People will see me and cry.

[davywavy]

One of the best things about being a rock star must be the quite outrageous demands you get to make on your contract when you perform or appear at events. Perhaps the most famous contract rider was created by Van Halen in the 1980's, when they used to require an enormous bowl of M&Ms in their dressing room, with all the brown ones removed. In later years, Dave Lee Roth admitted this had been originally included in their standard contract in order to make sure it had actually been read - if brown M&Ms appeared, they knew other things might have been missed as well so the band would check out things like power supply and safety protocols to make sure everything was as it should be.
The notoriety which this demand got them, he said, was co-incidental but welcome.

Most of the time, contract riders are more prosaic and boring. Marilyn Manson requires air-conditioning, gummi bears and a few pints of milk (hardly the paraphenalia of a true satanist, I think. Maybe he brings his own Pentagram), Amy Winehouse demands a mere two litres of vodka, a bottle of Champagne and two (sober) roadies, and the delightfully bonkers Sinead O'Connor is still working through her issues with a demand for a dozen 8X12 glossy prints of the current pope.
As stars get older, the riotous demands of youth get left behind. It turns out that when Ozzy Osbourne performs he no longer demands farmyard animals and booze (but does need a hefty Vitamin B12 injection prior to going on stage) and AC/DC no longer ask for groupies and drugs but instead make do with three full tanks of oxygen (plus masks). Even Van Halen have toned down their rider. No longer do they ask for brown-free M&Ms, a dozen cases of beer and several large tubes of lubricant, but only now that Dave Lee Roths' dressing room be as far away from the rest of the band as possible.

My favourite recent rider was demanded by Mariah Carey when she turned on the Christmas lights in London last week. Amongst her demands were "twenty white kittens" in her hotel room, and "one hundred white doves", which she felt a pressing need to release from the roof of her hotel. I can only assume that she has a thing about sleeping in a room which smells strongly of cat wee.

So, question for the day. You're a rock star. What's your rider?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

"Twenty white kittens" is industry slang for "Boris Johnson in a soapy wetsuit"

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have no idea why she just didn't say what she meant then. I mean, Boris, freshly soaped. Who wouldn't? Mmmmm.

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

*12 bottles of beer from a local (no more than 5 miles away) "micro-brewery"
*A massive hot bath-towel for me to wrap myself in as soon as I get off stage (idea pinched from devalmont
*One room (at least 12 feet square) turned into a ball pit
*10Gig WiFi available at all times

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

10Gig WiFi available at all times

If I were running the venue I would arrange for an 'accidental' outage to occur about 3 minutes before you were due on stage.

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

just one more round! I'm sure the crowd will understand!!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I can't do an encore, I've got to go questing with my guild".

[raggedyman.livejournal.com]

I now have visions of Bono speaking out about lag death on stage....

well, he's already done dafter things

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

I think Lady Starlight's is more ridiculous than Mariah Carey's.

I'd have:
- An assortment of high quality, dark chocolate/s
- An assortment of fresh fruit juices and plenty of bottled water
- fresh fruit
- A jar of Nutella (for afterwards)
- A massage shower and a hot tub in the bathroom
- A good stereo system with an mp3 player socket so I can listen to whatever music I like at the time
- one of those big adaptive swivel chairs with footstool and reading lamp

MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

The skull of Richard Whitley filled with tic-tacs that have been licked by Bob Holness.

10 Pommerainians.

3 magnums of Tyxilix.

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You're like a male version of Mariah Carey. have you considered recording the odd ballad and maybe going on The X Factor?

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

The difference is I throw the pommerainans off the hotel roof and the TV after them.

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

What you need is a miniature dog-firing trebuchet as well, then.

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

I did play a recent Baron Munchausen game where someone was made to narrate an attack by the Prussians using orphan cannons.

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

"Originally designed as a device for facilitating the quick cleaning of chimneys, the orphan cannon was taken from it's peaceable and humanitarian intentions and twisted by our Hunnish foes into something far more dark and terrible."

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

Loaded with rabid metal-toothed urchins, plucked from the streets of Konisburg, these siege engines had breached the titanic walls of Basingstoke where I was recovering from consumption in the arms of a merry widow.

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Sir, I protest. The walls of Basingstoke were plainly (and wisely, in my view) built to keep the inhabitants in, not the Prussians out.
Them bombarding the place was a mercy.

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[godzuki.livejournal.com]

Indeed - the Prussians were prisoners of war who has smuggled the cannons and orpans within an enourmous german cake. As warder of Basingstoke at the time I was required to deal with the issue before the countryside was overrun with the Mad and the Hun. I deployed my mechanical Irishman to the task.

Re: MÜNKHÄÜS!!!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Ah! Suddenly my recent discovery of the Kinderkanonstollenfabrikat just outside Leipzig make a great deal more sense.

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

Monica Bellucci.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I could do a passable impersonation of her with a couple of balloons and the head off a mop if that would help?

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

I shall remember this when I become a huge rock star. You'd have to wear the "Crown of Thorns" outfit from Brotherhood of the Wolf though.

I'd also add "three and three-quarter litres of bovine vril" to the rider, just to add a certain atmosphere, but it'd probably ruin my repuation for clean sustainable living.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Damn right it would. Bovril is foul stuff!

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

Never tried it; I just love the name(go Bulwer-Lytton!). And I remember seeing Peter Ustinov when he came down to Melbourne, saying that when he first came to the UK, he wondered why all the stations were called "Bovril".

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Bovril is like the sort of thing which primitive tribes get explorers and anthropologists to eat under the pretence that it's a great delicacy, whilst laughing loudly.
Imagine Aborigines convincing someone to eat beetle grubs or Kangaroo dung as some sort of pretend initiation; that's the social function which Bovril provides in the UK.

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

That's amusingly topical; only an hour ago I was laughing with a friend about the word "delicacy" meaning exactly that. Pertaining to axolotl-onna-stick in this case, but Bovril can be easily substituted.

[morgan303.livejournal.com]

Furthermore:
http://exlaodicea.files.wordpress.com/2007/10/two_infallible_powers_pope_and_bovril.jpg

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

And either one of them could well be THE ANTICHRIST!

[(Anonymous)]

Oi, how dare you suggest we are not the anti-christ. Bovril is only the Great Whore of Surbiton

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Gosh, you do get batey when it's suggested that Benedict isn't on first-name terms with Beelzebub, don't you?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Oh, the nurse is actually for nursing. Wierd, I didn't expect that.

[the-mendicant.livejournal.com]

Funny, not many people do - couldn't have helped that back when I trained, the staff nurse uniform was translucent white so everyone could see your underwear.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Sounds splendid!

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

1) Four bottles of Russkij Standart in ice. Imperia would be best.

2) A smallish orchestra. Whenever I enter a room, I will be announced with a full chorus of Rule Britannia.

3) A large riding horse, preferrably a Baroque horse of some sort, for entering rooms on. Complete with saddle and reins, a sceptre, and a small crown.

4) An assortment of minions, dressed as Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate, and conditioned to inform everyone that the "Master will be most displeased". These will fetch whatever food or light entertainment I need, however obscure.

5) Ten packets of breath mints, iron wire, and a large container of Coca-Cola, to be fashioned into a makeshift bomb in case I'm most displeased.

6) I will only speak to management if addressed by an attractive woman in a suit. The presence of several will thus be necessary at all times.

7) A throne, built out of skulls, which doubles as a jacuzzi. It will be placed in my room and furnished with a cooler for the Russkij Standart.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Now you've got what it takes to make it into the upper echelons of outrageously self-indulgent ROCK.

You're nearing Elton John-like behaviour here.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

Stardom obliges. The only reason I wouldn't insist on an intact bottle of Absinthe Suisse Grande Distillerie Lyonnaise, no older than 1900, before each show is that the world supply would inevitably run out.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

Salma Hayek in a bikini. An impersonator will do as long as I can't tell the difference.
Also, an albino python, a mariachi band and a camcorder.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

You forgot the bottle of JD she will pour down her leg and into your mouth. ;o)

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

sorry, did someone say something?
*returns to daydream* :D
I did think that I should add a weekend in a glass igloo in lapland for two to that list, and make sure they allow reptiles

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You have no idea - no idea whatsoever - how hard it is for me not to start making "Albino Python" double-entendres.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

That would make for a rather, er, stiff snake...
Sorry, davywavy's mind infected mine here.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

*Tsk*. Looks like we'll be sharing a dressing room, then.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

you're going to impersonate Salma as well as Monica!? l33t ski1llz indeed!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

From behind, it's almost impossible to tell the difference.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

"flowers"= Depeche Mode's request for a lot of drugs.

I would like a lot of flowers and Jacob from Twilight in a guilded cage thanks.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

"Fruit and flowers" is the industry standard expenses euphamism for girls and drugs. Allegedly.

[vulgarcriminal.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine what Depeche Mode would do with flowers. I would like mine in a large brown paper shopping bag though. Then I could scatter them around for the roadies.

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

A trampoline and an floatation tank - covers either end of the adrenaline spectrum.

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

Geoffrey Archer's decapitated head in my dressing room.

I mean it's not likely, but someone just *might*.