A Child's Garden of Erasure

Ain't gonna let no union shop rules get in the way of getting my shot.

L-R: Andy Bell and Vince Clark. Erasure at Madison Square Garden early nineties, photo by Chris X Carroll.

Madison Square Garden is a Special Place. Many amazing shows, sports events and spectacles take place there at 34th and Seventh in New York City. None more exotic and labrynthine than the skein of unions controlling every square inch. When a magazine (say Rolling Stone) wants access to a band playing the garden, the Road Manager thinks,”Super, my guys finish their sound check at four, are sitting around in makeup, bored, waiting the five hours before they play at nine, we’ll do that shoot for Rolling Stone!”

Editor: “Excellent. Everyone, including drummer, guaranteed to show up. Book it!”

Photographer: “Damn, this union thing is a drag, can’t even plug in a light.”

Don’t get me wrong, we’re Union Strong around here. But the many unions fighting for turf at Madison Square Garden did make it difficult for photographers. Oh, you can shoot just about anything you want in there, but you have to pay for everything, and I mean everything. Want to plug in a light? That’s one union (who has to be compensated for their guy who’s going to actually plug in your light), then of course, if you want that light on a stand that’s another union. And then of course, if you want to move those crates of lights into position, the ones you shlepped up there in a cab, why, that’s a Teamster thing. And you better believe you’re paying them. Rolling Stone, though a big famous rock publication itself, is going to pay for all that union service when Hell freezes over.

If you want to shoot in Madison Square Garden, you do it on their terms. Which means no plug-in lights, no heavy equipment, nothing not approved by the various unions for use on their turf. In my case, assigned to photograph the band Erasure, it would mean rejiggering my whole workflow to accommodate union shop rules. I wanted to shoot cross processed film, a look I thought would mesh well with Erasure’s space-suit aesthetic. But that meant lights which you would normally plug in to the wall. Back then, if one wanted to shoot with strobes without plugging in, one used lights with the comfortably homey name Norman. 

I hated Normans. Though they enabled me to continue to shoot even without electricity, I was invariably pushing them harder than they liked. And when they didn’t like you, they stopped working. Cross-processing required colored gels, filters on the lens, and low ISO settings, all of which required light, and lots of it. The “high” setting was usual, then I’d push the units even harder by shooting as fast (‘cause you never knew when the rock star was going to get bored and duck out between frames) as my little motor drive could go. I did a rough calculation once during a slow moment and concluded I routinely used $80k worth of lights when shooting magazine covers in the studio. Trying to reproduce that effect without mains power was tricky. The Normans were your only bet, and it was often a long one. Battery and lighting technology have come so far, it is hard not to laugh when I think back on how lame those Normans were. 

But shoot with them we did. I had originally been told the band (two English guys) would appear on my set (balcony seats with enough empty chairs all around to make a nice graphic effect) in street clothes. While we were setting up, the duo was performing their sound check. In full costume. Which consisted of these elaborate and fabulous space suits. No freakin’ way are we shooting them in street clothes!

I left Jen K to continue fooling with the lights while I went in search of my band contact. Whom I found on the side of the stage. I don’t know how loud it was in the house, but on stage it was like maybe the loudest thing I’d ever heard (Public Enemy notwithstanding). Two dudes and a drum machine made a hell of a racket. Possibly the worst conditions ever for a negotiation, but I forged onward nonetheless. 

“How much did you spend on those spacesuits?” I breathlessly inquired, shouting into his ear while bending down to equalize our heights whilst cocking an eyebrow at the fiercely dancing duo next to us.

dit dit dit BUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHEEEE  I guess this was early techno, all I know is it was loud. And mechanical. And repetitive.  And hard to talk over.

“Uh,” the hapless publicist stammered in reply, clearly not expecting that question,  “a MILLION DOLLARS?” *liberties taken with the translation to allow for youthful exuberance combined with poor memory, just go with it.

dit dit dit BUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHEEEE.

“And you’re telling me, your guys are literally currently wearing million-dollar space suits, pardon me, MILLION-DOLLAR space suits and you're going to have them take them off and appear in Rolling Stone Magazine in f—-g street clothes? Are you like, kidding me now? “

dit dit dit BUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHEEEE.

“We’re keeping the costumes exclusively for the stage show…” Clearly coached in his answer, yet pretty instantly realizing the truth of what I spoke. 

dit dit dit BUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHEEEE.

“Dude.” And I fixed him with my most menacing stare. Strangely, this never works when in discussions with my wife or daughters, but this time it did. Hapless Publicist saw the wisdom in my (barely heard) words, walked over to a group of Authority Figures (I think I opened for them at the old Fillmore) and began an animated discussion. This culminated a half hour later in Erasure appearing abruptly in the empty house for my shoot, utterly awesome astronaut costumes in full effect.

I greeted the two rhythmical astronauts, then clambered uneasily atop two concert chairs and proceeded to click the shutter. I could of course have used any of the myriad ladders sitting around but, you guessed it, ladders are a union thing. So, perch I did, to get up to the level of several rows of balcony seating. I also opted for a longer lens for the compressed, graphic effect it provided. One negative aspect of this is I was a good twenty feet from my subjects. This made it hard to engage much, but they were emo english guys wearing spacesuits, so how much engagement did we really need?

All’s well that ends well. In fact, about ten years ago, I got a call from Erasure’s management. Suspect it wasn’t the same guy I’d had that loud palaver with ‘lo all those decades ago. But I wasn’t the only one who remembered those space suits fondly. No, guess who specifically asked an intern to track down the photographer who’d talked them into their space suits after sound check at the Garden?  And then they took that picture, slapped it on the front of a box set of CDs that they sell (new) for $900. What a country!

dit dit dit BUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHEEEE.

LIVE FROM NYACK, be there or be square.