Just picked up the May 2010 issue of Spin this week, and I got a chuckle out of one of the stories. The photo illustrating the story was a picture of a young Bob Guccione, Jr. sitting at his desk holding the first printed test issue of what would become the test issue of Spin Magazine. My part of the story follows:

I used to travel to New York City 3 or 4 times a year to visit clients, and try to meet new clients. So in 1985, during one of my trips, I visited the music editor of Penthouse Magazine, a publication that occasionally used my photographs in their music coverage. During the conversation, she smiled and said “ Hey, I should take you in to meet Bobby- he is starting a music magazine.” So we walked down the hall and into an office where I was introduced to Bob Guccione, Jr. He was sitting behind his desk, wearing a one piece jumpsuit , unzipped down the front with gold chains hanging around his neck. When he started to talk, I noticed a very distinct and very fake English accent (I think he was born and raised in Brooklyn) but none the less a very funny guy. During the course of the conversation, he suddenly said “Do you have any great pictures of David Bowie?” I had photographed a Bowie concert a few years before, and had some amazing photographs of Bowie posing for me on stage holding a skull in his hand with a rose in it’s mouth. When I told Bob about these shots, he asked me if he could use them for the cover of the test issue of his new magazine. I said it would be no problem, as long as he thought of me when he needed photos for the magazine that was to come. He agreed, and when I got home, I sent him a selection of photos. About 3 weeks later, I received in the mail a small issue of a new magazine called Spin, with a bunch of my photos and “dummy” type surrounding them- a tool that they used to sell advertising for the real issue. For about the first year of the magazine, they would call me pretty regularly for assignments and stock photo requests. To this day, I still get the occasional request from Spin, although Bob is long gone, and they seem to have a new photo editor every 2 issues. It was very funny to see a picture of Bob behind his desk with my photos spread out in front of him 25 years later!

On another note, a few years later a new magazine started in Los Angeles, published by Larry Flynt of Hustler fame. The first issue of RIP Magazine in January of 1987 featured a photograph of ZZ Top, taken by me (Must be something about naked women and Rock and Roll that causes people to call me!!) They used my photographs throughout the entire hair metal era.

Lately I have been reading a blog by a guy by the name of  Bob Lefsetz. Don’t know what his connection is to the music business, but he hits the nail on the head in almost every post. He is a firm believer in the death of the music industry, as we old people know it, and that there is a new paradigm that makes it possible for anyone with a few tools to make good music and get it out to an audience.

This reminded me of some recent encounters:

1. Last summer I was invited to a party on the roof of a fancy hotel in downtown Chicago. The party was hosted by Tom Silverman, the man behind the highly innovative record label Tommy Boy Records. The party was to announce the  reinvention of the New Music Seminar, which had been dormant since 1995 and was being reintroduced to the world in Chicago last fall. During his remarks, he told us about this new, astonishing paradigm where artists produce their own music, and promote it by using the internet to send out mass emails to their fans to get them to come to their shows! He didn’t seem to know that this had been going on for about 15 years! That is when I got up with my free bottle of Evian and hit the elevator to go and pay a wasted $10.00 to get my car out of the parking lot it was in. (The Seminar, from what I heard, was very poorly attended.)

2. Yesterday (4/10) I was a panelist at a seminar produced by Martin Atkins (Drummer of Public Image Ltd., Pigface, etc. Record Company Owner- Invisible Records and producer). The panel was called 7-11. About 10 experts in the field each having 11 minutes to expound on 7 facts relating to any subject they thought would be helpful to the audience. One of the panelists was Greg Corner from Kill Hannah, a Chicago band who have been together for 15 years, and were under contract with Atlantic Records for a lot of those years. His 7-11 talk was on why you don’t need record labels and managers to become a working musician. My favorite story that he told was about the band asking their manager and their label representatives to set up a European tour and being told that there was no reason to go to Europe and no money to do it with. He thought that was strange, as he is the guy in the band that handles shipping of mail order band merchandise and he was regularly addressing envelopes to European addresses! So the band raised some money and went overseas on their own. There they found some initial success in England, and a booking agent who wanted to work with them. Later this week, the guys are leaving for their 12^th trip across the ocean. They no longer are on a record label, and they no longer have a manager!

Last week, two paparazzi guys got in a fight  at LAX over positioning to shoot pictures of a singer from England named Pixie Lott. One ended up in the hospital and one ended up in jail (felony battery). So my question is, who the F__K is Pixie Lott?? Is a photo of her worth  $50,000.00 in bail?

Googled her and found out that she seems to be an 18 year old British singer with two number one singles in England, making her first trip to the US. My guess is that she could walk down any street in America right now and nobody would recognize her!. Are these guys going to start killing each other over a real celebrity?

I found some old articles in a file last week that show that this has been going on for years. The only difference is that photographers (or as Kirstie Alley calls them on her new A&E reality show “The spawn of satan”) were stalking and harassing real celebrities.

From 1986: “Sean Penn marries Madonna, the most popular woman in the world” says Vinnie Zuffante, a 32 year old freepance photographewr. “Did he think he was going to be left alone?”

From 1989: Existential angst isn’t Russell Turiak’s shtick. Turiak is the guy who pioneered hanging out at the Betty Ford clinic. “I got some of the best fat-and-ugly shots of Elizabeth Taylor ever there,” he says proudly.  When Michael J. Fox tried to prevent press coverage of his wedding. Vinnie Zuffante hired a helicopter. When that effort yielded no pictures, “I told the pilot to go as low as he could and blow the tent up.” Zuffante laughs. “I put dirt on their wedding cake. That was my revenge.”

That was twenty years ago. It has gotten much worse now. So it is impossible for any famous or semi-famous person to hear the word photographer and not have a negative reaction. It is no wonder they don’t let anyone shoot their shows!!

In September of 1987, my copy of American Photographer arrived. It included an article about the dean of music photographers, Jim Marshall. Being a long time fan of his work, I eagerly started reading. I soon came to a statement that changed my life:

“ I care so much about the music business that I don’t care anymore,” says Marshall. “I won’t be part of a pack, I will not work that way. I won’t shoot just two songs at a concert. That wouldn’t be Jim Marshall pictures.”

Two years later, I found myself on the road with the Rolling Stones, on the Steel Wheels Tour. One morning, I called my answering machine for messages. One message stood out. “This is Jim Marshall. I heard you were on the Stones tour and I wanted to know if you could help me get credentials for the upcoming show in San Francisco. I figured that it wouldn’t be a problem; that someone as famous as Jim would easily be approved to shoot anything he wanted. Imagine my surprise when the publicist told me that because she had never heard of him, if he wanted to shoot more than two songs he would have to send her his portfolio, and she would decide at that time. So my first conversation with Jim was to tell him I was very sorry but I couldn’t help him. He laughed and said that was OK, and asked me for my address. When I got back from the tour there was a box waiting for me with a beautiful print of Mick, Keith and Brian sitting in their dressing room, taken in 1963, with a note saying “Thanks for trying.”

A few years later, he called me one morning. He was in town, traveling with LIMP BISKET!!! and wanted to have lunch. During a great meal and a great conversation, he asked me if I still did that “three song bullshit.” I told him that after reading the article, I had cut back, but still agreed to that at times. His very subtle and classy response was. “You are a fucking moron. Your name is going on those photos.” From that moment on, I stopped going to shows unless I could shoot the whole show, or at least most of it.

In 2002, I was sitting at my computer one day when the phone rang. “This is Marshall. Did you ever hear of a store called Urban Outfitters? You did? Great. Go there right now and buy me a t-shirt with my Johnny Cash flipping the bird photo on it and Fedex to me tonight. I need it tomorrow!” Bam- he hung up the phone. So of course I drove over to Urban Outfitters, bought the T shirt and Fedexed it to him. The next day he filed a lawsuit on behalf of himself and Johnny Cash for unauthorized use of their image and likeness (and won very quickly) A week later a box arrived in the mail with a print of the Johnny Cash photo and a thank you note.

In 2003, I invited him to Farm Aid in Columbus, Ohio, and got him total access. The night before there was a dinner with about 12 people at the hotel, and a gathering at the hotel bar until late into the night. As was always the case, Jim left to go to his room with 12 new friends for life.

The next day, about 2 hours into the show, Billy Bob Thornton was introduced and came walking out on stage with his band. Standing directly in front of us was his guitar player, Stephen Bruton, wearing one of the Johnny Cash T shirts. Jim and I looked at each other and cracked up. After the set, we went backstage and found Stephen and told him the story. He motioned Billy Bob over, and he immediately asked Jim for his card. About a month later, a box arrived in the mail with a note that said “Thanks for the fun time at Farm Aid.” In the box was a print of  a portrait session Jim had done with Billy Bob in Los Angeles duplicating the finger gesture. The two photos hang side by side proudly in my living room.

Jim passed away in his hotel room in New York last week, leaving a huge hole in the world that we know. He would probably not want me saying this, but he was the nicest person I ever met in the photography business (contrary to his public image) and I will try to follow in his footsteps for the rest of my career.

In a conversation last week, Frank Sinatra’s name came up. I am reminded of two situations that I was in involving the Chairman of the Board.

Situation #1. In the 1980’s there was a summer festival in downtown Chicago called Chicagofest. Six stages, great talent on all stages for 10 days. The main stage tried to satisfy all of Chicago, so along with the Cheap Tricks and Doobie Brothers of the world, the promoters tried booking acts for a wider audience. That is where Frank came in. The day of the show, I was told that the Mayor of Chicago was coming down to meet Frank and that I had to take her picture with him. YIKES!! About an hour before the show, the Mayor showed up and was escorted to a trailer dressing room backstage (Frank was in the next one down the row). And then the negotiations started: Would she go to him, or would he go to her?? Their people discussed this for about 30  minutes, until Frank was brought into the conversation. Being the charming ladies man that he was, he jumped up, walked to her trailer, knocked on the door, and invited her outside for a photo opportunity. Moral of the story: They should have asked him first thing!

Situation #2. There is a beautiful theater in downtown Chicago called the Chicago Theater. It reopened in Marchof 1988, and the opening night headliner was Mr. Sinatra. I was called by Newsweek Magazine to shoot the show. I didn’t think that a theater opening in Chicago was national news, but an assignment is an assignment. The morning of the show, I figured out why Newsweek wanted the photos. The world famous brilliant journalist (my tongue firmly in cheek) Kitty Kelly was about to release her biography of Frank and Newsweek needed a new photo of him. So off I went to the show that night. There was a local publicity company working for the theater, and all the photographers were informed that, as per Mr. Sinatra’s personal publicist Lee Solters, photographers were allowed to photograph the first song onl and could not get closer to the stage than the tenth row. The publicist also let out that she had met Mr. Solters earlier, and that he was a god to her. So shortly before the show started we all trooped down the aisles and got ready to shoot. As the lights went down, all the rich people from the first ten rows started gathering in the aisles to get to their seats, completely blocking our view. The first song ending with not a single photo taken by any of the photographers. The publicist shooed us all out to the lobby, where we expressed our displeasure. Her response was- It is Lee Solters- he is a legend. I can’t ask him for more- I guess you guys are all out of luck. Just then, I spied Lee walking across the lobby. I asked the publicist if I could go talk to him. Her reply was “Go ahead- it won’t do you any good.”

So, I  handed my bag to a fellow photographer and walked over to Mr. Solters. I had met him once, but he didn’t know me from Adam. I explained the problem, and without even asking me who I was shooting for (although Newsweek would have carried some weight) he said, “ What’s the problem, go in and shoot another song.” I explained that he should come over and explain to the local publicist, who, when informed of this, had a look of total amazement on her face. We all went in and shot a song, and when we got back to the lobby, Mr. Solters asked us how we had done. We all thanked him and told him that  we had done fine. He then told us “If you need more, go in and shoot another song.” (Which we all did).

That is what a good publicist does!!

On another note……Last week a friend of mine went to the Black Eyed Peas show in Chicago. He called me the next day to ask me why I wasn’t there- I explained that I don’t go any place to shoot 3 songs! All the best stuff happens later in the show. He then told me that about three quarters of the way through the show, Fergie rose up from under the stage on a platform with Slash (From Guns and Roses) and they did two songs together. He noticed that there were no photographers shooting that part of the show.

I Googled the event and found an out-of-focus UTube video, but no still photos! Guess that wasn’t an important enough event, even though Slash has a new album coming out with Fergie singing on it!

On Friday, 3/12, I photographed a great band called Silversun Pickups. Having met them before, I knew they would treat me right. I got to the show right before soundcheck, and was informed by the road manager that the headliner was making all photographers shoot from the soundboard. He suggested that I jump up on stage during soundcheck and get what I needed, because I probably wouldn’t get much during the show. I did and got some great shots of the band, and posed them in front of the drums for a group shot before everyone went to dinner.

I probably should have gone home, but I wanted to stay to hear the band play for real, so I mooched a great dinner backstage. After dinner, I went out to the soundboard to catch the show. Right before the show, about 10 photographers were escorted to the soundboard and were shown a line that they couldn’t cross. The back half of the floor was pretty empty, but the whole front of the floor was people standing. From where I was, next to all the photographers, I couldn’t see the stage at all. When the band started, I could see the top half of their bodies. When the audience put their hands up, I could only see the band members heads! I saw photographers standing on the floor with their camera and 300mm lens over their head trying to aim at the stage. No way would they get anything that they could use. At the end of the set, one of the photographers walked up to me and said “That was a complete waste of time.” My question, if he had not walked away, would have been- “I agree, why do you even leave the house and pay $20.00 to park to be treated this way?”

I was talking to some friends at the board when they lead all the photographers for the headliner (Muse) to the same spot. A friend of mine, one of the best newspaper staffers in the city, leaned over to me and said, “This is a complete waste of time. Nothing will ever change until people refuse to accept this.” The irony is, because he is a great photographer, he got at least one good image, which appeared in the paper this morning. So once again the band won- they got the coverage they were looking for, and can say “Why should we let anyone shoot us the right way? That picture in the paper is perfectly fine!” My answer would have been- “Yes, but you just staged one of the most spectacular stage shows that I have seen in recent times, with 200 foot towers with elevators in them that the band members played on, and none of that will appear in print anywhere. The only picture I saw was a tight shot of the singer.” But nobody asked me.

That is the advice I always give photographers when they ask how to “Make it” in the music business. But even that seems to be a pipe dream!

I just had dinner with a friend of mine this week. She is young- been shooting for about 5 years around Chicago, but she is, in my opinion, the best of the Chicago music photographers. During the course of the conversation, she told me that she is hardly shooting anymore. She was never the one who went after access to the arena bands, she always went after the smaller, mostly hard rock bands touring through town. Now she is having a hard time- getting turned down more regularly- by even the smaller bands.

I was thinking of this when I read a new book this morning called “Do the Devils Work For Him- How to Make it in the Music Industry.” The book is written by two journalists, one of whom is also a publicist. They work mostly in the hard rock part of the music business. One of the basic premises of the book is that you should work with any band a publicist offers you because

1.That band could become famous and you will have an in with them and…

2. The publicist will be grateful that you are helping the young band and might give you access to some of their bigger bands.

The writers (Amy Sciarretto and Rick Florino) continually talk about building up relationships with the publicists, but they fail to mention one important fact.

For the most part, publicists are not interested in building up relationships with the press, photographers in particular.

In the old days (when cavemen ruled the earth, it seems) publicists used to call me regularly and ask me to photograph their artists. Many even offered to bring them, or send them, to my studio for photo shoots because they saw the value of what I did. It was worth a short period of the artists time for the possibility of the pictures appearing in any of the hundreds of publications that I had access to. This was a regular occurrence- at least once or twice a week. I would always send the publicist a proof, or some duplicate slides, and always let them know where and when the photos appeared in print. Many times they would arrange for the record company to purchase access to one or more of the photos. I always gave them a reasonable rate, as a thank you for working together.

All that has changed. In the last six months, I have gotten only four emails (three from one publicist) offering photo access to their artists. Access was easy, professional and painless, and all the photos are available on the wire service that represents me. The three shoots, in total, took up about 30 minutes of the artists time, and could possibly result in some press for them in the future. Too bad this doesn’t happen very often!

Where can you go to hear a band that plays (in no particular order) Fiddle, Banjo, Resonator Guitar, Dulcimer, Whiskey Jug and Kazoo? Only one band I can think of- the Carolina Chocolate Drops. Just got back from the show, and what a show it was.

I was hanging out with the band after they got done with soundcheck, and I got in a conversation with Dom Flemons, one of the three Chocolate Drops. The conversation started with a discussion of roots and jazz music, as I was on assignment from Downbeat, the bible of jazz. This evolved into a discussion of roots music in popular culture. It was fascinating talking to a young (I am guessing under thirty) person discussing 100 year old music being played (by them) in a form that could become popular to a young audience in 2010. We were so engrossed in the conversation that we didn’t even notice that the doors had opened and he was sitting there in the middle of the audience that had paid to see him that night.

When the band hit the stage a few minutes later, they put on an amazing show. Each person in the band played at least 4 different instruments, and switched after almost every song. The combination of modern songs and century old songs was phenomenal.

So, it seems that there is still a lot of great music being played out there- you just have to weed through the crap to find it.

Last night (2-20-10) I saw an artist that put on the best show of 2010! Nothing will beat it this year. And she is 63 years old. Patti Smith strolled out on stage in black jeans, a black t shirt, black sweatshirt and a black hat pulled down almost covering her eyes (a photographers nightmare, but very cool). First two songs were very slow and fairly quiet, but 30 seconds into song number 3 she threw the hat over her head, spit on the stage next to her, and proceeded to rock the venue like it hasn’t been rocked in a long time, all with a slight grin on her face. During the 90 minutes she was on stage, she proved that age is just a number, and talent wins out in the end.

In the middle of the show, she did a song about being born and growing up in Chicago. It was interesting to leave the venue, get into my car which was parked in the park her mother and father hung out in, drive by the hospital she was born in, and drive to my house, which is about a mile from where she spent her first several years! Made me like her even more.

A couple of more great shows from this last week:

Mike Relm last Saturday

Here is a guy that is doing something new and interesting in hip hop- mashing up music and video for some great combinations, such as Michael Jackson singing with his younger self, and a currant hip hop track combined with Meg Ryan faking an orgasm at the deli from “When Harry Met Sally.” The audience was with him from the first to the last note, especially when the South Park guys appeared on the screen

The Devil Wears Prada on Monday

I met a group of very quiet young guys next to their tour bus in the bowels of the city of Chicago, underneath the House of Blues. We ventured into an underground construction site, with very weird light, and did a quick photo shoot. The guys seemed very laid back. I grabbed a quick bite to eat and went into the venue and arrived in the pit right before they started to play. YIKES!!! The floor was bouncing 3 or 4 inches through the whole show. No one in the band ever stopped moving. The audience knew the words to every song and sang along to every one of them. Sweat and spit was flying everywhere. A very great hour of music

Last week, during my Super Bowl party, anticipation was running high for the halftime show. The Who, or at least half of the Who, was about to perform. The music business people in the room were predicting how bad they were going to be, and the non-music business people were looking forward with anticipation.

The Who delivered.

For the haters, they looked old and they didn’t play a single song that was less than 30 years old. But man, were those songs great!!

For the fans, there wasn’t a single moment that the audience couldn’t sing along to, and know all the words. To me that was the best part of the performance.

Just the fact that the band has been successful for more than 40 years is the point of the whole thing. There were 60 year olds and 15 year olds that stood side by side in the stadium and sang along with every note. Could that happen if Arcade Fire or Modest Mouse had performed.

My comment before the halftime show started was- Did the critics for the daily papers write their reviews before the performance even started. I could have predicted what I would read in the papers the next day. One critic wrote that the NFL had used an Arcade Fire song in a pre game piece, inferring that that is the kind of band that should have been playing at half time. Sure, they could have held a little concert in the end zone, and their hundred fans could have had a great time, and most of America could have used halftime as a bathroom break!

The point is, major events should be programmed for a mass audience. Late last year, I got an email from a woman who was writing a thesis on free live music in public places in major cities. She wanted my comments on her premise that Chicago has almost no live, free music in city parks. I quoted from an informal study that I had done a year earlier where I had determined that from Memorial Day to Labor Day last year, there was an average of three musical acts a day (7 days a week) in our downtown parks. She asked me to give her some details, so I described concerts by the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra, World Music throughout the summer and blues Jazz, Latin Celtic and Country throughout the summer. She stopped me to interject- Oh no, that doesn’t count. We are just looking at alternative rock. Why isn’t there more of that? When I stopped laughing, I explained that a good programmer programs for the biggest possible audience. Oh, she said, I guess I will have to rewrite this thesis!

Same with those writers trashing the Who!!