Seven years ago today, keyboardist Peter Bardens succumbed to lung cancer. I believe I mentioned him in one of the recent Mick Fleetwood posts as Peter is the one who 'found' Mick playing in a house down the street from his and offered him a gig.
I photographed Peter when he was with his prog rock band Camel. I had a good time hanging with Camel when they blew through Vancouver. I didn't realize that Peter had moved from the UK to Malibu ten years after I moved here from Vancouver. I wish I had ran into him down here. He was a cool guy.
In case you are not familiar with him, he's the one playing keyboards (duh) and introducing the song on this video...
Note: It feels kind of tacky to put this on a memorial post but several people have told me I should let you all know that most of my music photographs that I post on this blog are available to purchase as prints. So I am now putting a link on the name of the musician so you can easy-click to see what's available...and check out more photos of them. My apologies if this feels like an advert - it's not meant to be.
You can learn more about Peter Bardens and the 47 other musicians in my tribute book, Everybody I Shot Is Dead.
Showing posts with label Mick Fleetwood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mick Fleetwood. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
Weekly Round-Up
I am sitting at my desk in my cozy home office thinking about where I've been in the world (metaphysically), where I'm at in the world and where I'm going in the world. This is something I pretty much do 24/7, or at least I should say consider 24/7. My place in the world and what I can do to improve is always floating around somewhere in my cranium. And that made me think it might be fun/useful/possibly entertaining if I dedicated one day a week to shed some light on what I'm doing and what's really going on inside my head. Hmmm - I wonder if there should be a warning label attached to this.
So, here I am, behind my desk, eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich on completely unwholesome white bread (is there any other way to have it?) and drinking decaf coffee. I figured Friday would be a could day and started thinking of titles but then realized that wouldn't work because there will probably be an "honor post" showing up on a Friday sooner or later. I checked the calendar and sure enough that would be next Friday when I will be remembering one of the greatest guitarist who ever lived...and unfortunately died...way too young.
Okay, so this is going to be a sort of weekly round-up that will appear either on a Friday or Saturday or maybe Sunday, and will hopefully morph into something that has some sort of structure where I will impart anything and everything personal to me that you may or may not give a shit about. But, hey, it's my blog and last time I checked the constitution there was still that thing called "freedom of speech." And of course, there will be a photograph.
As a matter of fact, I think I'll start with that, so you can get to know me a little better.
Before I saw the picture, I thought my desk was pretty neat. Ooops. This weekly round-up thing may be more revealing than expected or wanted. Okay, we're going to play what's on the desk. Feel free to start by clicking on the photo so you can see it bigger and then make a list of each numbered item, guessing what it is and then you can read my list and see how many you got right. (This is going to be the end of my readership - I'm now wondering why I am tanking my own blog...oh well)
1. The plate that held the pb&j sandwich which is now residing in my belly. Yum.
2. My decaf coffee - still drinking it.
3. My Wacom tablet - very helpful for working with photos and graphics.
4. Ah...video tapes that contain footage of a very cool project I'm working on that I can't talk about yet.
5. My Tivo remote - yes, I have the TV on in the background for company but pay almost no attention to.
6. My groovy new MacBook Pro thanks to the continued support of Cucumber Rob (consider that a shout-out, dude).
7. Where my ass is right now.
8. This morning's empty O.J. glass.
9. My portable video camera that I'm using for B-roll on #4.
10. Obama water - seriously. They're selling it at 7-11 for a buck-fifty-nine. It tastes optimistic.
11. My in/out trays that I recently put there in an effort to organize my office - still working on the organization part which is a story in itself.
12. My very amazing Nikon D300 - the very camera that took the Mick Fleetwood pics, the New Year pics and the camera that saved me from barfing when I took the shots of Jaimie's brain surgery wound being undressed.
13. the Apple bag I cover my new computer with before I put it in my Incase when I take it out for a spin. My computer is so new they haven't made the hardshells for it.
14. Yesterday's mail - I guess I should move that to the inbox tray.
15. Netflix DVD. Danny Boyle's Sunshine. I'll watch it sometime this weekend. Along with North by Northwest...love that movie. Last night I watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated which was nothing new to me but was cool and very revealing. I recommend it.
16. The little wallet that carries my DL and credit cards (which I no longer use unless it's an emergency).
17. A DVD of a graphic client's movie that I did artwork for. I'm expanding my business to do movie trailers so I'm going to have my editor (Tyler) do a mock trailer of it as a sample. I need to give it to him.
18. A plush toy of the Cheshire Cat that is now tailless because I gave it up to Drama.
19. A portable file box with current jobs and stuff I need to deal with such as accounting and filing.
20. My gold star paperweight that I've had since 1979 when I finished my first book Starart.
21. Business cards and an escaped DVD mini tape.
22. Pen/pencil cup.
23. An Oriental lamp that I inherited from my mother's Palm Springs condo when I was charged with moving her stuff out while she was in S.A., circa late eighties.
24. An ashtray from that same condo. It contains matches (for candles and barbecue lighting as I don't smoke and some of my recent fortune cookie fortunes...let's see..."You will continue to take chances and be glad you did" - first part is true, while the last part remains to be seen..."Your luck will soon be at a high point" - hope this isn't it..."An enjoyable vacation is awaiting you" - more like hiding from me.
25. One of those rock coasters with two heads-up quarters on it.
26. Two external hard drives - there's a third that is currently on my dining room table.
27. My scanner that most recently scanned the backstage shot of Donny Hathaway. More to come from that baby.
28. Stapler.
29. A John Wayne coaster that unlike the rock one is absorbent.
30. Earbuds for my iPhone which you can't see because it was taking the pictures. The earbuds are now in my ears because I just finished talking to Jaimie.
31. A very cool Nixon watch that I stole from Tyler.
32. DVDs that I need to check what's on 'em.
33. A hair clippy.
34. A piece of paper with one note on it that I have just recylced. Nevermind, it had some notes on the back about money Tyler owes me.
35. A blank CD.
36. There are two 36s, both a crumpled paper towels.
37. Mini post-it pad.
38. Bookcase.
39. Hard drive case chillin' on the floor.
40. Printer with some large format paper.
Whaddya think? TMI? Not exactly what I intended to post. So much for the round-up other than the couple of things that I threw in the list.
And now I am way out of time. It's almost 4pm and I've really been slack today. I didn't wake up until 10am today 'cause I worked late last night. Then I ended up procrastinating over at The Comeback Girl (how cool is that Obama photo?) after she tipped me off to my bad BUY MY BOOK HERE link. Thanks for that. And somewhere in there I managed an hour-long meeting that could actually be considered as productive.
Yup, I'm going to do more round-up stuff tomorrow because there are things going on here that I can't really talk about but I'm dying to tell you...sort of.
So, here I am, behind my desk, eating a peanut butter and jam sandwich on completely unwholesome white bread (is there any other way to have it?) and drinking decaf coffee. I figured Friday would be a could day and started thinking of titles but then realized that wouldn't work because there will probably be an "honor post" showing up on a Friday sooner or later. I checked the calendar and sure enough that would be next Friday when I will be remembering one of the greatest guitarist who ever lived...and unfortunately died...way too young.
Okay, so this is going to be a sort of weekly round-up that will appear either on a Friday or Saturday or maybe Sunday, and will hopefully morph into something that has some sort of structure where I will impart anything and everything personal to me that you may or may not give a shit about. But, hey, it's my blog and last time I checked the constitution there was still that thing called "freedom of speech." And of course, there will be a photograph.
As a matter of fact, I think I'll start with that, so you can get to know me a little better.
Before I saw the picture, I thought my desk was pretty neat. Ooops. This weekly round-up thing may be more revealing than expected or wanted. Okay, we're going to play what's on the desk. Feel free to start by clicking on the photo so you can see it bigger and then make a list of each numbered item, guessing what it is and then you can read my list and see how many you got right. (This is going to be the end of my readership - I'm now wondering why I am tanking my own blog...oh well)
1. The plate that held the pb&j sandwich which is now residing in my belly. Yum.
2. My decaf coffee - still drinking it.
3. My Wacom tablet - very helpful for working with photos and graphics.
4. Ah...video tapes that contain footage of a very cool project I'm working on that I can't talk about yet.
5. My Tivo remote - yes, I have the TV on in the background for company but pay almost no attention to.
6. My groovy new MacBook Pro thanks to the continued support of Cucumber Rob (consider that a shout-out, dude).
7. Where my ass is right now.
8. This morning's empty O.J. glass.
9. My portable video camera that I'm using for B-roll on #4.
10. Obama water - seriously. They're selling it at 7-11 for a buck-fifty-nine. It tastes optimistic.
11. My in/out trays that I recently put there in an effort to organize my office - still working on the organization part which is a story in itself.
12. My very amazing Nikon D300 - the very camera that took the Mick Fleetwood pics, the New Year pics and the camera that saved me from barfing when I took the shots of Jaimie's brain surgery wound being undressed.
13. the Apple bag I cover my new computer with before I put it in my Incase when I take it out for a spin. My computer is so new they haven't made the hardshells for it.
14. Yesterday's mail - I guess I should move that to the inbox tray.
15. Netflix DVD. Danny Boyle's Sunshine. I'll watch it sometime this weekend. Along with North by Northwest...love that movie. Last night I watched This Film Is Not Yet Rated which was nothing new to me but was cool and very revealing. I recommend it.
16. The little wallet that carries my DL and credit cards (which I no longer use unless it's an emergency).
17. A DVD of a graphic client's movie that I did artwork for. I'm expanding my business to do movie trailers so I'm going to have my editor (Tyler) do a mock trailer of it as a sample. I need to give it to him.
18. A plush toy of the Cheshire Cat that is now tailless because I gave it up to Drama.
19. A portable file box with current jobs and stuff I need to deal with such as accounting and filing.
20. My gold star paperweight that I've had since 1979 when I finished my first book Starart.
21. Business cards and an escaped DVD mini tape.
22. Pen/pencil cup.
23. An Oriental lamp that I inherited from my mother's Palm Springs condo when I was charged with moving her stuff out while she was in S.A., circa late eighties.
24. An ashtray from that same condo. It contains matches (for candles and barbecue lighting as I don't smoke and some of my recent fortune cookie fortunes...let's see..."You will continue to take chances and be glad you did" - first part is true, while the last part remains to be seen..."Your luck will soon be at a high point" - hope this isn't it..."An enjoyable vacation is awaiting you" - more like hiding from me.
25. One of those rock coasters with two heads-up quarters on it.
26. Two external hard drives - there's a third that is currently on my dining room table.
27. My scanner that most recently scanned the backstage shot of Donny Hathaway. More to come from that baby.
28. Stapler.
29. A John Wayne coaster that unlike the rock one is absorbent.
30. Earbuds for my iPhone which you can't see because it was taking the pictures. The earbuds are now in my ears because I just finished talking to Jaimie.
31. A very cool Nixon watch that I stole from Tyler.
32. DVDs that I need to check what's on 'em.
33. A hair clippy.
34. A piece of paper with one note on it that I have just recylced. Nevermind, it had some notes on the back about money Tyler owes me.
35. A blank CD.
36. There are two 36s, both a crumpled paper towels.
37. Mini post-it pad.
38. Bookcase.
39. Hard drive case chillin' on the floor.
40. Printer with some large format paper.
Whaddya think? TMI? Not exactly what I intended to post. So much for the round-up other than the couple of things that I threw in the list.
And now I am way out of time. It's almost 4pm and I've really been slack today. I didn't wake up until 10am today 'cause I worked late last night. Then I ended up procrastinating over at The Comeback Girl (how cool is that Obama photo?) after she tipped me off to my bad BUY MY BOOK HERE link. Thanks for that. And somewhere in there I managed an hour-long meeting that could actually be considered as productive.
Yup, I'm going to do more round-up stuff tomorrow because there are things going on here that I can't really talk about but I'm dying to tell you...sort of.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Mick Fleetwood - The Show
Following the interview, we (me and the assembled 4 person crew) headed over to the Spotlight 29 casino for the big show. It was mid-afternoon so I figured we'd have plenty of time to suss out the venue and lighting, meet with the sound guy and still have time for a nice sit-down meal before Tyler arrived with one more camera and an operator.
Not.
As it turned out, there wasn't a second to spare between hitting the venue and the doors opening. Fortunately, the band was having one last sound check before the show so we could get the logistics down of where to put each camera/operator and what coverage they were responsible for. It was also an opportunity for the sound guy to set up and figure out his levels.
The people working the venue were amazing and very helpful. The guy running the stage, lights and sound bent over backwards to accommodate our intrusion. We were fixed up with walkies, they assisted us in color balancing the cameras and at the last second provided us with his daughter's TV to use as a monitor for the sound guy, as his gear was set up backstage.
The last and final hurdle I needed to overcome was also the most important. Even though we were shooting footage for a DVD of 'Mick Fleetwood's Island Rumour Band', and it is a "band", I knew the main draw was the man himself, Mick Fleetwood.
When I initially saw Mick's drumkit on stage, I was pretty much freaking out. I immediately walked around in front of and on either side of the stage where I knew we'd have access. There wasn't clear view of Mick to be found. How the fuck was I going to turn in footage of the band with no Mick Fleetwood. Why couldn't he have taken up the guitar or base or been a lead singer?
Imagine trying to get watchable footage from the front of the stage when you can't use a jib and this is the view:
Or even shooting from the sides of the stage when this is the view:
Finally, I mustered up the gall to present the problem to Jonathan (Mick's manager who had been so helpful when we were assembling some unique intelligent questions for the interview) and within minutes he had us cleared to shoot from wherever we needed to be...including Mick's drum riser!
Oh. My. God. Thank. You...for saving my ass.
I put Tyler on the Mick camera since he was the operator I knew best. Here's the view we had as I saw it through my still camera....
The show was amazing. Mick was pounding the drums with the energy of a teenager but the chops of a wiseman. And I can attest to the fact that you haven't lived until you've heard him solo while crouched on his riser mere inches from his kit. His playing moved me to tears...of joy.
I can't remember what time I got home...probably around 3:30am. I was bagged and exhilarated at the same time. But there was still work to do. I had to log all the tapes and put together a camera list. We wanted to import some of the footage but there just wasn't time. We did a quick playback of some of the sound and were happy to hear the quality. We had time to look at a tiny bit of the footage, mostly what Tyler shot, which looked pretty amazing. It would have been great to have one more day to see everything but it all had to leave for a flight to the UK at 6am. And now I can only hope we got what they needed to make a kick-ass DVD.
Thanks to everybody who took part in the craziness...Rob, Jonathan, Deborah (another one), Tyler, Sergio, Andy, Peter, Jeff, Bob, and of course, Mick, Rick and the rest of the Island Rumours Band. You guys (and girls) rock!
Not.
As it turned out, there wasn't a second to spare between hitting the venue and the doors opening. Fortunately, the band was having one last sound check before the show so we could get the logistics down of where to put each camera/operator and what coverage they were responsible for. It was also an opportunity for the sound guy to set up and figure out his levels.
The people working the venue were amazing and very helpful. The guy running the stage, lights and sound bent over backwards to accommodate our intrusion. We were fixed up with walkies, they assisted us in color balancing the cameras and at the last second provided us with his daughter's TV to use as a monitor for the sound guy, as his gear was set up backstage.
The last and final hurdle I needed to overcome was also the most important. Even though we were shooting footage for a DVD of 'Mick Fleetwood's Island Rumour Band', and it is a "band", I knew the main draw was the man himself, Mick Fleetwood.
When I initially saw Mick's drumkit on stage, I was pretty much freaking out. I immediately walked around in front of and on either side of the stage where I knew we'd have access. There wasn't clear view of Mick to be found. How the fuck was I going to turn in footage of the band with no Mick Fleetwood. Why couldn't he have taken up the guitar or base or been a lead singer?
Imagine trying to get watchable footage from the front of the stage when you can't use a jib and this is the view:
Or even shooting from the sides of the stage when this is the view:
Finally, I mustered up the gall to present the problem to Jonathan (Mick's manager who had been so helpful when we were assembling some unique intelligent questions for the interview) and within minutes he had us cleared to shoot from wherever we needed to be...including Mick's drum riser!
Oh. My. God. Thank. You...for saving my ass.
I put Tyler on the Mick camera since he was the operator I knew best. Here's the view we had as I saw it through my still camera....
The show was amazing. Mick was pounding the drums with the energy of a teenager but the chops of a wiseman. And I can attest to the fact that you haven't lived until you've heard him solo while crouched on his riser mere inches from his kit. His playing moved me to tears...of joy.I can't remember what time I got home...probably around 3:30am. I was bagged and exhilarated at the same time. But there was still work to do. I had to log all the tapes and put together a camera list. We wanted to import some of the footage but there just wasn't time. We did a quick playback of some of the sound and were happy to hear the quality. We had time to look at a tiny bit of the footage, mostly what Tyler shot, which looked pretty amazing. It would have been great to have one more day to see everything but it all had to leave for a flight to the UK at 6am. And now I can only hope we got what they needed to make a kick-ass DVD.
Thanks to everybody who took part in the craziness...Rob, Jonathan, Deborah (another one), Tyler, Sergio, Andy, Peter, Jeff, Bob, and of course, Mick, Rick and the rest of the Island Rumours Band. You guys (and girls) rock!
Saturday, January 03, 2009
Mick Fleetwood - The Interview
The email arrived early on Wednesday, November 12th.
"Are you able to film an interview with Mick Fleetwood and his band on Saturday afternoon in Palm Springs?"
It was originally a question for me to pass on to Tyler, since he's the one that just got out of NYU film school and has the mad shooting and editing skills. But he had a production meeting on Saturday afternoon for some reality pitch he was editing so I stepped in and organized the shoot. I found a guy with a camera and lighting package that could do it within the budget and, just like that, it was a go.
The purpose of the interview was to create a special features segment for a DVD of a concert they shot in London of Mick and his Blues Band. But then everything changed. The fates stepped in on Thursday and I was asked about the possibility of setting up a five camera shoot for the concert Mick was doing on Saturday night with his Island Rumours Band. That meant seeing if I could scrounge up cameras and operators as well as a pro sound crew and putting together a budget that may or may not be approved.
The visual part of it was within my wheelhouse but I didn't have much, if any, experience with sound...especially multi-channel concert recording. I immediately called my friend who has been recording for lots of years with the drummer from a very famous trio (think law enforcement) only to find out that he was unavailable. But he kindly hooked me up with another guy who has a remote recording set-up and has at least one Emmy® to prove his worth.
The budget was miraculously approved on Friday around noon, which sent me into overdrive pulling the whole thing together. Renting cameras, buying tape, lining up the crew and communicating back and forth with the venue and the sound guy for all the technical information that I was previously clueless about.
I was close to death when we headed to Palm Springs in the early hours of Saturday morning...running on no sleep and fighting the onset of a cold which would completely knock me off my feet by Sunday.
When we arrived at the hotel a couple of hours prior to the scheduled interview time, the original place they wanted to do the interview was nixed and we had to come up with a space. The hotel people were super-accommodating and we found a meeting room that we were able to redress into something that was more or less passable. There was a huge lighting glitch - the guy with the camera and lighting package didn't have the lighting part of the package so we punted with a couple of hardware store variety dish lights.
Then there was the problem with the questions that were sent over by some guy in the UK. They were crap. With no time left, three of us plus Mick's manager revised and honed the questions that would be asked of him and guitarist Rick Vito. Turned out both interviewees were great.
Here's a shot of the interview...
Yours truly, Rick Vito and Mick Fleetwood
After the interview was done I bestowed a couple of EISID books on Rick and Mick...
Mick happens to be mentioned in the book as he was 'discovered' and had his first professional gigs because of keyboardist Peter Bardens.
Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow...Mick Fleetwood - The Show.
"Are you able to film an interview with Mick Fleetwood and his band on Saturday afternoon in Palm Springs?"
It was originally a question for me to pass on to Tyler, since he's the one that just got out of NYU film school and has the mad shooting and editing skills. But he had a production meeting on Saturday afternoon for some reality pitch he was editing so I stepped in and organized the shoot. I found a guy with a camera and lighting package that could do it within the budget and, just like that, it was a go.
The purpose of the interview was to create a special features segment for a DVD of a concert they shot in London of Mick and his Blues Band. But then everything changed. The fates stepped in on Thursday and I was asked about the possibility of setting up a five camera shoot for the concert Mick was doing on Saturday night with his Island Rumours Band. That meant seeing if I could scrounge up cameras and operators as well as a pro sound crew and putting together a budget that may or may not be approved.
The visual part of it was within my wheelhouse but I didn't have much, if any, experience with sound...especially multi-channel concert recording. I immediately called my friend who has been recording for lots of years with the drummer from a very famous trio (think law enforcement) only to find out that he was unavailable. But he kindly hooked me up with another guy who has a remote recording set-up and has at least one Emmy® to prove his worth.
The budget was miraculously approved on Friday around noon, which sent me into overdrive pulling the whole thing together. Renting cameras, buying tape, lining up the crew and communicating back and forth with the venue and the sound guy for all the technical information that I was previously clueless about.
I was close to death when we headed to Palm Springs in the early hours of Saturday morning...running on no sleep and fighting the onset of a cold which would completely knock me off my feet by Sunday.
When we arrived at the hotel a couple of hours prior to the scheduled interview time, the original place they wanted to do the interview was nixed and we had to come up with a space. The hotel people were super-accommodating and we found a meeting room that we were able to redress into something that was more or less passable. There was a huge lighting glitch - the guy with the camera and lighting package didn't have the lighting part of the package so we punted with a couple of hardware store variety dish lights.
Then there was the problem with the questions that were sent over by some guy in the UK. They were crap. With no time left, three of us plus Mick's manager revised and honed the questions that would be asked of him and guitarist Rick Vito. Turned out both interviewees were great.
Here's a shot of the interview...
Yours truly, Rick Vito and Mick FleetwoodAfter the interview was done I bestowed a couple of EISID books on Rick and Mick...
Mick happens to be mentioned in the book as he was 'discovered' and had his first professional gigs because of keyboardist Peter Bardens.Stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow...Mick Fleetwood - The Show.
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