Fact #20524
When:
Short story:
At The Wetherby Arms, Chelsea, London, UK, William Perks auditions for the job of bass-player with The Rolling Stones. He gets the gig, and changes his name to Bill Wyman.
Full article:
Bill Wyman : I'd heard about them from Tony Clifton, who drummed for them and another group I was in [The Cliftons]. We went early evening to the World's End in Chelsea. They rehearsed in the back of a pub, the Wetherby Arms, in a room about 40 foot square.
I remember they looked very different. At that time most people in groups had rock'n'roll hair-cuts, a little length on top. They were more like beatniks, quite bohemian, the hair Ionger. Mick and Stew were at the front, friendly, actually acknowledged us. Brian and Keith didn't react, just ignored us; which was their way of being cool. They soon stopped when I got my bass and my cabinet in. All of a sudden they seemed interested!
Keith Richards : We all turned up for rehearsals and in walks Bill with a huge speaker and a spare Vox AC30 amp, which was the biggest amp we'd seen in our lives. 'That's spare,' he said, 'You can pout one of your guitars through there.' Whew! That put us up quite a few volts.
Bill Wyman : I'd been playing for a while and I'd got myself a nice set-up - AC30 Watkins Westminster amp and a cabinet with 18-inch speaker. They just had two tiny amps that they'd kicked around to get a 40s-style, dirty blues guitar sound. It'd actually worked quite well but they were all straight away plugging into my amp, well up for it.
Keith Richards : He had the bass together already. He'd been playing in rock bands, knew how to play, but he didn't want to play with those shitty rock bands any more.
Bill Wyman : They were raw, but Brian and Keith had this interlocked thing going on, playing crossover pattems; it was obvious they had an understanding. Brian was also a really good blues harp player.
We mainly played rock'n'roll and I remember thinking, 'This is easy, because it was all 12-bar blues.' At the end I turned to Stew and said, 'You can't just play 12-bar blues all night, it's boring!'
There was no 'You're in'. It was just, 'There's a gig next Sunday.' We got on fine as soon as I dished out the fags, and when I bought them some chips at the next rehearsal, that was it - accepted.
(Source : unknown)
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I remember they looked very different. At that time most people in groups had rock'n'roll hair-cuts, a little length on top. They were more like beatniks, quite bohemian, the hair Ionger. Mick and Stew were at the front, friendly, actually acknowledged us. Brian and Keith didn't react, just ignored us; which was their way of being cool. They soon stopped when I got my bass and my cabinet in. All of a sudden they seemed interested!
Keith Richards : We all turned up for rehearsals and in walks Bill with a huge speaker and a spare Vox AC30 amp, which was the biggest amp we'd seen in our lives. 'That's spare,' he said, 'You can pout one of your guitars through there.' Whew! That put us up quite a few volts.
Bill Wyman : I'd been playing for a while and I'd got myself a nice set-up - AC30 Watkins Westminster amp and a cabinet with 18-inch speaker. They just had two tiny amps that they'd kicked around to get a 40s-style, dirty blues guitar sound. It'd actually worked quite well but they were all straight away plugging into my amp, well up for it.
Keith Richards : He had the bass together already. He'd been playing in rock bands, knew how to play, but he didn't want to play with those shitty rock bands any more.
Bill Wyman : They were raw, but Brian and Keith had this interlocked thing going on, playing crossover pattems; it was obvious they had an understanding. Brian was also a really good blues harp player.
We mainly played rock'n'roll and I remember thinking, 'This is easy, because it was all 12-bar blues.' At the end I turned to Stew and said, 'You can't just play 12-bar blues all night, it's boring!'
There was no 'You're in'. It was just, 'There's a gig next Sunday.' We got on fine as soon as I dished out the fags, and when I bought them some chips at the next rehearsal, that was it - accepted.
(Source : unknown)