|
12/11/03 Stage
II Design &Production, San Francisco, CA
One Set: Tropical
Hot Dog Night * > Big
Cypress, Laguna
Seca Daze > The
Aquarium, The
Residents , Great
Gag in the Sky, Gamehendge
Time Lab *, Any
Colour You Like, Everybody
Knows Wookies Can't Play Chess *, Reform
Party 2000^, Walking
on the Moon
 Encore:
Trivia
Challenge
* -- with link to audio snippet
^ -- with link to C-SPAN video
Glide Magazine: Can you recount your initial reaction to
the notion of Phish flying around the Boston Garden in a
giant hot dog to celebrate New Year's Eve in 1994?
Chris McGregor: Believe it or not, the hot dog was actually
Plan B. My original proposal called for four different flying
vehicles, one for each member of the band. I suggested a
flying space Harley for Trey and an Electrolux vacuum-vehicle
for Fishman, that sort of thing. Bill
Bain and myself sent the band illustrations to this
effect and they loved them, but when we put the numbers
together to figure out what it would cost, it was insanely
expensive. Even so, the band loved the idea of flying across
the arena and going up into the cheap seats. Now to make
it affordable, we faced the challenge of designing a single
four-person vehicle.
One day that fall, I was at the Oakland Coliseum helping
with the production of some big rock concert, I forget which
one exactly. Anyway, I know I had a conference call scheduled
with Phish for that afternoon, so I broke away from the
stage area and found a pay phone somewhere inside the Coliseum.
I got on the phone with everyone and John Paluska said,
'Look, we love the individual designs, we love the concept,
but is there one thing, one vehicle that can hold all four
band members? Maybe something long and cylindrical?' And
that prompted
Fishman to say, 'Like a hot dog, like a giant hot dog!'
At that point everybody -- myself included -- broke into
laughter thinking 'Yeah right!' As soon as we regained composure,
the idea started to sink in. Trey said, 'Wait a minute,
that's pretty cool. A hot dog, I think I like that.' The
next thing I knew, we reached a consensus and I had about
six weeks to make the flying hot dog a reality.
So the pressure was on to turn the project around quickly.
Luckily I had some help. Prior to establishing Stage
II Design and Production in 2001, I often worked with
Rocket
Science , another Bay-area production company to bring
my designs to life. I literally brought them an Armour hot
dog in a bun as the model, and I said, 'Make this, only
bigger and with seats.' [laughs] J.W. Nickel and
the guys took it from there and did a brilliant job of it.
And that was the extent of your prototype -- an actual
hot dog?
Well, there was a little more to it than that. In the end,
I put together a blueprint for a giant takeout tray, including
the hot dog, French fries and a drink. After that it was
a team effort between Rocket Science and myself in terms
of constructing the giant wiener-mobile and devising the
rigging system.
We fabricated the hot dog by sculpting blown foam around
a welded steel skeleton. We cast this frame in fiberglass,
sanded it down, then painted it. There was a door in the
hot dog controlled by actuators that opened up automatically.
Likewise, there were four seatbacks that folded up on command.
So what initially appeared as nothing more than an oversized
stage prop in the form of a giant frankfurter later revealed
itself as a conveyance, much to the disbelief and delight
of the audience.
How
did the skit played over the P.A. as a lead-in to the gag
come about?
To justify the hot dog's presence, I came up with this
ridiculous premise that Fishman was starving and might go
hypoglycemic behind the drum kit unless he got something
to eat  .
I was out front with Chris Kuroda running the gag, and it
was my job to interrupt them during 'My Sweet One.' I said,
'Excuse me, excuse me guys, somebody ordered a hot dog?'
They all pointed to Fishman and I said, 'Your order is up.'
In comes the giant 'to go' tray with the fries and the coke
and the rest is history.
By the way, I have to apologize to anyone who caught pneumonia
while waiting for the doors to open in Providence on December
29th. Fans were stuck outside in the freezing cold waiting
to get inside the auditorium and I stopped everything so
we could get the band together and record the piece that
we would play on New Year's Eve.
Can you describe how the hot dog took flight?
There were two separate rigging apparatuses, one all encompassing
that lowered the entire takeout tray onto the stage from
its concealed location nearby and a separate one for the
hot dog itself. You might say the oversized fries and coke
were like expendable fuel tanks discarded during the launch
of a space shuttle. Anyway, we ran a giant I-beam from the
rafters above the stage all the way out to the far end of
the arena that connected the hot dog by means of long suspension
cables.
The band kicked into a short rendition of '2001' as the
takeout tray descended onto the stage. The hot dog's suspension
cables, slack until this point, grabbed tension while the
band was boarding the wiener. Meanwhile, the James Bond
theme song blared over the P.A. and a couple guys from
Rocket Science were on stage readying the hot dog like an
Indy 500 pit crew. Once everyone was in place, a set of
rotors picked up the hot dog and rolled it out over the
fans like an air tram, suspended from above.
[Editor's Note: About half way across the Garden,
the band ticked off the final seconds leading up to the
New Year and played 'Auld Lang Syne' on portable instruments
before continuing their journey. Captain
Beefheart's 'Tropical Hot Dog Night' serenaded the return
voyage and when the band got back on stage, they launched
into a ripping Chalkdust Torture for the perfect exclamation
point.]
Did you retain any of the commemorative Phish New Year's
Eve ping-pong balls that rained down on the audience at
midnight along with an assortment of balloons, confetti,
feathers and rubber chickens?
I believe there are a few left in mint condition. There
might be a dozen or so in a box floating around my office.
I have no idea of judging if they have any value but, who
knows? They may turn up on eBay
someday. [laughs]
Jesse
Jarnow of Jambands.com
articulated the surprise reemergence of the famous flying
frankfurter at Big Cypress minutes before the turn of the
millennium saying, "The crowd went berserk."
What thoughts were running through your mind when the audience
erupted for the second time?
When John Paluska called me to do New Year's Eve with Phish
in 1999, the so-called millennium year, I was completely
booked. I had been booked-up for months before John called,
so not only was I absent from that moment, but I didn't
have anything to do with it.
Instead I was in San Francisco producing their New Year's
Eve millennium celebration. We staged a massive waterfront
street party out by the Bay. I had the entire Ferry Building
rigged with pyrotechnics along with barges out in the Bay
and even the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a big, elaborate
production and I didn't hear about the hot dog's resurrection
until late January.
The Flying Hot Dog is a testament to Phish's sense of
humor, but is their art purely for the sake of comic relief?
The band obviously enjoys a good laugh, but comicality
is not the ultimate goal, at least in terms of the projects
we have worked on together. Instead the objective is broader:
to induce pure audience enjoyment by any means. What can
we do to trip people out and expand minds? What is so inspired
and so over the top that everyone will walk away saying,
'Damn, that was pretty fucking cool!' If we can achieve
this aim and make it funny at the same time, that's like
icing on the cake.
How
did your October
1993 meeting with Phish in Los Angeles come to pass?
My initial contact with the band was actually in May of
1993 at the Laguna Seca Daze festival in Monterey, California.
I was there as the production designer and lighting designer
and I had never heard of a note of Phish up to that point.
I chalked them up as an East Coast phenomenon, but the fact
is they were on the bill right next to the Allman
Brothers . Once they were on stage playing, I realized
most people in the audience knew exactly who they were and
I was obviously out of the loop. [laughs]
 But
the fact is, I had never heard of them. Early in the morning
on the first day of the festival, I was backstage fixing
a fog machine and making a few other minor adjustments while
this band that I didn't know from Adam was on stage sound
checking. I noticed the lead guitarist was wearing a classic
Residents eyeball t-shirt. Since I had been the production
manager for The Residents for many years by that time, I
was happy to see them acknowledged because they are a cult
band, most people don't know them.
As this guitarist walked off stage, I gave him a nod and
said, 'Hey, Residents. Pretty cool.' He said, 'Yeah, The
Residents. Do you know who they are?' I said, 'Yeah,' and
he took me aside. 'Man, let me tell you something,' Trey
started. 'If you ever get a chance, you have got
to see their show. I saw them a couple of years ago at the
Beacon Theatre in New York and it was absolutely amazing!
They seemed to have only twelve or fifteen lights, but throughout
the show there were different looks all the time. The entire
system continually reinvented itself. The whole production
was just incredible. You look like a lighting guy, you should
really check them out sometime.'
Trey went on and on like this and finally I interrupted,
'Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I'm their designer
and that's my work you're talking about.' He paused for
a moment and said, 'No shit! Really?' And he started to
yell, 'Jon, come over here! Come here! This is the guy,
this is the guy, come here!' So he drags Fishman over. Trey
explained the situation to Fish and it was like they transformed
into Wayne and Garth. They started to bow and say, 'We're
not worthy! We're not worthy!' It's always nice to have
people you don't know think you're cool, especially when
it turns out they are headlining the festival. [laughs]
I met Chris
Kuroda for the first time later that day. We chatted
a bit out by the light board just before Phish's set. I
don't recall much about the first time I saw the band play
except for the song 'Contact.' I thought to myself, 'Wait
a minute. These guys are totally goofy, totally whimsical.
I think I like this.' And that was about the extent of our
interaction.
A few months later, I got a phone call at home. The voice
on the other line said, 'Hi, I don't know if you remember
me. My name's Trey, I'm the guitarist for this band called
Phish, we met at Laguna Seca last summer.' I said, 'Yes,
of course. Of course I remember you.' 'Well, here's the
thing,' Trey continued. 'We're, we're going to be doing
this big New Year's show back east, and we think it might
be cool if you could help us figure out something to do
at midnight.'
I agreed and things started to snowball. Later that year,
Phish came through Northern California again. We got together
at the Phoenix
Hotel where they were staying and we knocked around
some ideas. Fishman thought it would be cool to be able
to play the drums in an underwater tank. He said, 'I'd love
to be on stage, under water in scuba gear and playing the
drums. That would be so cool!'
That idea spring-boarded me into what ended up becoming
the Aquarium.
They were in Los Angeles in the studio recording Hoist that
October and I flew down to present them with a model Aquarium.
I
understand they were impressed
with the model's precision.
 Yes.
Tiny fish were actually automated and swimming around and
the clam opened and closed. It did all this stuff and they
loved it! They green lighted the project and we had about
ten weeks to get the set on trucks and send it out to Washington
DC for the first show of the run.
I knew Kuroda had been with Phish forever by that point,
and it seemed absolutely sacrilegious for me to do this,
but my plan necessitated a rectangular lighting system,
conformed to the shape of the Aquarium. I floated that idea
out to Chris and he was receptive, saying, 'Hey, do whatever
you want to do. Trey won't shut up about how cool you are.'
So I said, 'I need the truss to be this wide and this deep
and you can put whatever lights you want on it. I just need
to have this shape so I can hang the Aquarium scenery from
it.'
Kuroda complied with my request and I couldn't believe
it! If I were in his shoes, I would be like, 'Who the fuck
is this guy telling me what my lighting system
is going to look like?' But Chris was quite the opposite,
saying, 'I can't wait, I know it will be great!'
The set was designed to be blacklight responsive. Before
the doors opened for that first show in DC, we swathed the
stage in ultra-violet rays so it would look as cool as possible.
I remember sitting up front near the door as the kids came
streaming in and I was right there enjoying that initial
reaction, the 'Whoa!' and the 'What the hell?' type looks.
What did you think of the show itself?
It was my second time seeing Phish live and I really enjoyed
the show. As one of the encore songs, they played 'Highway
to Hell.' They ripped it apart, just tore it to shreds and
Kuroda had saved a little trick where he had a whole truss
filled with aircraft landing lights sitting down behind
the stage that he raised up during that song. It was a pure
over the top, rock-and-roll moment. From that point on,
I was a confirmed fan. I was absolutely locked in and have
been ever since.
Could
you back up for a bit and discuss your relationship with
The
Residents ?
I came to them in 1987 as a fan that managed to figure
out the names behind the masks. I got myself in front of
them and made the case that I was to be their new production
designer. I was just a punk kid at the time, but for some
reason, they welcomed me aboard. The next time The Residents
went out on the road in 1989 they gave me a chance and we
have been together ever since.
Did you receive any formal training as a designer?
I went to California
Institute of the Arts . I was in the theater department,
in the Performing Arts Design &Technology program. Even
at that time I envisioned a career as a touring lighting
designer in the music industry.
To what extent is your work shaped by 3D modeling and
computer-aided design tools?
The computer is important to my work, but mostly on a CAD
level, dealing with the nuts and bolts: checking to make
sure everything will fit the way it is supposed to. There
are a few computer-based designs I have felt good enough
to put in front of a client, but for the most part, I find
my work and my ability on the computer falls a little short
in terms of conveying an entire concept to a client.
So I presume building a tangible, detailed model helps
you counteract the limitations of a computer screen?
Personally, I can't think of a better way to convey an
idea to a client than to construct a miniature replica of
the final product. If the idea will not fly on a small scale,
obviously it will not translate to real life. In a sense,
the model is a faith-building exercise. Like skydiving in
tandem, it is easier for the client to make that leap if
there is a high level of trust.
Though I do admit some concepts are more ethereal in terms
of lighting tricks and other nuances that cannot be scaled
down. In that case, a computer model might suffice, but
more often than not, it is a matter of helping the client
conceptualize the project in his or her own mind.
In the case of the Aquarium, it was an unusual concept
for a band that, at the time, was making a great leap of
its own from clubs to arenas. I was bringing them an arena-scale
concept and they still had, to some degree, a club-scale
psyche in terms of what they could envision. So the model
was very detailed to help broaden their mindset. Embedded
among the sea-life, I had figurines of the guys stationed
in their respective positions and I included the risers
for Page's piano as well as a mock-up of Fishman's drum
kit.
At the time, Phish had hired Grant McAree as production
manager to help them make this changeover from clubs to
arenas. He had been, and still is I believe, K.D.
Lang's production manager and front of house soundman.
When Grant looked at the model for the first time he said,
'Great idea, now let's see if you can pull it off.'
I felt good when we got everything out to DC and he said,
'This is amazing. This is the first time I've ever seen
a set that looks exactly like it's supposed to. This is
it to a T! There's no difference, except there is no seahorse.
You had a seahorse in the model.' [laughs] Well,
the seahorse just didn't fly. What could I say?
Was
it fun working with Project
Bandaloop during the It Control Tower Jam?
Project Bandaloop is actually a local group from out here
in the Bay Area. On two previous occasions I tried to integrate
them into a corporate project, but the stars never aligned.
Anyway, the project in Limestone this summer was locked
in, designed and moving forward when I got a call from John
saying the band met these people who danced on the sides
of buildings and they thought it would be cool to include
them in the Control Tower project. Because they were a late
addition, and because time was at such a premium, there
was not much collaboration up front.
In fact, when the dancers showed up at the concert site,
it was almost time to open the gates and let the audience
in. There was a small window of opportunity to figure things
out before we had to conceal everything to keep it a surprise.
They quickly surveyed the tower and went over the edge once
on some ropes. We raised and lowered the trusses a couple
times to devise a system for them to mount and dismount
the side of the building. It worked out in less than an
hour's time, mostly because they were just that flexible,
just that confident.
After that it was a matter of figuring out how to blend
the lights, the dancers and the music together into a single
coherent performance. The music was to be very ambient,
an extremely ethereal jam, and the band responded more or
less to what we were doing. In effect, they provided the
soundtrack for the visual spectacle, which is a little bit
different than everything we had done before.
There was a twelve-inch black-and-white monitor up in the
tower, but obviously that couldn't convey the scope of what
everybody else was seeing. To offset this shortcoming, we
prearranged a series of metaphors and terms to key-in the
band as to what we were doing visually. For instance, we
agreed the first part of the jam would be like a giant turbine
coming online, like a gigantic engine coming to life. Another
example is the word 'boing' which meant the dancers were
bouncing in and out off the walls of the tower.
I
wore a headset that connected me to Brad Sands who sat on
the roof of the control tower with the band. During the
set, I called in key words to Brad and he wrote them on
a small chalkboard as a means to lattice the visual latitude
with musical longitude. Between the small monitor, the chalkboard
and the bits and pieces the band could glean from their
own vantage point, there was enough glue to synergize the
performance.
Is it possible for fans to listen to the CD
from the It Control Tower Jam and enjoy the audio as
an entity unto itself?
Honestly, I have absolutely no recollection of what it
sounded like that night, and to some degree, even what it
looked like. Kuroda will tell you the same thing about being
in the moment, that when the moment has passed it is immediately
forgotten because you are already in the next moment! When
the whole thing is over, there is a sense of 'Yeah, I kept
up,' or 'Yeah, I remember a few moments of feeling supremely
cool,' but in terms of specifics, I couldn't tell you.
When the Control Tower Jam was over, we met the band down
on the ground floor and we were heading backstage and they
radiated an incredible glow. They were so jazzed and so
excited, saying, 'Dude, this is as good as it gets!' and
'You've totally out done yourself!' There were hugs and
high fives all around. That reaction is what I remember
most. It must have been great because the band really got
off on it, they really dug it.
When the set was finished, a Swingle Singers Bach piece
played over the PA as the audience dispersed. It was a CD
of my father's that I collected recently upon his passing.
When I listened to it for the first time, I thought it was
just out there enough to say, 'Off you go, Phish Heads,
nighty-night, time for bed.' That is the only musical moment
I remember. Listening to my father's CD over that giant
sound system and thinking he was somewhere up there in the
cosmos enjoying the scene and saying, 'This is pretty cool.'
What is the likelihood of releasing
footage from The Control Tower Jam on DVD?
There were a few conversations about that over the weekend
with management. Certainly, it is contingent upon how well
the footage came out. The possibility remains, but I haven't
heard one way or another.
In light of such epic stunts, is there pressure to continually
outdo yourself?
The trick is not so much to outdo yourself, but to catch
your audience off guard. The answer doesn't lie in doing
something bigger, but instead in doing something different,
something equally cool, but in another way. The trap is
to fall into a formula like 'This year we'll have even more
pyrotechnics!' or 'This year we'll drop even more balloons!'
From tour to tour, The Residents are so completely different
that it has been a routine experience to have members of
the audience come up to me at the front-of-house and say,
'You can't fool us, that's not even The Residents! Those
are imposters on stage!!' But how can anyone tell for sure?
They do wear masks after all. So you have to decide that
for yourself. And the fact is, they are The Residents, they're
just doing something different this time.
Could
you discuss your experience with Phish in 1995 at Madison
Square Garden?
The Gamehendge Time Laboratory
was the last New Year's Eve gag I did with them. Earlier
that year I was in Prague putting together a live theater
show with The Residents. While I was out there, I got the
call from John asking me to work with Phish again that December.
For whatever reason, my surroundings in Prague got me thinking
about a Frankenstein motif. In fact, the set at MSG was
studded with these weird-science light fixtures that I brought
back to the States after my tour with The Residents. Anyway,
I came up with the premise that it is up to the band to
increment the year from 1995 to 1996 and at midnight, the
band would usher in the New Year by catalyzing an electro-storm
big enough to make Mary Shelley blush.
I worked with Rocket Science again and we happened upon
a kid in the Bay Area who had built his own Tesla coils.
He was probably 17-years-old and we brought him into the
shop to teach the older guys how this technology works.
We ended up making this massive Tesla coil that fired off
Madison Square Garden-size bolts of purple electricity,
ten or twelve feet into the air. So big that we built lightning
rods into the set to make sure the band members would not
get zapped.
On New Year's Eve Day during the dress rehearsal, we fired
off the Tesla coils to wonderful effect, but immediately
after the lighting system went dead, the programming in
Trey's guitar rig was lost, Page's keyboards weren't making
any sound and Paul Languedoc had a puzzled look on his face
because all of his knobs were behaving poorly.
When the coil fired, it generated an electromagnetic field
that wiped clean every computer hard drive within a one
hundred-foot radius. When Trey tried to play 'Auld Lang
Syne' in the rehearsal, he started playing but no sound
came out! He was up there strumming along and no sound is
coming out! I was terrified, thinking, 'Oh dear God, what
have I done?'
That was the only time I have ever seen Trey get really
angry. Thinking the entire show had just been wiped off
the slate, he said, 'We're screwed, right? We're screwed.
We are totally screwed,' and he walked away. At that point,
I considered walking downstairs to apply for a job as a
cashier at the Duane
Reade pharmacy because I was sure my production career
was over.
Later that afternoon as I was backstage mulling over alternate
career paths, Trey came over to me. He said, 'Hey, everything's
cool. We figured out that as long as we power down the rigs
before the Tesla coil bursts, their data will remain intact.'
I breathed a sigh of relief, and Trey continued, 'And we
are going through with it because it's the coolest fucking
thing I've ever seen and it's the greatest gag ever! I'm
sorry for being so uptight before, but I trust this is going
to be great and we've got to do it!' And he was right, everything
went flawlessly.
In
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe writes
about Merry Prankster objective to "dilate the cerebral
cortex." Do your artistic goals converge with those espoused
by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters?
It is hard for me to think about the work I do on that
level, although I have heard people discuss it that way
and it gives me a thrill to think it is being internalized
in such a fashion. If we can get people to sit out at three
o'clock in the morning on a lonely, deserted Air Force base
and get them to think about the bigger picture, how small
the planet is and all that, that is pretty damn cool. Still,
I don't necessarily set out with that goal in mind. The
heart of my pursuit is to ask, and attempt to answer, 'What
is the coolest thing we can do?' In other words, I really
create from a much baser level.
A method for hallucination opposite the Prankster approach
is the focal point of The
Simpsons
episode AABF12 whereby hallucinations are induced by
completely removing external stimuli thanks to a sensory
deprivation tank. What is your take on this inward-bound
approach to mental stimulation?
Have you seen the movie Altered
States ? That is one of my favorite movies. It is like
a more dramatic foil to the Simpsons episode you mention.
My best work often comes to me in that moment before sleep,
but after consciousness. Lying in bed, drifting off with
absolutely no input and darkness all around, the brain starts
to take off on its own as sleep falls. Quite often, clear
pictures come to me in this semi-conscious state. Not an
inkling of an idea that needs to be fleshed out, it is like
a complete photograph already designed for me. All I have
to do is sit up and take notes at that point.
Recently, something hit me like a bolt of lightning as
I drifted off. I found myself sitting in the audience at
a Phish show watching this entire scene unfold. I sat up
wide-awake and wrote it all down. The very next day I got
a call from the band asking me to work with them for the
New Year's Eve run this year. I said, 'You've got to be
kidding me! I just had this epiphany last night! I haven't
figured out why it sucks or why it's not a good idea, but
tell me what you think...' I threw it out there and they
liked it enough to say, 'Let's try to make this happen.'
Although
you did not have a hand in this stunt, in 1997, The
Great Went culminated with the torching of a giant sculpture
fabricated by fans in conjunction with the band. Have you
entertained ideas for a similar band-audience collaboration?
Perhaps something that connects fans in cyberspace with
fans at an actual event?
In 1995, Phish came up with the idea of partaking in a
chess match against the audience .
When they first brought it up, I thought to myself that
it was a foolish, goofy idea. 'I'll spend your money for
you if you want,' I told them. [laughs] But then
watching
it in action, I realized the concept was absolutely
brilliant.
I think they would love something on the next level to
connect with fans during a tour or during a show. Just hearing
about it then makes me think. What could be done that is
interactive like the chess match, but with a technological
flair? I bet if someone came up with the right idea, they
would be all over it.
Thanks in part to its large-scale physicality, your
work carries a metaphysical edge. Who else among your peers
blurs this line between reality and illusion?
Steve Serio is an artist who has worked with The Residents.
His material appears innocent, almost childish at first
glance. Only a closer inspection reveals it as the darkest,
most twisted stuff you can imagine. There are happy little
goldfishes and little suns and cute little moons and yet
they are all oozing blood and bandaged. It takes the mind
a second to process such an unforeseen, but ultimately striking
contrast.
You can trace this style back to Jan
Svankmajer, the father of stop-motion animation and
a master of blending the macabre with the fanciful. The
imagery in his films
is incredible. Even though my designs tend to be more cartoon-ish
in nature, I have to admit the dark stuff does indeed influence
my work, even its manifestation is not immediately obvious.
Do you care to share any other influences?
I could cite a litany of illustrators, comic book artists
and animators. However, the most enduring influence on my
work springs from my experience with The
Residents. They don't just make music. They are artists,
they are a think tank, always on the cutting edge. I urge
everyone to spend some time reveling in their music and
imagery.
Could
you address the challenges inherent in channeling unconventional
work into a corporate setting? The web design boutique Hi-Res
is notable in this regard for producing the avant-garde
companion site to Donnie Darko among other work.
When I began catering to the corporate market, I employed
many of the same tactics characteristic of my experimental
work: big bold shapes, bright colors, things that glow under
blacklight, things that have a haloed lighting effect to
them. My ideas will get shot down from time to time for
being too theatrical or too over-the-top, but I find it
best to start big and then pull back only if need be.
 I
am somewhat embarrassed to admit it, but there is one project
I am extremely proud of. I did the production design and
technical direction for the Reform Party's National Convention
in 2000 [video].
That is the year Pat
Buchanan came in and hijacked the Reform Party ostensibly
stealing the $12 million that they managed to raise.
It was fascinating to watch everything transpire because
there were giant walkouts, fist fights on the floor, just
massive infighting. And of course, the Daily
Show was covering the convention and treating it like
an enormous joke. But nonetheless, it was an opportunity
to produce on a truly grand scale without, as is my lot
in life it seems, a truly grand budget.
Imagine all this politicking superimposed over a scene
out of Captain
America . A very cartoon-ish element framing the
most conservative, nastiest political convention conceivable.
I should take the picture I have of me standing next to
Pat Buchanan and juxtapose it with the picture of me standing
next to Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes flipping off
the camera to see if it creates a wormhole. [laughs]
Has
Phish contracted you in preparation for their show on The
Moon on June 6, 2005 ?
After a few years apart, I am glad to be working with the
guys again. Trey brought me back into the fold earlier this
year and I put together a few scenic elements for his solo
tour this spring. We hung out a bit when he was at the Warfield
and talked about old times, remembering some of the cool
stuff we had done together. Working with Phish is truly
an opportunity to do something cool for the sake of how
cool it is.
But then again, a lot of my work falls into that category.
For the second year in a row, I helped put on a
giant rock concert out on Alcatraz Island. I have toured
with The Residents in Moscow and Warsaw. I put on a Lionel
Richie show in Istanbul and did a Diana Ross gig in Venice.
Chinese New Year with the Grateful Dead is another one that
stands out. I have worked with Chaka Khan, James Brown,
The Black Crowes, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker... The
list goes on and on! Every day there is a new adventure,
a new challenge, new terrain to traverse, new discoveries
waiting to happen.
But there is a common thread connecting such diversity.
A great thing about this business is being able to take
the same sort of sensibility that makes Mike Gordon think,
'Oh that is totally cool,' and apply it to something that
appeals to conservative politicans. Sometimes I sit back
and wonder, 'How weird is this? How strange is it that people
pay me to do this?' It really is the best, even more exciting
than a trip to the moon.
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