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What Is Your Claim To Fame?


garybrun

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After a post in another thread one guy we know designed  the computer keyboard for the Acorn Electron @Wookiee and it got me thinking.
They say everyone has their time in the "Limelight"
What is your call to fame??


Ill post mine later as I have a few!!  ?

Edited by garybrun
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The phrase you are looking for is "claim to fame"

And mine is correcting others on the interwebs.   j/k  ?

Related to music, I'm in a small circle of people with experience with all 3 Trainwereck amp models, as well as Komet amps hand tuned by Kenny himself.  

In additon to experience with real Dumbles (not on the caliber of Trainwreck).

Edited by Brian Walton
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Back in the late 80's I wrote a song that was supposed to be in a movie. It was about a very famous singer from the 50's from NJ that died in a plane crash in 85. It went so far as to having a contract written up and the whole 9 yards. We got a letter one day saying his estate was threatening to sue them to make them stop production on the movie and that was the end of that. Never heard another word about it. But I'm still proud that some dippy kid from northern NJ made it that far with no experience at all at that level in the music biz. ??

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I have an 1976 Series I Alembic Bass. I am technically the original owner although it was actually first owned new by a young kid for about two weeks before I bought it.

Oh yeah, my son is a much better and somewhat famous musician in the Death Metal Scene. One degree of separation there.

The most important thing I ever did (in the software industry) was create a product that was used for many years by Boeing in St. Louis, MO back in the 80s.

Of course there was over 80K posts on the old cakewalk forum. Does that make me a bad person?

Edited by Bapu
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I had some fame in the business world, but as a musician, I was playing the Midwest with a band night clubs, colleges and fests that achieved success in the local media and on the college circuit and was recruited by a local Chicago band, Veruca Salt, that was just signed to a major record deal. The lead singer knew me from the main band I played with and told me that I just needed to come meet the band, play with them and move to LA with them. I forget which label they were signed with, maybe RCA. She explained to me the need was urgent as their original drummer, the other singer's brother, had been kicked out of the band for a serious drug addiction. 

 However, I was a very devout Christian and found some of the lyrics they had were a problem for me. Louis Post, she was dating Dave Grohl around the time, was the singer who was so persistent. 

My other claim to fame was I took the lead singer and keyboardist of the same band I previously referred to to see one of my favorite local drummers, Jimmy Chamberlain, now famous for drumming with the Smashing Pumpkins and in front of my two band mates he walks up to me and tells me that he's a big fan of my drumming and has seen me play in two bands. Of course, I loved that moment. Jimmy walks away and the lead singer in my band says, "Not a fan. That guy overplays like mad," completely ruining the moment. But I do think our keyboardist was impressed. If only that wasn't the 90's, I would have whipped out my cell phone and asked Billy to repeat that in a video I would be sharing with all my friends in my old age! Yes, sad. But that's the best I got!

 

 

Edited by PavlovsCat
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I was almost famous once.

I was in a band that played the college circuit all over the US east of the Rocky Mountains, and eventually we became the opening act for big stars of the day like The Four Seasons, The Association, The Kingsmen, and about a dozen others.

Motown noticed us, and we worked with them for a while, being the opening act for many of the Great Motown groups including a big multi-group concert in Detroit's Cobo Hall.

We were supposed to be the first all-white group to be released on the Motown family of labels. All-white wasn't a racist thing, as we never saw any racism at Motown, but Bob Seger was making #1 records on Detroit radio, and Berry figured that if that's what people want, he should supply it. At Motown all that mattered was whether you could play or not.

The problem was Motown's last offer was 2 cents per record. Out of our royalties Motown would deduct inflated recording costs, inflated promotion costs and inflated distribution costs. In addition to that, they wanted all publishing rights and royalties, and they would assign a Motown 'ghostwriter' who would not contribute a single note or word to the song but get half the songwriter's royalties.

When our manager stood our ground at a slightly better deal, Motown quit hiring and talking to us and picked their second choice, The Sunliners.

Of course, as with all the Motown groups, Motown wanted to own the name of the group, so they could hire and fire at will, and have 4 or more groups with the same name touring the country working for union scale. So the Sunliners changed their name to Rare Earth.

It was a great experience. It was my first taste of being treated as an equal to the stars of the day, we made very good money while it lasted, and we had a chance to hook up with a lot of young women who just seemed to be attracted to musicians. I have no regrets, it was a party for a couple of years.

Later in life, I guess the best thing about never making it is that now I'm not a has-been. :D

Notes ♫

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Got to do a movie soundtrack once. Didn't make any money doing it as the budget was almost nothing. But I did get to sit in an almost empty theater and listen to my music on the big screen. I did see one of the movie ad spots had reached 1 million views on Youtube so more than a million people have heard my music! And the movie has been seen around the world. I see the DVD in Walmart sometimes and smile to myself. Cool for sure.  

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I shook hands with a famous guy once - does that count?  It was Jim Marshall, back when I was a teen, standing in front a full stack - probably late 70's  ish.  At least someone there was famous.

 

Oh - and I had about a 10 second music stab between commercial breaks during a world series game.

And double OH ! - I have a piece of equipment that was owned by a famous guy - Peter Frampton. That's all the name dropping I have for this episode.

Edited by RBH
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