One of their ex-drummers, Jeff Rich, came to my school to give a talk on percussion. Only about 50 of us attended (you didn't have to go if you didn't want to) and the ones that did only went because we thought we'd get to hit big drums with sticks (which we did).

According to Wikipedia, he's still touring schools to this day.

For an ex Quo drummer. I can relate to that more, thinking, "we had the good times but thats it". Rather than dialling it back 25 years and starting again?

Interesting in the sense of why they do it.

He popped up on little known digital TV motoring show 'Auto Traders', where the presenter was helping him to choose a people-carrier that he could use for family outings and ferrying his kit to gigs. Nothing wrong with any of that of course - it just reminded me that stars often return to normal lives post-fame. He was looking well, actually.

Played Dubai a few months ago.

John Coughlan's Quo at The Musician a few months back . I thought they were dire, but they were enjoying themselves and my mate, who has seen the The Quo many times, was down the front headbanging away.
He (John Coughlan) probably does it for fun - it beats sitting in and watching EastEnders.

I had a band turn up wanting to play that night. Their booking for the night had been cancelled and they were desperate to play anywhere at short notice. They were called Zooky. I was reading a music paper at the time and one of them pointed to a band he played in. It was T.Rex and he was indeed Bill Legend. Still did not get a gig though.

According to Wikipedia he is the only surviving member of the 1970-1973 lineup of T.Rex, the first proper band I saw live. I should at least have asked for his autograph.

did an afternoon concert at the melbourne zoo the other week

mind you he does live here - Australia, not the zoo ,and I'm sure he put the effort in.

...that if you start the band in your teens, concentrate on it, skip the later years of school or college (either physically or mentally), get a bit of a profile for a decade or so, generally fade away over a few years, then get chemically depressed before pulling yourself back together again, I suppose you could easily find yourself at 40 with no qualifications and no practical experience (beyond standing on stage in Reading, trying to get the audience to clap along in time with the drummer) ...

Even bog-standard delivery driver jobs at the moment have "must have experience of hand-scanning devices - core competence" in the description, so what does the unemployed former rock musician do when they hit their 40s? Soldier on playing music? Retrain as an accountant? As per the current issue of the mag, and the Green Gartside article, bugger off to Wales and drink a lot? I think it's probably pretty tough.

was featured in a short interview in this month's excellent R2(Rock n' Reel) magazine and made a couple of interesting points regarding a YouTube video which had been posted featuring him playing in a cellar/club somewhere and to which a few people had commented on how sad it was seeing him in what they termed 'reduced circumstances'. He pointed out that sadly it could never always be christmas in Newcastle City Hall, he wasn't able to spend his days lounging in his country manor watching Eastenders and what else were people expecting him to do?
It's always possible that these folk look upon their fifteen minutes as being enhanced circumstances and their current situation as 'normal' rather than the other way round.

- that's what they do, whether it be a session, dep, playing in a pub, hall, teaching or whatever.

The myth in this country is that you have to be famous or on TV to be any good. You only need to look at the number of top-class readers/players in orchestras, choirs and jazz combos around the country to give the lie to that one.

... former Soft Boy and Wave, could often be found down the Alma Brewery of a Saturday night playing in one of 3 or 4 bands. OK, maybe he never quite hit the highs of the Quo but at first it did seem a bit of a come down after Eurovision glory.

But Kim did it because he loved playing. He was among friends. There was always a good atmosphere and the band was very good. They used to do a cracking version of The Premiers 'Farmer John.'

recalls being on holiday somewhere and seeing a handwriiten sign in a pub - 'Tonight: Carl Palmer' and underneath that '(will play Tarkus)'

Okay, I know he was never a big star.
About 15 years ago I went to see him at a small venue 'The Platform' in Morecambe. He wasn't playing live, it was advertised as 'An Evening With Pete Best from The Beatles' Basically it was a talk about his time with The Beatles in Liverpool and Hamburg, accompanied by pictures from that period. He wasn't a natural raconteur, but his talk was interesting, amusing and informative, and afterwards he took questions, signed autographs and chatted with the audience (all 14 of us). I came away feeling quite sad. He was a really nice, gentle guy and seemingly not at all bitter about being dropped on the verge of breaking through to the big time with the others.

...musicians - like any other operator of a small business (shop owners seems like a good comparison) - have to be able to work out when it's time to call it quits. And that can be tough when there may be nothing wrong with the product, as such (if the muso/band can still sing/play/perform to a required standard), but the customers have just moved on. I've known a few people in this position, but none who've yet faced the inevitable.

At the other end of the scale are people who still DO have a lot of customers but whose product has 'gone off'. Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson, to my mind, can't do justice vocally to their repertoire any more (and its been that way for a fair while, alas)- either he should get a new singer in and he stick to the acoustic guitar and flute (both of which he remains fabulous at) onstage, or the band should be gracefully retired.

...Baz: just to point out our posts happened around the same time - I wasn't commenting specifically (or indeed at all!) on Pete Best, just making a general point about people realising when the shop should close down. Actually, I've a lot of respect for Pete Best - he's retained his dignity after a life that could have descended into huge bitterness. His 'Anthology' money has hopefully allowed him to indulge a little and keep his current band on the road - cos I realluy do believe that he's making music for fun and in the right spirit these days. Good luck to him!

His debut album sold over 10 million copies.
Fans can catch him in panto in Chatham, Kent this year.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-12898466

Glad to see this thread doesn't have a sneery mocking tone. It's always been in the nature of showbusiness that "thick" is just a hair's breadth away from "thin" and I admire troopers who plod on, earning a crust however they can.

They may be more modest now than in their pomp, but lets face it, we all would have followed the road if we could have. So they've at least known what we only dreamt of, standing in form of the bedroom mirror with our tennis rackets ahoy.

Personally,I'd give my wisdom teeth to have been the bass player in "Racey".

was a cab driver in the Brighton area for a while.
will now stretch the big star thing to breaking point.
Worked at a holiday camp in Bognor (not Butlins,lower rent than that) in the 80's and the star performer was the Understudy to the main bloke in the Black and White minstrels.
Two-Tone was massive at the time. Nice bloke though and the Punters loved him.
At the same camp ex World Cup winner Alan Ball turned up once a week for a kickaround.He had time for all the 20 or so who would turn up. He was absolutely brilliant with all concerned.I still have the photo i had taken with him somewhere.

A lot of British musicians are lucky to have had a chance to earn a crust from their music.

I've been living in New Zealand for a few years and in a call centre I do some consultancy in, one of the callers is a member of a very well known local band. Arguably the biggest band in NZ in fact and they have to make end meet working in a call centre.

On my Facebook page yesterday: (Facebook friend of a friend)
"‎5 days, 3 gigs, 1330 miles, 1 shower, countless number of beer, amp blow out, engine problems, met great people = Awesome time."
http://www.facebook.com/#!/bobbygrantuk

That keyboard player out of D-Ream is now a physicist with qualifications and everything. Now that's an odd career change. It must be tough coming down from the heady heights of playing "Things Can Only Get Better" night after night.

Now some sort of US homeland defence spook?

Now theres a career change.

I was in a pub once when Eric Bell, formerly of Thin Lizzy, phoned in to ask if he could play there.

The pub no longer had a music license, and when they did they were lucky to get 20 punters in on some nights.

All this talk of "hefty wedges" and "a fair whack for a few hours work." People who do nothing creative for living come to the automatic conclusion that those who do, or did at any time in their life, are automatically better off. Why? because they are 'creatives' of course, and it just the way things are isn't it?

The truth of the world is very different. These days what you need to earn a good living, is a steady job doing nothing remotely useful to the world. Preferably in a bank, or other purely commercially motivated enterprise.

Most of the 70's was populated by musicians who were being ripped off. Massively. It was the hangers on, the record company people, or even the music journalists that did OK. The ones that could turn up to work and just get their paycheck. And get it consistently.

than the money to be honest, cos I'm pretty sure thats (at least equal to the financial element) what drives most rocknrollers.

the great Davy Graham could often be seen busking at Camden Markets.

I also saw him visiting a squat in Latimer Road a few times. Not saying he lived there, mind.

Gene Clark played a solo gig in a Brighton pub the last ever time he was in the UK in the early 90s, and I regret never going to see the man.

Subject: Credibility

Dear Bob,

My name's Colin Hay. My good friend Michael Georgiades turned me on to your letters.

I was in Men At Work in the 80's, and have been living in California for the last 20 years, making albums and touring across the land, as a solo performer primarily.

Your piece holds many truths and insights, into the still exciting world of making music.

Firstly, I am very lucky. I made some money with Men At Work, so I could put not only food on the table, but put together a proper home studio, in which to write and record. I then go out and play live and sell cds, and try and constantly build my audience. It's working. In 1983, I played with Men At Work to 150,000 people at the US Festival. We broke up shortly thereafter. After a few years of swanning around, thinking I was quite important, and drinking for Scotland and Australia, I realized I was slowly doing myself in, with the single malts and guinness chasers. Occasionally I had noticed my steel string acoustic in the corner, mocking me with it's eternal patience and optimism. Eventually I picked it up, and ran away to live in California, to start again. I have been gainfully self- employed ever since. I started playing acoustic shows in the late 80s and that's what I'm still doing. My first show in Melbourne after MAW split attracted 4 people. At the present time I have a new disc called "Gathering Mercury" and am on tour in support of it. Now after a decade plus, my audience has built to a massive 900 people or so in New York City, or Philadelphia, or slightly less in charming Clayton, NC. It's good work, rewarding, nourishing and funny. After the shows I sign cds. I like it. I meet all kinds of people for a minute or so. It's important to me because when I got dropped by a major label, my live audience was all I had, apart from my self belief, to let me know I was on the correct path. They also, for the most part, let me be myself. And isn't that what we all want at any given moment, to be who we are, and not who someone else wants us to be.

You are correct when you stress the importance of establishing a core audience, before you go in search of radio success. My old band had massive radio success and MTV exposure to the max, and when that went away, so did most of the audience. It's like building a house with no foundations, you can't.

Lately, I've had good organic TV success. I play at Largo in Hollywood, and Zach Braff had seen me there, many years ago, before he was in Scrubs. He brought down Bill Lawrence, who created the show, and he asked me why my songs weren't being played on the radio. This was a question I had no answer for. He said he was going to use some of my songs in his show, which he did. It has increased awareness of my music considerably. I remain in their debt.

I was on Columbia Records with Men At Work and for one ill fated solo album. I was then offered a deal on MCA Records by a guy named Al Teller. That's a whole other story, and not particularly interesting. The most exciting thing about being on that label was being dropped by them. The relief I felt was palpable. I felt like I was floating, like I'd gotten my life back. Turns out I had. Now I make my own albums and work with Compass Records, an independent label out of Nashville. Feels good.

I take your advice, and run my own race for the most part. I enjoy writing, recording and playing music for a living. Last year I was sound checking at the Birchmere in Virginia, a delightful venue, and I was filled with an inexplicable euphoria. Its intensity lasted a few seconds but it was powerful. A simple experience, the wait staff was setting up tables for the night, the sound crew were twiddling knobs, and I realized that I was exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing, and all was well in my world.

I go out on stage nightly by myself and attempt to entertain people for a couple of hours. It's risky, but you're right, there's always more risks you can take. And, I'm not talking about repairing your own roof, (that didn't go so well).

I did make a big splash, I did descend into obscurity, and alcoholism. But, my salvation was, and still is, artistic expression, and a vague quest to strip away and reveal something essential, which is seductive, and ever elusive.

Best to you,

Colin

...that Colin Hay is brilliant? I've seen his solo show only once, many years ago, (his itinerary doesn't swing past N Ireland very much!) and the memory of it is still powerful - not only for his performance, but the quality of the songs. good luck to him.

...been seen through at last?

... who played in the holy trinity of Postcard bands - Josef K, Aztec Camera and Orange Juice ended up as a Glasgow cabbie to make ends meet.

who played Lofty in BBC sit-com , It A'int 'Alf Hot.Mum, as part of a chain store promotion, used to stand on a box in supermarkets and sing Whispering Grass etc. This was years after the show was canned. My mate saw him in some mall in Worthing, warbling away with not a single shopper paying notice.
It was the fact he was wearing full bib and tucker but with a battered old pith helmet to jog your memory too. Heartbreaking.

Aged rockers with impressive CVs, and most of em made very little money out of their glory years, unless they got a writing credit. Mainly, what they did was tour there bollocks off for a decade, then realise at the end of it that someone had been keeping a tab on every wrap of coke and room service bill. The few that were lucky enough to keep working on 60s revival tours and whatnot generally live a reasonable, suburban semi-detached lifestyle on a hundred quid a gig and the odd performing rights cheque.

A few of the ones you'd actually have heard of, they live in a matter befitting a reasonably successful dentist or chartered accountant, with a 4 bedroomed house somewhere nice and maybe a holiday home that they bought whe a cover of one of their tues made it big.

But, as another posters mentioned, it's the behind the scenes guys who've made all the cash: John Miles had the one hit (Music) but he made his cash from being Tina Turner's bandleader and arranger in her big years, and he lives in a very lordly maner in his manor. Nik Kershaws a figure of fun, but s still quietly involved in some very big hits.

and seeing a badly photocopied flyer in a pub for a John Power (from Cast!) gig. This was just prior to the La's reunion tour

because in band terms, Cast were a bad photocopy of The La's

(tee hee!)

they of Pulp Fiction fringe fame, and, count 'em, 2 top 20 US hit albums are playing the Chester Bells pub tonight.