my personal favourite story was about Souxisie and the Banshees, though it may be apocryphal.

It went along the lines of when they were first signed and went into the studio the label had given them all brand new instruments... they went to play their songs and it all sounded like shit, because none of them knew how to tune an instrument and all the songs had been written and played on out of tune gear.

Edit- ok i found a kind of minor confirmation from Budgie about the same story.

"Experimental, yes, but not technical. When the band first started, they never knew about concert pitch or tuning. No one even had a tuner. It was, 'Okay, that's an E because it's the bottom string', and everyone tuned to that. We had so many problems later, trying to do some of the early songs live, because they're in different keys. If we're now using tuners as a standard, the very early songs are impossible to play!"