Never Say No To A Rock Star

by Berger, Glenn

  I felt big, strong arms grab me from behind. I tried to push them away but couldn’t as I tried desperately to squeeze harder. It was Kenny Utt, pulling me from behind in a bear hug. I couldn’t hold onto the neck any longer. As he pulled me back, I screamed, “I’m gonna kill that motherfucker!” As he lifted me off the ground, my feet windmilled in the air.

  Kenny spoke as he held me tight. “Whoa. Let’s slow it down. Let’s slow it down. What the hell is going on here?”

  “This low life piece of shit won’t turn one goddamn screw to make the stereo sound right. All he has to do is turn one screw and everything will be fine and he won’t do it!”

  Kenny turned to Rich. “What about it?”

  Woodcock pushed back a strand of dark, wet hair. His face was red. He panted, “It’s not my responsibility! If you turn that screw I won’t be responsible for what happens.”

  I interrupted before he could finish. “Nothing bad is going to happen! He’s just being an asshole! He just wants to fuck this thing up because he works for Dolby and we decided not to go with the Dolby system! He just doesn’t want this to work!”

  “Hey, hey Berger, let’s not go that far,” Kenny interjected. “Is there anyone else we can get an opinion from here?”

  “Yes! Call any technical guy! They’ll all tell you the same thing! Zero is supposed to equal zero! That’s what the screw is for! Call Ernie at Trans Audio, he’ll tell you!”

  Kenny looked at Rich.

  “Go ahead, call him, but don’t expect me to do one more thing for this piece of garbage movie! And you,” Rich growled, pointing at me, “I’m gonna sue your mother fucking ass! You are dead in this business!”

  We got Ernie on the phone, and he said that it was fine to turn the screw. Rich wouldn’t let me touch the screwdriver. He adjusted the meters so they looked right.

  Then I said, “Great. Now we’ve got to work on the equalization.”

  Rich turned to us and said, “Are you out of your mind? I wasn’t kidding. I’m done with you people. Here, you do it. Go ahead, do whatever you want to the EQ. I don’t give a shit.”

  It was now after six o’clock. Kenny held me at arm’s length and looked at me as if to say, are you going to be a grown up, now? I nodded. Then he said, “We’re going to have to go with the mono tonight. We can’t go with the stereo without Bob hearing it first.”

  This was the first stab wound, not fatal, but it hurt. I held my breath and nodded. I understood. He was the general, I followed orders. “OK. But let me come back in the morning and get things right. Make sure Woodcock is here.”

  Kenny agreed. I couldn’t watch the film one more time, and I certainly couldn’t stand listening to the mono, so I split.

  I was up as the sun rose and got to the empty theatre early. I only had a few hours left to try to save my life’s work. The last screening was in a few hours. The next day I’d be leaving for Los Angeles, to check out the system at the Avco. Kenny told me Woodcock wasn’t coming back. They sent another guy from the movie studio named Doc. He let me tweak the EQ. Things sounded damn good. Maybe we’d get away with this.

  Fosse only had time to listen to a few reels. He asked for a small change, as usual, which I made, and as we played the test reel, he seemed to be satisfied. Then something went wrong. The left channel got extremely loud. Doc went behind the gear. After a minute or two, everything sounded fine again. There was nothing more I could do here. Doc had to split. Hopefully, everything would be OK. Next was Los Angeles.

  I just wanted to go home, smoke a joint, have sex with Ivy, and pack for Los Angeles. The final screening was tonight, the movie would open soon after. I certainly wasn’t going to stay for this screening. I couldn’t watch it again. I couldn’t stomach the open heart surgery scene. I never got used to that. I couldn’t stand being banged over the head with all of the mistakes I’d made in the recording and mix. Everything in my being screamed for me to get out of there. I remembered my first minute in the studio, when I had hung out in the control room during a James Brown session, and it was so loud I couldn’t stand it and just wanted to run. I couldn’t handle the tedium, the repetition, “It’s show time, folks!”

  But then a voice inside me said that I should stay, stay all night if I have to. That would be the right thing to do, that was what I should do. That is what my training told me to do.

  But I couldn’t find the care. I told myself it would be ok, I didn’t have to stay, this was one thing I didn’t have to do. It was done, it was fine, I’d done all I could.

  A vague, distant echo played in my head. I knew I should stay. I should stay. The real heavies wouldn’t leave. If I was a real heavy, I wouldn’t leave.

  I couldn’t fight anymore. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t make decisions. I got up and walked out of the theater.

  It is always weird to leave a movie theater in the middle of the day, into the sunshine. There I was, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, across the street from Bloomingdale’s. All of the ‘70s upper-middle-crust babes cruised along the avenue in their stone-washed jeans and dyed-blonde Farrah hairdos. Everyone was oblivious to what was going on in Cinema One. I looked at the marquee and saw the words, “All That Jazz Opening December 20th.”

  I wandered across town, through Central Park, on the cold, bright day.

  I smoked some dope, did a few lines, and spun into a euphoric fuzz. I had prevailed. The movie would premiere in 70mm four track. It would sound amazing. I’d do the same in Los Angeles. The nominating committee would hear the movie in glorious sound. We’d win. I could relax, at least for the next sixteen hours. I packed my bags with summery clothing for Hollywood.

  SCENE THREE:

  86 the Ereo-Stay

  As I waited for the car to take me to the airport the next morning, I got a call from Kenny.

  “I’ve got some bad news, son. The screening was a disaster.”

  I saw the dark tunnel before me. “What happened?” I didn’t want to know.

  “All kinds of problems. The volume levels kept changing, and the sound was horrible.”

  “What about Woodcock?”

  “I tried to get in touch with him, but he followed through on his threat. The man split and there were no other techs around to deal with it.”

  Then I asked the question I didn’t want to ask. “What does this mean?”

  “Well you know that Bob is leaving today for LA and there is no time to fix anything. So …” Utt hesitated. He knew what this would mean to me. “I’m sorry, kid. Fosse had to make a decision. He’s canning the stereo version.”

  “No stereo version in New York?”

  “Nope.”

  “LA?”

  “Nowhere.”

  No one would get to hear it, anywhere, ever.

  The final blow, the zipper on the bag, no big finish. I was dumbstruck, sucker-punched, fucked, kaput, 86’d, ix-nay on the erio-stay. I couldn’t access my brain. My voice was small, almost inaudible. “Kenny, it can’t be. We … I…”

  “I know you’re disappointed. We just couldn’t take the chance. Bob couldn’t take the chance.”

  I nodded to no one in particular and hung up the phone. It was done. My one chance at stardom, at the big award, the accolades, gone, dead, never to return. My one chance, over. The shock began to surge, like a distant tsunami rushing toward land, first just a rumble, and then a roar, then ear-busting thunder. The anger blasted out of me. Woodcock! That fucking asshole! How could these goddamn mother fucking tech guys do this to me? Then it really hit. Seven years of work ruined in one turn of a screw! I collapsed and put my hands on my head. Pain seared through my body. “Bob! How could you do this to me when I gave everything to you? How could you panic at the last minute and ruin our beautiful movie without even giving me a chance … how could you hurt me this way?”

  Then the burn set in. The burn of regret and shame. Goddamn it, why didn’t I stay for the screening? Maybe if I would’ve been there, I could’ve figured it out, maybe I
could’ve done something. Maybe I could’ve turned the right screw. Why did I go home? I could’ve begged, stayed up all night, found someone to help. Couldn’t I have just stayed awake one more night? Hadn’t I taken it this far? Did I have to drop the fucking ball on the one-inch yard line? Why didn’t I stay with Woodcock every second he was here? Why didn’t I stay up for those seventy-two hours and make sure this went right? What was it in me that just wanted to blow the whole thing to smithereens? I wasn’t the guy. I just didn’t have it. How could I have been such an idiot?

  My whole career, the whole past seven years, all the pain, all the struggle, all that fucking jazz, gone, blown, dead.

  SCENE FOUR:

  The Premiere

  The next day, numb and glassy-eyed, I took a cab to the airport. I sat in first class, the first time in my life that I got to experience that luxury. It was late morning, and the stewardess brought me a glass of champagne. But I had nothing to celebrate. All I felt was bitter. Ironic. This was supposed to be my supreme moment. The Hollywood premiere of the greatest movie of the decade and my name on the credits. I would stand on the red carpet. Now, it was all just a hollow shell. An empty joke. A cruel finale. I got off the plane, and there was a black limo waiting for me. I got in, and gazed in the mirror provided for chopping coke. I looked like such a babe in the woods. Out the window, I watched the blue sky, palm trees, and swirl of cars on the 405 and 105. Hollywood, the cosmic sphincter of show biz. Here I was: disaffected, pissed, disillusioned. Of course. That’s show biz. I got to the pink and classic Beverly Hills Hotel in one hell of a crappy mood, and checked in. All these things that should have been so much fun, just a set, just a façade, just bullshit, just jazz. I sat in my room, alone, despondent, and waited. Alan Heim picked me up in his rental car. As a New Yorker, he seemed particularly uncomfortable driving.

  We went to the theatre, and they played the film for us. Again, I had to sit through the whole thing, this time, in tortuous, horrific mono. On certain drum hits, it sounded like the speakers just couldn’t handle the volume and splattered. Nothing was going to work. We fucked with the equipment as much as we could, but everything sounded like shit to me, anyway. It was all one gross, painful embarrassment. Mono optical all over the world. I ruined everything.

  That night it was time for the premiere. I put on my monkey suit. I stood on the carpet. There was one guy who was there to meet the celebs, a guy named Cesar Romero, a second-rate actor who had been relegated to regular guest appearances on game shows. An old guy, who once was good looking, a definite hack.

  No one else showed up.

  This second rate actor, at a tacky theatre in Hollywood, with a microphone in his hand, and the only person there who cared was the uncredited, non-union, schleppedickeh music guy who had fucked the whole thing up anyway. So much for Nicholson, Bogart, and Joan Crawford.

  The champagne tasted flat on the jet ride back to New York.

  SCENE FIVE:

  Bye Bye ?????

  Ivy and I took one last look at our empty apartment, got into a U-Haul, and drove up to Marblehead, Massachusetts. Our big black cat vomited all the way.

  When we arrived, a perfect white Volkswagen bug, purchased by my composer friend Mason Daring who lived up there, was waiting for us in the driveway of our cute new home.

  Ivy jumped out of the truck and did a pirouette. I opened the cat carrier, but the big black thing slunk back into a corner. I stood warily by. Ivy skipped up and threw her arms around me. I felt a strange blend of emotions. There was relief that I had escaped being eaten by one leviathan, but there was also some vague anxiety that I risked getting devoured by something insensate and insatiable that lived within me. She kissed me passionately. Whatever. I let myself go and fell into the love. I was out of my element. All I could do was surrender. In that moment we were both innocent to the lurking infection that was incubating within me from my New York days and time with Fosse which would eventually lead me to screwing up horrifically and causing unforgivable pain.

  But for now, I was done with New York, A&R, and all those rock stars who wouldn’t take no for an answer. The dream was over.

  On November 7, 1980 I received a typewritten letter from Bob Fosse on his letterhead. He wrote that the film might be re-released in several major cities across the country, and that he’d had an opportunity to listen to the stereophonic version at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York. He wanted me to know that it sounded “terrific,” and that while he’d had his reasons for not releasing the stereo version originally, he now knew this decision had been a mistake. He wanted to assure me — because of all the hard work I had done on the stereo version — that “finally it would be appreciated.” The letter was signed “sincerely, Bob.”

  The re-release never happened.

  CODA

  All That Jazz was nominated for nine academy awards, tying Kramer vs. Kramer for the most nominations that year. Kramer vs. Kramer took home the top awards for best picture and director, but ATJ still won four. Ralph Burns won for adapted score, and Alan Heim won for editing. It did not get nominated for sound.

  The film won the Palme D’Or at Cannes.

  It was nominated in the BAFTA awards for best sound. My name was not included in the nominees. It lost to Fame.

  Bob Fosse died on September 23, 1987 of a heart attack. Ralph Burns died on November 21, 2001. Kenny Utt died on January 19, 1994. Roy Scheider, who played Joe Gideon, died on February 10, 2008. Joe Maneri died on August 24, 2009.

  I found Alan Heim on Facebook, and wrote:

  Hey Alan, I don’t know if you remember me, but we worked on All That Jazz together. I’m writing a memoir about my days in the biz, and I’m working on my Fosse chapter. I’m wondering if you would be up for answering a few questions, just to make sure my memory serves me well. I hope you are well, and look forward to hearing from you soon.

  He wrote back and said,

  Hi Glenn,

  I remember and I’d love to speak with you. My cell is 323 677 4035 but my reception at my office is iffy. Try me and leave your # and I’ll call you back.

  FOX has restored All That Jazz with our wonderful stereo mix and will release it on blu ray soon. I’m hoping to see it in a screening room on the lot. The folks at Fox are very excited about it.

  Alan

  To hear those words, “our beautiful stereo mix,” made my obsession over my tiny, little, insignificant piece of the universal puzzle suddenly seem important. Someone else, from all those years ago, remembered and understood. The thing I couldn’t explain to you, dear reader, that I feared no one would ever get, that would be laughed at, was taken seriously.

  I called him at that number and got his voice mail. I left a message.

  He never called me back.

  I never heard from him again.

  Ah, I love show biz.

  TRACK FOURTEEN

  How Paul Shaffer Almost Got Me Killed

  New York’s best horn players, the cats from the Blues Brothers Band — that is, Alan Rubin on trumpet, Blue Lou Marini on sax, and Tom Bones Malone on the trombone — passed a doobie and laughed among themselves. The rest of the band hovered around their instruments. Paul Shaffer was on keys, Steve Cropper and Sid McGinnis on guitar, Duck Dunn on bass, Anton Fig on drums. A crowd of onlookers hung in the control room of studio R-1 at 322. The tape was rolling.

  “One, two, three!”

  Without missing a beat, the horn section blasted a chord.

  A screaming voice, “One, two, three, yeah!”

  Another horn blast.

  The rhythm section kicked in.

  “You gotta know how to pony, like Boney Maroney!”

  It was Wilson Pickett, the wicked Mr. Pickett, singing one of his biggest hits, “Land of 1000 Dances.”

  We were cutting the track live, everyone playing at once, the way it would have been done in the old days. I was probably one of the last cats around who could engineer such a thing. The year was 1988, and I was back in Ne
w York working on the last movie soundtrack of my career. We were recording a couple of songs for the film, The Great Outdoors, a comedy starring John Candy and Dan Aykroyd.

  The audience in the control room was astounded we could do it this way. Real musicians playing in a room together was becoming an increasing rarity, and certainly doing live dates, where everyone, including the singer, recorded at the same time, had become almost extinct.

  For me, this was a peak moment. The whole reason I got into this crazy biz was to do just this kind of thing. When I was a little kid, it was records just like this one, “Land of 1000 Dances,” that gave me the bug, that made me think, I want to make one of those when I grow up. And to be in this room with one of my rock and roll heroes, Steve Cropper, made this last moment all the more special.

  Ending up doing this gig was an unexpected treat. In the late ‘80s I’d returned to New York after a two-year trip around the world. Having been out of the scene for several years, I had to claw my way back in. I ended up helping this cat Weinstock set up a studio in Soho called Krypton. Everyone was opening their own rooms at the time as the price of the gear came down, and you didn’t need as much real estate as you did in the halcyon days. It wasn’t a top-tier or fancy room, but I wasn’t in a position to be choosy, since I had burned a few bridges on my way out and had dropped a few thousand feet in catdom.

  My old friend Paul Shaffer came in to this downtown hole-in-the-wall to record what was ostensibly a demo for his upcoming album, Coast to Coast. The concept behind the record was for him to travel across the country, hook up with regional masters, write songs with them in their signature styles, and collaborate with them on recording tracks for the album. The track he was coming in to record with me was called, “What is Soul,” and was supposed to do honor to the ’60s Stax sound of Memphis, Tennessee. He co-wrote the song, and would co-produce it with Cropper, who had written such eternal hits as “Dock of the Bay,” and Don Covay, who wrote the super-funky Aretha hit, “Chain of Fools.”