Picked up Dave Stewart’s autobiography (Sweet Dreams Are Made of This) at the library and it makes for fascinating if annoying reading. I never realised he had worked with so many people. The book is just chapter after chapter of name dropping. Even during the Eurythmics he’s working with Stevie Wonder (harmonica on There Must Be An Angel) and Stevie Nicks, simultaneously (or so it seems). And among others there are Clem Burke, Terry Hall (Vegas), Dylan, Harrison, Jagger, Elton, Bowie, Bryan Ferry, Tom Petty, Bono …
He seems like a nice guy but unfortunately the book gives little real insight into what inspires him or how he works.
For much of it he comes across a bit like Gary Bloke from Celeb cartoon. A typical bit might read:
“I was playing tennis with Tony Blair and Paul Allen from Microsoft at my second new property in Cannes when the maid told me there was a strange woman in our living room. Remembering the words of Deepak Chopra (or was it Nelson Mandela?): “A stranger is just a friend you have not yet met” I went inside to find Katy Perry lying on the floor tapping out a beat on my Damien Hirst artwork. I sat down next to her with my guitar and we started chatting and before we knew it it was midnight and I had added a riff to the beat and she had come up with a great vocal line. That was the song that went to Number One in the US for five weeks. And when people ask how we wrote it – I just say in my usual crazy way.”
See attached clip of the first Eurythmics TV performance – with guest appearance by Holgar Czukay RIP.
Barbara Gaskin?
That’s a different Dave Stewart I think.
Don’t think either have worked with the other, though.
Chris & Cosey (formerly one half of Throbbing Gristle) – the original single wasn’t credited to Thee Eurythmics, possibly for contractual reasons, but who the hell else was that singing then?
I used to see the scruffy bastard (if you didn’t recognise him, you’d have thought he was some sort of soap-dodger without two pennies to his name) wandering around Crouch End when we first moved here.
He never offered to work with me, but then I never offered to work with him.
That would be when he teamed up with the animators of Camberwick Green to build a studio in an old church in Crouch End …
A studio since sold to David Gray.
DS lived here too.
I once triaged him when I worked in A&E. I thought it was him, but couldn’t be 100% sure, so I asked for his surname and he gave a little ‘don’t you know who I am’ type sneer when he said Stewart. Put me off him a little bit, although never been a fan really, but that’s more to do with Annie Lennox taking herself a little too seriously.
Could have been him – he describes how he got really sick for a year with some kind of bowel disease. He found the best surgeon in LA and instead of getting his London doctor to send his medical records he paid for the doctor to fly over and speak to the surgeon in person! That’s the kind of crazy guy he is.
that’s annoying, if someone in A&E is asking you a question you should just give the answer, sounds like a twattish thing to do
Didn’t Bob Dylan knock on the wrong door in Crouch End while wandering around looking for Dave Stewart? I recall there was some sort of taxi mix up, ending up with Bob sitting in a random person’s kitchen.
I bet the guy’s been kicking himself ever since for not saying, ‘No, you’ve knocked on the wrong door. My name’s Heaven.’ Or maybe he did say that.
Met him on a flight to NYC in 1985. He was, um, ‘okay’ but certainly a little distant. One of my former school friends actually played keyboards in Eurythmics (on stage not in the studio) in the early 80’s but Dave couldn’t recall him!!
Saw him play last week. Clem Burke, Bob Geldof, Candy Dulfer and others showed up to help. He was the total namedropper but the show was great.
One of the names dropped in the OP reminded me that just recently my youngest sister was at home of an evening, in deepest Suffolk, when having got the kiddies off to bed was having a little doze on the sofa. Off went her ‘phone with a Facetime request from her husband, only when she blearily answered it she came face to face with none other than Terry Hall!
Her hubby and his chums were at some weekend-long music event, and had somehow persuaded Terry that this would be a good idea. It was certainly a hoot, at least for them. I cannot confirm at this time what exactly TH and my sleepy sis chatted about.
I guess your lips are sealed, eh Mini?
That Dave Stewart cannot mix cement for toffee. I had to send him packing at coffee break last Tuesday. That’s the last time I ask Stevie Nicks if she can recommend a good reliable labourer.
Bloody Welsh Witches!!!
The award for Afterword Comment of The Year goes to…
Is he not the Jeff Lynne of the 90s, always around with a dustpan to brush up the crumbs of those around him?
Very funny “typical excerpt” Mutikonka. I heard him on a half hour interview on LBC the other week and by the end the constant name-dropping was getting very annoying. Like you say there wasn’t much insight. I suppose if you have worked with a lot of other famous people that may be what you would write/talk about but it was pretty charmless.
Heard something on the radio this morning about Ringo Starr’s new album, which included a list of guests on the record. Yes, you guessed it – Mr Stewart features…