November 2011

It was approaching Thanksgiving of 1988, and I got a call from my friend Larry White from Warner Brothers. He was traveling with a new band called Jane’s Addiction. They were coming to Chicago to play the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, and were going to be stuck in their hotel on Thanksgiving Day. He asked me if he could bring them over for a photo shoot. Although I had never heard of them, I said “Why not”?

Thanksgiving morning, to prepare, I went to the grocery store and bought some sliced turkey, a loaf of Wonder Bread, some mustard, some beer and a pumpkin pie. Early afternoon a taxi pulled up in front of my house. Out of it walked four tired LA musicians, and a tired Warner Brothers guy. They immediately dug into the food (It was kind of a joke on Thanksgiving, but they were real hungry).

After a great two hour shoot, I piled them into my car and gave them a tour of great gangster sites on the way back to their hotel! A good time was had by all.

The following year, their publicist asked me to come to LA to do a new shoot with them before their homecoming show there. I lined them up outside the LA Palladium, and did a quick shoot with them. Not a single guy in the band remembered me, the shoot, the gangsters or the food!

Oh well, maybe I should die my hair orange.

In May of 1983, I was asked by a publicist if I wanted to do a shoot with a new band from Georgia called REM. So a week later, I drove over to a venue called Park West in Chicago, and found four very quiet and shy guys lounging around the dressing room after sound check. I dragged them all outside across the street and posed them on a statue in a small park.  They had no idea why they were there, but they were very nice about the shoot.

In April of 1985, their publicist called me and asked me if I would like to go down to Athens and spend a day with them. The had a new album “Fables of the Reconstruction” coming out, and I was offered the band for a day of photography. I flew down to Atlanta, rented a car and drove to Athens and pulled up at their manager’s house. He jumped in and we drove to Michael Stipe’s house, where the band was waiting. Stipe jumped into my car, the rest of the band jumped into another car, and Stipe started directing me through the woods to one great shooting location after another. I kept waiting to turn the corner and see guys on a porch with banjos playing the theme to “Deliverence” but no such luck. After about five hours of this, we went back to Stipe’s house where I had left some lights and backgrounds and we did a few studio sessions. In my entire career, both before and after, I have never produced as much rich and varied material in a one day period!

It seemed that every time they came to town, I would do another shoot with them for one purpose or another. One trip to the suburbs found me hanging around with the band and Gary Zeckley, the guy who wrote “Superman” on of their big hits.

In March of 1989, I flew to Iowa to photograph them for Time magazine for an article about their “Green” album. Put them on stage and had their lighting guy turn on all the green lights on stage.

Then the band became huge, and access was immediately cut off. I never shot them again, but I ran into Peter Buck a few times when I was working with Brian Wilson. He was like a little kid around Brian. Every time we would play Seattle, he and Eddie Vedder would be waiting in line to get backstage to shake Brian’s hand after the show. It was always fun to help them out in those situations.

Last week the band called it quits. It will be interesting to see what they do next.

Seems like the good old days!

Wednesday:

Photographed a band called Mona. They were opening for some flavor of the week band. They look like they want to be today’s Clash. Nice guys, 2 from Ohio, 2 from Kentucky. They are getting big in Europe (they just spent 6 months there) and are close to getting a US following. Some really good songs, and great stage presence.. They only played for about 40 minutes, but I got the impression that they would be moving on to bigger and better things.

Friday:

A day with Mastadon. The loudest day I have spent in quite a while. The four guys from Atlanta rocked Chicago. Offstage, they have a quite southern charm. When they hit the stage, it sounds like you are in front of a jet plane ready for takeoff! The band is very smart- their lyrics are way above the level of the normal hard rock band. Not a lot of movement on stage, as all four of them sing and have to stay close to their microphones, but man do they rock!

Saturday:

I first photographed Judas Priest in 1978 at the Rockford Speedway (I think they were opening for Ted Nugent at the time) and have been a fan ever since. I have photographed them about 30 times since, including a 1980 portrait of Rob Halford on a Harley that graced the cover of Creem Magazine in 1980. They have always been extremely nice to me and very easy to work with, both band and crew.

So, down to Indiana to hang with Judas Priest. In the history of hard rock, they get a full chapter! One of the greatest shows on earth. They have smoke, lasers, a mirror ball, AND……..some of the greatest hard rock music ever played. The lineup has changed over the years, but the constants remain- Glen Tipton’s great guitar playing, Ian Hill holding down the bottom on bass, and Rob Halford, the most amazing voice in the history of heavy metal. The band was on their Epitaph tour, and rumors were flying around that this was their final tour. I asked Rob about that and he laughed. He said it only meant that they weren’t going to do any more 2 year world tours- Just 2 or 3 months at a time when they felt the need to rock. Then they proceeded to rock the house for two and a half hours, going back through their entire career, ending with about 40 minutes of their biggest hits.

One final note: before the show, I met the Global president of the company that makes and sells One Million Sharpies a day worldwide, and am now the proud owner of two limited edition Judas Priest Sharpies! A great time was had by all.

I photographed a band this week that might be around for the long run. They are so young that they had to cancel a show a week ago because the band members weren’t  old enough to get into the venue. They are called Dawes and hail from Los Angeles. Two of the guys are brothers, whose father, Lenny Goldsmith is the singer of the legendary Tower of Power. They have a great album out and are getting a ton of great critical acclaim.

Thursday night they played a sold out concert at the Metro in Chicago. An hour of great pop music, reminiscent of the Byrds, played to a sold out crowd who seemed to know the words to every song, the band gives me faith that there might be a future to the world of music.

Hanging out with them before the show, they were  very nice to me and the people that I was with, constantly offering us something to drink. When they hit the stage, there was a great intensity to what they were doing, coupled with some great musicianship and some perfect harmonies. Go see them while you can still get a ticket!!