Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #007

Twisted Thoughts And Thoughtful Truths On Thursday #007 – You’re Taller Than My Camera Is

Before I arrived here to create sleepingbagstudios, I originally gained my experience in music journalism through a site called Kludge Magazine, way back in the year 2000.  I’ve told that story in a variety of ways through the shows we’ve done throughout the years here, and one day I’ll write it down in detail for ya.  That day isn’t today…I’m just establishing a base-line for the way things progressed I guess.  I was taking pictures of bands like Our Lady Peace, Chevelle, Finger Eleven, The New Pornographers, Seether, and more as I got into the game, before eventually interviewing names like Tegan And Sara as they were just starting out or bands like Calexico that were deeply entrenched in recording rivetingly unique ideas.  My photos were mostly shite, honestly.  I’ve made extreme efforts to archive everything digital from before I even joined Kludge & yet I don’t have a single photo from that time.  That’s how good I wasn’t.

I looked at it like this.  Mind you, this is like, what, still years before we all had cameras in our phones; it was a time where you needed actual equipment and a press pass…you kids will just have to picture it – pun intended.  I never wanted to BE the show though, you know what I mean?  Even though my own concert-going was fairly limited in scope compared to what it is now today and how many shows I see in any given year, I basically couldn’t stand it when I’d see the photographers go to work & start snapping away as a band or artist was trying to rock a song.  It just seemed like…I dunno…this weird way of taking the attention of the artist or band away from the crowd, and getting it all to yourself as a photographer.  As much as I enjoy music, I’m not that dude at all…an established connection is cool for a second or two, but after that, I’m probably uncomfortable and trying to figure out something else to point the lens at.  Because it’s not about, and it shouldn’t be about, anything other than what’s on stage at a show, in my opinion.  To take any attention away from whatever is up there doing the actual work…like, if some kid out there was going to see me in the way like it used to bug me watching other photographers circle like vultures around a microphone, I would probably hate that so very much.  It’s all about the music, man.

So for the most part, I hid in the crowd & in the shadows, and I took a bunch of crappy pictures to start my career.  Sorry not sorry, I was never going to build my reputation on those anyway – I’m a writer, full-stop.  That is my full resume and my complete list of skills, all in one.  If I’m doing my job right, then hopefully the pictures I’m showing you now are through words that contain an imagery you can see in your mind’s eye instead.  The reality though, especially as camera phones became more of a thing, is that everything was now getting filmed in some way.  From beat-downs in the street to beats played in the club, content became a major thing, but I still wasn’t comfortable with that when I first started SBS.  I’d go on to film an outright ridiculous amount of shows from 2013 to 2016 as our little studio took off, but if you were to go back and look at it all, you’d still find that 99% of the concert footage we have is from well far away from the stage.  In doing my own thing here at sleepingbagstudios, it was extremely important for me to feel like I was even less of a burden on the bands and artists I went to see and/or film – in fact, sometimes I’d just show up, try to stay completely out of their sight, shoot the show, and get home before they even knew I was there.  Some of those are my favorite shows to this very day, because they’re unpretentious, you know?  The last thing you want is someone muggin’ for the camera in my opinion, but at the same time, you also wanna see some footage with some personality in it too.  The more naturally that it can happen, the better it tends to come out in the end, from my perspective.

At the start of that four year run at the beginning of SBS I would show up pockets LOADED with cameras.  No bullshit, I might have as many as twelve on my body at any time, running out of batteries or space on a memory card, but quick to have a different camera ready to go in the event that it happened, which it always did at that point because battery life sucked at that time too.  But I also liked the differences that shooting with a variety of cameras and visual quality could make as well…some of the ways you can add effects, colors, or manipulate the footage in a video program get entirely different results depending on what you were working with, and it seemed like I could always do something with it.  I tried not to become the show to the audience behind me, but it’s hard to be that guy running around with twelve cameras coming in & out of his pockets and not take some of the attention away I’m sure, which is…regretful.  It’s against code.  Okay, I outright hate doing that and I suspect I always will to a degree.

What I didn’t know at the time though, and WHY I still continue to film most shows I go to even now, is that so many artists and bands appreciated what we were doing.  Sure it’s encouraging for a small band to get any attention, but what I didn’t realize was how little opportunity the independent scene had to see themselves play.  If it wasn’t for us rogue randoms out there in the music scene posting stuff online, they don’t really tend to film themselves that much…or at least, they still weren’t around that particular time.  I’m sure that’s changed somewhat, but I can’t tell you how many times a band or artist would be practically in tears when I’d send them the files, because video was a massive tool they could use to help hone and refine their craft.  Like, for instance, the space between songs in a set.  How do you fill that?  What do you do?  How long does it take?  Is there banter?  No banter?  Should there be banter?  Do you look afraid?  Confident?  Rehearsed and ready?  A complete disaster?  Inquiring minds wanted to know – and for real, there really just wasn’t that many people lining up to film the shows of independent bands.

Even as camera phones became more prevalent in the crowd, it wasn’t like everyone immediately took them out overnight and we all pushed record at once.  It took a while for it to become what we now see it like today, whereby almost everybody will snap a souvenir or two or catch a couple bits for Instagram or whatever, and of course the bands & artists are way more used to it now.  It’s still a bit more rare to find someone like myself that’s probably going to study the previous set-lists from the month before to get an idea of what’s being played, and proceed to capture as much of that as possible at a concert, and perhaps I’m lucky when it comes to that.  I’ll admit that if we all did it, I’m sure it probably wouldn’t be a good thing.  Not everyone quite gets the etiquette that comes with doing it, and that’s a large part of the problem.  At this point, I’ve filmed so many shows I don’t even really need to look through the lens anymore – I can just move with the music and get great footage for the most part.  I know to keep my camera low and darken the brightness of my screen so that if I do have to raise it up, the damage is minimal to those standing behind my huge and hulking 5’8.5” frame.  Most of the time, I’m holding my camera right in front of my beard, where no one would be able to see through anyway…to me, that’s just the polite thing to do.  Again, the last thing I want to ever do is fuck with someone else’s good time.

Obviously it would be nice if we all had big giant beards to block the brightness of a screen, or considered the people around us, but I think we know from experience that not everyone is built like that.  Which sucks for folks like me that go about doing it in the least obtrusive ways they possibly can.  I read the things that Maynard from Tool says about cameras at concerts and how much he hates them and I’ve been to shows where he’s explicitly banned them as well – and I just don’t get it if I’m being fully honest with you.  Not only are cameras a reality, they’re part of an ecosystem of excitement surrounding the music YOU make.  Sure, maybe the quality of the content varies from person to person and place to place, but whatever – these are people that are HYPED about YOUR MUSIC, and the intentions behind what they’re doing is usually to help spread the word about what YOU are doing, which can only be a good thing in the long run, right?  This is how scenes and a buzz are built in the modern-day era, and Maynard’s just gonna have to S a big fucking fat D when it comes to that reality.  To counter-punch against that is to swim upstream, and in my personal opinion, it just makes you seem like a dick.  A camera literally isn’t distracting to anyone in the current day & age, because they’re so common now…so to claim that they’re taking something away from the show…I just think it’s a wildly out of touch perspective, and it clearly doesn’t consider bands in the independent scene that same position that might only be able to wish that someone out there cared enough to push record.  My camera’s distracting?  So’s your drunk husband swaying back and forth into my shoulder all night long.  My camera’s distracting?  What the heck am I even going to see with this seven foot tall dude in front of me?  My camera’s distracting?  What about that person in the crowd that wants to talk to their friend all night long about a bunch of various bullshit that doesn’t even matter?  My camera’s distracting?  Really?

The point isn’t a complex one to understand whether you’re Maynard or anyone else – there are a million ways to be distracted at a concert, if YOU LET that happen.  Me?  I choose to keep my eyes and ears on what’s happening onstage from the moment they plug in and fire up the amps…a bomb could literally go off beside me and I’d have no idea it happened.  And I believe that if you’re a REAL fan of the music you’re going to see, or locked into the moment respectfully, then that’s going to be the case pretty much universally.  Focus on putting on a great show…that’s the only thing you can really control.  To TRY and control how you’re viewed or how the audience would interact with you, has gotta be an exercise in futility…and again, it’s not gonna put you in the best of lights.  I know, I know, I know – Maynard told us exactly who he was long ago with the release of “Hooker With A Penis” and none of this should really be a surprise, but his comments on this shit grind my gears.  If you can be respectful of those around you, which is what he claims his primary concern to be, then why should a camera be any more distracting than the tall dude, the drunken sister, the talker, or that random solo dancing guy?  Don’t be impingin’ on someone else’s good time, however they have it…it should be that simple, right?  It’d be hella nice if we could just stack ourselves in the order of our height from smallest at the front to the tallest at the back, but we’re not ever that organized as human beings, nor are we that considerate.

I will say this…it’s surprising to me that this is even a divisive topic anymore, given that it’s just the reality we’re going to have to live with, like it or not.  I had a friend that pissed and moaned about how Robert Plant came here and he had to try and see through a sea of phones ahead of him just to get a look at the guy.  And it made me chuckle a bit as I went to post up yet another live video of whatever show I had been watching that week…because I am one of those waves in the sea, and I’m proud to create whatever ripples of excitement about your music that I can.  I went on a complete tear around the time of that dude’s bitching, and by the end of it all, he simply unfriended me.  Which is fine, that’s not the moral of the story.  I had another good laugh about him having to reckon with what reality really is when it comes to shows, and how people like myself see the world as a better place when we’re sharing the music we love with as many people as we possibly can.  But it’s not just Maynard either when it comes to dissent on this subject, and in this past year, I’ve really learned that in some tough ways that will be endlessly embarrassing to me for as long as the memory hangs around.  Like at the Múm concert at the Pearl, where the lead singer asked me directly to stop taking video because she was uncomfortable.  I immediately complied with her request, because that’s who I am.  I’m not here to stop anyone from having a good time, and I certainly don’t want to ever be responsible for an artist or band having a bad night.  As awkward as the request to stop filming made me feel, I’d rather have had her say something than not when it comes right down to it, but at the same time, how far is it supposed to go?  It’s not like everyone else just puts their phones away when I’m asked to stop filming, you know what I mean?  So this is what I’m saying…again, it just kind of makes you look a little dickish, or like a control freak of sorts…the reality is, it’s not something that can be stopped…but we can be respectful in how we go about it.  How about another example, where I was filming The Headstones towards the end of last year, and none other than the head punk Hugh Dillon himself called me out not once, but twice, for filming parts of the show along the way – and I was like, halfway back in the crowd on the floor, way far away from where I’m usually parked up front.  Laughable.  There would have been another fifty phones between him and I when he chose to pick me outta the crowd specifically, so c’mon…get real.  All he did was cause a genuine fan to feel awkward and a whole lot less inclined to talk about the music or go to another show in the future.  I’m no scholar, but I can’t imagine that’s the most desired effect.  But same thing – each time Hugh asked me to put down my phone, I complied, because I was raised to respect art and the artists that create it.  How we view doing that, and the differences in perspectives on how we go about doing that, has become this strangely divisive conversation that seems to perpetually pop up now.

To me, it’s always going to come down to measuring intentions.  Don’t fear us camera-folks…we mean you no harm.  We’re likely just trying to preserve the memory, not only for ourselves, but for us all.  We’re not trying to take away the great time you’re having, we’re attempting to document it so that we can all continue to enjoy it later on.  We’re not trying to hold you up onstage or trying distract you from making your music, we’re here to celebrate it WITH you, and do what we can to keep the excitement going as we humbly help you spread the word after the shows are over…and we do it for free.  For the few bands that have called me out from the stage for filming their set, there have been countless others that have genuinely embraced their audience of listeners with their phones proudly held up high, and it’s heartening to see that at shows if you ask me.  Those are the artists and bands that get the new reality – they’re freakin’ ecstatic that you’re just as excited about their music as they are, I guarantee it.

Just try not to be a dick about it, it’s really that simple.  Consideration of others is what it comes down to, whether it’s the personal space of someone around you, how you might affect what they can see or how they enjoy the show and being understanding of that…it’s not hard.  Maybe the person filming has a friend in the hospital that had a ticket to the show & couldn’t make it that night, so they thought they’d catch some of the set to help cheer you up – you don’t know what the circumstances are.  At its worst, that person filming is still likely to watch it themselves & remember the time they spent with you and your music, because it means something special to them…and I think it’s vitally important that we don’t lose sight of the value in that.  It costs you nothing to be kind, no matter what side of the lens that you’re on, and I would only hope that you would always be excited for the opportunity to have someone else excited about what you create…that seems like the right side of the fence to be on in this argument.

Be good to each other.  Thanks for reading.

– Jer @ SBS