Same Planet Different Worlds

Last night I had a rather bizarre experience that I felt needed to be written down. Whether or not you will find it interesting remains to be seen.

For the last 6 months or so, my band (see the Bikini Bottom Link on the side bar) has been like a nomadic tribe looking for an oasis. We have played in a number of rehearsal studios and each one has had it’s own brand of chaos and disaster.
- One was in such disrepair that the gear would literally fall apart around us.
- One was run by a moron who basically accused us of breaking equipment that was already broken when we walked in to the studio (him I nearly put in the hospital)
- The next one was a great studio out in the wilds of Brooklyn, and run by Rastafarians. Everything was great until we showed up two weeks in a row to find the studio locked and no answering machine on the phone. We think they were arrested. (there was quite a lot of Gangja being smoked in the booth)

Which brings us to last night. We met an interesting fellow through a Craig’s List ad who had a studio in Williamsburg Brooklyn. I met the guy. He was a little eccentric, a little nutty but he seemed like a nice enough guy. We talked a bunch and set up a time for the band to go over to the studio and rehearse for a couple of hours. We went over there and did a two hour rehearsal. If went fine. My singer “M” however had some mixed feelings about our “whacky” studio guy which I pretty much disregarded because the guy seemed like a nice enough guy even if he was a bit of a nutter and he wanted to work with us to do a recording. So…

For the last couple of weeks this guys has been calling me to check in to see when we were coming back to record. Finally after the last waste of a trip to the Rastas we decided it was time to go back to Williamsburg and give this guy a shot. So…

Last night we went over to the studio for a rehearsal session which would hopefully be a tune up for recording in the next week or so. Oh and I forgot to mention that during the day, he called me to tell me that if we wanted him to hang around and listen and give us comments he would have to charge us the recording rate instead of the rehearsal rate. I told him we couldn’t afford that right now so it would be cool if he just took off after he got us settled in. Well…

We got to the studio and he decided that he really had nothing else to do so he would hang around (at the rehearsal rate) and help us, but with one stipulation. We give him complete and total control over one song. Put our trust in him and do what he says. Now most folks who know me can pretty well figure out that I don’t do the whole “give up control, your going to tell me what to do” thing very well. But we acquiesced and let him play Zubin Mehta for a while. It only took about ten minutes. He told us what to play and we did it (even though I wasn’t crazy about the changes he was making) and then he told us to stop. Here is where it gets really bizarre.

He slowly walks over to his bed (oh yeah, this studio is in his apartment) and sits down very slowly in the corner. I wish I could remember verbatim the babble and drivel that came out of his mouth at the point. But it went something like this:

“I don’t know what to say …. I am feeling, uh … really bad … uh I don’t want to say mean things ….”

And we said “hey we’re big boys, we can handle it, go ahead. Tell us what you’re thinking.”

Now at this point I’m thinking that he isn’t happy with the way we are playing it and he is trying to come up with a different approach.

Nope. What he says is this (Imagine Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man saying this)

“Uh, I can’t work with you and uh.… you can’t work with me …. Uh you can’t uh play here anymore. You have to leave now…”

We had been there for exactly 8 minutes. As soon as that came out of his mouth I was already packing up my stuff. My bass player was stunned and my singer was amused but I was just ready to leave. Clearly this guy is unhinged and a complete whackadoo and we have had enough people like that involved with us that we don’t need anymore. It reminds me of a quote from the movie “As Good As It Gets” Jack Nicholson says to the Hispanic housekeeper “Go sell crazy someplace else, we’re all full up here”

Well I tried not to burst out laughing at this guy in the studio, so I packed up my sticks and walked outside to the car, where I actually burst into hysterics. So much so that I had trouble putting the key in the back door of the car.

I don’t want to know what was in this guys mind (because I don’t really care) but all of the posturing and posing in the world can’t cover up the fact this guy is off his rocker. In fact he wanted us to leave so quickly that he actually put on James Taylor in the hopes that we would exit in a timely manner. It worked. We couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

I did however learn a valuable lesson last night:
Next time I want someone to leave, just put on a little James Taylor or Gordon Lightfoot.

Kind of makes it all worth while.