Paul Gustave Simonon was born this day, December 15, 1955. Not a well known name, but profoundly influential in my life as the bassist for my favorite band of all time, The Clash.
The folklore of the Clash says that Paul was chosen for the band simply because of his look. When he joined the band, he didn’t even play bass. In fact, it’s been said that guitarist Mick Jones actually wrote the notes on the fretboard so Paul could find his way around. True? Who knows? Suffice it to say, he BECAME an outstanding bassist over the years and had a hand in making some of the most important records of my lifetime.
Paul always seemed to simply exude “cool” to me as a kid. He wasn’t particularly flashy, he wasn’t often in the spotlight, but he was a presence. There was just something about him that was magnetic. I don’t know what “it” is, but he had it!
It is startling to see he is now 70 years old! It makes sense, seeing as I was only 9 when the first Clash album came out, and I was 12 when I first heard them with the release of London Calling. I was positively obsessed with the Clash in my teens and 20’s, and I still listen to them quite often in my late 50’s. As most of my readers will know, I’m a huge music nerd and music has been the biggest thing in my life for the last 4+ decades. I love lots of music, I’ve been influenced by countless bands and artists, but if I had to pick one band to listen to for the rest of my days, undoubtedly it would be the Clash.
So, cheers to you Mr. Siminon! Without you and your mates, my life would be immensely different. Thank you for your work all those years ago, and for the lasting, profound impact you had on this (formerly) young musician. I owe you a debt of gratitude. You may have come from humble beginnings, but you were a giant in my eyes (and ears!). Well done Sir!
Hit another milestone today, the 55th year of my existence begins. Ugh. Hard to believe.
It’s been a good day tho. Took some time off work. The Mrs. treated me to donuts (a blueberry fritter, no less!) and I spent a slow morning doing odds and ends before heading to my studio for some drum time. Even took the time to replace my severely worn out snare drum head.
Early afternoon I picked up the Mrs. from work and she accompanied me to a local legendary record shop, Streetlight Records in San Jose. I’ve been going there since maybe 1982 (the old location that was in a converted house!), but the last time I was there was ’19, before “the Plague”. I had a nice time flipping through the racks, and was happy to see they are really leaning in to the vinyl Resurgence! I found a vinyl copy of an instrumental Beastie Boys album, and left “feelin’ like a kid again”. The icing on the cake was stopping off for a Slurpee on the way home! Good Times!!
In the evening our Girl came over for pizza – my favorite – and some classic comedy movies. A quiet but delightful night!
On top of it all were well wishes from family, friends and even a couple co-workers.
All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day!
Mr. Terry John Bozzio was born this day in 1950, in San Francisco, CA. He’s had an active career as a musician since the early 1970’s, lending his talents to a plethora of recordings over the last 5 decades, and he’s STILL a phenomenal musician!
I became aware of Terry in 1982 with the release of “Spring Session M” by the band Missing Persons. I had been playing drums for quite some time by then, and had my heroes, but Terry was something altogether different. His playing was explosive and frankly dangerous sounding, but at the same time he displayed technical skills that were basically beyond my comprehension- and I was no slouch! I had never heard anyone, ever, play drums like this guy, and I wanted to know everything about him.
Since this was the pre-internet days, information was limited to say the least, but I poured over every magazine and newspaper article I could find on him or the band, and when I’d learn of another group he played with, or another drummer that influenced him I’d seek out their records in the used record stores we used to have around town. I was mildly obsessed.
When I learned Missing Persons was releasing a second album, I was ecstatic as well as intrigued. It was in an article about Terry that I learned he basically designed an electronic drum kit, from the ground up, for that record and tour. At the time, drum machines were fairly new on the scene and electronic drums – what few there were – were more novelties than instruments. But Terry wanted to mimic the sounds of a drum machine, with an actual drummer, and again when the album came out (Rhyme & Reason) it blew my mind. I’d never heard anything like it. It was completely different than their previous album and yet, it was undoubtedly Terry. It took me a long time to absorb that record honestly, and of the Missing Persons catalog it sounds the most “dated” now, but it was revolutionary at the time. And if I recall, he actually got a patent on the electric drums he invented!
The Rhyme & Reason e-drum era.The world’s first bespoke electric drum set?
It was sometime around their second album that I discovered that I’d heard Terry before Missing Persons, I just didn’t know it. When I was really young, like 5th grade or so, I had an older neighbor that used to let me hang out and listen to records and he used to play Frank Zappa albums, particularly “Live in New York” which Terry was on! As it turned out, Terry played on a bunch of Zappa records and if you know ANYTHING about Zappa, you know he only used the best of the best musicians for his bands. So this really elevated his status with me, even though I was already quickly becoming his biggest fan from his work in Missing Persons.
A couple years later Missing Persons came out with “Color in Your Life”, which was again very different from their earlier work, but just phenomenal. To this day it remains my favorite record of theirs.
They saved the best for last…
During this period, Terry began endorsing the new Remo drum line and set out on a clinic tour. At the end of the tour, they put his drum set up for sale at the San Jose Guitar Center, and since I was an up and coming drummer myself and gigging a lot, I splurged and bought Terry’s used kit. It was a dream come true!! (I had that kit for the majority of my musical “career” until it was sadly stolen in the early 2000’s by a filthy scumbag. But I digress…)
The Terry Bozzio Remo Encore setup…My Terry Kit, in some club somewhere…the only thing I changed were the “BOZZIO” bass drum heads.
Sometime around the late 90’s, Missing Persons got back together for a reunion show in LA, and fortunately for me my best friend Bret (who lived there at the time) not only got us tickets, but also arranged for us to meet the band! So yes, I was lucky enough to meet my hero and he was as nice and gracious as you could possibly imagine. Another dream come true! Then the band went out and played one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in my life! It was mesmerizing. And finally, after a decade plus of struggle, some of his secrets were revealed and I was finally able to figure out a lot of parts that had eluded me for years! It was beyond awesome.
I’ve continued to follow him all these years, we even had a brief correspondence via email regarding the composition of the Remo drum shells, etc. and I was able to see him live in a solo setting a number of years ago, which was another spectacular experience.
I don’t throw the word genius around often, but in the world of music it is a title deserved by Terry Bozzio.
Yes, I was a drummer BEFORE I knew of Terry, and yes I have many other influences and drummers I admire, but Terry formed me as an artist more than any other, and without his work I would not be the drummer I am today. And not just about drums – he inspired me to write lyrics, to get interested in the production side of making records, the strive to be an artist, not only a drummer. And he made it cool to be smart, to read books, to explore, to have other interests outside of music. I owe the man a lot!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart Mr. Bozzio, for all your work throughout the decades. My life is richer for it, undoubtedly.
Johnette Napolitano was born this day in 1957, but it wasn’t until 1986 I found out about her, through her band Concrete Blonde. Since then, she’s left an indelible mark on my musical soul.
Concrete Blonde, circa ’86. Nothing like these guys, truly original!
I was lucky enough to see Concrete Blonde live on 3 different occasions, and Johnette was simply amazing. There is an honesty, a vulnerability that comes from her songwriting that is just mesmerizing. (NOT to slight the rest of the band, they are AWESOME!)
A couple interesting notes regarding Johnette and her influence on me…
First, she is the first (and only, until recently) musician that made me cry with a song. Yeah, I always thought people that said “that song made me cry” were full of crap, but I’ll be damned, Johnette did it to me with “Little Sister” from their debut album.
Second, Johnette is the ONLY artist, EVER, that compelled me to write a ‘fan’ letter. This was before email, and Facebook and all that nonsense… I was going through a real tough time; my wife was pregnant with our daughter, my band had broken up, I was actively suing a production company that had ripped me off, (not paying me for “services rendered” at a bunch of gigs I played for their acts) and I was pretty sure at that point that I was DONE with music. So I wrote a letter to Johnette telling her how much she inspired my song writing, and that maybe that inspiration would bring me back to music someday. And while I can’t say she’s ‘responsible’ exactly, I’m still here, making music, almost 30 years after that letter!
It’s one of the crazy things in life, that Johnette isn’t a ‘household name’. She certainly should be. She’s got more talent in a single finger than most pop stars express their entire careers. She’s an artist’s artist, a one-of-a-kind talent, and an absolute gem.
I’m so incredibly grateful for having Johnette being a huge part of my life’s soundtrack, I can’t imagine life without her voice in it!
Happy Birthday Johnette! I wish you nothing but happiness and continued artistic expression. My life is better because of you, even though we’ve never met. Thank you for everything!!
Born Declan Patrick MacManus on this day, back in 1954, but rose to prominence as “Elvis Costello” in the late 1970’s.
I can still vividly recall the first time I heard Elvis Costello and the Attractions. As a kid, we didn’t have “cable TV”, so MTV wasn’t part of my life, but there was a show on broadcast TV called “MV3”, that was what you might call a mashup of American Bandstand and MTV… Anyhow, I used to hear a lot of new music on that show as it primarily played what was known then as New Wave music – the Romantics, Bow Wow Wow, the Three O’clock, stuff like that… This would have been late ’82/early ’83.
Anyhow, it was on this show that I first heard “Pump it Up” by EC&tA and I was an instant fan. I have remained a fan for the last 40 years. It wasn’t until later I learned that song was already 5 years old, but I snatched up his ‘This Year’s Model’ album and it went into heavy rotation for a long while. And when I could find them, I picked up all his earliest records.
The song that made me a fan!
He and his band somehow managed to take Motown-like music and fuse it with the energy and brashness of punk rock and it was magic. That he looked like a goofy nerd while blasting out this awesome music made him even more endearing.
But unlike the vast majority of punk and new wave bands, he was clever, and his band could really play. The music was raw, but deliberate unlike a lot of the music at the time.
Right around the time I first discovered him, he hit paydirt with the hit single ‘Veronica’, which frankly at the time I didn’t really care for. It was such a departure from his earlier albums, it didn’t even seem like the same artist.
Keep in mind though, I was very young and VERY arrogant about music back then… I was far too immature to understand musical growth in an artist, it felt like a betrayal, or in the popular parlance of the time that he “sold out” for commercial success. What can I say, I was a dumb kid…
Anyhow, luckily for me I grew out of that short-sighted stupidity and learned to embrace musical change.
After years of missing out on his live show, we finally got to see him a few years back out at the Concord Pavillion. He put on a great show (especially considering he was about 60 years old at the time!) and it was frankly shocking how many great songs he pulled out. When an artist is as prolific as he is (something like 25 albums released to date!), it’s easy to forget just how many great songs he’s put out over numerous decades. It’s remarkable that his music has changed drastically over the years, but it all remains relevant decades later.
The Legend
Well done Sir! Best wishes to you on this day, and thank you for all the great tunes!
Today marks the birthday of one of the most unique and entertaining musicians of my lifetime, Mr. August Darnell. He rose to prominence as Kid Creole, of Kid Creole and the Coconuts fame back in the early 80’s.
This Kid Creole
(NOT to be confused with the wannabe gangsta Kidd Creole that was just sent to prison!)
Not this Kidd…
My first introduction to Kid Creole and the Coconuts was the track “Lifeboat Party” which I saw the video for on a weird music show back in 1983 I believe. It was the height of the “New Wave” era, where all the rules were thrown out the window and new “mashup” sounds were all over (college) radio and the newly launched MTV. Kid Creole took it to another level, mixing R&B, calypso, reggae, big band and good old rock and roll into a sound never heard before (or since, for that matter!) On top of his insanely different music, his sense of style was off the charts and there was simply nobody like him. Needless to say, their “Doppelganger” album ended up in heavy rotation in my life, and stayed there for quite a long time.
I was lucky enough to catch their live show at Bimbo’s in San Francisco back around ’90/’91 and to this day it stands out as one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. Pure entertainment, with everybody on stage giving it 100%. The band was so tight and fluid, and the Kid… there are no words that can do him justice. He’s simply a born showman.
For reasons l could never fathom, Kid Creole and the Coconuts never really became a household name, despite a fair amount of radio play, and even a performance in the film “Against All Odds”, which was a HUGE movie at the time. Unfortunately, Phil Collins’ contributions to the soundtrack eclipsed Kid Creole and after that the band kinda drifted into obscurity, at least in the US. From what I understand, his European following is much stronger than the US side… in fact, one of my prized possessions is an “unavailable in the USA” Kid Creole and the Coconuts CD “Tropical Gangsters” that my brother-in-law found while traveling through the UK. Yeah, before the internet was “a thing”, European imports were hard to come by and heavily cherished!
Kid Creole and the Coconuts have been part of my life’s soundtrack for 40+ years now and if I had to pick my Top 10 Desert Island Discs, The Kid would DEFINITELY be there. After all, if you were stranded on a desert isle, who wouldn’t want to hang out with some Tropical Gangsters?!?
Happy Birthday Kid! Thanks for all the great times, the great tunes and the great memories!! You are A Wonderful Thing and one of a kind!
It is hard to believe it’s already been 6 years since we lost Prince, nonetheless his music and spirit lives on!
I remember the first time I heard about Prince, it was a write up in BAM (Bay Area Music) Magazine, when he opened for the Rolling Stones on their first of Lord-knows-how-many Farewell Tours. He was panned mercilessly for his performance. I recall them saying he was “booed off the stage” by the Stones fans…
Rolling Stones fans didn’t know what hit ’em!
It was maybe a year or so later that I actually heard his music for the first time, and I was immediately hooked. We suburban white kids didn’t get turned on to Prince until the “1999” album, which was released in 1982 (my Freshman year of high school).
Prince was one of those artists that transcended genre, trends, race, orientation… everything. The man changed music and the expectations of musicians. “One of a kind” is just the tip of the iceberg.
I’d been a big fan of Prince for a good decade or more when I learned that we shared a birthday – he was born exactly 10 years to the day before me – and that he threw big jam sessions at Paisley Park on his birthday (in spite of being a Jehovah’s Witness). It was my dream to one day reach a level of drumming notoriety that would get me invited to one of these all star jams…Alas, it was never meant to be. In fact, he’s one of the legendary musicians that profoundly influenced my own musical journey that I never got to see live. Nevertheless, without Prince I wouldn’t be the musician I am today.
So, Happy Birthay Prince! You were before your time, and beyond your place in the Universe and I am eternally grateful for what you bestowed upon us mere earthlings. You will be forever missed, you Sexy MF!
Nicholas “Topper” Headon, drummer of The Clash, turns 67 today.
While ordinarily I don’t celebrate junkies, The Clash is without a doubt my all-time favorite band and without Topper it’s unlikely that they would have had the impact they did. Lets face it, most of the attention in a band goes to the singer and maybe the lead guitarist, but a drummer can make or break a band. And to be fair, Topper has since cleaned up and completely taken responsibility for his actions back in the day. Which is about the best you can hope for in those situations. Besides, I’m not here to judge.
I hated the man for a time; as a young musician and uber-fan of The Clash, I held him responsible for their demise. Now that I’m older and have a few more decades of life experience under my belt, I can be happy for what they WERE and not be hung up on what they might have been. It’s been over 4 decades now that I’ve loved the music of The Clash, and whatever demons they were fighting back then made them what they were.
A lot of people don’t know the Topper both wrote and recorded most of instruments for “Rock the Casbah”, which while not my favorite tune by The Clash, was their biggest hit in the charts and gave them visibility to millions of “normies” that would have never paid attention to the band, so there is that.
Happy Birthday Topper, and best wishes to you! Thanks for your tremendous body of work, without it I wouldn’t be the person I am today.
The Boring Old Man 