Papa Was a Rolling Stone

June 24, 2013 7:54 AM

My Dad Was in a Band: Stories from the children of dads who were in famous and not-so-famous bands, from the Byrds to the Earl Warren Sextet.
posted by Cash4Lead (24 comments total)

Is there anything better than old band photos? No, there is not.
posted by phunniemee at 8:04 AM on June 24, 2013 [3 favorites]

Unfortunately, most of these "stories" seem to consist of "yeah...my dad was in a band". The idea of this article had a lot more promise than the reality. :-<
posted by jferg at 8:10 AM on June 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

(Naysaying aside, though, a couple of the stories were pretty good.)
posted by jferg at 8:11 AM on June 24, 2013

As everyone also knows, Jon Glaser's dad was the original keyboard player for ZZ Top when they were an up and coming jazz fusion quartet. Sad that the beards broke them apart.
posted by tittergrrl at 8:15 AM on June 24, 2013

This makes me very glad my college band never took pictures.
posted by RakDaddy at 8:23 AM on June 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

I love this recurring sub-plot on Bones.
posted by Jahaza at 8:35 AM on June 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

This is a bullshit project. I'm not going to say how I know, but let's just say I sent them stuff and my dad knows some of the people they've posted. They want HILARIOUSLY IRONIC photos of guys with corny mustaches, nothing else. They got material from the son of a guy whose band knocked the Beatles out of #1... but they posted his earlier garage band no one remembers and didn't mention he was in anything else. Don't support this project and tell your musician friends not to support it either.

(The band I mean is The Gentrys, that doesn't really give anything away I suppose)
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:47 AM on June 24, 2013 [5 favorites]

I'm not related to anyone in The Gentrys, my dad just recognized the guy's name.
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:51 AM on June 24, 2013

If you're telling me the friggin Gentrys were bigger than SAVAGE THRUST we're going to have to take this here thing outside.
posted by nevercalm at 9:06 AM on June 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

She had all kinds of stories about the 70's and 80's Hollywood corporate music scene her dad was immersed in, most along the lines of "I remember propping myself up against a passed out David Crosby as I ate my cereal while watching cartoons in the morning".

Well, shoot, who hasn't done that once or twice?
posted by entropicamericana at 9:18 AM on June 24, 2013 [3 favorites]

When you grow up around wild 'n crazy music biz antics, you think that's normal, and so your own stories don't seem very interesting.
posted by davejay at 10:14 AM on June 24, 2013

My wife worked, for a time, with the daughter of John Densmore (The Doors).

She was nice, and stunningly normal.
posted by Danf at 10:25 AM on June 24, 2013 [1 favorite]

> none of the rest seemed to be too into regaling their friends with tales of the wild 'n crazy music biz antics that hounded their childhoods.

I think there's a lot to this sentiment. My wife is in a community orchestra with the adult daughter of a famous/iconic musician, but you'd never know that from talking with her, and I get the sense that she'd never voluntarily share her childhood experiences in that regard. Everyone's parents are at least a little crazy, and everyone's childhood is somewhat warped. They're just crazy/warped in different ways.
posted by mosk at 10:28 AM on June 24, 2013

"My dad was Harry Chapin. Boy, I could tell you stories..."

Used on breaks alternately as an obscure joke or a pickup line
posted by hal9k at 12:04 PM on June 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

none of the rest seemed to be too into regaling their friends with tales of the wild 'n crazy music biz antics that hounded their childhoods.

I always thought my dad's band was lame as a dumb kid because I was a dumb kid. Embarrassed when people recognized it. Alex Chilton was in it and it wasn't Big Star, so do the math.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:30 PM on June 24, 2013

Now I think it was cool as hell. Studio career in Memphis, did coke with everyone, etc.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:31 PM on June 24, 2013

My friend is David Byrne's cellist, first chair symphony, and I didn't even know he was a musician for months. Music people don't see this stuff as out of the ordinary.
posted by DecemberBoy at 12:39 PM on June 24, 2013

Dad was in a band? No wonder he was never around Friday and Saturday nights, and a fucking chore to be around Sunday mornings.
posted by gjc at 1:45 PM on June 24, 2013

Her bio-dad played bass guitar
In a five-piece out of Wichita.

They had a little local hit.
You can find it on the internet.
posted by Charlemagne In Sweatpants at 5:55 PM on June 24, 2013

The My First Band website appears to be defunct, but one band I remember from there was Rhinoceros Snot.
posted by jonp72 at 6:06 PM on June 24, 2013

I am really having a hard time figuring out what the heck is going on here.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:21 PM on June 24, 2013

what the heck is going on here
Fauxhalla, I am coming....

I have played with a drummer who wore similar headgear
posted by thelonius at 7:06 PM on June 24, 2013

But . . . . but . . . . . he's got that flat disk on the end of a microphone stand, and it's pressed up against his helmet, and there's a wire going somewhere and . . . and . . . and . . .

Is the helmet singing???
posted by soundguy99 at 7:58 PM on June 24, 2013 [2 favorites]

This is fun. (because my dad was in a band). I just posted my own story. Sorry to those who will find it boring (yeah, my dad was in a band). Maybe they'll expand the site to include scandalous anecdotes. Thanks, Poster!
posted by morerio at 8:26 AM on June 25, 2013