I was going to write about the events of this past week which will likely be burned into my brain unless/until I get dementia, but I feel like thinking about something else for a few minutes. It’s now been 4 days straight of this encompassing almost my every thought and I’m starting to go mad. Plus, we still don’t know enough about why law enforcement leadership allowed this to happen. To be continued…
So, let’s talk about something much more fun. To round out the music video blog trilogy, below are my favorite memories from the making of the Friday Night is for the Drinkers music video. Which, if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing yet, can be found literally, and I mean “literally” in the literal sense, not in the ironic “literally” sense which really means “figuratively,” right here:
In sticking with my theme of not really having bass players in music videos, neither the bass player that was on the record nor my bass player at the time were involved with this video. I don’t remember the precise nature of why, but so it goes. So, ever at the ready, Mr. Jon Fickes once again filled in. I had forgotten that he’s been in my “band” for every music video so far. Strange.
Without further ado, here are the top memories I took from this video shoot:
Getting to play to an empty Alberta Rose Theater - I had seen a few shows here in the two or three years I had lived in Portland, OR up until that point. It was a pretty cool venue. With a capacity of around 400 or so, I figured it would be a while until I got to play there myself. So, I was delighted when they graciously made us a very fair offer for us to shoot there for the day. The boys, and Jon, suited up (again, literally) and took the stage. I got to hear my song being played over the PA system as we mimed along. It was one of the first times I felt like I was a real professional musician. We had a small crew of people to help out, and we were all working on a project for my music. I love that shot/reveal at the end of the empty room. But, the highlight of the day was when Jon finally revealed his jump splits. All day he had been hyping up how he had been practicing his jump splits and we had planned on putting a slo-mo shot of it in the video. Then, the cameras came on and…well, let’s just say it isn’t in the video. Did make for a good chuckle though. Apparently, he didn’t wear the right shoes or something. I guess we’ll never know…
The party entrance scenes - Going back through the video, which I haven’t watched in a while, was quite the experience. Really took me back to those two days we shot this sucker, which at this point, is a while back. I think it was 2013 or 2014 maybe. Anyways, I immediately remembered how these entrance scenes were just going to be perfunctory people showing up at the party but they ended up having a some funny moments I still got a chuckle out of just today. The middle finger on the doorbell. Brian popping his head back into the shot after Nick slams the door. The presentation of the Miller Lite and champagne when Nick opens the door. I think the unexpectedly funny moments are sometimes my favorite. The other thing I remember is just how flaky Portland people can be. Maybe it’s just people in general. But, we initially were looking for about 20 people for this scene and had as many or more RSVP’s. But of course, day of, we started getting the cancellation calls. “But we have free pizza and booze.” Still no. Oh well, very thankful to those who did come through for us so it wasn’t a total bust of a “party.”
The motorcycle wheelie shot - This was fun because it happened so randomly. We were outside Nick/our drummer’s house shooting the Brian/our guitarist’s scene wear he comes out from under the van. Some neighbors were out riding motorcycles since it’s a mostly dead/empty street. One popped by and asked what we were up to. “Shooting a music video. You wouldn’t want to be in it, would you? Maybe do a trick or something?” “Hell yeah,” he replied and we were lucky enough to have that badass shot. Right place, right time and a friendly, willing neighbor. I think it took two, maybe three tries and we had the shot. Thanks again!
The guitar solo scene - This was fun for a variety of reasons. I love smoke and lasers. I love guitar solos. Mostly though, it was because Brian was a little too drunk to play guitar by the time we shot this scene. Some backstory: as I mentioned, we had originally planned for around 20 or so people, enough but not too many to wrangle when necessary; which means we bought enough booze for around 20 or so people. Being a poor musician, I couldn’t afford anything besides the cheap stuff. It was Miller Lite, Jim Beam, Smirnoff and, by the suggestion of Brian, some Trader Joe’s Almond Champagne. Well, sparkling wine, to be exact. We needed it for the shot of Nick spraying it in slo-mo (up next) but Brian seemed to really enjoy the stuff. In fact, probably a little too much. Since he had requested it, he felt dutifully obligated to make sure it didn’t go to waste. When the guitar solo shots were coming up so we got the bathroom and hallway ready (yes, that’s the bathroom behind him). The lights went out, the laser lights came on, the smoke machine got cooking and…Brian couldn’t fake play the notes. Now mind you, it’s a dark hall and he’s just “finger-syncing,” if you will, so it just has to be ballpark close. But, the first few takes were definitely not. He said it was weird to play without hearing himself, which I get, so we turned his amp on. No dice. So, the amp gets turned up and it’s pretty fucking loud. Still no dice. The amp gets turned back down and now everyone starts to feel awkward since it’s taking longer than anticipated. Finally, around take number 18 or 20 we finally get it close enough. A shot we thought would take like 15 minutes took, well, much longer. I’m not sure if that’s an endorsement for Trader Joe’s Almond Sparkling Wine but it did feature prominently in both the filming and the final cut of the music video.
Nick spraying champagne - So, this actually starts a little earlier in the evening when Nick was running around the house worried because we didn’t have a corkscrew. We assumed someone had brought some wine and he was trying to help them open it. Nope. He was worried about the champagne spray shot. Did we need one? I questioned myself. Which, to be fair, neither of us had ever opened a bottle of champagne (or sparkling wine) before. I just knew it would explode when you shake it and that would look cool in the video. Nick volunteered to be the the champagne sprayer and since I had never done it before, I was perfectly OK with that. Well, once we figured out that no corkscrew would be needed, we got ready and headed outside for the shot. We all got excited. This was the final shot of the music video. A literal celebration would ensue once we had it. As we all stood back and watched, Nick shook up the champagne, popped the cork and…nothing. It sort of fizzled out. Shit, luckily we got extra. I think we had three bottles left when we started (I’m pretty sure Brian ended up drinking two with only a little bit of help from the rest of us), now we were down to two. OK, make it count. Here comes number two. He shook it up, popped the cork and…some spray but not a slo-mo-penultimate-moment-in-the-video spray. It was crunch time, we were down to the final bottle. He gives it a good shake, pops the cork and…well, you can see it in the video. Success! But unfortunately, and this is a tip to all the people who have not successfully sprayed champagne before, we found out that you cannot, or should not, rather, try and shoot it straight up into the air because…it will come right back down into your eyes. I was glad we got a good champagne spray shot but I can’t imagine that felt good. I cannot say with confidence I wouldn’t have done the same. Neither of us knew how to spray champagne but Nick stepped up and sacrificed to make it happen.
So, that’s what I got for the Friday Night is for the Drinkers video. If you haven’t already, check out my memories from the “LOOKIN’ AT LUCKEY” and “LET’S GO OUT TONIGHT” music videos. Oh, and from that ORIGINAL PHOTO of the Thriller jacket, flask, fake gun and wine bottle; the flask is from this video shoot. I love keeping mementos when doing shit like music videos. I tend to favor that over a bunch of photos on my phone. I just like to have one thing that holds all the memories. And, as a wiser man than myself says, “memories make us rich.” Vic Ketchman, you are quite right. You are quite right, sir. Memories do indeed make us rich. So, I hope you enjoyed me sharing some of those memories from the making of my music videos. Until next week!
Ah, to be young and sitting around a carefully lit table while lip-syncing along to one of your songs while someone films it… Good times…