James R. Minchin III

The Verdugo Mountains softened the horizon and grazed the high cotton clouds. The wooded peaks surrounding the valley appeared more like crumpled blankets than their true unforgiving dirt, mud, and stone. It was noontime in the spring on Lake St. in Burbank, California and the sun was glowing, reflecting softly off the hoards of dusty windshields in the used car district. Barreling down the street with a loud muffler-less growl crawled a large, red, rusty Ford truck. It was making its way to the side parking lot of a very unassuming, fly-by-night, built in a couple of days, pre-fabricated steel and cinder block building which housed Tranzformer Studios. Inside the truck, gripping the wheel and scanning house numbers was James R. Minchin III, Rolling Stone photographer.

The rusty red truck with South Dakota plates and a mismatched topper slowly bellowed into the parking lot. It coughed and wheezed as James cut the engine and exited. The door protested with a loud creak as he pushed his long, skinny, denim-covered leg out and to the ground. His worn, gray Converse shoe twisted on the pavement as he stood up and out of the truck cab. A tall man, James looked to be in his mid-forties with an early graying of his short, messy hair and trim, yet bushy beard. His long face was accented by his receding hairline and low, dark brows. A large, rounded nose made him look more like a professor of Biology than a rock star photographer. If not for his inked arms, wrinkly t-shirt, and flower child pendant you’d probably want to raise your hand before addressing him. In a relaxed stride, James made his way over to the side wall of the building and leaned back, kicking his knee up and crossing his arms like some plywood cut-out cowboy.

Inside the building was the large, open space studio that Bryan Carlstrom and Dave Jerden called home. Carlstrom and Jerden were audio pioneers in the ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, recording everyone from the Rolling Stones and Talking Heads to Alice in Chains and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Gold and platinum records dotted the walls, along with works from local painters from Los Angeles. Mood lighting, accent walls, uncoordinated couches and an abundance of recording equipment filled the inside to give a cozy atmosphere and fuel any creative sparks. James was commissioned by Rolling Stone magazine to be there for a photo shoot that day.

James has photographed the likes of Tom Waits, Avril Lavigne, and Kings of Leon; a quick Google search would show you just about any popular artist’s photograph accredited to him. James has been working with Rolling Stone for many years and has the stories to prove it. “I spent a day shooting Kings of Leon during rehearsal and then afterward getting to know how they are outside of the band,” James reminisced. “It would take a lot for me to do it again. Those guys are crazy; they’re all brothers and they fight like it, too,” he claimed in his soft, mid-range, relaxed voice. “They would go out to drink and get in to knock-down-drag-out fights, leaving each other bloody and bruised when the smoke cleared,” he went on, “but that was back when they first started to gain popularity.” James was done talking; it was time for him to survey the studio and get ready to shoot.

A plain, oversized, white van rolled into the parking lot and several guys jumped out to begin unloading all of James’ photography equipment. First to be hefted inside was lighting. Two short trolleys were pulled out of the back of the van full of car batteries, lighting stands, umbrellas, cables and anything else you can imagine that would be needed. There was so much equipment scattered about, it looked as though they were about to light up an entire stadium for a major baseball game. Heavy-duty, black and silver cargo cases poured out as the men unloaded. A cart loaded with a dozen cameras ranging from high-end digital SLRs to expensive instant Polaroids sat in waiting near the entrance of the building. This was when it became clear James meant business. His busted truck and disheveled appearance were misleading. He was there to work.

Once everything was set up, James grabbed a Polaroid and started snapping test shots to get a feel for the lighting and color. Two of his equipment handlers acted as stand-ins for the shoot, and the three of them joked and laughed as the test subjects struck strange, dramatic poses and sang into the microphone prop. James would snap a shot, move, snap another, grab a different camera, then snap some more. Once he was happy with how things were turning out, he asked for the real models to come out from the makeup area. He shot through five rolls of film and filled a couple of memory cards as he danced around the set, grabbing sideways shots at all different angles, remaining professional and courteous at all times. James would tell jokes when he wanted smiles and asked for seriousness when he didn’t. Hot lights in umbrellas, strobe flashes, and quick clicks of the shutter filled the room as he held up his camera, signaling his assistants for a change in medium or lenses. James was talented and ran a well-oiled machine. I’m certain any number of the thousands of shots he took that day would have fit the bill.

After a few hours the magic subsided, the equipment slowly disappeared, and there was James, helping to break it all down and carry it outside. In the past, I have only heard of big time photographers barking orders, throwing their arms up in frustration, and ultimately storming off the set. Seeing one up close, I realize they’re just hard-working human beings with an eye for art and a need to pay the mortgage. I’m sure James pays his bills like everyone else; the difference is he has a passion and a love for his career and is talented enough to do it for one of the most creative industries on earth. I didn’t see James leave, but his old truck announced it clearly as it rumbled off into the tepid evening air. The next time you see a flower child past his prime choking down the highway in a broken down truck, assume nothing. It might just be James on his way to photograph your next big obsession.

One Year Ago Today in Burbank

"We didn't call him Eno, we called him Brian" said Jerden. I had just asked THE Dave Jerden what it was like working with Brian Eno. Dave was rough around the edges, quick phrased, and he had a harsh voice, so he didn't waste it on words. "They ripped off an African soul musician on that album, completely ripped him off", Dave balked about Talking Heads' fourth studio album "Remain In Light". Apparently Dave was wary to admit how groundbreaking David Byrne and Brian Eno's creation really was. I could have disagreed, but obviously Dave knew way more about it than I did. I actually didn't like the album the first time I heard it, but it grew on me, and before I knew it, it was my favorite Talking Heads album. There I was sitting in Burbank and right before my eyes was the man who engineered and mixed that very album. He was tall, grey haired, and the whole time I was there he was wearing his black leather jacket and often sitting out under the gazebo with a cigarette. I remember him saying that "things are different now", which I suppose he couldn't be more right. I can't really give the guy any justice in a blog post, the man has worked with more influential artists than I have fingers and toes. Either way, here was a man that had a direct influence on my musical teens and twenties. At this point I couldn't even imagine the headache of mixing "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)", I'd only wish to have the caffeine and the patience to deal with that much content.

Lori and I saw little of Dave while we were in Burbank, but when he was there he made quick decisions and was gone in a flash. Our final day in the studio was made up of mostly vocals and that was the day Dave sat down and worked with Bryan to comp out several of my vocal tracks. It's a brave new world when someone like Dave is talking out the lyrics you wrote and saying which parts of which take should go in the final mix. I remember many times during our few days in California looking at Lori with that "Holy Crappuccino, I can't believe this is happening" look.

When it came to the nitty gritty Bryan Carlstrom was the workhorse. Bryan was either sitting at the studio's gorgeous giant analog console, tapping on his iPhone, clicking at Pro Tools, adjusting a mic here and there, or puffing at a cigar out under the gazebo(actually Bryan's right-hand man John Nuss was the one making mic adjustments and fixing cord issues most of the time). Bryan seemed the more personable man between him and Dave. Bryan waxed philosophical about his days at Capitol Records, when reverb was made with speakers in empty concrete bunkers in a basement on Hollywood & Vine. These had in turn become the smoking dens for many an artist once digital reverb came along. I also remember a mention of the maintenance elevator that went to a secret floor where the booze was kept. The illustrious red light on the top of the Capitol Records building that flashed ever so steadily in the California midnights was actually Morse code for something or other (a certain vulgar phrase about a particular studio manager comes to mind).

Bryan, who was from the Midwest, just happened to be the pioneer of Pro Tools. He singlehandedly had a stress attack, an epiphany, and then re-routed a few wires to make the first hit album using Pro Tools, turning it into an industry standard. He has worked with just about any hit '90s act you can think of, and, to me, seemed full of steam to keep working for another ten decades, if it was at all possible.

The one wish I have now, a full year later, is that I could have heard what Lori and I created in the midst of such genius. Unfortunately, Konami created a sub-par game, and had an even more sub-par development department. The game had already flopped by the time we hit the tarmac at LAX. Our song never saw the light of day. I still feel, however, that this was my greatest musical achievement, I came, I saw, I conquered. Here's to the future!

For more information on this event please see the following posts:

Day 1 - Chasing The Sun

Day 2 - Into The Studio

Day 3 - The Work (The Fun)

Into The Studio (Day 2)

Photo By Lori Brooks

We were awakened by our alarm clock and then by our hostesses phone call. Not completely awake and surprisingly not jet-lagged (this came upon us the few days right after we flew back to Chicago), we dressed up and headed down for our free breakfast. The spread was wonderful, fresh fruits, an omelet bar, croissants, muffins, eggs, potatoes, bacon, and sausage (the breakfast bar became a daily occurrence, so I’ll only mention it once.) With so much free food, it was difficult to gauge our intake, so as not to become sluggish when the work comes.



Photo By Lori Brooks

(Just a side note on the realization of how much money is in this part of the country. I’ve only seen a handful of Lamborghinis at car shows, and in big city areas. This one was no slouch. It looks to be a Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder, price tag of about $220K.)


Photo By Lori Brooks


The work never really came for us this first day in the studio. We arrived at about 9AM (nothing quite like trying to make rock ‘n’ roll at 9AM on a Wednesday) and were greeted promptly by Bryan, Annette, Jon, and Seth. I exported all of my tracks from “The Bridge Is Out” on Lori’s laptop, and threw them out on the studio server. Bryan imported everything into ProTools and began tweaking and mixing everything. This went on for a couple of hours while Lori and I explored the studio and snapped pictures. There was some discussion of drums, and thankfully all I had was one stereo track of drums, so it required that they bring in a real drummer. (Konami needed separated stems and midi notes embedded in the tracks for their developers to get the song ready for the game.) Bryan clued us in on the fact that the “greatest drummer in the world” just happened to be in the area from a break on tour, but the discussion stopped at that point.









They released us for lunch and suggested downtown Burbank’s Gordon Biersch as the place to go. They were right. At the time I was not aware that Gordon Biersch was a chain (Lori and I were hoping to eat at places in California that you couldn’t find anywhere else, or anywhere in Illinois for that matter) but their menu was different, their beer was delicious, and it just had that overall California feel to it, so it was truly worth it. Everyone on the wait staff was pleasantly attractive, very nice, and had very unique facial characteristics, almost as if you could tell they were all aspiring actors or actresses ready to hand out headshots at a moment’s notice.





Downtown Burbank was gorgeous, weird shops, all kinds of interesting restaurants, palm trees, expensive cars (without any rust), and the Cartoon Network building within walking distance.

After lunch we checked in with the studio and we were given the rest of the day off. It was time to see the sights, from a car (everyone knows that California and cars mix very well). Since we were in Burbank we decided to hit the studios first. We drove by all of them, and stopped at Warner Bros. for some photo ops. From there we hit Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and finally Rodeo Drive. Lots to see, Southern California is a very beautiful place. Lori and I snapped almost 1300 pictures while we were out there; we tend to be very shutter happy while traveling.

After many hours in the car, and the ever present piling up of work we decided we better see the ocean now while we still have the chance. We couldn’t be that close to the Pacific without getting a glimpse. Apparently no one else in Southern California had the same idea. The wind howled off the water and threw sand at us at breakneck speed. If it were anyone else, it would have been a horrible day at the beach. But we were still on cloud nine, getting to do all of this on someone else’s dime. It need not be said, but I’m sure this day would have only been better had we been cruising around in a fire apple red convertible the size of medium seafaring vessel.











About 6:30 we headed back to the studio to check in and Seth was attempting to lay down drums for our track, it was not going well, and I could tell Bryan was frustrated. He talked about having another 6 hours of work that night before we could come in and start recording. We were released again.

We were beat, but we headed back to the hotel, changed clothes, and since we knew the next two days would be treacherously long, we decided that, yes, we wanted to see more. We headed to the Hard Rock Café at Universal’s Citywalk. 100 or so pictures and an eight dollar cheeseburger later, we were headed back to the hotel for bed. Then I got the call from Bryan. “Hey, Gregg Bissonette has done me a personal favor, he came up to the studio and we were done in an hour”. This was the afformentioned “greatest drummer in the world” and he was now on our track (this is Ringo’s drummer man, he’s jammed with a Beatle, that’s just messed up man, far out). We could have only been happier if we could have met him personally, alas, this was not the case.








We sank into our bed and slept hard.

Chasing The Sun: Day 1

Now that we're back from L.A. and sinking back into our normal routine, I've had a chance to reflect. I figure I better write it down before it all slips away.

We scrambled up to Chicago and to avoid confusion we opted for the $30/a day parking at O’hare, which made things easier for the trek to and from our terminal. It’s been a long while since we’d flown last, and a lot has changed. I don’t remember much from the last time I had a flight, but I was younger, which probably means I thought the seats on the plane were bigger (I've gained a little weight over the years). Upon arriving at the check-in we were surrounded by an array of screens, but very few people. It appears everything has moved towards that of a self checkout lane at the supermarket. This is the first time I’ve had any contact with these blasted machines and I felt a bit like a grandparent attempting to program a VCR, and if I hit the wrong button they’d cancel my flight and I’d never get to fly again because of some kind of esoteric blacklisting of idiots. Thankfully, someone intervened, probably because of the perplexed look on our faces as we tried to somehow instantly comprehend this new unknown airport jargon on the big blue touch screen in front of us.

Once this ordeal was over we were shuffled over to the security checkpoint, 75 guards, two gates, only a few rules posted and a sudden cold feeling on the heels of my feet as I took off my shoes and placed them in a Tupperware container. This was one rule I understood, it was an illustration of some loafers in a box printed on a big white sign next to the entrance, simple enough. The guards spoke very little if only to bark commands at you if you were doing something wrong. They certainly weren’t going to answer any questions on procedures BEFORE you screwed it all up. I wasn’t expecting to be spoon-fed the rules on how to get safely through the security checkpoint without anyone yelling at, or belittling me, but a free pamphlet before getting to the first phase would have made everyone's experience just a little easier.



The flight to Minneapolis was fairly short and somewhat pleasant. I was terribly nervous waiting to takeoff, I’m not sure how Lori was, but, my poor heart was trying to beat its way out of my ribcage between the third and fourth rib. I was wired on adrenaline for most of this flight, but the pilot made a very smooth landing and by the time we had a few drinks at the Chili’s next to our terminal I was actually looking forward to the rush of taking off on the next plane.






The flight from Minneapolis to LAX was longer, but Lori and I had a whole row to ourselves so we could spread out. It was still early evening for us, so we were wide awake and obviously excited about our destination. We drank a couple of Bloody Marys and tried to zone out on our zunes. However, the guy sitting behind us apparently had never flown from Minneapolis to LAX before (which, neither had I) because he was dumbfounded to hear that we’d be on the plane for three or four hours. He didn’t believe me. So he tried to make small talk with the middle aged woman next to him, she answered most of his questions with a somber one word answer, and then continued to read her magazine. He’d stretch and curse, yawn and curse; he was overall a pain in the ass. He ordered a Heineken and between every sip he’d let out a long “Ahhhhhhh, shit. Mmm, that’s the shit.” It sounded like he was making sweet love to his beverage. Now that I think of it, somewhere in that gargantuan noggin of his, he probably was making love to his Heineken. At any rate, I was pleased he wasn’t sitting next to us, or between us, because even behind us was way too close for comfort. That aside, soon we were on our descent and we could see the bright glowing lights of southern California. I put on my headphones, listened to some Soul Coughing “Screenwriter’s Blues” and zoned out on the magnificent light show. On the jet way we could smell the ocean, and we could feel a hint of the warm California air. We made it.



After a few freak outs, wide smiles, and our heart’s skipping a beat waiting for our guitars at the baggage claim, we jumped into our hostess' car and we were off to our hotel in Burbank. We couldn’t see much on the way to the hotel because it was about midnight, but we grabbed some quick blurry snapshots of the lonely lighted freeway signs and burger joints on the way.



I collapsed into bed at the hotel, and Lori jumped into the shower (because of time restraints in the morning). Short, but deep, relaxing sleep. We woke up on a king size bed that felt like a cloud of cotton candy. It was morning, and now the work has to begin.