things craner will love

[Leo]

Arent you succesful yourself?

I have managed to shovel six inches of snow from the sidewalk in front of our building today, but besides that, no.

 

[Leo]

I should clarify: "I have managed to shovel six inches of snow from the sidewalk in front of our building today without having a heart attack,..."

 

[luka]

Nothing to be sneezed at at your age Leo

 

[Mr. Tea]

I have managed to shovel six inches of snow from the sidewalk in front of our building today, but besides that, no.

Do you mean six inches depth of snow, or did you just clear a six-inch-wide path?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Do you mean six inches depth of snow, or did you just clear a six-inch-wide path?

Because to be honest, that's just the sort of minimum-effort thing I'd do.

 

[version]

 

[IdleRich]

such a fucked up head shape

We were actually talking about Max Headroom yesterday evening.

 

[IdleRich]

i was wondering yesterday if it's possible to be friends with a successful person. not mega successful, just moderately. i think probably not, not really.

Just been speculating on this as well. Yesterday we met Pete Kember from Spaceman 3 and afterwards we've sort of being thinking about fame and what it does to you. Also life after fame, in that his peak, meaning no disrespect to the man, was probably in about 1990 when he was 25 and playing big gigs and so on... what happens when you have that and then it goes away or diminishes and becomes a more and more distant memory, slightly awakened when some ageing rocker comes up to you in the pub and tells you how much your album meant to them when they were 17. My guess is that fame is awful and people genuinely find huge aspects of it uncomfortable and they are not lying when they moan about it... but they would and do miss it when it's gone. Wilde writ large "the only thing worse than being famous is not being famous".

Fame is closely associated with certain benefits which often come with it and which we automatically link with it in our heads, but which are not, in reality, totally tied to it. Wealth, and maybe admiration/respect, groupies, free stuff, invitations etc etc are good in their own right no doubt but wealth is the thing that allows someone to insulate herself to at least some extent from some of the negative effects of fame. And for those people - I'm particularly thinking reality show stars here but I'm sure there are others - who achieve fame without those benefits it must be a fucking nightmare. People who feel that they own you and you owe them can approach you and prod you in the street or in the pub or whatever and you can't set your bodyguards on them or retreat to your mansion or even drink in an exclusive bar that they can't get into or afford.

As an aside, one thing I've sort of noticed is that, in the same way that you or I meet semi-famous people, they in turn meet people in the higher echelons and I wonder how that works, what the dynamic is... maybe fame is fame and so those who live with different amounts of it can relate to each other more than those who have none at all.

 

[Leo]

there are some elderly punks and new wavers here who had moderate success in bands back in the day that played at cbgb and max's Kansas City, and they still dwell on it endlessly like it's still the center of everyone's universe, bless 'em. still wear the tight jeans and spiked hair (what's left of it). I can understand it, it was the highlight of their life, but it wavers between sweet and sad.

 

[IdleRich]

Gotta say that, in fairness, I didn't get that kind of vibe off Peter at all. I didn't feel that he was bitter in general, certainly not so bitter that you could inevitably feel it coming off him over the course of a few hours chatting. He didn't give it the big one but he wasn't uncomfortable when someone mentioned the stuff he'd done... I would say that he negotiated that potentially tricky element of the conversation pretty well. As did Liza, she was a massive fan growing up in Chelyabinsk 25 years ago but obviously never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that she would be sitting in a bar in Lisbon chatting with him about potentially doing something together in the near future.
Thing is, I don't know that much about the band; I mean I know their music and I know that they have a big cult status but looking up some stuff from the time it seems that they were more successful in terms of sales and stuff than I'd really grasped. But I guess that he has had literally decades to accept his - for want of a better phrase - reduced status.

 

[Leo]

yeah, not all of them are like the punks who can't let go. I know some musicians from that same period who have been teachers or in TV production for decades who are perfectly normal and happy, glad to have done the music thing but moved on instead of trying to make it a career.

spacemen 3 were always (still) pretty popular here with music heads, yeah "big cult status" a good way to put it, would play venues that fit a few thousand people. Pete's Spectrum were good, too. Jason Pierce's spiritualized ended up bigger. I believe they all had a bit of a smack problem, hope he's in good health now.

Funny, I used to think of them every time we visited my mother in law. Rugby was the closest train station to the village where she lived.

 

[william_kent]

I seem to own the entire Spacemen 3 discography ( on CD only ) and I'd liken them to the Velvet Underground, in that it was the tension between Jason and Pete that made the band - they tempered their worst inclinations, I've no time for Spiritualized or Sonic Boom releases for some reason, but offer me a Spacemen 3 bootleg and I'm on it... one of the best bands ever...

I've often pondered on what it must be like to be Robert Plant, singer of one of the biggest rock band of the '70s, yet he "peaked" before he was 30... I comfort myself with the thought that I am nowhere near "peaking", and reflect on the loss Robert must feel knowing he is a "has been", and I can revel in the fact that I "never was"

 

[IdleRich]

I can never ever remember if it's Spaceman 3 or Spacemen 3....
They had well publicised drug problems and a very acrimonious split - I think by the last album they weren't speaking to each other and the album was effectively split with one side effectively a Pierce solo record and the other entirely Kember. I think he's clean now but he has got a kind of facial tic that totally contorts his expression every couple of minutes or so.

 

[william_kent]

I can never ever remember if it's Spaceman 3 or Spacemen 3....
They had well publicised drug problems and a very acrimonious split - I think by the last album they weren't speaking to each other and the album was effectively split with one side effectively a Pierce solo record and the other entirely Kember. I think he's clean now but he has got a kind of facial tic that totally contorts his expression every couple of minutes or so.

it's the plural...

I once had an amp, it blew up, and so I bought myself a "boom box" and bought some tapes while my JVC was being repaired... "The Perfect Prescription" was the tape I played the most - they filled the extra space on the "side 2" with incredible cover versions of "Rollercoster" ( 13th Floor Elevators ) and "Starship" ( Sun Ra & MC5 )

I can see my copy of the bootleg "Revolution or Heroin" CD is in reach, I may end up passing out to that later...


Spacemen 3 -Rollercoaster

As much as I like the 13th Floor Elevators, Spacemen 3 nailed it

 

[IdleRich]

I've often pondered on what it must be like to be Robert Plant, singer of one of the biggest rock band of the '70s, yet he "peaked" before he was 30... I comfort myself with the thought that I am nowhere near "peaking", and reflect on the loss Robert must feel knowing he is a "has been", and I can revel in the fact that I "never was"

Don't most people peak before thirty though? I mean sportsmen and women of course, but also mathematicians who make a major breakthrough normally do it before they reach thirty I understand and I think chess players are normally past their best soon after that (though don't quote me on that one).

 

[william_kent]

Don't most people peak before thirty though? I mean sportsmen and women of course, but also mathematicians who make a major breakthrough normally do it before they reach thirty I understand and I think chess players are normally past their best soon after that (though don't quote me on that one).

yeah, but I like to think I am still capable of reaching my "peak'...

 

[william_kent]

mathematicians are normally "past it" by about 20 from what I understand ( or have been told by a pure maths guy )

 

[linebaugh]

mathematicians are normally "past it" by about 20 from what I understand ( or have been told by a pure maths guy )

like they are less good at math? after 20?

 

[william_kent]

like they are less good at math? after 20?

it's a generalisation, and I know fuck all about maths, but I was told by a mathematician that they "ossify"

 

[IdleRich]

Don't most people peak before thirty though? I mean sportsmen and women of course, but also mathematicians who make a major breakthrough normally do it before they reach thirty I understand and I think chess players are normally past their best soon after that (though don't quote me on that one).

I'm talking about career-wise and professionally here of course, that's just one measure of peaking. I'm not necessarily saying that it's either.