Meeting Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen and many more
On the importance of contacts and contracts
Meeting my Heroes is an occasional essay series from Matt Carmichael.
At the height of my photography career, I wanted to do something to give back. But also something to push myself. I didn’t know a lot about lighting. I’d never worked with an assistant. I’d never really done portraits. But hey, I’d taken *a* class and I knew a lot of people. So, largely inspired by Nick Tremulis and the Waltz I decided to combine all the things. I approached a local charity, Rock For Kids, which helped raise money to provide music education in Chicago public schools. It was pretty tied to Metro and WXRT (both of whom were photo clients of mine) and had an auction I had contributed prints to so I knew some folks there, too. I reached out and suggested I could photograph Chicago musicians in their favorite locations in the city and then we could do a calendar of the images. They were super enthusiastic and I got the green light. Now I just had to will this into existence.
Now I just needed 12 artists to agree. I started, of course, with Frank Orrall and did a really informal, natural-light shot of him in front of the Picasso statue downtown. It was a little awkward because a huge part of portrait photography isn’t photography at all, it’s working with people (known as “models” in the business). And I wasn’t good at that … yet?
I needed help. Chicago photographer John Shearer was a friend of mine and also shot at Metro and helped me cover all the shows at Tweeter, where I was also House Photographer. He graciously accepted my unpaid offer to assist on the photos. I explained he was basically going to be doing the lighting because while I now had lights, I didn’t have a ton of experience using them. He wanted to play around more too and thought this would be a fun project.
So I started reaching out to musicians I knew or knew people who knew. Or I went to shows, worked my way backstage and pitched them directly. I don’t remember off-hand anyone saying no. Though some had their “people” say no later (cough, Liz Phair).
Through the sheer force of my will, I lined up an incredible slate.
After Frank, John and I teamed up to shoot John Stirratt of Wilco who was also performing in a band at that time with his sister, Laurie. I met John at Farm Aid, where Wilco were performing (and joined on stage by then state Senator Barack Obama!)
They invited us to the home I think they shared at the time in Logan Square and it was super awkward. Frank and I at least knew each other well by that point. Here I was in the living room of very important strangers, working with John for the first time. Working with posing people for the first time, and basically working with lights the first time. And I’m sure it all showed but they were patient and cool and we all made it through. In the end my favorite shots were some of the less posed ones when we handed them guitars and they played and we all found ourselves more in our comfort zones. We also took some portraits of their dog.
We shot Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick at Piece, a pizza/pub he was an investor in (pro tip: the pizza is sooooo good). My original vision was to shoot him in the brewing part back by the kegs. But once we tried shooting that it just wasn’t really working out. So we quickly shifted gears and did something even more off-the-cuff and natural. The final shot was so much more authentic. Few people are better at promoting themselves in a light-hearted and fun way that Rockford’s own Rick Nielsen. And that’s exactly what we wound up with.
Then we sat down and had a beer and chatted a bit. Turns out he was a big Mac geek. He basically started sharing his favorite memes with me and I learned that he had the best and most appropriate email address ever, which no I won’t share even though I can’t imagine it’s still current.
We shot Scott Lucas of Local H in the studio he was recording in. Also a chill and fun shoot. Robbie Fulks at the Lula Cafe in Logan Square. Archer Prewitt from the Cocktails and the Sea and Cake had us shoot him in the Garfield Park Conservatory, so I got to learn the ins and outs of getting permits from the Chicago Park District. (I also learned that getting approval to shoot at the Bean required permission from the artist Anish Kapoor, and that it would of course then need to be referred to by its actual name, Cloud Gate.) Jon Langford, a Chicago treasure himself, wanted to be photographed at the Field Museum. All the appropriate levels of whimsy were involved in that.
Knowing that Sallie Timms, Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Conner had all worked at Hideout as well as performing there with all of their various bands and collaborators, so that seemed the natural place to photograph them – not on stage, but behind the bar. By the time I was getting some experience and confidence and was able to work better with John (having a vision of the lighting) and with the musicians (having a vision of the poses) and things were going along well.
Nicholas Tremulis also wanted to be photographed in his home, which he even set-designed for us by hanging postcards with his most recent album cover all over his piano (or maybe they were always there?) Despite being mostly known as a guitarist, his piano was his happy place. One of his kids poked their head in so we did some shots of the two of them as well.
It wasn’t all perfect. I worked with Billy Corgan’s manager to set up his shoot at the Adler Planetarium where he was doing a record release party for his first solo album. John couldn’t make it so I called Columbia College and asked if they had any students who might be able to help. That’s how I met Dre. She came, wandered the museum with me and we scouted out a great location that had both cosmic and musical significance: Stonehenge! Dre was great and we came up with some creative lighting, did a bunch of tests, compensated for what Billy was wearing (black) and the height differential between Dre and Billy (not insignificant) and got all set up. We had plenty of time to kill it turned out.
Periodically, I wandered up stairs where Billy was meeting with fans and… no one had told Billy that this shoot was happening. He was tired and had been traveling and meeting and greeting. I implored that it was for a good cause and he literally just had to come down and stand on a piece of tape we’d marked the location with and let me burn off a couple frames. Five minutes and we could get it done.
But he wasn’t feeling it, which I get but was also was kind of disappointing.
But nothing would compare to the eventual disappointment of the charity pulling the plug.
We had most of the months shot. We had lines on the remaining people. We were starting to plan for year two (bands not solo musicians). We had a printer lined up to do a series of large-scale prints to get signed for the auction. We had a printer lined up for the calendar and were looking at paper samples. And the charity’s director didn’t have sign-off for the upfront costs from the board who thought it was too big of an expense to get printed.
And just like that, it was done.
I tried one other organization and had a couple of promising meetings with them, but no dice. These days we would have just kickstarted it and been done, but at the time there wasn’t anything I could do.
Exhausted and disappointed, I shelved it. These images still haven’t been widely seen, which is a shame.
Point is, even for charity projects, get stuff in writing. Set clear goals and expectations up front. I had dotted all my I’s and crossed all my T’s on my end, getting release forms and permission from locations. But I also assumed that the other end had its due diligence done. And well, assumptions….
So I accomplished some of my goals. I learned a ton and met a lot of great people. I got more confident and broadened my shooting experience.
But I failed at the real reason, the whole “give back” part. Who knew that would wind up being the hardest. Non-profits are strapped for cash (hence the need for fundraisers) and often staffed with hard-working volunteers and limited paid staff. I’d inadvertently created a burden for them, I guess instead of just handing them a pile of money. Sadly I couldn’t self-finance the printing costs.
That said, if anyone has any ideas how to turn this around 20 years later, I’m happy to help.
You can see more photos from these shoots at rocknroll.net.