After watching the un-official documentary called 'Magic Moments' (nothing to be with the official 'Magic Years'), there's a part where people who used to be friends with Freddie mentioned how he came up with nicknames for friends, tour crew members, and people that Queen work in the studio with.
Some of these are taken from 'The Magic Tour' book credits...
Jim "Miami" Beach (business manager)
Peter "Phoebe" Freestone (personal assistant)
Joe "Liza" Fannelli (personal assistant)
Jerry "Uncle Grumpy" Stickels (tour manager)
Spike "The Duke" Edney (additional keyboards player)
Chris "Crystal" Taylor (band coordinator)
Tom "Midget" Foehlinger (sound technician)
Jim "Mary" Devenney (monitor engineer)
Peter "Ratty" Hince (keyboard technician)
John "Collie" Collins (bass technician)
Brian "Jobby" Zellis (guitar technician)
Neil "Moxie" Glover (drum technician)
Dave "Batman" Irwin (carpenter)
Alex "Seuz" Alexandrou (carpenter)
Tomy "Mr. Hyde" William (wardrobe)
- CATERING STAFF...
Toad in the hole
Dave Keeble
Dave Lewis
Dave Thomas
Mick "Not Dave" Riddle
Lindsey "Not Dave" Beckingham
Malcolm "Not Dave" Barnett
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Curiously, none of the member of Queen list their own nicknames.
Does anyone know if any of them had a nick?
good post!!
i think its great freddie nicknamed people with funny names it just shows his great sense of humour, he nicknamed elton, rod stewart, jacko,and so on....
and yup he did give the rest of the band names but damn it i cant remember what they were called lol, its in one of my bio's somewhere.
That's a great list of nicknames there. I'm pretty sure Phoebe's intimate memoir (Freestone) has a full list, too.
In case anyone's curious, I posted a photo of the glamorous Melina Mercouri on by blog. Here's the direct link: link
And I'll definitely amend my post to include this full list!
Was definitely a camp thing, to give men nicknames from old Hollywood or women entertainers. A gay thing, too, that comes from being campy. It's not really an 80s thing--gay men did it before and do it these days as well.
why do i remember hearing somewhere that John's nickname was "ostrich"...cuz when he'd write songs you had to leave him alone...like laying the perfect egg. i swear i'm not making this up
His Royal Highness Prince Andrew when he's met with Freddie has been surprised very much why he called Peter as 'Phoebe'!
But actually I don't think all those nicknames came from Freddie. By the way, you can find them in 'Live Magic' album sleeve too.