns On The Roof:
It is perhaps easy to say 'what on earth were you thinking' when reading this first story. But let's be fair, it's a story about young men (quite possibly drunk) up on a roof shooting at stuff - I mean the following could have happened to anyone....
It was 30th March 1978, and Topper Headon, drummer with The Clash, along with bassist Paul Simenon and some friends (including band roadie, Robin Crocker) were on the roof of Chalk Farm Studios in north London, where they were working on their second album, Give 'Em Enough Rope. Where it gets interesting is that they were up there shooting at pigeons with an air rifle!
Even worse than that, they weren't just run of the mill feral local wood pigeons, they were someone's prize racing pigeons. And that owner was somewhat upset that they were being shot at, and came round to give them a piece of his mind - oh, and to threaten them with a wrench!
And this isn't even the weird bit yet.
Someone from the British Transport Police could see the shooting happening from a nearby train station and mistook the air rifle for a proper gun and so figured there was a real threat to the public (it seems he thought they might be anarchist activists).
Within half an hour, the studio was surrounded by armed police, plain clothes officers, as well as a helicopter circling the scene. The bemused lads were all arrested on suspicion of terrorism! It was soon determined that they were of no real threat and released with fines - £30 each, plus £30 legal fees and £700 compensation for the distressed pigeon owner.
The Clash's road manager, Johnny Green, recalled the surreal turn of events. He said that it was "really quite serious. These guys who broke into rehearsals with guns really meant business. There was a helicopter circling overhead, policemen shouting down.... it was f***ing heavy."
As a bit of a joke, the band named the song they were working on at the time - Guns On The Roof, although there was no lyrical connection to the event.
The Clash: Guns On The Roof (Audio only)
The Replacements ejected from SNL:
We start with Minnesota's finest and wildest rock band, The Replacements - known in equal measure for writing great tunes and their wild, chaotic and often antagonistic live shows.
1985 saw them make their major label debut with the album Tim, and also switch to the NYC based management company High Noon in an effort to raise their profile, but ended with them no nearer the stardom their killer tunes possibly deserved.
They had a well known tendency to self-destruct, which had almost cost them that major label opportunity, and as 1986 broke, they also made a mess of their national TV network debut.
Since the late 1970's, Saturday Night Live had become the go to comedy staple for people in the US, with its mix of off the wall comedy and music guests. When the Pointer Sisters had to pull out of their appearance on 18 January 1986, the show unexpectedly turned to our boys to fill the gap. It transpires that G.E. Smith, the show's musical director was something of a fan of the band.
All was looking good at first and they performed well in the afternoon's rehearsal. Unfortunately, someone from the crew smuggled alcohol into their dressing room, and the gap between rehearsal and the live show saw them imbibe plenty of drugs and alcohol, along with the host of the night , Harry Dean Stanton.
On their way to the stage, Bob Stinson was so intoxicated that he tripped and broke his own guitar, meaning they had to scramble and find him one from the house band. They proceeded to rip through Bastards Of Young, somewhat typically completely chaotic and slightly out of tune! During the song, Paul Westerberg could clearly be heard (although off the mike) "you f***er" at Stinson. They came back later, in mismatched clothing, for Kiss Me On The Bus.
It was all too much for SNL supremo Lorne Michaels, and the band were banned from ever coming back - although Westerberg did feature in 1993 as a solo artist, where he included a version of the Replacements Can't Hardly Wait - so they kind of did come back.
Wordy Argument:
Formed at Leeds University in 1976, Gang Of Four had finally got a major label deal with EMI and the first single of the relationship, At Home He's A Tourist, was out in 1979. It was a hard slice of post-punk rock, with Andy Gill's trademark angular guitar and Jon King's lyrics about domestic alienation and consumerism.
With the song poised to potentially break the UK Top40, they got the call to appear on Top Of The Pops, the BBC's prestigious music chart show.
When the invite came through, the band broke from rehearsals and traveled down to London. The problem arose from the line in the song which says, "And the rubbers you hide in your top left pocket." This seemingly fairly innocuous phrase rattled the BBC hierarchy, who considered this condom reference to be too risque. The band did consider changing it to refer to 'packets', but even that was unacceptable - the BBC wanted them to say 'the rubbish you hide', and they refused.
Nobody would budge from their position and it went down to the wire, but in the end, they were dropped from the line up for the week. Their objection to this form of censorship was true to form, but it did cost them an appearance in front of a TV audience of 14 million. The single would stall at number 58, but would still be their highest charting song. However, they go on to be one of the most influential bands from the UK post-punk scene, with bands like R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers and Nirvana being indebted to them.
No more (sax) Heroes:
Rockfield is a recording studio with a big reputation nestled away in rural Monmouthshire - and is where Simple Minds had chosen to hunker down in 1979, to work on their second album, Real to Real Cacophony.
It felt like the perfect setting after the stress of recording their debut in London. And things got even better when they realised that one of their musical heroes, Iggy Pop, was booked into the studio at the same time as them. He was there to work on his album Soldier, and what's more, his good friend (and another massive hero for the band) David Bowie had dropped in to help him out.
The Simple Minds lads had the great idea of trying to get Bowie to come and play saxophone on one of their tracks, but were too awestruck to go and ask him. Biographer Adam Sweeting says that it came down to the 'no-nonsense' bass player Derek Forbes to go and do the asking, but he only "made it as far as the next door studio but then faltered.... [he] couldn't pluck up the courage to ask Bowie" and so had to go back to get reinforcements. Sweeting then notes that the pair were pounced upon by Bowie, who asked them over to sing on several of the Pop tracks.
A slightly different version of events was recalled by singer Jim Kerr to Q magazine later on. It was said that Iggy was frequently over at the Minds studio looking for hash (on the q-t, as he was supposed to be totally clean at the time, after coming out of rehab). When his illustrious guest came to visit, it was recounted that, "Bowie comes in wearing a black jumpsuit, holding a can of Heineken and big bit of cheese. I think he had the munchies."
The band it seems, got to hang out with the pair until the early hours before being invited back to Iggy's studio to sing some backing vocals on the track Play It Safe. The performance of the five band members was perhaps not consistently great, and so it went that Bowie diplomatically suggested that perhaps only Kerr and Forbes should sing - and he ends up with a credit on the album.
And after all that, Bowie never did play saxophone for them.....
Iggy Pop: Play It Safe (Audio only)
Simple Minds: Changeling (Live at Hurrah's, NYC, 1979 - from Real to Real)
Sharon and Phyllis:
Elton John and Rod Stewart, two of the greatest stalwarts of British music, have a relationship that dates back almost six decades. A big part of that enduring friendship is an ongoing jokey feud between the pair, that has at times been outrageous and often hilarious.
John's 2019 autobiography Me, recounts many of these tales - "We've spent nearly fifty years constantly taking the piss out of, and trying to put one over, each other".
Stewart covered one of Elton's early tracks, Country Comfort, but changed the lyrics for his version. John noted, "He changes the lyrics, something I complained about at length in the press. He sounds like he made it up as he went along! He couldn't have been further from the original if he'd sung The Camptown Races."
In the 1980's, the PR for one of Stewart's concerts involved a blimp with his face on it flying over suburban London. John hired someone to shoot it down, with the result that, "apparently it landed on top of a double decker bus and was last seen heading towards Putney."
It is perhaps important to note at this point, that the two also have jokey pet names for each other - Elton John is Sharon, while Rod Stewart is Phyllis.
Elton recounted how their world and that of the new phenomenon, punk, collided in the late 1970's. "I was in bed alone at Woodside [his country estate] one Sunday morning, half watching television, when a guy with bright orange hair suddenly appeared on the screen and called Rod Stewart a 'useless old f***er."
He made sure he called Rod later that morning, to wind him up.
"Hello Phyllis, did you see the TV this morning? This new band were on called the Sex Pistols and, you'll never believe this, they said you were a useless old f***er! Those were their exact words: Rod Stewart is a useless old f***er. Isn't that terrible? You're only thirty two. How awful for you."
Elton John: Country Comfort (Audio only)
Rod Stewart: Country Comfort (Audio only - you can decide how different they are)
Smells like deodorant:
Lastly, we look at the story behind the name of one of the most iconic songs of the last forty years, one that has been described as the "anthem for apathetic kids" of Generation X. Smells Like Teen Spirit sold over 13 million copies worldwide and broke Nirvana into the big time - but where does that title come from?
The song itself came out of work the band did following their first set of sessions with producer Butch Vig in 1990, for what would ultimately become Nevermind. Kurt Cobain wanted to write a song in the style of one of his favourite bands, Boston's Pixies.
"I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies. I have to admit it. When I heard the Pixies for the first time, I connected with that band so heavily that I should have been in that band... We used their sense of dynamics, being softer and quiet and then loud and hard," Cobain once told Rolling Stone.
In August 1990, friend of the band, Kathleen Hanna (of Bikini Kill), went to a grocery store in Olympia, Washington, with Cobain's then girlfriend Tobi Vail (also of Bikini Kill). Whilst there, they noted a brand of deodorant called Teen Spirit, and the name amused them greatly.
She would later say, "We were both joking around because the name looked so funny. I mean who names a deodorant Teen Spirit? What does teen spirit smell like? Like a locker room? Like pot mixed with sweat? Like the smell when you throw up in your hair at a party?"
Getting drunk that night, she was messing around in Cobain's apartment, trashing it a bit, when she found a sharpie and decided to scrawl on his wall those immortal words, "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit."
What makes this story even more amusing was that apparently Cobain was unaware of this brand of deodorant at the time, and thought that the statement was some kind of revolutionary slogan and a reference to a deep conversation they had been having earlier; "I thought it was a reaction to the conversation we were having but it really meant that I smelled like deodorant."
The song was finalised after he had split with Vail, but he still sought Hanna's permission to use the words for the song title.
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