Widely blogged, I got it at Merlin’s place. It’s from an interview with Choire Sicha and Paul Ford, on the occasion of the latter leaving Harper’s this week, originally published here:
Choire: What is your favorite Alex Chilton video, song or tale?
Paul: My favorite tale is from Our Band Could Be Your Life, when he shut down Gibby Haynes’s rampage through the Netherlands:
Moments later a man entered the dressing room and asked if he could borrow a guitar. “BORROW A GUITAR??!!! WELL, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU???!!! [Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers] screamed, eyes flashing in delirious anticpation of forthcoming violence. But the man was totally unfazed.
“I’m Alex Chilton,” the man answered calmly.
Haynes was flabbergasted. After a long pause, he methodically opened the remaining guitar cases one by one and gestured at them as if to say, “Take anything you want.”
If you haven’t read “Our Band Could Be Your Life,” you need to.