SMBs top musician

zwartekat

Striker
I know we have quite a few talented people on here but who has come closest to the 'big time' (or even got there). Has anyone ever played on a chart record? Played in front of 2000 people?

I played with Prefab Sprout a couple of times in their early days but it was just helping out in rehearsals and I was never good enough to be any more involved (I think they were mainly after my amp😁).
 


Had a few records released years ago, rave music, probably sold 600ish copies and DJd in Liquid Envy (Old Ikon) and Newcastle Uni (Judgement Day venue) a few times in-front of 1000+ people. Not a musician by any stretch of the imagination, can play keyboard very basic and love designing sounds on old VA synths etc…
 
There's a guy who used to frequent the board who was the guitarist for a group that were pretty big on the pop scene iirc. Can't remember the name of the band. I think they were kind of folky and possibly named after the female lead singer.

As for my meagre claims to fame...

I edited the hi-hat parts on the "England Win The World Cup" version of "Is This The Way To Amarillo".

I co-wrote a few electronic tracks with the assistant engineer to producer Youth (formerly of Killing Joke) with a guy called Brother Culture on vocals who was pretty big on the reggae scene.

I once wrote a song while living in Keith Flint's house, and one of my housemates - Harry Collier from the band Kubb - liked the song and offered to play bass on it, which he then did.

I was the recording engineer on a couple of rehearsal sessions for TV show Just The Two Of Us featuring Marti Pellow and some soap actress or something. (Producing a CD for them to take home and practice to for the proper TV show performance). He bought me a £50 bottle of whiskey for coming in to work on my days off. Nice feller!

I was once paid £360 to be a session guitarist for a single hour-and-a-half gig for a fairly in-demand club house/soul covers band. I later did a gig with their "sister band" (most of the same backing group, different lead singer) in front of about 10,000 people at an outdoor festival. Shite money for the latter one in comparison, but what an experience!

Once while working for EMI as a techie, one of the Absolute brothers who did a load of pop stuff for people like the Spice Girls, came into the maintenance room and asked me if I was "in practice" on guitar. (I often played guitar in there to test gear I was fixing, and he'd obviously heard me playing and knew I was pretty handy :) ) I said "so-so, depends what you need.... I could probably pull off Clapton standard but maybe not Steve Vai right now...". He then said "ah doesn't matter" and left. I sometimes kick myself for not just saying "YES!" and wonder what might have come from it.
 
There's a guy who used to frequent the board who was the guitarist for a group that were pretty big on the pop scene iirc. Can't remember the name of the band. I think they were kind of folky and possibly named after the female lead singer.

As for my meagre claims to fame...

I edited the hi-hat parts on the "England Win The World Cup" version of "Is This The Way To Amarillo".

I co-wrote a few electronic tracks with the assistant engineer to producer Youth (formerly of Killing Joke) with a guy called Brother Culture on vocals who was pretty big on the reggae scene.

I once wrote a song while living in Keith Flint's house, and one of my housemates - Harry Collier from the band Kubb - liked the song and offered to play bass on it, which he then did.

I was the recording engineer on a couple of rehearsal sessions for TV show Just The Two Of Us featuring Marti Pellow and some soap actress or something. (Producing a CD for them to take home and practice to for the proper TV show performance). He bought me a £50 bottle of whiskey for coming in to work on my days off. Nice feller!

I was once paid £360 to be a session guitarist for a single hour-and-a-half gig for a fairly in-demand club house/soul covers band. I later did a gig with their "sister band" (most of the same backing group, different lead singer) in front of about 10,000 people at an outdoor festival. Shite money for the latter one in comparison, but what an experience!

Once while working for EMI as a techie, one of the Absolute brothers who did a load of pop stuff for people like the Spice Girls, came into the maintenance room and asked me if I was "in practice" on guitar. (I often played guitar in there to test gear I was fixing, and he'd obviously heard me playing and knew I was pretty handy :) ) I said "so-so, depends what you need.... I could probably pull off Clapton standard but maybe not Steve Vai right now...". He then said "ah doesn't matter" and left. I sometimes kick myself for not just saying "YES!" and wonder what might have come from it.

Don’t forget you’ve also thrown better songs in the bin than Wonderwall. That’s a yuge claim to fame.
 
It's not really all that impressive. Thousands of musicians up and down the country have that same claim.
This is why you may understand the technicalities of music but don't hear the music because anyone who doesn't even rate Oasis (that includes me) can hear that it has that little spark or fairy dust that takes it way way above the run of the mill song.

Amy Macdonald This is the Life is a nice simple upbeat folky pop song but just has something that very few people attain. No idea if she has any other decent tunes but the song isn't that complicated but it hits the spot. I'll do my research she's on at Kendal Calling.
I'm not a fan of The Gallaghers but as soon as I heard that I knew it was going to be sang for decades.
 
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The intention with that original comment was to put down Oasis' songwriting ability, not to big up my own. Somewhere along the lines it got lost in translation. :lol:
This is why you may understand the technicalities of music but don't hear the music because anyone who doesn't even rate Oasis (that includes me) can hear that it has that little spark or fairy dust that takes it way way above the run of the mill song.

Shite. :p

The "fairy dust" was in the production and the publicity machine. The song itself is a big pile of wank.

Anyway, originally I believe the quote was "binned better songs than Oasis have ever written", not just Wonderwall specifically. ;)
 
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Shite. :p

The "fairy dust" was in the production and the publicity machine. The song itself is a big pile of wank.

Anyway, originally I believe the quote was "binned better songs than Oasis have ever written", not just Wonderwall specifically. ;)
Nope. That is where you are wrong. If you were right every song would have it.

Dire Straits whole output I find plodding. Apart from the guitar bit at the start of Money for Nothing.

Certain things just gel and go straight through to the music part of your brain. It's different for everyone but some songs are just way better than many millions that are written by musicians.
 
Nope. That is where you are wrong. If you were right every song would have it.

Dire Straits whole output I find plodding. Apart from the guitar bit at the start of Money for Nothing.

Certain things just gel and go straight through to the music part of your brain. It's different for everyone but some songs are just way better than many millions that are written by musicians.

Oasis' entire output goes straight to the music part of my arse.
 

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