“I think of our differences as a family squabble. If I shout and scream at him, it’s because no one else has the guts to do it or else they’re paid not to do it. At the same time I’d hope Mick realizes that I’m a friend who is just trying to bring him into line and do what needs to be done.”

– Keith Richards on Mick Jagger

For more, visit the Rock Quotes Page

Is it the final countdown?

Well in the words of RBP editor, Barney Hoskyns…

“This was never meant to be definitive just a starting point for ‘But what about…?’”

So if you have a ‘But what about…’ moment, post your own favourite tracks on to our blog and we’ll add them to the play list with your name and a dedication.

Click here for the article.

Jeff “The Drummer” Dyson was an academically gifted child who, after gaining a First Class (hons) degree in philosophy from Durham at the remarkably early age of 19, became a lecturer in sociology at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1965. His early academic work is still extant with his paper in the British Philosophical Review of 1964 on “Equo ne credite, Teucri. Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentes”, Laocoön and The General Theory of Signs” is still widely regarded in philosophical circles as a seminal piece of early post modernist analysis. However, Jeff Dyson’s first love was music and by the age of 22 he had left the Polytechnic to consummate his passion. MUSICAL CAREER
Jeff had already started his musical career playing in local bands in Sunderland and then became the founder member of Alan Brown’s Roker Park Electric Experience – a psychedelic rock band of limited interest to all except, possibly, aficionados of Sunderland Football Club’s playing style under the manager of the same name. After one single (Lennie the Lion – celebrating the career of Sunderland’s Len Ashurst) charted at 42 in the UK, the band broke up blaming creative differences. Many, including the band’s lead guitar and vocalist, Nigel Panthorn, pointed the finger at Dyson’s increasingly bizarre behaviour which had become more noticeable since he had moved on from Newcastle Brown Ale to Mescaline and Purple Hearts.

Jeff next re-emerged as founder member/drummer of the folk rock band Balrog in 1970, having apparently spent the previous 3 years in a squat on Haight Street in Haight Ashbury, San Francisco. It is difficult to verify this claim as he had by now interlaced Californian, hippy argot with his North East accent which, when combined with alcohol and drugs, rendered him all but incomprehensible. He claimed, further, to have contracted an STD from Janis Joplin and became famous (within the folk rock community) for his opinions on other drummers which developed over the years from “Spencer Dryden (drummer with Jefferson Airplane) is a rhythmless fuckwit” to “Keith Moon couldn’t hit a fucking drum with a fucking cricket bat – fuck him”.

Balrog’s first album (Songs from Inside Moria) was a critical success, with Jeff’s eccentricity on the drums counterpointing the melodic harmonies of Nigel Panthorn (with whom he had re-united after their differences of 1966/7) and the violin and sitar playing of Meryl Streatham (ex Mothers of Witchcraft and Cindy and the Barbels). In 1971, however, Panthorn decided it was important to bring a keyboard player into the band and despite early conversations with a young Elton John and Rick Wakeman, Jeff’s acerbic comments ensured that this musical development did not take place – of Elton John he was reported as saying “I’m not having that fucking arse bandit on the same stage as me, right” and Rick Wakeman was rejected because “fucking Ross Conway could fucking play better than that cunt and he had one less finger”.

These musical differences led to the final break between Dyson and Panthorn and Jeff the Drummer disappeared from the music scene following a period of incarceration in Durham Prison after setting fire to Panthorn’s leather trousers on stage, assaulting a police officer who tried to intervene and attempting to rape a female police officer who was, he claimed, “fucking up for it, the dirty tart, or why else was she wearing a fucking uniform and black stockings and suspenders?”

RECENT SIGHTINGS
Jeff moved away from Sunderland in 1975 and is believed to have been living in a converted garage in Hull since 1988. Despite three attempts to get treatment for his drug and alcohol addiction he seems to have found it impossible to abandon his self destructive habits, partly because it appears that he retains his acerbic nature having reportedly called Alcoholics Anonymous “a useless bunch of fucking panty wasters who couldn’t stop a nun having a wank”.

Interviewed recently by the ROCK-on tv channel on Sky who had dug out a couple of audio clips of his drumming with both Balrog and Alan Brown’s Roker Park Electric Experience and who wished to make a documentary about him, The Drummer demonstrated his usual ability of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory by throwing them out of his “house” and recording a foul mouthed attack on the channel and posting it on YouTube.
]]> http://rockontv.wordpress.com/2009/06/11/jeff-the-drummer-dyson-1945-to-%e2%80%a6/feed/ 0 rockontv http://rockontv.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/rock-stars-real-names/ http://rockontv.wordpress.com/2008/11/19/rock-stars-real-names/#comments Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:45:09 +0000 rockontv http://rockontv.wordpress.com/?p=33 ]]> Bono – Paul David Hewson
David Bowie – David Robert Jones
David Crosby – David Van Cortland
Alice Cooper – Vincent Damon Furnier
Elvis Costello – Declan McManus
Bo Didley – Othas Elass Bates McDaniel
Bob Dylan – Robert Zimmerman
Davis Essex – David Cook
Daryl Hall – Daryl Franklyn Hohl
Jimi Hendrix – James Marshall Hendricks
Bily Idol – William Broad
Tom Jones – Thomas Jones Woodward
Dr John – Malcolm John Rebennack
B.B. King – Riley B King
Little Richard – Richard Wayne Penniman
Meatloaf – Marvin Lee Aday
Freddie Mercury – Farouk Bulsara
George Michael – Yorgos Pannayiotou
Gram Parsons – Ingram Cecil Conner II
Iggy Pop – James Jewell Osterberg Jnr
Leon Russell – Claude Russell Bridges
Cat Stevens – Steve Georgiou
Sting – Gordon Matthew Sumner
The Edge – David Howell Evans
Booker T – Alan Jones
Sid Vicious – John Simon Ritchie
Howlin’ Wolf – Cgester Arthur Burnett

1. Procol Harum – A Whiter Shade Of Pale
2. Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody
3. Wet Wet Wet – Love Is All Around
4. Everly Brothers – All I Have To Do Is Dream
5. Bryan Adams – (Everything I Do) I Do It For You
6. Abba – Dancing Queen
7. Elvis Presley – All Shook Up
8. Rod Stewart – Maggie May
9. The Beatles – Hello Goodbye
10. The Beatles – Get Back

Good Luck.

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