Outside the Jukebox: How I Turned My Vintage Music Obsession Into My Dream Gig by Scott Bradlee

Author:Scott Bradlee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2018-06-11T14:00:00+00:00

CONSTRUCTING A DREAM FACTORY

All of my experience—from A Motown Tribute to Nickelback to my antics with Alan Alda in Robert Restaurant—had taught me that a little humor and the occasional over-the-top performance are two powerful buttons that could be pushed to get noticed. As I scaled up my team, scaling up my performance antics, too, only seemed logical.

One day, I told Adam that I wanted to record a video with a saxophone that shoots fire out of the bell and that I wanted to do it… tomorrow.

“Okay,” he said. “Can we finish by eight p.m.? I have to study for law school.”

It was 2014, and the Postmodern Jukebox musicians were officially no longer fazed by the crazy shoots that transpired in my apartment.

Over the past few months, we had been slowly expanding the vocal talent that appeared in our videos, and I was excited to put the chief female vocalists of the group—Robyn and Sleep No More vocalists Cristina Gatti and Ashley Stroud—together in one video. I had written a ’60s girl group–style rendition of Ellie Goulding’s “Burn,” and it featured a greater level of detail than any of the videos I’d previously produced. The vocals involved switching between doo-wop harmony parts, lead lines, and overlapping melodies, and Ashley had choreographed the movements to fit the era.

It was time to make this thing happen. The aforementioned “flame-o-phone” was an invention wielded by saxophonist Stefan Zeniuk of the band Gato Loco. Basically, it was a baritone saxophone rigged with a flamethrower, which enabled its player to shoot flames up to six feet high in sync with the music. It was a sight to behold, kind of like the marching band equivalent of an EDM laser light show. Stefan, a trained fire performer, was known to incorporate it into his own shows, doing things like inviting the audience to roast marshmallows by its flame. It was perfect for a song whose hook was “… and we’re gonna let it burn, burn, burn.”

I had few reservations about bringing a flaming wind instrument into my small Astoria apartment. We set up and rehearsed the video as we would any other, first doing a dry run without the flame-o-phone. Then we decided to record. On the first flame-laden take, the smoke detector went off. No big deal; I simply took out its batteries. We carried on, positioning Stefan in the very back by the door. The singers did a great job of ignoring the heat and fire behind them. (Look closely, though, at Adam, the musician closest to Stefan, and you’ll see him visibly wincing every time the flames shoot out of the bell.) We filmed two takes and then got the flame-o-phone out of there as quickly as possible, before anyone could call the fire department or building management on us. It was just another day at the Dream Factory—Cristina’s name for my small Astoria apartment’s living room.

The Dream Factory was my latest laboratory, and its casual setup—a couch, a shag rug, and the piano that took up the rest of the room—was ideal for creative brainstorming.

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