Episode 874 - Neal Preston
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuck sticks what's happening i'm mark marin it's almost uh what the fuck miss you know what i find over the years
Marc:is that I'm not a big gift giver, and eventually that catches up with you, is that if you're not a big gift giver, you will not be receiving many gifts.
Marc:And I enjoy a gift, but I think I've lost my appreciation for them, because it's not so much that I have everything I want, but generally through barter and through people wanting me to hear or read or...
Marc:or talk about things here on the show i get sent a lot of unsolicited i guess we could call them gifts but sometimes they're not gifts sometimes they're just things that eat up space or things that i eat that i don't enjoy or things well i enjoy them initially but then i'm like it's not that great but sometimes they're all right sometimes they're they're shirts that i can't wear there but i'll tell you one thing if it comes from a publisher it comes from a record store a lot of times
Marc:What I do is I bring a lot of those books to the library and let them have them for the people who come sit in the library.
Marc:I've been thinking about going to the library lately because up in my new neighborhood, up where I'm going to be hanging out, up where the new house is, there's a library not too far away.
Marc:And I was driving by it and I saw it.
Marc:I saw in the windows just the stacks of books and the tables there.
Marc:And there wasn't anyone in there.
Marc:And I thought I should be the guy that sits there at the library all day one day.
Marc:And so not not huge short term goals to be the guy at the library who probably brings his own snack.
Marc:The guy at the library brings his own sandwich that smells up the whole library.
Marc:How about those people on airplanes?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:No tuna fish.
Marc:I don't I don't I don't I know you think you're cutting corners because, you know, you brought it from home.
Marc:You're not going to spend money on the plane.
Marc:Not going to buy it before you get on the plane.
Marc:You're going to bring your own stinky tuna salad right into the plane.
Marc:It'll stink up the entire fucking plane.
Marc:Can you believe that we smoked on planes?
Marc:I still can't believe that.
Marc:I got an email here I'd like to read.
Marc:I got some other stuff.
Marc:But look, I do want you to have a good holiday and be safe.
Marc:Christmas is not my bag, but I like how everything quiets down.
Marc:This is probably the last day in L.A.
Marc:where there will be populated.
Marc:Because a lot of people from around here live other places and they all split.
Marc:It's just nice and quiet.
Marc:And you know what you can do that you can never do here?
Marc:That's amazing over the holiday here in L.A.
Marc:is you can actually drive on the highways and drive.
Marc:It's very exciting.
Marc:I can't wait till this weekend.
Marc:I'm probably going to spend a lot of time in the car just going like, holy shit, look, we're moving.
Marc:This is what these roads were made for, baby.
Marc:Just driving.
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:Yes, I'm sorry if you're going to be destroyed by this new tax plan.
Marc:And I guess I'm speaking to most of us.
Marc:I won't be destroyed, but it ain't good.
Marc:Not in this state.
Marc:But I imagine this is going to really hurt a lot of people over time.
Marc:It might even destroy the country even further than it's already being destroyed.
Marc:Exciting time.
Marc:Merry Christmas.
Marc:Did I mention it?
Marc:Did I mention the holidays are here?
Marc:Neil Preston is on the show.
Marc:Neil Preston is one of the great rock photographers.
Marc:Just seminal.
Marc:Is that the word that I want?
Marc:Seminal images.
Marc:Seminal images.
Marc:Talk about that in a minute.
Marc:I do want to say I bought a suit today.
Marc:I've neglected to keep you totally up to speed.
Marc:Because if everything goes well and...
Marc:Things keep moving in the direction that they are, whereas I'm alive and these events are still taking place and I'm still part of them.
Marc:I will be going to the Critics' Choice Awards and the SAG Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, because I'm nominated for them.
Marc:And I do not have a suit.
Marc:I'll be honest with you.
Marc:I don't wear suits ever.
Marc:And when I do, it's usually this Western suit that I got on Marin that it's a Western cut black suit.
Marc:It's kind of a cheapo suit, but it's a high-end Western suit.
Marc:But that's the only black suit I have.
Marc:And all the other suits I have, I'll be honest with you, I took from the wardrobe of the remake of Nevermind the Buzzcocks back in 19... Fuck.
Marc:99, maybe?
Marc:2017, 18 years ago.
Marc:Those are the suits I'm working with.
Marc:So I went out and bought a grown-up suit.
Marc:Spent some money on it.
Marc:I don't have any kids.
Marc:I don't have a wife.
Marc:I'm not in debt.
Marc:What am I going to do?
Marc:Just die with my money?
Marc:What am I going to do with it?
Marc:Give it to my mom?
Marc:Give it to the cats?
Marc:Leave it to a cat charity?
Marc:I should probably leave something in there for the ACLU.
Marc:That's for sure.
Marc:Someone's got to fucking try to fix this mess.
Marc:But the point being, I went to Tom Ford in Beverly Hills, and I bought myself a black...
Marc:Classic black three-piece suit with a white shirt and a black tie and black shoes.
Marc:And I enjoyed wearing it in the store.
Marc:I enjoyed getting it, looking at the tailor, make the little wax marks on it.
Marc:And I look good in that fucker.
Marc:I look good in that mirror.
Marc:I look good in that suit.
Marc:It was worth the bread.
Marc:I don't give a fuck anymore.
Marc:I'm going to wear that suit to those two shows and maybe never wear it again.
Marc:But but so what?
Marc:You only live once.
Marc:I don't know how long it's going to last anymore.
Marc:I don't know how much time I have left.
Marc:If you're familiar with my special, that would be another callback.
Marc:I'm going to read an email that I'm going to bring on Neil Preston.
Marc:Talk about him for a minute.
Marc:Heartfelt, a heartfelt, grateful.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:I don't know if you'll ever read this, but you have become the most unlikely hero of my life.
Marc:In my 20s, which I've come to realize were a lot like yours, only with inferior narcotic quality and without Bill Hicks, I fucking hated you.
Marc:Literally.
Marc:If we met on the street then, I'm pretty sure one of us would have had to punch the other's mean, smirking face just out of general principle.
Marc:In my younger days, I always thought of you as a pose searching for an elusive cause that would never arrive.
Marc:Now I am 45 and I've just watched your last four stand-up specials and I was truly amazed at what you've become.
Marc:You are finally the cool older teacher you idolized when you were younger.
Marc:You have become a truly timelessly cool great fucking comic because when I listen to you I admire both your specific kind of unvarnished honesty and even more the subtle command of craft and storytelling that makes you the only person who can do that set.
Marc:Anyway, it should be obvious that clearly what I hated in you in my 20s was what I secretly hated in myself, just projected onto a human-shaped screen.
Marc:I was the snarling, contemptuous, cred-obsessed, punk indie kid who was defined never by what he loved,
Marc:only by what he hated i'm trying to get better as i get older just like you and as fucked up as you admit to being you have a earned stillness maybe not inner peace but i admire the hell out of you for finding whatever that is and despite this not being a great time of life for me your specials gave me real joy and hope for the future sorry for the long rambling nonsense sincere thanks blue isn't that interesting an earned stillness
Marc:Maybe not inner peace.
Marc:I have a earned stillness.
Marc:I like that, man.
Marc:I like that, Blue.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:I never thought of stillness versus inner peace.
Marc:Stillness.
Marc:I can do that.
Marc:I think it's because my brain is rotting though.
Marc:And I, there's, there's some gaps, you know, like a lot of this stuff that I used to sort of like really fester about a lot of my memory is kind of like, it's not foggy.
Marc:It's just a, it's not as present as it used to be.
Marc:I got to dig a bit.
Marc:There's a stillness in that until I start digging.
Marc:till i start digging and if i'm not digging for memories i'm digging for things to be unstill about but i appreciate that input man i'm glad you enjoyed it and i you know i i don't know if i would have hit you i've never hit anybody in my life so i don't think that would have happened probably just the look though just the look um neil preston this is an interesting guest because you know i it came to me through um
Marc:Cameron Crowe's people.
Marc:Neil Preston has a book out called Exhilarated and Exhausted.
Marc:It's available wherever you get books.
Marc:It's a big, beautiful book.
Marc:You can check out his work at PrestonPictures.com.
Marc:But he did all, like, so many great rock photographs.
Marc:And how important were photographs, man?
Marc:I mean, how important were they, like, you know, especially before the internet when you were younger, if you're my age, those fucking, those pictures, man.
Marc:Those pictures.
Marc:There are certain pictures...
Marc:He took the picture of Robert Plant holding the dove.
Marc:He took that picture.
Marc:I talked to him about it.
Marc:It's just that pictures meant so much.
Marc:They hung on our walls.
Marc:We looked at them.
Marc:Pictures of our heroes.
Marc:They were comforting.
Marc:They were how we saw them.
Marc:There were moments that humanized them and elevated them at the same time.
Marc:There's a lot of those of all kinds of people, heroic people, important people, or maybe just fucking...
Marc:just fucking rebels right but sometimes that's the pick you want that that one that just characterizes everything that you look up to in that person even if it's fucked up anyways i got an opportunity to talk to neil i thought he would have some good stories and he did and uh this is me talking to neil preston
Marc:The reality is that you've done all these iconic photos, and they're stunning, and they're memorable.
Marc:But I would say 80%, maybe, of the people in there, 70%, are probably gone.
Marc:I haven't done the count.
Marc:You want more cans?
Marc:uh yeah sure like i love petty and i love bowie and you know and and you know on some level you realize well this generation is of that age uh people live longer but people like yourself what are you in your 60s i'm 65 so you're a little younger than the guys you were shooting a lot of times a lot of generation a lot of times on the other hand tom petty was one year older than me you know
Marc:But they lived hard.
Marc:They made the choice they made.
Marc:And you're not horrendously surprised when a rock star dies in his 60s.
Marc:Sometimes you're surprised if they made it that far.
Marc:But still, when it happens, even if you didn't listen to their last four records, the idea that they were here meant something.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:And each one of those artists
Guest:that i've that who have passed away that i've worked with each one of those deaths yeah takes a little bit of my soul with it and um some i knew better than others yeah uh you know how well did you know tom
Guest:I mean, I knew Tom.
Guest:We didn't hang out and play poker or anything, but I shot him many times over the years.
Guest:I did all the Wilburys pictures and went to the Super Bowl with Tom when he did the Super Bowl and shot him many times during his career.
Guest:And it's just...
Guest:It's gut-wrenching.
Guest:It's absolutely gut-wrenching when you get news like this.
Guest:The news about Glenn Frey really just took us for a loop.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I guess they're all sort of a surprise.
Guest:Yeah, it's a surprise.
Guest:You're not shocked, but you're surprised.
Guest:I mean, it's going to happen sooner or later.
Guest:Greg Allman, that was really tough because he was a guy who was very important to us early on in my career and Cameron's career.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Greg was a god.
Guest:Greg Allman was a god to us.
Marc:I saw him pass me by.
Marc:I was at the Bowery Hotel.
Marc:It must have been not even six months before he died.
Marc:I felt a presence walk behind me, and I just turned around, and it was Greg, and he looked like a ghost.
Marc:I didn't realize how small he was.
Guest:Well, here's the thing.
Guest:He never used to be that small.
Guest:When we met Greg in 73, Greg was about 6'1".
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Long and lean, long blonde hair.
Marc:You sure he wasn't just wearing platforms?
Guest:I'm telling you, well, he was, but he was really tall and lean.
Guest:And when we finally, 43 years later, Cameron and Greg and I were in the same room.
Guest:We went down to Del Mar to see him play.
Guest:and greg had shrunk in florida no at del mar oh at the racetrack oh okay by san diego yeah and we walked into greg's um dressing room and the three of us had not been in the same room together in 43 years yeah and he had he was about six inches shorter really yeah it was really insane and he he was he was much shorter than cameron and myself and well cameron was like 15 when you met him the first time right
Guest:Yeah, but I was 20, but Greg was visibly, had aged 80 years and 40 years, and we took a picture with him, and Greg insisted that I be on one side and Cameron be on the other side so that he could rest his arms on each of our shoulders as if to prop himself up.
Guest:And what I've just found out recently is Greg knew at that point and a couple years before that he was dying.
Guest:Because of the liver?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had found out almost five years before he passed away.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And...
Guest:it's very it's a very interesting story um i was in london uh i don't know two months ago three months ago and i got an email from someone at gibson guitars saying that uh one of greg's daughters was trying to get a hold of me that it was important something to do with the posthumous album that was going to be coming out um late later this year and um
Guest:She ended up writing me a note.
Guest:I spoke to her when I got back to L.A., and it turned out that Greg had recorded an album at Muscle Shoals Studios, and he knew he was going to be dying.
Guest:He recorded this record, and the title of the record is Southern Blood.
Guest:And his daughter, Layla Allman, contacted me saying that Greg had become enamored of this painter in New York named, I believe, Vincent Castiglia, whose kind of thing was to use human blood in the paint as part of the pigment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Greg fell in love with this guy's paintings.
Guest:He bought a piece and then called the guy and said, I want you to paint my album cover in my own blood.
Guest:And so he sent Greg, he sent Vincent a couple of vials of his blood and the painter put him in the fridge and...
Guest:They were supposed to set up a photo shoot to do a reference photo so the guy could paint from it, and Greg was too sick to do that photo shoot, and he passed away.
Guest:So Layla called me saying, the entire family has decided that the one picture that we want him to use, it's unanimous, is your photo of Greg.
Guest:which one from the 70s from yeah from the portrait 73 yeah that very angelic looking portrait and i said i called her back and i said absolutely i i'm honored i don't want to send you know whatever you need and and the guy did the painting and they unveiled it uh about three four weeks ago at the grammy museum and it's
Guest:you know it's painted in blood and you know when blood dries you get that kind of rust color it's not bright red heavy huh it's really heavy and and i was um you know i was iffy about how it would look but when i saw it in person the the painter caught the gleam in greg's eye and
Guest:And it's I mean, the surreal aspect of shooting a picture of Greg Allman 43 years ago and then having it be included in his album that has just come out, you know, any recorded Muscle Shoals.
Guest:And, you know, there's all those ghosts in the machines.
Guest:Don was produced the record.
Guest:And there's some really great, there's one track, I can't remember the name, but it's really swampy and bluesy, kind of like Midnight Rider, but just swampy.
Guest:Was it with Almond Guys?
Guest:No, it was with his touring band.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Actually.
Marc:Because like, you know, Don did that last, I think he had a lot to do with that last Stones record, the blues record, which was great.
Guest:I haven't listened to a Rolling Stones record since 1981.
Marc:I'm the same as you, though.
Marc:But this was the one that they'd been talking about for years, an all-blues record.
Marc:It could have been their first album.
Guest:You've got to listen to it.
Guest:Well, I'll give it a shot.
Guest:I'm telling you, man.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:i'm telling you like i was just saying like i believe that the last good one they did might have been 81 and i hadn't really given some girls right right i liked emotional rescue i was all right and i like tattoo youtube it's okay there's some good there's some good ones on there but as far as a whole record goes i agree with you but this thing if you're a stones guy i mean you'll be like oh my god it's all blues covers interesting
Marc:The whole thing's blues covers, dude.
Guest:And did they bring in other musicians?
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:It's basically Keith.
Marc:No, it's Keith and Daryl.
Marc:You know, the guy's been with me.
Marc:Eric Clapton sits in on a few, plays a lead on some.
Marc:And Mick is all over the harmonica again.
Marc:Like, real deal.
Marc:Like, they're covering Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed tunes again.
Marc:I'm telling you, it could have been their first record.
Guest:Sounds like their first record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Dude, you've got to listen to it.
Guest:Well, I'll listen to that if you listen to Greg's record.
Guest:I didn't even know about Greg's record.
Guest:It's called Southern Blood.
Guest:Of course I'll listen to Greg's record.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:That day when we saw Greg two years ago, and he was very frail.
Guest:And obviously not in good health.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The weird thing was the second he got on stage and started singing, his voice was there.
Guest:He was right there, right on it.
Guest:And after the set was over, I noticed that he didn't want to get off the stage.
Guest:He kind of wandered around as the crowd filed out of the stands.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's talking to roadies.
Guest:He's talking to this person, that one, checking his keyboards.
Guest:He did not want to get off the stage.
Guest:Because that's where he's eternal.
Guest:That's exactly.
Guest:And that's home.
Guest:It's home to him.
Guest:And I noticed that, and it turned out I was correct.
Guest:Were you shooting that?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:You shot that?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In fact, I shot a picture of Greg...
Guest:going down finally when he went off the stage going down the stairs and so you see his back and he's holding on to the rail and where's that picture pictures uh in the follow-up you know we couldn't put every picture in the book so uh it's but i thought this could be the last time greg ever walks off the stage it's funny now you talk about it and thinking about the book not you know really none of the pictures
Marc:in the book, and I just put it down, where our sad picture are documents of the end of people.
Marc:They're all very vital.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like all of them.
Marc:Yeah, almost every picture in the book are these guys, whether they're fucked up or whatever they are, they're not dying.
Guest:well you know i mean yeah i guess not visibly i mean john lee hooker obviously that was still alive isn't he oh no he's dead oh no um and uh right but he always he looked like that for 20 years yeah true true i mean boy if if the lines on that face could talk
Marc:No, I think it's a good thing, but when you talk about this... I never really realized that.
Marc:When you talk about the picture of Greg, it's sort of, I'd like to see that be... Even the picture of Leonard Cohen, which is 20 years ago, and it's in 95, 2005, 2005, 20 years before he died.
Marc:He's an older man, and he's in the meditation position.
Marc:It's a beautiful picture.
Marc:I know he's a Buddhist.
Guest:He was a monk.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was a monk?
Guest:Yeah, he was a monk, and we had to go up Mount Baldy, where there's a...
Guest:what do you call it monastery yeah monkister yeah and um and he he was literally living the life of a monk where you don't really speak and you you live in a very spartan uh manner except that except that every once in a while he would go down the hill and play a couple of gigs you know the gigging monk yeah well that's it's a it's it's a sweet picture
Marc:of him, you know?
Marc:It really is.
Marc:But, like, you know, I looked through the book, and I was going to tell you, like, about the painting.
Marc:You get a call from the Almond estate, the Almond family, the Almond daughter, to contribute to your photographs so they could be painted.
Marc:I would imagine that there have been literally hundreds of thousands of high school pieces, drawings, and paintings, and silk screens done from your photographs.
Guest:Oh, more than hundreds of thousands, and, uh...
Guest:You know, we'll throw that question over to my lawyer.
Marc:But not to sell.
Guest:No, no, no.
Marc:In the middle of class, when they should be studying, they're drawing Kiss in the snow.
Guest:And they all end up finding their way backstage and giving those paintings to someone in the band.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:From your photograph.
Guest:Yes, absolutely.
Guest:Let me ask you.
Guest:Especially someone like Jimmy Page or Stevie Nicks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, those photos you did of Stevie Nicks, was that the only shoot you did with her?
Guest:Oh, God, no.
Marc:No, I mean, the one on the top of the... The rooftop?
Guest:Outside of Fleetwood Mac.
Guest:No, I've done many, many shoots.
Guest:That was the first kind of one-on-one shoot that we did.
Guest:I mean, I had started doing some performance photos of Fleetwood Mac.
Guest:around the time just before the rumors tour but when Stevie did her first solo record called Bella Donna I was assigned by a magazine who knew that that I had a some sort of relationship with Fleetwood Mac and they sent me to her house to do a solo shoot with her and that was the beginning of what's been a very long friendship and we've done lots of photo shoots and
Guest:To be honest, I'd have to say she's the closest thing I've ever had to amuse in my life.
Guest:You read the last page in the book where I thank people, and there's three people, three artists that I set aside to thank specifically, and those three people are Brian May, Stevie Nicks, and Pete Townsend for different reasons.
Guest:Stevie is one of the most creative people I have ever met in my life.
Guest:yeah and why Brian Brian well I've worked closely with Queen for years and years and years and Brian has been a friend a cheerleader for me he's you know he is literally a rocket scientist I know if you know he's great guitar player yeah he's got a doctorate in astronomy oh no and he co-wrote a book about the the origin of the universe he's also an expert in 3d photography stereography uh-huh
Guest:stereoscopy well 3d photography and and he's also the only rock star that ever came to my mom and dad's house and but but he's been a just a big supporter of of mine and you know I've spent a lot of time with Queen yeah before and after Fred passed away and and Pete Pete because
Guest:of well pete's one of my two idols in my life the other being john lennon but pete's lyrics pete's you know his tortured brain you know he's a mental level intelligence and uh his self-doubt and and all that stuff it just really speaks to me and interesting and reminds me that it's all going to be okay
Guest:He's one of the self-doubters, huh?
Guest:Oh, big time.
Marc:It's funny.
Marc:I had Randy Newman in here a few weeks ago.
Marc:Talked to him for a couple hours.
Guest:I love him.
Guest:Did you read my piece?
Guest:I did.
Marc:I read your piece on Randy.
Marc:When he couldn't talk.
Guest:What happened that day?
Guest:What year was that?
Guest:That was, oh, God.
Guest:That had to be the early 80s, late 70s, something like that.
Guest:And I get this assignment to shoot Randy Newman, and I'm really excited.
Guest:I mean, political science still.
Guest:I mean, it's one of the great songs of all time.
Marc:I just saw him perform it recently.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:I mean, he's fantastic.
Guest:So I get sent to Randy's house and knock on the door and he opens the door.
Guest:I stick my hand out.
Guest:I'm Neil.
Guest:And he shakes my hand and he has a piece of paper in his hand that says, can't talk doctor's orders with an arrow pointing to his throat.
Guest:And I thought he was kidding.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:so you know so i'm doing this whole shoot where he can't say a word yeah and i'm and i'm i'm doing anything i can is it necessary you need you want you you just felt like this well this is the this is the guy who can say more in one sentence than than you know than anyone can say in an entire book so you're personally disappointed that he can't oh i'm beyond
Guest:personally disappointed I mean I want I just want to get inside his brain a little yeah but I'm there to get the pictures right and I first I thought he was kidding and after 15 20 minutes I realized he's not kidding yeah so and but I'm getting a lot of nods and smiles and this and can you go over here and yeah and I'm getting thumbs ups yeah finally after I don't know a couple of hours I wrapped and I said okay Randy it's a wrap and and he big smile now and my assistant's packing up the equipment
Guest:And I've tried everything.
Guest:I've stood on my head and spit out nickels to try to get him to even laugh.
Guest:Can't do it.
Guest:But I decide I'm going to try one last time.
Guest:And I'm walking out the door and I turn around and I say, so you're starting a tour next week?
Guest:And he nods, yes.
Guest:And I say, what city are you starting?
Guest:And he comes up to me and he whispers in my ear, Detroit.
Detroit.
Guest:That was the only word he said in two hours, Detroit.
Guest:Yeah, he's a sweet guy.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:Do you find it's necessary?
Marc:Do you feel that you're compelled when you shoot?
Marc:I mean, obviously, because Randy is Randy, you said he wanted to get inside his brain.
Marc:But do you feel you need to do that generally with these musicians that you shoot?
Guest:Yes and no.
Guest:It depends on the artist.
Guest:I mean, I do my homework going in.
Guest:But it's more a question of how do I get... How am I going to lead the person into the photograph that I want to shoot?
Guest:Because it's a dance.
Guest:I lead, you follow, and together we tango.
Marc:But if you're shooting a concert, you don't have that much control, right?
Guest:Well, I have...
Guest:Well, I have a lot of control as to what I decide I want to shoot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I'm at the mercy of the lighting director and this and that.
Guest:But if you let me do what I do, I'm going to get the shot that you want me to get.
Guest:Because I know that, especially my performance photos, they don't look like anyone else's photos.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They just have a different... It's just the way that I frame things and shoot things.
Guest:I like clean backgrounds and negative space.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I can see it.
Marc:What do you think is your most iconic photograph?
Guest:Well, the one that has become, well, there's two or three, but the one that, if I had to pick one, it would have to be the photograph of Jimmy Page swinging the Jack Daniels.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because that has become the iconic photo representing 70s excess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, to me, it's just a dude swigging Jack Daniels.
Guest:But interestingly enough, the Jack Daniels company refused to buy a big print for their wall.
Guest:Because that's not how you drink Jack Daniels?
Guest:Close.
Guest:Because they said, you know...
Guest:Because it is arguably the most famous picture of anyone on Earth drinking Jack Daniels.
Guest:But they said, we can't.
Guest:And my agent said, why?
Guest:And the guy from Jack Daniels said, because in the photo, Jimmy Page is not drinking responsibly.
LAUGHTER
Marc:he's gonna drink any fucking way he wants okay but but that has become for some reason and that was just a literally a one click and move on to the next thing the weird thing is is like jack daniels was the rock and roll drink for years because i know keith drank it everyone drank it when i was in high school that's what i embarked on was to drink that and it was difficult to drink because it's terrible tasting oh it's
Guest:it's god awful yeah i mean and i forced myself to drink it because i thought that was the shit to drink well there was one point uh i love the label you gotta love the label it must have been around the time i don't know i was with van out with van halen or someone like that and i decided it would be cool to go through a swigging jack daniels period my gastro gastroenterologist is still giving me shit about that yeah because that'll rip your guts out yeah how'd that go for you not very well it's hard it's hard to keep down
Guest:uh well i don't i i don't drink anymore and haven't drank in a long time but that that i mean that's nasty shit a long time it is nasty nasty stuff so what are the other two what are the other two iconic oh well there's robert plan holding the white bird yeah and uh and that was that was that just happened that's a happy accident
Guest:Yeah, that was an outdoor gig in 73 at Kizar Stadium in San Francisco.
Guest:It was a daytime gig, which is unusual.
Guest:The band had 12 white doves.
Guest:Let's be honest, they're probably pigeons.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But six in one cage, six in another cage, and one cage was behind Jonesy's amps, and one cage was behind Jimmy's amps.
Guest:And the idea was that at the end of Stairway, as a metaphor for peace and love in San Francisco, the birds would be released into the air and into the crowd.
Guest:and stairway ended and they wrote he's opened the cages and the birds fluttered away except for one bird that did a slow turn around the crowd and came and then flew right back towards the stage robert just happened to stick his hand out and the bird just happened to land come on i swear to god i mean it was it you couldn't plan this i mean it's not one of those eagles at the super bowl that you know yeah yeah it's it's a pigeon it's a white pigeon and um
Guest:and that's how that's how it happened i mean you know what i like to say if you have your hands on the bat and your eyes on the ball sooner or later a pitcher's gonna hang a curve and boom and at that time i mean did you were there did you have a i guess did they have shutter engines then i mean could you be motorized yeah oh yeah
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, but you just, you have to keep your eyes open, you know.
Marc:And it sounds like from the, when you talk about earplugs and stuff, that you need to hear, that between the shutter drive and just your finger, you need to know the decision.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have to be able to hear it.
Guest:Otherwise, there's a weird disconnect.
Guest:I tried earplugs once at a Motley Crue show, and I could feel my cameras fire, but I couldn't quite hear that.
Guest:And it just threw me off a little bit.
Guest:It's a missing part of the experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You were disconnected a little.
Guest:yeah it's just it's because it's all after a while it's like a guitar player it's by touch you know it's and uh muscle memory whatever you want to call it and uh uh i did have there was one day in particular with the foo fighters that i probably lost 20 of my hearing you feel it now you got your hearing's fucked up
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I've been crowded restaurants, you know, I cannot have a first date in a crowded restaurant because I turn into George Burns.
Guest:Huh?
Guest:What?
Guest:Huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, the Foo Fighters.
Guest:uh rehearsed in in a little garage room not much bigger than this studio probably just a little bit bigger and um and uh as they they walk in there and as i'm getting ready to walk in a roadie says uh here you might need these earplugs yeah and i said no no don't want them roadie says you might really need them and i said no yeah and the roadie says
Guest:Trust me, you're going to need them.
Guest:And I rarely do something like this, but I said, listen, I've worked with this one and that one.
Guest:The Who and Kiss.
Guest:As you wish.
Guest:Closes the door.
Guest:Band starts to play.
Guest:Within 15 seconds, I have a migraine.
Guest:It's so loud.
Guest:Within...
Guest:30 seconds, I'm sure blood is pouring from my ears.
Guest:45 seconds, I am physically ill and about to vomit.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and I shot out my one roll of film and I had to get out of there.
Guest:I was physically ill.
Guest:It was so loud.
Guest:And they didn't wear headphones, earphones, earplugs.
Guest:They didn't wear jack shit.
Guest:And I know that that day ruined a good 20% of my hearing.
Marc:Yeah, my buddy Dean Del Rey, he tracks his hearing loss to an ACDC concert, I think, with the Those About to Rock tour with the blasting of the gun.
Marc:He was right next to the speaker, and he lost it.
Guest:Yeah, well, Motley Crue used to have the floor monitors in the pit.
Marc:Right where you're running around in the pit.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And on stage.
Guest:And still, it's not going to help your hearing.
Marc:Well, where does it start, though?
Marc:I did some photography when I was a kid, but it sounds like you were a real nerd for it.
Marc:I mean, where did you get interested in both music and photography?
Guest:Well, music, my life can be divided into two absolute distinct phases.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Pre-February 1964 and post-February 1964.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you know what I'm talking about.
Guest:The Beatles.
Guest:The Beatles on Ed Sullivan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And literally, how old was I?
Guest:I would have been almost 12.
Guest:And that's as I think I wrote the book.
Guest:That was the nuclear bomb that John Lennon delivered directly to my cortex.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The day before that, my whole life was, what did Mickey Mantle do?
Guest:Did he hit a home run yesterday?
Guest:The Yankees, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:The day after, I got to have a guitar, beetle boots, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:Were you growing up at this point?
Guest:I grew up in Forest Hills, New York.
Guest:In Queens?
Guest:In Queens, that's right.
Marc:By the World Fairgrounds?
Guest:Oh, yes.
Guest:I used to walk to the World's Fair, and you used to be able to get in for a quarter if you were with your parents.
Guest:So me and my buddies.
Marc:You were there for the World's Fair.
Guest:You saw it happen.
Guest:That was 64, 65, yeah.
Marc:And it ran for a while?
Guest:Well, it ran two years, 64 and 65.
Guest:And you could just go over there?
Guest:We would walk.
Guest:I mean, it wasn't a short walk, but it was two, three miles.
Guest:And we would wait for a couple to come by and we'd ask if they could pretend that they were our parents.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And people would say yes.
Guest:And we'd give them a quarter for each of us to get in and they'd pay the 75 cents.
Guest:And then the second we get on the other side of the turnstile, we'd tear off running away from our, quote, parents.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I must have gone 20 times.
Guest:What was there to do?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:All the pavilions.
Guest:The General Motors Futurama.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They had the spin art things with the paint.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was the World's Fair.
Guest:Video telephones, which now, you know, I laugh at.
Guest:But you've never seen it before that.
Guest:No, I mean, no one had ever really seen it before then.
Guest:And then the Unisphere became, after the World's Fear was over, the Unisphere became kind of a meeting place for all the teenagers and queens, and it's where you'd go to cop pot and second alls, you know, reds, and meet girls and all that stuff.
Marc:So the fairgrounds were open?
Guest:open once the fair was gone yeah well it's flushing meadow park right um right and and what happened was uh i had gotten my first camera when i was right around the time of the beatles uh from my first of three brothers-in-law sorry carol but i just blew it for you
Guest:And so photography was my hobby and somehow my love of music and my love of photography ended up morphing into one super hobby and there was a concert series
Guest:at the New York State Pavilion, which was left over from the World's Fair.
Guest:And a couple of my buddies had gone and shot some pictures at some concert there from their seats.
Guest:And then I went and shot one of the other shows there, and I don't remember which one it was.
Guest:And we decided that if...
Guest:Uh, if we showed some prints to someone at the local ticket office for this concert series, maybe we could get them for free.
Guest:Where are you, where are you processing at that point?
Guest:Are you doing your own processing?
Guest:I'm, I'm souping film and a friend of mine sink.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:the negs are a little dirty what can i say yeah and um so through a weird quirk uh i mean just a bizarre happenstance yeah the office that we took these prints to try and get free concert tickets turned out to be the promoter's office of the whole concert series yeah and um they started letting us into their shows for free and that's how i got my start
Guest:How old were you at that point?
Guest:Sixty and a half.
Guest:And how did your parents feel about this?
Guest:What did your father do for a living?
Guest:Well, my dad was a Broadway stage manager.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:He was a production stage manager for every big musical in the heyday.
Marc:So you grew up in the theater?
Guest:I grew up around the theater.
Guest:I mean, he was stage manager for The King and I, Camelot, Fiddler on the Roof, My Fear Lady.
Marc:You saw all those shows?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And in fact, the first performance photo that I ever shot, I must have been 14, and it's in the book, is a photo of the understudy for the lead in Fiddler on the Roof.
Guest:And I had brought my camera.
Guest:I used to love going to the theater.
Marc:Was it Topol's understudy?
Marc:Or Zero Mostel?
Guest:No, it was Herschel Bernardi's understudy.
Guest:Oh, Herschel Bernardi.
Marc:Did those other two guys do it, or am I making that up?
Guest:Well, no, one did the movie, I think, and Zero Mostel, I think, opened the show, but the show ran for like 100 years.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:So Herschel played Tevye, the lead, and Bette Midler was also in the show, believe it or not.
Guest:As the daughter?
Guest:As one of the daughters, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Herschel was sick one night, and this guy, Harry Goss, was his understudy.
Guest:And I had my camera with me, and my dad used to stand at the little podium right on stage left calling the lighting cues.
Guest:Now, I'd seen the show so many times that I knew when there was going to be a big speech and when there was going to be a laugh.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:when when uh harry was kind of near me yeah and was doing the speech i knew there was going to be a big laugh i waited for the laugh and i cocked my shoulder i shot one frame during that laugh because my dad could have gotten fired if if the stagehands saw me shoot okay union rules union rules for your kid come on doesn't matter this is new york unions baby and he could have gotten billed for a photo call for hundreds or even thousands of dollars but
Guest:But I snuck the photo.
Guest:I made a print.
Guest:My dad loved it.
Guest:He gave it to the actor who loved it.
Guest:And it turned out that Harry had a series of photography books similar to like the World Book Encyclopedia.
Guest:And he gave them all to me.
Guest:And I devoured them.
Guest:Isn't that interesting?
Guest:From that point on, I didn't even make a decision to be a photographer.
Guest:I just was.
Marc:You did this amazing picture.
Marc:And then the guy's like, this kid's interested.
Marc:And he gave you the things that changed your life.
Guest:absolutely the chance because he he saw your creativity encouraged it and he's like this kid could use these absolutely he just had him because he it was he's a hobbyist i i guess so i don't even remember but um and they were big books you know and you just like nerded out completely completely and and you know the analogy i make is when when you're
Guest:15, 16 years old, you go to driver's ed in school.
Guest:Some kids get behind the wheel of that car.
Guest:They don't know how to drive, but they instinctively know the relationship between the gas pedal and the clutch.
Guest:That's how I was with a camera.
Guest:The shutter release, the diaphragm, the film speed, it just made sense to me.
Marc:And unlike driving, you operate that machine, you get these amazing results that last forever.
Marc:tell me about it i mean i i mean i mark i don't know how it happened but it happened just that organically well the interesting thing about the book too is in in the essays you're you're there is a sort of teaching element to it like there is a tone in some of them where if like if you're going to do this this these are the rules yeah well yes and i wanted the the the
Guest:The way I tried to frame everything in my book, no pun intended, was to make it about my job.
Guest:This is the job I have.
Guest:There are very few people in the world that have this kind of job.
Guest:And you think it's so glamorous?
Guest:Well, sometimes it is, but a lot of times it isn't.
Guest:You got another thing coming if you think it's so super glamorous.
Guest:And these are the potholes in the road.
Marc:So for a while there, you're getting in free, and that was your camera.
Marc:Oh, I'm always getting in free.
Guest:No, I know.
Marc:But at the beginning, that was the ticket.
Marc:That was your pay.
Marc:Yeah, at the very beginning, you showed the promoter the pictures.
Guest:Yeah, come shoot the picture.
Guest:Right, and come to our shows.
Guest:And then every time I was backstage, it was a burgeoning rock scene, and there were people who were starting new rock magazines, and I'd get little assignments from them.
Guest:When was the first time you made money?
Guest:Um...
Guest:the first it's actually in the book um i had photographed uh me and my uh shooting partner at the time had photographed steve winwood yeah who was a big star at that time yeah traffic etc etc and we go down to uh the one fifth avenue hotel in greenwich village and shoot these pictures of steve winwood yeah uh and uh you know 15 minute 20 minute photo shoot yeah uh and uh
Guest:after they ran in this little rock magazine, we get a call from D Anthony's office, Steve's manager.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, D really likes the photos and he'd like you to come down to his office tomorrow and bring a stack of prints.
Guest:And you know, this is big time to us.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:So we print up 12, 14 prints and, uh,
Guest:We used to get on the subway to go into Manhattan, and I was still a senior in high school, and we get up there, and we walk into Dee's office, and Dee was a legendary figure.
Guest:He was...
Guest:you know a lot of bling everywhere and uh he was obviously someone not to with and and you know very imposing guy legendary guy and he we give him the stack of prints and he and he's got a diamond ring about the size of a watermelon on yeah and uh and he looks through them and looks through them and not much of a reaction he says boys i
Guest:I'm buying these.
Guest:He's not asking us if he can.
Guest:He's notifying us.
Guest:And he pulls out a lot of bills and peels off 320s and says, will this do now?
Guest:60 bucks cash to us in 1970 was like a trillion dollars.
Guest:And we walked out of there, you know, high as a kite.
Guest:60 bucks for Princess D. Louis.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay, the end of that story is two years later, I'm sitting at United Artists Records on Sunset Boulevard, and I see this new compilation called Wynwood that had come out.
Guest:What do you think's on the cover?
Guest:You know, a $60 photo.
Guest:And so I learned my lesson about that.
Guest:It still must have felt good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It felt fantastic.
Guest:Did you get photo credit at least?
Guest:I did.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So the company we had at the time got photo credit.
Guest:And it was the first time I'd ever seen anything of mine on any record package.
Guest:And you were like 18 or 19?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, at that point, I would have been 19 or 20 because it was a couple of years after we made the sale.
Guest:Yeah, maybe 19 and a half.
Marc:It seems like the formative years of you really be getting your legs in this were with the, you know, with Zep and the almonds.
Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, what happened was I moved to L.A.
Guest:in 71.
Guest:My girlfriend at the time was a was in publicity and she worked with a lot of big bands.
Guest:And I was just immersed in the business.
Guest:I knew people from the business in New York.
Guest:You mentioned Danny Goldberg.
Guest:yeah danny i knew from what danny was a was a rock writer for hullabaloo magazine which was the previous incarnation of circus magazine so i knew danny what was he like as a younger man same as he was as an older guy he had hair down here i mean he was great i mean he's very bright and um but i knew him from from circus magazine
Guest:So my partner and I had a retainer deal with Atlantic Records that we negotiated in 72.
Guest:So we would be sent out to shoot all the Atlantic artists, be it Led Zeppelin or whoever was on the label at the time.
Guest:I can't even think.
Guest:Manhattan Transfer, people like that.
Guest:That's a big gap.
Guest:well those are two opposite ends of the spectrum and actually i and i did my first uh album cover assignment for atlantic which was an eddie harris cover and i don't even like jazz uh-huh but it's called eddie harris instant death yeah um
Guest:At any rate, when Zeppelin was out in 72 and 73, I was sent by Atlantic to do some pictures here and there, and 73 was when I finally met Peter, and they kind of... Peter Grant?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You talk a lot about Peter Grant.
Guest:Well, Peter Grant was... You learned some lessons, huh?
Guest:I learned a lot about life from Peter Grant.
Guest:I mean, Peter Grant... Was their road manager.
Guest:No, was the manager.
Guest:The manager.
Guest:The manager.
Guest:Richard Cole was the road manager.
Guest:But anyway, I started doing some stuff for them at the end of 73.
Guest:And then they formed their own label called Swan Song in 74.
Guest:And Danny, we were hired to photograph the launch party at the Bel Air Hotel.
Guest:And then Danny had said to me, yeah, I think we're going out on the road in the winter.
Guest:And I said, well, if you want anyone to come on the road with you as a tour photographer, please consider me.
Guest:He was in publicity.
Guest:Yeah, he was doing their PR.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And never, never dreaming that the call would come a couple months later.
Guest:And I remember distinctly the phone rang and it was Danny.
Guest:And he said, you still want to come out on the road with us?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was hired right there and then as their tour photographer.
Guest:And, you know, when you're 23.
Guest:1972?
Guest:Well, 74 I was hired.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was 22.
Guest:it will never hurt you having led zeppelin on your resume yeah ever but i mean i i knew what i was getting into but i didn't know what i was getting into but it was that was the turning point of my career i mean because you know it's like working for sinatra and elvis at the same time yeah this led zeppelin they're a cloistered bunch you've all heard the rumors and not all of them are true but um which ones
Guest:Well, you know, everyone talks about, you know, how crazy they were, the sex and drugs.
Guest:And if that's how you define crazy, I will tell you that an REO Speedwagon tour is just as crazy as a Zeppelin tour, okay?
Guest:But there was a lot of drama and tension and...
Guest:And they were a very cloistered bunch.
Guest:I mean, it's almost like the mafia.
Guest:Once you're in, you're in.
Guest:And once you're out, you're out.
Marc:Well, I think you made a good point in the text of the book and saying that, like, whatever you hear, whatever you may know, or whatever really went on, these guys were still professionals that showed up for work and did the fucking job of rock stars.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:As as I had to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I had to, you know, you partake.
Guest:I was the ringleader some of the time.
Guest:I mean, if you read the article about Robin Zander getting arrested, but yeah.
Guest:But I'm there to do a job.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And regardless of what happens that way or any other way.
Guest:I'm there to do a job, and if I don't do my job, I'm going to get thrown out on my ass.
Marc:Well, the way you described cocaine in a couple of those passages, I was like, this guy knows.
Marc:The excitement in the text.
Marc:There's two descriptions of cocaine where I'm like, oh, yeah, this guy did some blow.
Marc:The rock in Venezuela, and then the pharmaceutical glittering coke on the rug.
Marc:There's that moment where you're like, what a waste.
Guest:Oh, how about the one where Sly Stone was smoking crack in my car?
Guest:That is the best story.
Guest:And when we've got to where...
Guest:but he wasn't it didn't sound like that was before crack he was smoking bass oh there's bass yeah sorry and uh you know after chasing him around for a week i finally have him in the car we're supposed to go five minutes up the road uh man like uh in uh mandeville canyon yeah and uh he says hey man i just five minutes around the corner man i just gotta do a quick airman come on come on come on five minutes around yeah okay
Guest:He takes me 22 miles as the crow flies to La Brea and Jefferson.
Guest:On the way on the Sandmarca freeway, he pulls out an acetylene torch out of a little box.
Guest:Pfft.
Pfft.
Guest:and uh you know i'm rolling with the punches and then we get to some weird ex-marine's house some ptsd guy who that's where coke takes you clearly not sit in a room right without facing a window right and they proceed to bring out the biggest bag of blow i'd ever seen
Guest:And as I wrote in the book, I was torn between wanting to run as fast as I could out of there and wanting to stay forever.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Those are the days, you know, but.
Guest:And you got the shot.
Guest:You got he got high and you got the shot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We got it.
Guest:It's pretty crazy.
Guest:And, you know, Coke.
Guest:I don't recommend cocaine to anybody.
Guest:I mean, it's nasty.
Guest:I have this theory that you could be the sweetest little girl growing up in Nebraska, do enough coke, and a week later you're going to be hanging from the ceiling in handcuffs with a nun's habit on and whips.
Marc:Yeah, there's something about it.
Marc:And it's weird because looking back on it, I've been sober over 18 years now, and it's all about that first hour.
Marc:You know, the rest of it.
Guest:It's not even that it's I and it's been longer than that since I've done blow.
Guest:I remember that going to the dealer's house was more of a turn on than actually doing a scoring.
Guest:Yeah, it was.
Guest:And I had that epiphany one night.
Guest:I remember that there was this girl that I had a real crush on.
Guest:Her name was Maxie.
Guest:And I'd done everything I could together to come over to the house.
Guest:And finally, one night, she called me up and said she was going to come over to the house.
Guest:And I had been just hoovering, hoovering, hoovering.
Guest:And I was convinced I saw a UFO.
Guest:I was on the deck of my house.
Guest:This is the downside of prolonged cocaine.
Guest:Oh, this is way downside.
Guest:Cameron and I were roommates at the time, and he was down in San Diego, and I was upstairs, and I'm hoovering, and I'm waiting for Maxie to call, and I'm convinced there's a UFO.
Guest:You could not convince me of anything else.
Guest:And I got to the point where I actually, and I'm embarrassed to say this, I called the Naval Observatory in Mount Palomar near San Diego.
Guest:Hi, hi, I'm calling from the Hollywood Hills.
Guest:My name's Neil.
Guest:I don't want to report a UFO today.
Guest:And the guy on the other end of the line is like, yeah, okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:What was your name again?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, I'll put it on the list.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And then, of course, she calls five minutes later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hello.
Guest:Hi, it's Maxie.
Guest:Maxie.
Maxie.
Guest:There's a UFO.
Guest:You know, needless to say, she never came over.
Guest:I never heard from her again.
Guest:And did you find out what the UFO was?
Guest:There wasn't a UFO.
Guest:There might have been a guy with a lighter smoking a cigarette on Mulholland.
Guest:Who the fuck knows?
Marc:That's where Coke takes you.
Marc:Oh, baby.
Marc:But see, I got a little taste of it.
Marc:I used to hang out with Kenison in the 80s.
Marc:You know, when he was at the peak of his career, and that was where I really hit the wall on Coke.
Marc:And you talk very specifically about the charisma and the personality of some of these guys.
Marc:And to be around them, you know, if you're of a certain type, is pretty energizing and pretty exciting.
Guest:Well, it's intoxicating.
Marc:Yeah, that's a good word.
Guest:Yeah, it's intoxicating.
Guest:But, you know, every member of certainly the bigger bands, every member of every band has his or own personality.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And as I say in the book, a rock tour also has its own personality.
Guest:yeah and they're very different things and the the personality of a rock tour can turn on a dime given a bad review a bad audience uh a bad uh the interview gone awry the drummer getting the clap yeah you know and and that's where the tension comes from on on rock tours and and you know girl problems yeah
Guest:yeah i mean all of that stuff photographer you know pulling a cable out by mistake uh yeah because you forget that like these tours sometimes you're with these guys for months you know like it's a it's like a closed community oh very much smaller than high school very very much so and uh that's why we have things on tours called road wives you know you hook up with one of the girls on the tour and then the second the tour is over you never see her again
Marc:Yeah, I remember that from Almost Famous.
Guest:Well, everything in Almost Famous is pretty much true.
Marc:And that was all about the Almond tour, right?
Guest:Most of it was based on the Almond?
Guest:Well, the character that Billy Crudup played, where the kid writer is trying to get the key interview from him, that's Greg Almond.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:The band itself is, I think Cameron would tell you, is an amalgam of
Guest:A lot of bands that had two competing creative entities, Glenn and Don, Nick and Keith, Jimmy and Robert, that kind of thing.
Guest:But the actual girl who got traded for the case of beer was, let's just say, a groupie I used to fraternize with.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Marc:The one in real life.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's a real story.
Marc:That's a real story.
Marc:Sort of sad, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the irony of all this is the more I'm around on a rock tour, the more I'm in the room, the more invisible I become.
Guest:With the camera.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, the more that I'm just blending into the fabric of the tour, the less obvious I am.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You also made some good points in some of your rules where it's sort of like, you know, you can't get too familiar.
Marc:You can't, you know, overstep your particular station.
Marc:Don't be the fifth member of the band.
Marc:Yeah, and don't get fucked up and make a fool out of yourself because, as you said, you may be friends with them, but you're just one step away from getting thrown out.
Guest:Yeah, you're an employee.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Okay?
Guest:I'm very good friends with Brian May, Roger Taylor.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But you do the wrong thing, and what you get slipped under your door is not the room list for the next day's hotel.
Guest:It's the one-way ticket home.
Marc:yeah and the wrong thing could just be like just party just have a few too many drinks too many lines say the wrong thing to one guy one guy yeah you're fucking out exactly and and but you but you always go in knowing who that guy is right you never got thrown off a tour for being an asshole no did you ever get in trouble
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Not for being an asshole, but I got in trouble.
Guest:Well, I'll tell the story.
Guest:What the hell?
Guest:We were in with Zeppelin.
Guest:We were in Cleveland at Swingos Hotel.
Guest:And our next gig was going to be in Detroit.
Guest:It was the big show at the Pontiac Silverdome.
Guest:We had found out that there was a Little Feet press party that was going to go on in Detroit, and we had a couple of off days.
Guest:So myself, Zeppelin's PR girl, my friend Daniel Marcus, who was the Atlantic Records guy, and Robert decided to leave the tour, get on a commercial flight from Cleveland to Detroit, and just go to the Little Feet party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:unfortunately I did not tell Peter Grant or Richard Cole that we were taking Robert with us right and we essentially kidnapped Robert and went to Detroit and never made it to the party but that's all another story and when the band finally showed up the next day I got a very heated phone call from Richard Cole the tour manager saying you need to go to Peter's room immediately yeah Peter was really pissed off because he didn't know where Robert was right and then you know the photographer
Guest:And the artist relations guy from the label hijacked him.
Guest:So I was spanked.
Guest:And what he did, and this was on a Saturday, he said, I need six 11 by 14s of John Bonham slipped under his door by 12 noon tomorrow or else.
Guest:And I knew what or else meant.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So now I have to find someone to print.
Guest:There's no labs open.
Guest:And everyone I knew in Detroit had been spending the whole last 48 hours coked out.
Guest:I managed to find someone who let me into the Cream Magazine darkroom.
Guest:On a Sunday morning, you know, the cab ride alone was like 100 bucks.
Guest:And I hadn't mixed chemicals in years.
Guest:And somehow I made it happen.
Guest:I went in the dark room.
Guest:I made six prints.
Guest:I got out of there and I made it back to Peter's room by 1158 a.m.
Guest:By two minutes.
Guest:And I showed him the envelope.
Guest:He said, put it under Bonzo's door.
Guest:And I did it.
Guest:And that was his way of spanking me.
Guest:But did he even need the pictures?
Guest:Of course not.
Guest:No, because he knew it was going to be a pain.
Marc:The drummer's pictures.
Marc:You need 11 by 14 drummer shots.
Guest:The point was that this is the price you have to pay.
Guest:And it's your job.
Guest:That's your job.
Guest:Yeah, that'll teach your ass.
Guest:And so, you know, things would happen.
Guest:I love that story about the aerial photograph.
Marc:Oh, at Neverworth?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, because I've seen that photograph, and I wouldn't have known that photograph, and I wouldn't have known you took that photograph, but I wouldn't have known certainly why.
Marc:So Peter Grant, tell that story.
Guest:Well, first of all, I love to fly.
Guest:I've taken flying lessons.
Guest:I never got certified, but I'll go up in anything.
Guest:I'll go up in two ice cream cones, sticks with wings and rubber bands.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and uh we're at nebworth what year is this this is 1979 yeah august 1979 yeah and one of the guys from uh from the record label comes over to me and says uh do you have any problem going up in a chopper i said no i mean let me at it you know yeah
Guest:So he said, good.
Guest:Peter wants to take some aerial shots of the crowds.
Guest:I said, no problem.
Guest:We go out to the little helipad that they have set up and there's a chopper coming in that Jimmy's in and it lands and Jimmy comes out and then wait for the rotors to stop and then I run into the chopper.
Guest:and it's just me and the pilot.
Guest:It was like a Jet Ranger helicopter, and I'm tied in with not even a seatbelt.
Guest:It's maybe something.
Marc:Like a Huey, like a four-seater, kind of two-seater thing?
Guest:Oh.
Guest:I think it was a four-seater, but not.
Marc:A strap, no door.
Guest:No door.
Guest:No door.
Guest:And I'm held in by some dental floss.
Guest:And I've got a body and two lenses, I think, and a couple of rolls of film.
Guest:But we put the cans on.
Guest:The pilot says, so, so, what would you like me to do?
Guest:And I said, well, just make two passes around so I could do a couple rolls of color, a couple rolls of black and white.
Guest:And we do that and he takes a 360 around the crowd and he kind of banks this way.
Guest:And I'm petrified that a lens is going to roll out the door and kill somebody.
Guest:A roll of film, you know, 3,000 feet off, right?
Guest:But I had a blast, you know, I love that.
Guest:So took the photos and we landed.
Guest:Forgot about the, you know, I just put them in the batch with everything else.
Guest:And about a week later, someone from Swan Song calls me up and says, we need you to take the dozen best photos that you have from the aerial shots, black and white and color.
Guest:Put the negs in an envelope.
Guest:Someone will be coming to your door tomorrow.
Guest:Give him the envelope.
Guest:Don't ask any questions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Next day, very James Bond-like.
Guest:Next day, knock on the door.
Guest:I open the door.
Guest:The guy's jacket and tie.
Guest:Sir, I'm here for the envelope.
Guest:And I just hand it to him.
Guest:No thank you, no nothing.
Guest:He just walks away.
Guest:And that was the last I ever heard of it for a couple of years.
Guest:And I found out why it was so important to get those photos.
Guest:Peter Grant had a feeling that the promoter was going to try and fuck him on the ticket sales.
Guest:Because I think they reported 110,000, but there were obviously...
Guest:130, 140, 150,000 people there.
Guest:And Peter had access to some software that had just been developed for NASA.
Guest:This was revolutionary at the time, by which you could take a photo, blow it up, split it into quadrants, and the software could figure out plus or minus about 100 people how many were in each quadrant, thereby multiply it by 40.
Guest:and you'd have plus or minus 400 or so the size of the crowd yeah he wanted that in his back pocket in case he had to sue the promoter which he did yeah and he won no shit he won yeah so that was that was why that's they needed that aerial that's forward thinking peter grant and i'm telling you he was one of the great managers of all time and uh i owe him a lot
Guest:and jimmy and robert and all of them but peter was he had street smarts he trusted me from the get-go and i have no fucking idea why yeah he just had a feeling he also had your number yes he did but uh you know i mean this is led zeppelin you don't sure man you don't this is the top of the mountain baby you don't fuck around with them
Guest:And that really kind of built your resume, right?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And the passport photo I took for Jimmy.
Guest:I love that thing.
Guest:And that seemed to kind of... And you know what?
Guest:That ended up years later being the cover of Jimmy's photo autobiography book that came out about three years ago.
Guest:Oh, yeah, it's the cover.
Guest:And there's just...
Marc:something about his eyes and then you did but there's a whole series of portraits in there that i mean i don't know what the first portrait you did that close but the fact that it was for again you had to turn it over you know overnight you need they needed a passport oh yeah yeah so he could go to egypt so you were shooting it for a very specific reason but there was something revealing about the portrait that must have compelled you to do more portraiture
Guest:Well, I mean, I would do some whenever I could, but this was a specific need.
Guest:They came to me on the plane about one in the morning saying Jimmy and Robert are going to Egypt at the end of this leg of the tour.
Guest:And we need a passport photo for Jimmy's visa.
Guest:Excuse me.
Guest:That has to go to the Egyptian consulate.
Guest:What time does it have to be there?
Guest:Because I'm all about deadlines.
Guest:Tell me what the fucking deadline is.
Guest:Well, it's got to be there by 3 p.m.
Guest:tomorrow.
Guest:I'm thinking, oh, shit.
Guest:So I take Jimmy in the back of the plane and I shoot three frames.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I know pretty much how tight it has to be.
Guest:I know what a passport photo is.
Guest:And I...
Guest:Run the film over to the lab and I get there early.
Guest:I put in the night drop and I get there early and I wait around for the prints and Jimmy let me pick the photo out.
Guest:And we got the prints made and I brought him over to the band's office and they sent someone to the Egyptian consulate.
Guest:And we got in under the wire and 40 some odd years later, Jimmy picked that photo for the cover of his book, which it was astounding and a huge honor for me and showed me that even a passport picture can have that glint in the eye or that window to the soul, whatever you want to call it.
Marc:Well, you know what also fascinated me about the stories was how it was a smaller world then.
Marc:There were two things that were happening.
Marc:Clearly, there wasn't as much traffic.
Guest:You got that fucking right.
Marc:You know, like, you know, you guys are running around.
Marc:I got to get this over there in an hour.
Marc:I got to get this into the city.
Marc:I got to get this over to the lab.
Marc:And you're like running around.
Marc:And I'm like, that would have taken three hours.
Guest:day yeah four hours even in New York and also the idea that there were labs I mean that like the entire business was was hard copy shit man I mean yeah yeah like that that whole world is gone pretty much I mean there's still a little of it here and there but that's what you did you had film developed you've had prints made you had duplicate slides contact sheets contact sheets and people look at my contact sheets and I mean there are people put a book of contact sheets out
Guest:You never know.
Guest:There are people who are not that much younger than we are who have never seen a contact sheet.
Guest:Don't get the concept of it.
Guest:And when you look at my original contact sheets, these are the ones, you know, the dog-eared ones that I've been printing off of and looking at for 45 years.
Guest:And I hate editing on a screen.
Guest:I hate digital.
Guest:I hate everything about digital photography, but that's a whole other issue.
Marc:You like the little eye, the little things you look at.
Marc:Well, I can just.
Guest:At the context.
Marc:My eyes are.
Marc:What is the eye hole?
Guest:Oh, a loop.
Guest:A loop.
Guest:A loop.
Guest:A loop, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but my eyes and my brain is trained to look at an entire proof sheet and then be able to zone in on a certain frame.
Marc:But I got to tell you, it's got to be on some level.
Marc:I don't know when or how you made the transition, but the difference between running with a bag of 95 rolls of what, Tri-X to the lab and just having a camera of a self-contained computer unit with a filing system has got to be more, what, anything?
Guest:Well, I'll tell you what.
Guest:Practical.
Guest:Not to me.
Guest:It's impractical.
Guest:I can edit 95 rolls of film on contact sheets in a quarter of the time, even less than I can go through them on a computer.
Marc:Because I guess with a computer and with what you can do to an image before you even print it, it creates the same... It's like when you write.
Marc:There must have been something like writing with a typewriter where you didn't have the option to cut and paste.
Marc:You didn't do it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, it's not even that.
Guest:It's just the way that...
Guest:on a computer yeah i have to download the cards then the the the originals have to be put in a folder then your selects have to be marked and then yeah this and that and it's it's fuck give me a contact sheet and a grease pencil boom boom boom boom boom print these yeah that's it you still do it that way yep well whenever possible i mean i have to shoot digital sometimes
Marc:But you can still get all the film?
Marc:What was all the concert stuff?
Marc:Tri-X?
Guest:Usually Tri-X pushed a stop or two, which would be 800 or 1600.
Guest:High-speed ectochrome, high-speed ectochrome type B, which is tungsten balanced.
Guest:Kodachrome 200, when they came out with Kodachrome 200.
Guest:And that was pretty much it.
Guest:The right lenses.
Yeah.
Guest:Of course, the right lenses and faster lenses.
Guest:The optics are not much different than what you use now.
Guest:I mean, a 135-millimeter lens is still a 135-millimeter lens.
Guest:But there are so many bells and whistles on these damn cameras now that, I mean, the instruction book for a Nikon F5 or the F6,
Guest:you know it's like this thick yeah same with cars yeah it's like they keep adding things what do you need i mean i have to travel with instruction books for all my digital cameras we were in rio with queen two years ago and i have an assistant out by the soundboard and all of a sudden she calls me on the cell phone there's something beeping and blinking that i don't know how to turn off and so i gotta like send a guy out with with the spanish version of the of the the
Marc:instruction booklet i mean give me a fucking break and i use them on manual override anyway yeah well i tell you uh it's a great book and you know and i don't usually you know i get a lot of books and i get a lot of photo books and there's not there's not that many photo books where you know you have them but how many times you go you know look at them and i read the whole book you know too you know which and i'm a rock fan so so like in the essays really made a difference for each segment but i liked what you said what was interesting after all the concert
Marc:And some of the intimate portraits.
Marc:I really like the one of Booker T and Steve Propper.
Marc:Oh, great, great.
Marc:That was out of nowhere.
Marc:You got Booker T and Steve Propper.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And they're really kind of weirdly intimate photographs.
Guest:Yeah, I was 17 when I shot those.
Marc:Oh, some of those are that long ago, huh?
Guest:Those are kind of rescued, what I call rescued negatives.
Marc:Oh, those are the ones from the section where you had those, where you didn't have enough light, but because of computer technology.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:You can scan something and get as much information off the necks as possible.
Guest:Oh, no, really kidding.
Marc:And there's a bunch of those in there, right?
Guest:Yeah, and we could do a whole book of those rescued ones.
Guest:I think there's a shot of James Taylor in there.
Guest:Oh, yeah, man.
Guest:That's a rescued negative, too.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:In that period, too, I talked to him in here, and, like, I...
Marc:He was submerged in dope.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I know.
Guest:And you can feel it in that photo a little.
Guest:Am I wrong?
Guest:No, no, I agree with you.
Guest:I mean, I'm really proud of the fact that, you know, it's a body of work.
Marc:Oh, dude, yeah.
Marc:And the way you broke it up is beautiful.
Marc:The performances, those pieces.
Marc:But I really like what you had to say about studios.
Guest:you know yeah they're kind of a a place that i've never it's not that i don't feel comfortable in a recording studio yeah but i feel like it's a place i'm not supposed to be yeah that i have because that's where those people feel like anyone should be do what they do you know so like a sanctuary
Guest:Yeah, and I'll go in and shoot and I'll hang back because that's their darkroom.
Guest:That's where their process happens.
Guest:And I'll tell you what, I'm thrilled that you dig it because I'm really proud of the text and wanted to...
Guest:Let people in on the experience of what I do.
Guest:And at the end of the book, I want the reader to feel like you've just come off the road with Led Zeppelin for a year and a week with Guns N' Roses and around the world with Bruce and feel exhilarated and exhausted because that's how I feel every day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's where the title came from.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The title is... And I just thought, oh, God, is that a great title?
Marc:Exhilarated and exhausted.
Guest:I sat on it for a day, and I called Cameron, and I said, am I out of my mind, or is this really genius?
Guest:He said, it's fantastic.
Marc:Oh, and also, you told some of the stories, which is great, but I don't want to ruin the kiss and the fake snow story for anybody, or Motley Crue on the real glacier for anybody.
Guest:Or Pearl Jam and the Plane.
Marc:Oh, that's good, too.
Marc:And I also like that moment you had with Dylan, which I think probably lasted.
Marc:It still lingers.
Guest:Bob Dylan called me a leech is the name of the piece.
Guest:And that was and he did.
Guest:And, well, you know, that picture of him and Joan where he's looking at me in those steely eyes.
Guest:That's Bob Dylan.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, but you shot him a few times and he eventually seemed like he accepted you.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I mean, look, he's been photographed.
Guest:He's probably been photographed more than all four Beatles together.
Guest:I mean, so it's all, you know, he just goes by rote.
Guest:And, you know, I did the Wilbury stuff, which...
Guest:i like that that whole thing where yeah the phone call man and george yeah the phone call with tom and then george gets on and and that's all i remember they were all nervous about bob yeah they're all you know hey we'll shoot when bob's ready and don't just be careful of bob and this is george harrison telling me this you're a beetle you trump bob dylan okay
Guest:And then Tom walks in the room saying, okay, I just want to tell you now, when Bob's ready and Bob this, okay, I get it, you guys.
Guest:You already had a chip on your shoulder about Bob.
Guest:Jesus.
Guest:That would have been so good if he said, there's the leech.
Guest:Tell me about it, man.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I was petrified.
Guest:Leech.
Guest:You're a leech.
Guest:And we'll let the listeners read the book and find out the rest of that story.
Guest:Great book.
Guest:Thanks for talking, Neil.
Guest:Thanks so much, Mark.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That was interesting.
Marc:That bird just landed there.
Marc:I'm going to play a little guitar and we'll get out of here.
Marc:I think that's a good tone.
Marc:It's just built-in vibrato and some reverb, Stratocaster, three chords.
Marc:I'll add a fourth one.
Marc:That's the way it goes in here.
Marc:Did I tell you that I'm going to have the garage documented before I dismantle it?
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer Lives!