Obscure Prog Facts

Dean wrote: Well, at least the Drumitar never caught on so we can be thankful for small mercies.

Or the microtar, for that matter. Could you imagine a vocalist singing into their own crotch so that they wouldn't have to stand in front of the mic stand or carry it around?

ghost_of_morphy wrote: Rednight wrote: AreYouHuman wrote: thwok wrote: I'm not positive if this qualifies as obscure enough, but Phil Collins plays drums on Howard Jones' 80's hit "No One Is To Blame." That was the second version of the song, and PC drummed and sang harmonies on it. All less obscure than the fact that Phil Collins (not PC, thank you) once produced Adam Ant, whatever the song was. This is probably not obscure to most of you, but I just learned that Phil Collins played drums for Led Zeppelin's Live Aid performance at Philadelphia in 1985.  NOW THAT PHIL COLLINS HAD DEFINITIVELY BEEN LINKED TO A BONA FIDE PROGRESSIVE ACT, WHY ARE WE STILL DENYING HIM ENTRY INTO THE PROG RELATED CATEGORY??????

We-ll as much as I enjoy PC with Genesis, Bran X and various session appearances I could not in good conscience refer the uninitiated to A Phil album saying it's like a prog album. He recorded many soul and pop tunes as a solo artist. Many strings to his bow.

This is like a reverse reaction to the mainstream pop listeners who might hear Genesis and think "Oh, it's Phil Collins...", just hearing the vocal and stopping there. Mind you Genesis did do a soul and oldies medley released on that Knebworth Silver Clef Awards compilation. Maybe they could be prog related as well.

The mystery and controversy of Jimi Hendrix burnt guitars:

This is a bit long, neither very obscure nor very prog but perhaps interesting for those who may not know.  Everybody is familiar with the iconic event of Hendrix setting one of his Fender Stratocasters on fire at the end of his show at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. It was captured in video footage for posterity and there are plenty of pictures of it. However Hendrix had already set a Strat on fire for the first time at the Astoria Theater in Finsbury Park, London in March 1967, and while there are plenty of witness accounts there is no graphic material documenting that event.

The problem is, there seems to be a Hendrix burnt Strat too much. The Strat burnt at Monterey was custom-painted in white-red and with several flower motifs painted by Jimi himself. Immediately after setting it on fire with lighter fluid he completely smashed it and threw the neck to the audience. It may seem hard to believe that he would burn and smash a guitar he had himself decorated instead of some cheap stunt-guitar, but indeed he told to the audience that for them he was going to sacrifice something he really loved. Apparently he did this to top The Who’s Pete Townshend who a bit earlier in the day had shoved his Les Paul’s neck into an amplifier, and anyway it seems that it was not one of his favourite Strats for playing, since for most of the show he played a black one. At any rate the video footage is clear, that was the guitar he set on fire at Monterey, and only one piece of the body is known to remain and it has been displayed at the Seattle Experience Music Project museum in some Hendrix exhibits.

Now to the Astoria burnt Strat. This had a sunburst finish, Hendrix only set the guitar on fire but didn’t smash it, and he was quickly stopped by the crew so the guitar only got superficially torched. In 2007, Hendrix former press officer Tony Garland claimed that after the gig the torched guitar had been taken to his parent’s house and remained there forgotten in the garage until his nephew found it in 2007. He put it for auction and got UK£ 280,000.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/59968/Hendrix-s-guitar-sells-for-163-280-000

The thing is, Frank Zappa had another torched Hendrix Strat in sunburst finish. He received it from a Hendrix roadie called Howard Parker after the Miami Pop Festival in 1968 and Frank assumed that it had been burnt at that show. He kept it for a while and in the mid 1970’s he put it in working condition (for right hand playing of course) and appeared with it in a couple of guitar magazines in 1977, and played it in several occasions.

Eventually it got lost until his son Dweezil Zappa found under the family home stairs and put it back again in working condition. The problem is, all eyewitnesses of the Miami Pop 1968 seem to agree that Jimi did not burn any guitar at that event (where Jimi played two shows). In 2002 Dweezil wanted to put the guitar for auction so he and the auction house speculated that this was the same guitar Jimi had burnt at the Astoria and that he had burnt it again at Miami, but the fact that so many witnesses declared that no Strat had been burnt at Miami apparently turned the bieders down and Dweezil didn’t get the amount he was hoping for.

 

http://www.feelnumb.com/2009/11/24/the-famous-zappahendrix-guitar/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2277023.stm

All accounts seem to agree that there is only evidence of Jimi having burnt 2 guitars ever, a sunburst one at the Astoria and the red-white one at Monterey (although he smashed a couple more without burning them). The sunburst guitars from Tony Garland and from the Zappa’s are obviously not the same guitar, which leads to a couple of possibilities:

a) Both are authentic, but for whatever reason Jimi burnt a third guitar in some show, perhaps at Miami 1968 even if witnesses do not confirm it, or perhaps at any other show for which there are no witnesses and no record of any kind.

b)  One of the two is a fake. Frank Zappa claimed to have received his in 1968 and at least there is picture evidence that he had it in 1977. And yet Dweezil had trouble trying to auction it for a good value. Garland’s one suddenly appeared only in 2007 and someone paid UK£ 280,000 for it.

Who would you rather believe? 

Edited by Gerinski - November 05 2014 at 17:15

Gerinski wrote: The beautiful piano intro to Genesis' Firth Of Fifth was normally omitted when they played the song live, and this may have led some people to speculate whether perhaps Tony Banks had any difficulty playing it live. Not at all, the reason was related to the limitations of the equipment of the time. They could not afford taking a real grand piano on tour, so Tony used the RMI Electra-Piano 368 electric piano, but this instrument had 2 important limitations, first of all it did not have a touch-sensitive keyboard, meaning that regardless of how soft or hard you hit the keys, the notes always sounded at a fixed volume. Using a volume pedal could mitigate a bit this problem but for such a dynamic section as that intro this was insufficient. The other problem was that it had a 68 notes keyboard instead of the 88 notes of a real piano, so the highest notes could not be played as they are in the studio recording. Tony had to transpose some sections to a lower octave, something he did not really like, and once while playing it at a gig he got carried away and forgot that he wasn't sitting at a real piano and suddenly ran out of notes and had to stop playing, to the amazement of the other band members.

Amazing info. Thanks Gerrard. ;)
Huge huge appreciator o the firth of fifth.

octopus-4 wrote: Led Zeppelin are already on PA. Marc Bolan's dog features vocals on Pink Floyd at Pompeii. Why don't we add T.Rex?

Phil always said besides Bruford--Bonham was his fav drummer---I think he was the wrong choice for the job-but as he said he was there and a big deal at the time----I doubt that he intentionally had any interest in sabotaging the reunion---as he loved the band---but it is a train wreak but all of Zeps attempts after Bonham died were not that good except maybe the last attempt.

Lol.  There is a unwritten rule that Phil Collis cannot be on PA no matter what even though he is practically the iconic prog related artist.  Just look at the so-called criteria for this.

Edited by ghost_of_morphy - November 08 2014 at 10:08

Posted by Easy Livin on Feb 2nd 2007:

You can find more about why Phil Collins is not on PA here:

In relation to PhilCo's CV with dozens and dozens of bands, both Prog and not -
Sax player (and flute) Mel Collins (no relation!) was a very busy sessioner as well.
And of course, Phil solo will NEVER make it to PA, even if his debut album was diverse and a keeper for many Proggers.....