The Squirrel
Well-Known Member
It's Monday morning! Time for:
Crazy A$$ R&R Studio Story #1
At this point I’m still pretty wet behind the ears, so I’m getting the jobs that no one wants. It’s a 24/7/365 type of business and if you don’t have to work the weekends, holidays or overnight, you don’t. This ended up being my wheelhouse for years. So, I get the call. “Sluggs, you’re working Saturday. It will be a long one.” Come to find out, it’s not actually a session, but a video shoot. And I don’t have to do nothin’. I’m just the key/”alarm” guy. I get to sit around and make sure they don’t destroy the place and lock up when they’re done. AND collect overtime! “Oh, and by the way, it’s Aerosmith.” HOLY $HIT!!! I got into this business because I wanted to record the next Led Zeppelin album. Of course, that dream goes up in flames when Bonham dies while I’m in school. Fate had landed me in a studio that didn’t do much R&R (the studio business if fickle that way), so this would be my real exposure to why I got into this business in the first place.
I get there at 9a. I got food and books and I am ready to hang. First R&R lesson-No one’s ever on time. R&R time is almost as bad as Rap time. The road crew shows in the early afternoon. These are BIG guys. Refrigerator Perry size guys, except with long scraggly hair and big beards. I’m hanging out and one of them comes up to me as says, “There’s no full length mirror here.” well, it’s a studio not a dressing room?!? The guy goes to the WOMAN’s bathroom in the lobby of the building, rips the mirror right off the wall and drags it back to the studio. It’s one of those long mirrors that spans the length of multiple sinks. I guess we now have a full-length mirror. The doorman is screaming at me. I look at him, I look at the roadie, and I walk back in the studio and lock the door. Second R&R lesson-Never screw with a roadie.
The guy in charge of the shoot seemed to be OK (another lesson learned). He tells me that there will be two parts to this shoot. The first is the band basically performing the tune in a rehearsal type setting and screwing around. The second is this melon thing that they’ll set up in the back and do after the band is done. Seems harmless to me.
In total R&R fashion the band shows up in limos with the entourage and bodyguards. In the evening! I’ve been there for almost 12 hours and not a single moment of video has been shot. They all have their A game on (if you know what I mean) and there’s nothing but fooling around. It takes about 5 hours to shoot a 4 minute tune from like 12 different angles. And then they leave. At no point was I allowed in the same room with them, so my exposure was separated by thick glass. It was like a day at the aquarium. Very disappointing.
The band splits as fast as they arrived. Now it’s like 3 in the morning and it’s melon time. It’s explained to me that they’re shooting this on film for the slow motion effect. They hang the melon and they’re swinging a bat at it, but not hitting it. I’ve got my feet up and I’m just dozing and all of a sudden there’s an explosion. I mean a huge EXPLOSION!!! Everything is shaking. What that nice guy didn’t tell me is that what they wanted to capture in slow motion was the melon exploding. I was later told it was quarter stick. Whether it was true or not, I do not know. All I can say was I thought the building was coming down. They're blowing this fruit up INSIDE! In a RESIDENTIAL BUILDING!!!! Now I’m pitching a fit and these guys are just ignoring me as they continue to blow up these melons. There’s melon everywhere and I mean everywhere! I’m screaming and they just keep telling me “one more, man”, which it wasn’t. During one of the spaces between explosions I start to hear this loud noise at the front door. I got a bad feeling about this, so I tip toe over to the door and look through the peephole. There are two guys in pajamas. One with a bat and the other with an axe and they are taking turns wailing at the metal door. Oh, this is very bad. I tell the crew, they grab their cameras, leave everything else and split out the back door. And I’m left with the cleanup and explanations. The hell bent guys at the front door eventually leave. After cleaning up, I had wrapped the clock for my first 24 hour workday.
In the end, I got no heat for all these antics, so they must have paid a fortune for that day and the studio paid everyone off. We kept the mirror.
I’m still lost as to what the whole melon thing was worth in the grand scheme of things:
Crazy A$$ R&R Studio Story #1
At this point I’m still pretty wet behind the ears, so I’m getting the jobs that no one wants. It’s a 24/7/365 type of business and if you don’t have to work the weekends, holidays or overnight, you don’t. This ended up being my wheelhouse for years. So, I get the call. “Sluggs, you’re working Saturday. It will be a long one.” Come to find out, it’s not actually a session, but a video shoot. And I don’t have to do nothin’. I’m just the key/”alarm” guy. I get to sit around and make sure they don’t destroy the place and lock up when they’re done. AND collect overtime! “Oh, and by the way, it’s Aerosmith.” HOLY $HIT!!! I got into this business because I wanted to record the next Led Zeppelin album. Of course, that dream goes up in flames when Bonham dies while I’m in school. Fate had landed me in a studio that didn’t do much R&R (the studio business if fickle that way), so this would be my real exposure to why I got into this business in the first place.
I get there at 9a. I got food and books and I am ready to hang. First R&R lesson-No one’s ever on time. R&R time is almost as bad as Rap time. The road crew shows in the early afternoon. These are BIG guys. Refrigerator Perry size guys, except with long scraggly hair and big beards. I’m hanging out and one of them comes up to me as says, “There’s no full length mirror here.” well, it’s a studio not a dressing room?!? The guy goes to the WOMAN’s bathroom in the lobby of the building, rips the mirror right off the wall and drags it back to the studio. It’s one of those long mirrors that spans the length of multiple sinks. I guess we now have a full-length mirror. The doorman is screaming at me. I look at him, I look at the roadie, and I walk back in the studio and lock the door. Second R&R lesson-Never screw with a roadie.
The guy in charge of the shoot seemed to be OK (another lesson learned). He tells me that there will be two parts to this shoot. The first is the band basically performing the tune in a rehearsal type setting and screwing around. The second is this melon thing that they’ll set up in the back and do after the band is done. Seems harmless to me.
In total R&R fashion the band shows up in limos with the entourage and bodyguards. In the evening! I’ve been there for almost 12 hours and not a single moment of video has been shot. They all have their A game on (if you know what I mean) and there’s nothing but fooling around. It takes about 5 hours to shoot a 4 minute tune from like 12 different angles. And then they leave. At no point was I allowed in the same room with them, so my exposure was separated by thick glass. It was like a day at the aquarium. Very disappointing.
The band splits as fast as they arrived. Now it’s like 3 in the morning and it’s melon time. It’s explained to me that they’re shooting this on film for the slow motion effect. They hang the melon and they’re swinging a bat at it, but not hitting it. I’ve got my feet up and I’m just dozing and all of a sudden there’s an explosion. I mean a huge EXPLOSION!!! Everything is shaking. What that nice guy didn’t tell me is that what they wanted to capture in slow motion was the melon exploding. I was later told it was quarter stick. Whether it was true or not, I do not know. All I can say was I thought the building was coming down. They're blowing this fruit up INSIDE! In a RESIDENTIAL BUILDING!!!! Now I’m pitching a fit and these guys are just ignoring me as they continue to blow up these melons. There’s melon everywhere and I mean everywhere! I’m screaming and they just keep telling me “one more, man”, which it wasn’t. During one of the spaces between explosions I start to hear this loud noise at the front door. I got a bad feeling about this, so I tip toe over to the door and look through the peephole. There are two guys in pajamas. One with a bat and the other with an axe and they are taking turns wailing at the metal door. Oh, this is very bad. I tell the crew, they grab their cameras, leave everything else and split out the back door. And I’m left with the cleanup and explanations. The hell bent guys at the front door eventually leave. After cleaning up, I had wrapped the clock for my first 24 hour workday.
In the end, I got no heat for all these antics, so they must have paid a fortune for that day and the studio paid everyone off. We kept the mirror.
I’m still lost as to what the whole melon thing was worth in the grand scheme of things: