...can I also offer a Hamlet cigar for your friend at least, if not also one for yourself?

I very much doubt if anyone around here with a music industry hard luck story could beat your friend's tale. What a bummer!

Still, we do hard luck stories pretty well here, so I may be proved wrong. Anyone....?

I was just 6 numbers away from a few million pounds.

6!

So close.

And no worries re the David Ford book. It's a great read isn't it?
I have a hard-luck story. It lacks the impact of yours, but I still wake up at night traumatised by it.
At 16 I was cast as Potiphar's wife in the school production of Joseph and His Technicolour Dreamcoat. I had no interest whatsoever in public performance, but the music and drama teacher had noticed my complete disregard for what people thought of me, and a taste for being generally silly. I turned up to rehearsal and discovered that Joseph was none other than the history teacher. And I had to attempt to seduce him on a large silky bed (AND, most annoyingly of all, be rejected!). Bit weird? I thought so. I completely froze, and was sent back to the chorus, much to everyone's amusement. My place was taken by a much more lively girl than me, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself. They both did, in fact. My one shot at fame.
Hey Ho. Welcome Mr Mav! Oh, and if it's sugar you want...get yourself to Asda. This isn't a bloody supermarket you know. *insert smiley face here*

It goes on and on, doesn't it? The Editorial Director of The Word has commented in the past about how every part-time musician at every party has a good reason why they didn't go stratospheric. Mine is that the production company behind TV series Happy Days for some reason wanted a British beat combo to work with, had heard our demo, and sent us a lengthy contract to sign and return before (probably) relocating us to LA, making us all into pop stars and getting us lunch with Henry Winkler. We did the thing you're supposed to do and read it carefully before faxing off a few alterations that we thought we'd better insert in a few of the clauses for our own good in case of future disagreements over merchandising rights and the like. They replied almost immediately that either we signed it as was or they'd look for another good-looking bunch of boys with guitars to make into the new Monkees (or words to that effect). And here I am....

Ahem... http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/do-you-do-any-wings/1490069

...because I'm not a very lucky person generally, but I may be on the cusp of a hard luck tale: a publisher one step from a music supervisor on a film, needing to replace a non-licenceable classic track they've been using in the rough cut, seems to think I've got 'the one'. I fully expect to hear that it comes to nothing!

Actually, on Mark E's point that EVERYONE has a pinpointed reason why their career was stymied I've just recalled one label guy (rather than muso) who was convinced, decades after, that his label's debut release (and hence its whole future) was scuppered because it came out on the day of Winston Churchill's funeral in 1965, and hence received no publicity. (yes, clearly all the folk music reviewers were out there chasing the hearse that day.)

You've got to admire that level of (ir)rationale...

I was the singer in a band from '86 to'90 and our bad luck story is sadly familiar. An overestimation of our own talents and an over-reliance on alcohol.

Apart from those shortcomings I feel that fate dealt us a bad hand.

I was the singer in a band from '86 to'90 and our bad luck story is sadly familiar. An overestimation of our own talents and an over-reliance on alcohol.

Apart from those shortcomings I feel that fate dealt us a bad hand.

A bloke I sort of know, a friend of a friend, was a muso. He'd been scratching around for years, almost making it with a number of bands, doing a bit of writing, a bit of production, a bit of session work and always just missing out for all the normal reasons. I was sat next to him at a birthday dinner and he was saying that he'd recently started writing songs with a little-considered ex- boy-band wash-up as a final throw of the dice and if this didn't work, he had a job lined up at a private school working as a music teacher.

The wash-up was Robbie Williams, the friend of a friend is Guy Chambers and the rest, as they say, is history.

I think I had the right attitude to the art. I love music and don't do it in order to achieve a level of fame, wealth or recognition. I don't do it because I can't sing nor play any instruments and if I did people would throw things at me.

...it seems to be working for Jedward.

We were a bunch of cheerful, not-atrociously-untalented university students who, between us, accounted for about 75% of the European fecklessness and laziness mountains. To be honest, it's astonishing we got as far as we did (had records released on two utterly no-mark indies). We hadn't a clue.

One of the things about being in a rock band is that when you get it sort-of-right, and you're making a fucking massive roar of noise that sounds halfway decent, and maybe six people are dancing, it's so thrilling that you get overexcited and start thinking you're better than you are. It's really, really easy to mistake the thrill YOU feel, as a band member, for the thrill other people might experience. The former is enormous. The latter is almost always negligible. I doubt we thrilled anyone, ever, beyond the four of us on stage.

Luckily, none of us was so deluded about our talents that we didn't get other jobs. Good thing too. We wouldn't have made our bus fare home, I suspect.

(Oh, and welcome, Mr Chairman!)

With every not-so-well attended gig I do I always remind myself of the Cleese quote "It's not the despair. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand." That normally sees me through as I load my gear back into the house on a rain-sodden Tuesday morning..

and our tape fell into the hands of an ex-manager of Duran Duran. He was really excited about the tape, telling me that our electronic/ dance/ rock crossover sound was exactly what America were looking for, that he had a support tour we'd be perfect for and that he'd be at our show at the Flapper and Firkin in two weeks to talk business.

Brilliant we thought. So we chucked in a cover of 'Planet Earth' as a cute little gesture.

We were disappointed not to find him after the show and assumed he'd not turned up.

He had. He hated the cover, thinking it a really naff thing to do - and left, refusing to speak to us ever again.

I was a contender, for a little while at least.

I used to be a radio presenter. Nothing big, you wouldn't have heard of me, I was just a travel girl / features presenter.

But, I'd occasionally come across members of the public who knew who I was and treated me like some deity. I was completely spooked by the idea that people who didn't know *me* actually had an idea that they knew me as a person (if that makes sense), and got out of presenting as soon as I could. I then continued the rest of my radio career backstage (as it were).

So. No head for fame, me. Thrilled I didn't make it, I don't think I'd have been able to handle any level of actual celebrity.

...got down to the last six when they were casting Take That.

Unfortunately for him the lad he was up against for the 'shortarse who can't dance' vacancy also had a nascent talent for songwriting, which swung it in favour of the young Mr Barlow.

My mate's done ok since - but not THAT ok.

...surely your plan for obscurity has been a miserable failure: you're a LEGEND around here! :-)

'Usual' story: old college band had "interest" from Island records circa 1996, then disbanded after graduation, the low-expectation eejits.

After that, I occasionally sang jazz standards in a band featuring the man who set up Bristollian funkateers Pigbag (on trumpet) and, somewhat bizarrely, the former major of Haringay (on sax).

I'm a writer these days, but still singing away - currently hooked up with a bunch of outlandishly talented people not too far away from this 'ere thread actually...

I was the only actor of my generation to turn down 'A Bridge Too Far'
'cos I refused to cut my then flowing locks. Everybody who said 'yes', then bought mortage-free houses. Sigh.

...at the time it was obviously a bridge too far. *

* and I'm sure that'll have been the zillionth time someone has said that, and I'm sure it's still yet to be amusing. Oh well.

but no cigar

Was in a band mentioned in Music Week as signing of year, then all went pear-shaped. Nearly signed deal, people started being 'difficult', changed manager, nearly got signed again, same thing happened, main songwriter got disillusioned and split the band.

Then joined band with ex-singer of quite well-known band of Britpop era (althrough a bit too gloomy to be part of Britpop as such). Lots of interest, played a few gigs, got stinking reviews in Melody Maker and NME which just gave the singer a total kicking. Interested parties all backed away, band split up.

After that spent some time in a well known multi-guitar combo. Did a few gigs, backed the singer on a Radio 3 show, blotted my copybook after not turning up to a gig (a long story...) but I believe a song I wrote the music for might be on their new album, but as it's a 500 edition vinyl-only release I'm not expecting the royalty checks to start flooding in anytime soon.

No bitterness though, the only audience for my guitar playing now is my wife and daughter, and that's fine with me.