New Wave Outpost Forum

Many posters here have been fortunate enough to have not only met with, but interviewed or spoken at length with many NW artists. For those of you who fit that bill, I was wondering who you considered based on those interactions (or other input, I suppose) the most polite or "nicest" figures in NW.

For example:

I was lucky enough to play billiards with Lloyd Cole at a Club he had a concert at, about 1989. Had a good 20-30 min conversation with the gentlemen. I found him to be very articulate, obviously well read, and quite polite. Nice bloke (to coin a phrase).

Anyone else?

I actually got Lloyd Cole's first American autograph when I interned at WLIR. He just got into JFK, and they brought him over for an interview. He was actually shocked I knew who he was! Then, later that year, he was named "Wally of the Year" by NME...must've given some bitchy interviews.

Karen and Don of The Innocense Mission could be the nicest people period, let alone music.

Frank and Susan of Poi Dog Pondering are the most genuine people I interviewed 20 years ago, and Peggy from the Judybats was really sweet.

Weirdest was Johnny Rotten being very quiet & humble (but it was early in the afternoon!)

Here's my self portrait gallery from other folks I met back when:

http://hometown.aol.com/dougmash/selfport.html

Well, I've mentioned before on NWOMB my interview with Cyndi Lauper. That was probably the best formal interview I ever did. She was a hoot, and loved my hair (back then, it was pretty "Flocked" out, bleached near white, with a foot-long fire red tail).

My brother used to live right across the street from Oingo Boingo's Leon Schneiderman in the Topanga area of L.A., and I met and had a nice chat with him one day. This was after Boingo had broken up, and he told me he was pretty sure the band wouldn't ever get back together again. Something about Danny's hearing loss.

The most (non-interview) fun I ever had with any NW personalities was when my buddy and I played pool with Mike Score and Paul Reynolds of A Flock of Seagulls at The Stone in Berkeley. They were really nice to us, chatted it up, and gave us a sound whuppin' at the table. Went backstage after the show, and yacked it up with the rest of the band for a couple of hours. Great fun.

-C

actually there are quite a lot of nice or even great experiences that i had in the past 25 years ( fyi : 1983 was the year as i went to my 1st concert on my own ) with "big names" of the nw ! [:D]

maybe the greatest moment so far was in dec. 2006 , when i finally met andy & paul of o.m.d. in my hometown & we did even 2 interviews on the same day for my own radio shows ! [:)]
as the 1st interview was great , but simply unusable for a radio show , because of technical problems with the mic that i've used for it , i was devastated as i got back to the studio to listen to the result ! [:0]
then i grabbed another , better mic & immediately returned to the hotel to wait for them to return to the bar before their show ... & as andy saw me i told him about the technical problems that i had with the mic in the 1st interview , so he quickly checked back with paul & both agreed to do a 2nd interview @ andy's hotel room & not @ the bar this time ! [8D]
that 2nd interview was a bit shorter , because there wasn't much time left for them before the show began & andy also wanted to take a steam bath then to refresh himself , but it was simply fantastic how generous they were & how much they understood the importance of that interview for me , who was jus' a fan after all ! [:)]

it goes without saying that the concert that evening was jus' perfect & the radio show with that 2nd interview is still a highlight for me personally , who's doing radio shows already since 1995 ! [;)]

so thanx to andy & paul of o.m.d. for EVERYTHING ! [8D]

Nick Rhodes is extremely polite and had a lot of time for fans at a Meet and Greet I attended on the RCM Australian tour. Not that the other members were anus's or anything.. just Nick seemed to be the most chatty and willing to discuss varied topics / have photo's etc.

Dane Conover (Trees of course), I never met him in person but have had many hours of phone calls and emails over the years. The nicest guy you'll ever meet. He recorded a promo for my station and has been very generous in sharing tracks he's done over the years. If I ever go about west, I have a place to stay.

Doug Lynner (Invisible Zoo), another one I never met in person but again, one of the nicest guys out there. He's also knows a lot about other types music and enjoys sharing stories. A great guy who I owe (and will be sending some stuff his way, if you're reading this Doug).

John Ruth (Ruskan now)"I am a Model", I tracked him down and he was amazed that someone spent the amount of time I did looking for him. He sent me his entire catalog. Another great guy.

Phil Judd (Split Enz, Swingers, Schnell Fenster) very funny guy. He has sent personal videos of his home and studio. We share an artistic background. I love talking to him and hope to have a family portrait done by him.

Wayne Famous (The Producers), met him at a show. Really funny guy. I tried to buy him a beer but he wanted orange juice instead. They came back about a year later and he spotted me first and bought me a beer. I was surprised that he remembered me. The guy was always "up".... ready to go.

Richard Mazda (produced Call of the West "Wall of Voodoo"). Very helpful and had a lot of cool stories about Call of the West. Directed me to some tracks he sang on for WOV when Stan left.

Scott Wilk, complimented me on my vinyl rip of his first LP. Made my day, hell, it made my year. Had a lot of great stories about Zappa and Duckman. Great guy to talk to.

Mark Hollis from Talk Talk dug in the tour van for 7 minutes to find swag for the few of us that waited to meet them. 1984, opening for the Furs.

And pardon the aside, but I always thought Anabella Lwin had a really nice figure!

Doug Fieger of the Knack was a super nice guy. Even got to hang with the Knack after a show for a few minutes.


Also, traded e-mails with Dave Steen of the Hawks a few times and he seemed like a good guy.

Nice humble artists I've had the pleasure interviewing:

1983: The Bangles and R.E.M.

1984: Matt Johnson (The The), Bill Nelson, Dev-O (Mark and Gerald!), David Byrne (The Talking Heads), Spandau Ballet

1986: Depeche Mode, Neil and Stephen of Blancmange, Andy and Paul of OMD

There are so many more nce new wave artists, just have to think of them all...



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[quote][i]Originally posted by Ollie Stench[/i]
<br>
And pardon the aside, but I always thought Anabella Lwin had a really nice figure!
[/quote]
That's how I interpreted the topic also. I was going to nominate Kate Garner of Haysi Phantayzee. Check out her abs in the Shiny Shiny vid.

<IMG SRC="http://www.geocities.com/cjmratings/stuff/in_action_small.jpg">

Max, you talked to a great deal of new wave artists.

The list is endless for me. I will get back to this topic soon [;)]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Yachtingtype[/i]
<br>Max, you talked to a great deal of new wave artists.

The list is endless for me. I will get back to this topic soon [;)]
[/quote]


That's what I love about the "internets" (although I found Dane through an old phone book listing). When your kids are grown and you're no longer married, you have some time on your hands. So between my job and searching the internet (or Amazon) for stuff I don't have or missed, I track down people I admire. This goes for producers and engineers although these guys aren't prone to write back as often as artists are.

You know, it turns out all of these guys are just like you and me. They live down the street, have jobs and families and nine times out of ten their own neighbors don't even know who they are.

Most of my interactions with NW artists have been through setting up and doing interviews for WFDU. I can honestly say that for the most part everyone I've encountered either live or on the phone has been gracious and easygoing. Dave Wakeling was an enormously funny guest as was Julie Brown (naturally) and Glenn Gregory of Heaven 17 was about as down to earth as you would hope. The Comateens were very friendly too.

The "nicest" I suppose would have to be Terri Nunn (an interview that is debuting this coming Saturday night on the show folks..plug plug plug). She was particularly appreciative that we had played Berlin's 2005 release 4Play on the show and we wound up chatting about a lot of non-music things, like favorite TV shows, etc.

As for my other gig at Sirius, Robyn Hitchcock was exceptionally nice. It was a surreal experience because I sat between he and Peter Buck as they played songs from their then new album. Since obviously I couldn't jam with them, I just had to sit there with a goofy smile on my face as I thought about how my younger 18 year old self would have reacted to being in this R.E.M./Egyptians sandwich. Afterwards I was drafted to be part of their road crew that afternoon and helped them load the van which I was only too happy to do.

Any bad experiences I've had have been with newer bands, most likely because they're playing the egocentric "golden god of rock" game which most of the veteran acts from the 80's have moved beyond.

Let's see here...

In terms of artists I actually had the opportunity to meet, I would say Annabella Lwin of Bow Wow Wow and Stan Ridgway. Stan Ridgway is a real down to earth guy.

Talking to artists via e-mail, the list is endless...

Hawaiian Pups, Nic North of the Comateens, Bush Tetras, Mo-Dettes, etc.

I have only ever met Tom Bailey from Thompson Twins. He was really nice. They say you should never meet your idols because you'll only be disappointed. This certainly wasn't the case. It's still a great memory for me now I'm all grown up.



[b]"Can't you see I'm burnin?"[/b]