Status Quo (aka) Wow

I finally finished all the bat files Thursday night, making Friday the calmest day I've had since...well, I can't remember when. I even managed to finish unpacking from the trip to NY and London. How long since I got back? Uh, five weeks ago? (Still have to finish up my posts from that trip. I will get to it. I will.) And I cleaned my room (just two offices, a kitchen, living room and dining room to go).

But first I want to tell you what happened on Friday. Since I'm going to the Harmony Festival in a couple of weeks and NearFest shortly thereafter, I've been going through my as-yet-uncatalogued negs and slides to pick out some new stuff to take to the festivals. Such as Jefferson Starship and Yes. I started this several days ago and ended up pulling out more neg sheets than I could handle (what else is new?) so they ended up all over my already cluttered desk. But now that I'm doing my tidy-up I began making file folders to accommodate the bands that weren't in my book... you know, the ones that are thankfully still with us.

And that's when it happened.

I pulled out neg sheet #44 (meaning it was shot early on) of UK band Status Quo, held it up and discovered four or five backstage shots. Cool. But looking at the negs I couldn't figure out who the record company rep was so I loaded the negs in my scanner to make a contact sheet (as I'm also working on creating electronic contact sheet files that match up with my new hard copy file folders). This is all in hopes of someday becoming an anally inclined human being - a tall order indeed.

Anyway, here's one of those backstage pictures:

I totally recognize the record rep - he's second from the left - but for the life of me, I can't remember his name. Bruce maybe? I think he worked for A&M. Funny that he's wearing almost the same shirt as one of the band members. Now I'm going to try and identify the band. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. On the left is John Coghlan. Definitely. Then the record rep. Then Alan Lancaster, Francis Rossi (hope I didn't flip them) and on the far right, Rick Parfitt.

Okay, back to the "and that's when it happened."

When I blew up the contact sheet and scrolled through the shots I came to a musician I instantly recognized. Joe Falsia. Tim Buckley's guitar player. What the fuck is Joe doing in the middle of a Status Quo contact sheet? I dunno, but he's right there. The guy in the middle at the bottom.

I kept scrolling. Didn't recognize any of the others. Until I got to this shot:

There he was...Tim Buckley. In the flesh. Well, almost. The only shot of him on the sheet. I couldn't believe it. After two years, going through my photographs and designing and writing Everybody I Shot Is Dead, I missed this one. Just like I missed the shot of the Warner Bros record rep Mark Wilson with Eagle Glenn Frey. And like that one, I would have definitely put this shot of Tim in the book. I really regret that it's not in there, but I'm more than joyful that I have it. And I just looked through the Concert Box Offices list and found the show listed as Tim Buckley & Status Quo on February 18, 1974 attended by 2500 people. And me.

Now I'm wondering how many more surprises I'm going to find in the multitude of negs and slides I have yet to look through. Seems like there's at least one surprise every time I fire up the scanner and pull out a neg sheet. On one hand it makes me want to dive in and rush through each and every one of them. On the other, I want to go slowly. Maybe once a week. Make last. Because I don't want to run out of surprises. I love the surprises.

Oh, before I forget, I had one other surprise on Friday. I was separating my Suzi Quatro negs from negs of a band called Milestone that were all in the sheet. Milestone was a band that used to play in a club/bar where I was a waitress. As I pulled out one of their neg strips I noticed a shot of a girl on the first frame. Not just any girl. A girl with long hair. Like me. Was it me? I immediately freaked. Why should I freak over a picture of a girl with long hair that could be me?

The girl was naked.

No way I wanted to find a naked picture of me in with a bunch of male musicians I shot. No way. I frantically put the negs in the scanner. Wanting to find out who it was but at the same time not. Especially if it was me.

I blew the picture up. The neg is a little on the thin side. A few moves in photoshop and the image came up loud and clear. Well, sort of. Was it me? Kinda looked a little bit like me, but no. It wasn't me. It took me a few seconds before I finally realized it was sister. I forgot that she ever had her hair that long. Wow. She looked pretty damn good. I sorta wish it was me.

I have no idea why I was taking a picture of her half-naked. It must have been a passing moment in time that I decided to snap. I really love the lighting. In the interest of privacy, I covered her breasts. Sorry boys (and lesbians).

And speaking of breasts - yes, this is a segue - my baby girl is doing the Avon Walk (26.2 miles) for Breast Cancer on July 12th in San Francisco. In order to walk she needs to raise $1800. Of course, being who she is, she wants to raise a bunch more. As of today she has $670.

I'm hoping that if you enjoy reading my blog (I always hope you enjoy reading my blog) that you'll take a moment to visit her Avon web page and donate whatever you can afford to her walk...$1, $5, $10...any amount will help. It's a really simple one-click fill out a little form deal-e-o where you pay with a credit card. All secure through the Avon foundation. If you are able to donate, please let her know you came from here.

And for my part, I'll donate 20% of whatever I sell from my website store between now and June 7th. So pick up a book or a print or a t-shirt and know 20% of your money is going toward a good cause. As my daughter said, "Everyone knows someone who's had breast cancer." Let's do what we can to stop it.

Thanks for reading!