TOP PHOTO: Bob Ziller shakes it off in the studio after a grueling few days. Recording engineer Larry Luther of Mr. Small's is on the left.
BOTTOM PHOTO: Larry and Bob with KRAMER on the right. If you'd told me back in 1990, when I was in college, that someday I'd be standing in a recording studio photographing Kramer, I would've NEVER believed it.
So, last Friday I got a big thrill. I had an assignment to shoot my friend Bob Ziller for a book feature in next week's City Paper. (He has just finished doing a translation of poetry from French, for publication, though I don't know the poet offhand.) I was sent to Mr. Small's recording studio on the North Side, where Bob was recording a record with his band (whose name I don't even know...shame on me!) When I walked into the studio, Bob introduces me to the guy who is producing his record, "And this is Kramer." "Hey," I said, and shook his hand. Then, I'm like, wait a minute! "Are you THE KRAMER?" No, not the guy from Seinfeld. The guy who ran Shimmy Disc records, which pretty much influenced my core musical sensibilities when I was the music director of my college radio station! Kramer has played with bands like the FUGS, Butthole Surfers, B.A.L.L., Bongwater, and King Missile, as well as produced folks like Daniel Johnston, Jad Fair, and the cover of "Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon," by Urge Overkill, featured on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack.I played King Missile religiously and pretty much anything that arrived with that Shimmy Disc label on the box. So many great records! If you've never heard the song "Sensitive Artist," by King Missile, you owe it to yourself to go on You Tube and find yerself some. Anyway, I saw Bongwater at the 9:30 Club in DC (the original location) in the early 90's, during which I remember that Kramer was playing a lot of Zeppelin-ish guitar. When I told him this, he just chuckled. I guess he lives in Florida these days and is doing more production for others than making his own records. I was starstruck, if you can call it that, in a REALLY geeky way.
Anyway, just goes to show you that being a photographer means never knowing exactly what is going to happen to you in the course of a day!
2 comments:
Hey Heather - the poet I translated is Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo of Madagascar, the book is Translated from the Night, available at www.LascauxEditions.com. My bands are Media Circus Extravaganza! and Bingo Quixote, which was recording the day you dropped by. Thanks! Drop by again, I'll be doing vocals on Thursday, July 10, during the afternoon, if you'd like to take more photos.
No one ever gets it when it's really hot out (which it always is in Malaysia) and I say "are ya icky, are ya sticky? Are ya hot as anything? Then cut off two of your fingers and stab yourself in the eye!"
Like the perspective of the photo.
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