Great Musicians Who Are Also Legendary Music Geeks

[RevMatt]

Most musicians aren't music geeks. A typical musician might own one or two milk crates worth of records. They spend more time playing than exploring music geekdom. However, every great band usually has one music geek; a dude who owns hundreds of records and has encyclopedic knowledge of obscure genres and B-Sides.

The Robyn Hitchcock thread got me thinking about the greatest of these guys.

Here is a list of a few who stand out in my mind.

1) Julian Cope -- The Drude is a music geek's music geek. He wrote The Krautrock Sampler. His Head Heritage website is a music geek's paradise. (Full Disclosure: I went to high school with The Seth Man, the chief music geek on Julian's site. Seth was the biggest music geek in my high school; he put me to shame. But I was the one who turned him onto The Teardrop Explodes.)

2) Patterson Hood -- He should write a book about music geekdom.

3) Robyn Hitchcock -- Read the article that Kudzu linked. Great stuff.

4) Robert Quine -- Before he tragically took his life Robert Quine spent his days hanging out in various Manhattan record shops.

[cortez the killer]

James Jackson Toth (Wooden Wand)

[Kudzu Guillotine]

Peter Buck, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant to name three just off the top of my head. Buck has appeared in documentaries for several artists over the years including but not limited to Big Star, Drivin' n' Cryin', Robyn Hitchcock and Gram Parsons where he sings their praises. He's also mentioned in numerous interviews that he goes in search of local record stores in nearly every town he's ever toured in. His debut solo album that was only released on vinyl on the relatively obscure Mississippi Records is only further testament to his geekitude. I've read countless interviews with Page and Plant over the years where they rave about blues, rockbilly, folk, etc. import records from the U.S. Page's scene in It Might Get Loud where he's playing air guitar to Link Wray's "Rumble" with a shit eatin' grin plastered across his face is priceless.

I'm not sure if you can embed a video from Vimeo here but if you click on this link it's a scene from the upcoming Drivin' n' Cryin' documentary called Scarred But Smarter that includes a brief interview with Buck. The clip is less about the music than it is about Kinney's various addictions. I know the movie was recently shown in Atlanta. I'm not sure how much longer it'll be before it's shown on more screens or is made available on DVD.

[tinnitus photography]

Thurston Moore.

[Steve French]

Don't you dare forget Lenny Kaye!

Compiler of NUGGETS way back when, sage, oracle and offsider of Patti Smith. REviewer and whatnot. Plus he plays the guitar a bit.

[tinnitus photography]

not sure what the definition of 'great' is, but here are some musicians that are fully immersed in world of records:

Alan Bishop (ex-Sun City Girls, Alvarius b.) - runs Sublime Frequencies (along w/ Hisham Mayet) and travels extensively throughout southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa on the hunt for interesting things to release

Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo) - used to be a rock critic for Trouser Press...extensive repertoire of covers readily at hand

Bob Pollard (Guided By Voices) - bob's wall of important records:


edit - if you want to make some of the records out, here's a larger version: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/7541 ... opped2.jpg


also, Steven Stapleton (Nurse With Wound) - he put out a staggering list of records with the first NWW record that is still a blueprint for avant/experimental music...how he ever came across all of these as a young man pre-internet is like an act of voodoo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurse_with_Wound_list

[scotto]

Poison Ivy and Lux Interior of The Cramps

[Beebs]

Jimmy Page page totally geeks out in a scene in It MIght Get Loud.

[Beebs]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLEUSn8y9TI

[Iowan]

Craig Finn & Paul Westerberg

[Flood18]

Flea and Frusciante(formerly) of the Chili Peppers

[Tequila Cowboy]

Brent Best