Chris McGregor: Reveling in Mirror Mask (INTERVIEW)

12/11/03 Stage II Design & Production, San Francisco, CA

One Set: Tropical Hot Dog Night* > Big Cypress, Laguna Seca Daze > The Aquarium, The Residents, Great Gag in the Sky, Gamehendge Time Lab*, Any Colour You Like, Everybody Knows Wookies Can’t Play Chess*, Reform Party 2000^, Walking on the Moon

Encore: Trivia Challenge

* — with link to audio snippet
^ — with link to C-SPAN video

Can you recount your initial reaction to the notion of Phish flying around the Boston Garden in a giant hot dog to celebrate New Year’s Eve in 1994?

Chris McGregor: Believe it or not, the hot dog was actually Plan B. My original proposal called for four different flying vehicles, one for each member of the band. I suggested a flying space Harley for Trey and an Electrolux vacuum-vehicle for Fishman, that sort of thing. Bill Bain and myself sent the band illustrations to this effect and they loved them, but when we put the numbers together to figure out what it would cost, it was insanely expensive. Even so, the band loved the idea of flying across the arena and going up into the cheap seats. Now to make it affordable, we faced the challenge of designing a single four-person vehicle.

One day that fall, I was at the Oakland Coliseum helping with the production of some big rock concert, I forget which one exactly. Anyway, I know I had a conference call scheduled with Phish for that afternoon, so I broke away from the stage area and found a pay phone somewhere inside the Coliseum. I got on the phone with everyone and John Paluska said, ‘Look, we love the individual designs, we love the concept, but is there one thing, one vehicle that can hold all four band members? Maybe something long and cylindrical?’ And that prompted Fishman to say, ‘Like a hot dog, like a giant hot dog!’

At that point everybody — myself included — broke into laughter thinking ‘Yeah right!’ As soon as we regained composure, the idea started to sink in. Trey said, ‘Wait a minute, that’s pretty cool. A hot dog, I think I like that.’ The next thing I knew, we reached a consensus and I had about six weeks to make the flying hot dog a reality.

So the pressure was on to turn the project around quickly.

Luckily I had some help. Prior to establishing Stage II Design and Production in 2001, I often worked with Rocket Science, another Bay-area production company to bring my designs to life. I literally brought them an Armour hot dog in a bun as the model, and I said, ‘Make this, only bigger and with seats.’ [laughs] J.W. Nickel and the guys took it from there and did a brilliant job of it.

And that was the extent of your prototype — an actual hot dog?

Well, there was a little more to it than that. In the end, I put together a blueprint for a giant takeout tray, including the hot dog, French fries and a drink. After that it was a team effort between Rocket Science and myself in terms of constructing the giant wiener-mobile and devising the rigging system.

We fabricated the hot dog by sculpting blown foam around a welded steel skeleton. We cast this frame in fiberglass, sanded it down, then painted it. There was a door in the hot dog controlled by actuators that opened up automatically. Likewise, there were four seatbacks that folded up on command. So what initially appeared as nothing more than an oversized stage prop in the form of a giant frankfurter later revealed itself as a conveyance, much to the disbelief and delight of the audience.

How did the skit played over the P.A. as a lead-in to the gag come about?

To justify the hot dog’s presence, I came up with this ridiculous premise that Fishman was starving and might go hypoglycemic behind the drum kit unless he got something to eat . I was out front with Chris Kuroda running the gag, and it was my job to interrupt them during ‘My Sweet One.’ I said, ‘Excuse me, excuse me guys, somebody ordered a hot dog?’ They all pointed to Fishman and I said, ‘Your order is up.’ In comes the giant ‘to go’ tray with the fries and the coke and the rest is history.

By the way, I have to apologize to anyone who caught pneumonia while waiting for the doors to open in Providence on December 29th. Fans were stuck outside in the freezing cold waiting to get inside the auditorium and I stopped everything so we could get the band together and record the piece that we would play on New Year’s Eve.

Can you describe how the hot dog took flight?

There were two separate rigging apparatuses, one all encompassing that lowered the entire takeout tray onto the stage from its concealed location nearby and a separate one for the hot dog itself. You might say the oversized fries and coke were like expendable fuel tanks discarded during the launch of a space shuttle. Anyway, we ran a giant I-beam from the rafters above the stage all the way out to the far end of the arena that connected the hot dog by means of long suspension cables.

The band kicked into a short rendition of ‘2001’ as the takeout tray descended onto the stage. The hot dog’s suspension cables, slack until this point, grabbed tension while the band was boarding the wiener. Meanwhile, the James Bond theme song blared over the P.A. and a couple guys from Rocket Science were on stage readying the hot dog like an Indy 500 pit crew. Once everyone was in place, a set of rotors picked up the hot dog and rolled it out over the fans like an air tram, suspended from above.

[Editor’s Note: About half way across the Garden, the band ticked off the final seconds leading up to the New Year and played ‘Auld Lang Syne’ on portable instruments before continuing their journey. Captain Beefheart’s ‘Tropical Hot Dog Night’ serenaded the return voyage and when the band got back on stage, they launched into a ripping Chalkdust Torture for the perfect exclamation point.

Did you retain any of the commemorative Phish New Year’s Eve ping-pong balls that rained down on the audience at midnight along with an assortment of balloons, confetti, feathers and rubber chickens?

I believe there are a few left in mint condition. There might be a dozen or so in a box floating around my office. I have no idea of judging if they have any value but, who knows? They may turn up on eBay someday. [laughs]

Jesse Jarnow of Jambands.com articulated the surprise reemergence of the famous flying frankfurter at Big Cypress minutes before the turn of the millennium saying, “The crowd went berserk.” What thoughts were running through your mind when the audience erupted for the second time?

When John Paluska called me to do New Year’s Eve with Phish in 1999, the so-called millennium year, I was completely booked. I had been booked-up for months before John called, so not only was I absent from that moment, but I didn’t have anything to do with it.

Instead I was in San Francisco producing their New Year’s Eve millennium celebration. We staged a massive waterfront street party out by the Bay. I had the entire Ferry Building rigged with pyrotechnics along with barges out in the Bay and even the Golden Gate Bridge. It was a big, elaborate production and I didn’t hear about the hot dog’s resurrection until late January.

The Flying Hot Dog is a testament to Phish’s sense of humor, but is their art purely for the sake of comic relief?

The band obviously enjoys a good laugh, but comicality is not the ultimate goal, at least in terms of the projects we have worked on together. Instead the objective is broader: to induce pure audience enjoyment by any means. What can we do to trip people out and expand minds? What is so inspired and so over the top that everyone will walk away saying, ‘Damn, that was pretty fucking cool!’ If we can achieve this aim and make it funny at the same time, that’s like icing on the cake.

How did your October 1993 meeting with Phish in Los Angeles come to pass?

My initial contact with the band was actually in May of 1993 at the Laguna Seca Daze festival in Monterey, California. I was there as the production designer and lighting designer and I had never heard of a note of Phish up to that point. I chalked them up as an East Coast phenomenon, but the fact is they were on the bill right next to the Allman Brothers. Once they were on stage playing, I realized most people in the audience knew exactly who they were and I was obviously out of the loop. [laughs]

But the fact is, I had never heard of them. Early in the morning on the first day of the festival, I was backstage fixing a fog machine and making a few other minor adjustments while this band that I didn’t know from Adam was on stage sound checking. I noticed the lead guitarist was wearing a classic Residents eyeball t-shirt. Since I had been the production manager for The Residents for many years by that time, I was happy to see them acknowledged because they are a cult band, most people don’t know them.

As this guitarist walked off stage, I gave him a nod and said, ‘Hey, Residents. Pretty cool.’ He said, ‘Yeah, The Residents. Do you know who they are?’ I said, ‘Yeah,’ and he took me aside. ‘Man, let me tell you something,’ Trey started. ‘If you ever get a chance, you have got to see their show. I saw them a couple of years ago at the Beacon Theatre in New York and it was absolutely amazing! They seemed to have only twelve or fifteen lights, but throughout the show there were different looks all the time. The entire system continually reinvented itself. The whole production was just incredible. You look like a lighting guy, you should really check them out sometime.’

Trey went on and on like this and finally I interrupted, ‘Well, thank you. Thank you so much. I’m their designer and that’s my work you’re talking about.’ He paused for a moment and said, ‘No shit! Really?’ And he started to yell, ‘Jon, come over here! Come here! This is the guy, this is the guy, come here!’ So he drags Fishman over. Trey explained the situation to Fish and it was like they transformed into Wayne and Garth. They started to bow and say, ‘We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!’ It’s always nice to have people you don’t know think you’re cool, especially when it turns out they are headlining the festival. [laughs]

I met Chris Kuroda for the first time later that day. We chatted a bit out by the light board just before Phish’s set. I don’t recall much about the first time I saw the band play except for the song ‘Contact.’ I thought to myself, ‘Wait a minute. These guys are totally goofy, totally whimsical. I think I like this.’ And that was about the extent of our interaction.

A few months later, I got a phone call at home. The voice on the other line said, ‘Hi, I don’t know if you remember me. My name’s Trey, I’m the guitarist for this band called Phish, we met at Laguna Seca last summer.’ I said, ‘Yes, of course. Of course I remember you.’ ‘Well, here’s the thing,’ Trey continued. ‘We’re, we’re going to be doing this big New Year’s show back east, and we think it might be cool if you could help us figure out something to do at midnight.’

I agreed and things started to snowball. Later that year, Phish came through Northern California again. We got together at the Phoenix Hotel where they were staying and we knocked around some ideas. Fishman thought it would be cool to be able to play the drums in an underwater tank. He said, ‘I’d love to be on stage, under water in scuba gear and playing the drums. That would be so cool!’

That idea spring-boarded me into what ended up becoming the Aquarium. They were in Los Angeles in the studio recording Hoist that October and I flew down to present them with a model Aquarium.

I understand they were impressed with the model’s precision.

Yes. Tiny fish were actually automated and swimming around and the clam opened and closed. It did all this stuff and they loved it! They green lighted the project and we had about ten weeks to get the set on trucks and send it out to Washington DC for the first show of the run.

I knew Kuroda had been with Phish forever by that point, and it seemed absolutely sacrilegious for me to do this, but my plan necessitated a rectangular lighting system, conformed to the shape of the Aquarium. I floated that idea out to Chris and he was receptive, saying, ‘Hey, do whatever you want to do. Trey won’t shut up about how cool you are.’ So I said, ‘I need the truss to be this wide and this deep and you can put whatever lights you want on it. I just need to have this shape so I can hang the Aquarium scenery from it.’

Kuroda complied with my request and I couldn’t believe it! If I were in his shoes, I would be like, ‘Who the fuck is this guy telling me what my lighting system is going to look like?’ But Chris was quite the opposite, saying, ‘I can’t wait, I know it will be great!’

The set was designed to be blacklight responsive. Before the doors opened for that first show in DC, we swathed the stage in ultra-violet rays so it would look as cool as possible. I remember sitting up front near the door as the kids came streaming in and I was right there enjoying that initial reaction, the ‘Whoa!’ and the ‘What the hell?’ type looks.

What did you think of the show itself?

It was my second time seeing Phish live and I really enjoyed the show. As one of the encore songs, they played ‘Highway to Hell.’ They ripped it apart, just tore it to shreds and Kuroda had saved a little trick where he had a whole truss filled with aircraft landing lights sitting down behind the stage that he raised up during that song. It was a pure over the top, rock-and-roll moment. From that point on, I was a confirmed fan. I was absolutely locked in and have been ever since.

Could you back up for a bit and discuss your relationship with The Residents?

I came to them in 1987 as a fan that managed to figure out the names behind the masks. I got myself in front of them and made the case that I was to be their new production designer. I was just a punk kid at the time, but for some reason, they welcomed me aboard. The next time The Residents went out on the road in 1989 they gave me a chance and we have been together ever since.

Did you receive any formal training as a designer?

I went to California Institute of the Arts. I was in the theater department, in the Performing Arts Design & Technology program. Even at that time I envisioned a career as a touring lighting designer in the music industry.

To what extent is your work shaped by 3D modeling and computer-aided design tools?

The computer is important to my work, but mostly on a CAD level, dealing with the nuts and bolts: checking to make sure everything will fit the way it is supposed to. There are a few computer-based designs I have felt good enough to put in front of a client, but for the most part, I find my work and my ability on the computer falls a little short in terms of conveying an entire concept to a client.

So I presume building a tangible, detailed model helps you counteract the limitations of a computer screen?

Personally, I can’t think of a better way to convey an idea to a client than to construct a miniature replica of the final product. If the idea will not fly on a small scale, obviously it will not translate to real life. In a sense, the model is a faith-building exercise. Like skydiving in tandem, it is easier for the client to make that leap if there is a high level of trust.

Though I do admit some concepts are more ethereal in terms of lighting tricks and other nuances that cannot be scaled down. In that case, a computer model might suffice, but more often than not, it is a matter of helping the client conceptualize the project in his or her own mind.

In the case of the Aquarium, it was an unusual concept for a band that, at the time, was making a great leap of its own from clubs to arenas. I was bringing them an arena-scale concept and they still had, to some degree, a club-scale psyche in terms of what they could envision. So the model was very detailed to help broaden their mindset. Embedded among the sea-life, I had figurines of the guys stationed in their respective positions and I included the risers for Page’s piano as well as a mock-up of Fishman’s drum kit.

At the time, Phish had hired Grant McAree as production manager to help them make this changeover from clubs to arenas. He had been, and still is I believe, K.D. Lang’s production manager and front of house soundman. When Grant looked at the model for the first time he said, ‘Great idea, now let’s see if you can pull it off.’

I felt good when we got everything out to DC and he said, ‘This is amazing. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a set that looks exactly like it’s supposed to. This is it to a T! There’s no difference, except there is no seahorse. You had a seahorse in the model.’ [laughs] Well, the seahorse just didn’t fly. What could I say?

Was it fun working with Project Bandaloop during the It Control Tower Jam?

Project Bandaloop is actually a local group from out here in the Bay Area. On two previous occasions I tried to integrate them into a corporate project, but the stars never aligned.

Anyway, the project in Limestone this summer was locked in, designed and moving forward when I got a call from John saying the band met these people who danced on the sides of buildings and they thought it would be cool to include them in the Control Tower project. Because they were a late addition, and because time was at such a premium, there was not much collaboration up front.

In fact, when the dancers showed up at the concert site, it was almost time to open the gates and let the audience in. There was a small window of opportunity to figure things out before we had to conceal everything to keep it a surprise. They quickly surveyed the tower and went over the edge once on some ropes. We raised and lowered the trusses a couple times to devise a system for them to mount and dismount the side of the building. It worked out in less than an hour’s time, mostly because they were just that flexible, just that confident.

After that it was a matter of figuring out how to blend the lights, the dancers and the music together into a single coherent performance. The music was to be very ambient, an extremely ethereal jam, and the band responded more or less to what we were doing. In effect, they provided the soundtrack for the visual spectacle, which is a little bit different than everything we had done before.

There was a twelve-inch black-and-white monitor up in the tower, but obviously that couldn’t convey the scope of what everybody else was seeing. To offset this shortcoming, we prearranged a series of metaphors and terms to key-in the band as to what we were doing visually. For instance, we agreed the first part of the jam would be like a giant turbine coming online, like a gigantic engine coming to life. Another example is the word ‘boing’ which meant the dancers were bouncing in and out off the walls of the tower.

I wore a headset that connected me to Brad Sands who sat on the roof of the control tower with the band. During the set, I called in key words to Brad and he wrote them on a small chalkboard as a means to lattice the visual latitude with musical longitude. Between the small monitor, the chalkboard and the bits and pieces the band could glean from their own vantage point, there was enough glue to synergize the performance.

Is it possible for fans to listen to the CD from the It Control Tower Jam and enjoy the audio as an entity unto itself?

Honestly, I have absolutely no recollection of what it sounded like that night, and to some degree, even what it looked like. Kuroda will tell you the same thing about being in the moment, that when the moment has passed it is immediately forgotten because you are already in the next moment! When the whole thing is over, there is a sense of ‘Yeah, I kept up,’ or ‘Yeah, I remember a few moments of feeling supremely cool,’ but in terms of specifics, I couldn’t tell you.

When the Control Tower Jam was over, we met the band down on the ground floor and we were heading backstage and they radiated an incredible glow. They were so jazzed and so excited, saying, ‘Dude, this is as good as it gets!’ and ‘You’ve totally out done yourself!’ There were hugs and high fives all around. That reaction is what I remember most. It must have been great because the band really got off on it, they really dug it.

When the set was finished, a Swingle Singers Bach piece played over the PA as the audience dispersed. It was a CD of my father’s that I collected recently upon his passing. When I listened to it for the first time, I thought it was just out there enough to say, ‘Off you go, Phish Heads, nighty-night, time for bed.’ That is the only musical moment I remember. Listening to my father’s CD over that giant sound system and thinking he was somewhere up there in the cosmos enjoying the scene and saying, ‘This is pretty cool.’

What is the likelihood of releasing footage from The Control Tower Jam on DVD?

There were a few conversations about that over the weekend with management. Certainly, it is contingent upon how well the footage came out. The possibility remains, but I haven’t heard one way or another.

In light of such epic stunts, is there pressure to continually outdo yourself?

The trick is not so much to outdo yourself, but to catch your audience off guard. The answer doesn’t lie in doing something bigger, but instead in doing something different, something equally cool, but in another way. The trap is to fall into a formula like ‘This year we’ll have even more pyrotechnics!’ or ‘This year we’ll drop even more balloons!’

From tour to tour, The Residents are so completely different that it has been a routine experience to have members of the audience come up to me at the front-of-house and say, ‘You can’t fool us, that’s not even The Residents! Those are imposters on stage!!’ But how can anyone tell for sure? They do wear masks after all. So you have to decide that for yourself. And the fact is, they are The Residents, they’re just doing something different this time.

Could you discuss your experience with Phish in 1995 at Madison Square Garden?

The Gamehendge Time Laboratory  was the last New Year’s Eve gag I did with them. Earlier that year I was in Prague putting together a live theater show with The Residents. While I was out there, I got the call from John asking me to work with Phish again that December.

For whatever reason, my surroundings in Prague got me thinking about a Frankenstein motif. In fact, the set at MSG was studded with these weird-science light fixtures that I brought back to the States after my tour with The Residents. Anyway, I came up with the premise that it is up to the band to increment the year from 1995 to 1996 and at midnight, the band would usher in the New Year by catalyzing an electro-storm big enough to make Mary Shelley blush.

I worked with Rocket Science again and we happened upon a kid in the Bay Area who had built his own Tesla coils. He was probably 17-years-old and we brought him into the shop to teach the older guys how this technology works. We ended up making this massive Tesla coil that fired off Madison Square Garden-size bolts of purple electricity, ten or twelve feet into the air. So big that we built lightning rods into the set to make sure the band members would not get zapped.

On New Year’s Eve Day during the dress rehearsal, we fired off the Tesla coils to wonderful effect, but immediately after the lighting system went dead, the programming in Trey’s guitar rig was lost, Page’s keyboards weren’t making any sound and Paul Languedoc had a puzzled look on his face because all of his knobs were behaving poorly.

When the coil fired, it generated an electromagnetic field that wiped clean every computer hard drive within a one hundred-foot radius. When Trey tried to play ‘Auld Lang Syne’ in the rehearsal, he started playing but no sound came out! He was up there strumming along and no sound is coming out! I was terrified, thinking, ‘Oh dear God, what have I done?’

That was the only time I have ever seen Trey get really angry. Thinking the entire show had just been wiped off the slate, he said, ‘We’re screwed, right? We’re screwed. We are totally screwed,’ and he walked away. At that point, I considered walking downstairs to apply for a job as a cashier at the Duane Reade pharmacy because I was sure my production career was over.

Later that afternoon as I was backstage mulling over alternate career paths, Trey came over to me. He said, ‘Hey, everything’s cool. We figured out that as long as we power down the rigs before the Tesla coil bursts, their data will remain intact.’ I breathed a sigh of relief, and Trey continued, ‘And we are going through with it because it’s the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen and it’s the greatest gag ever! I’m sorry for being so uptight before, but I trust this is going to be great and we’ve got to do it!’ And he was right, everything went flawlessly.

In The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe writes about Merry Prankster objective to “dilate the cerebral cortex.” Do your artistic goals converge with those espoused by Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters?

It is hard for me to think about the work I do on that level, although I have heard people discuss it that way and it gives me a thrill to think it is being internalized in such a fashion. If we can get people to sit out at three o’clock in the morning on a lonely, deserted Air Force base and get them to think about the bigger picture, how small the planet is and all that, that is pretty damn cool. Still, I don’t necessarily set out with that goal in mind. The heart of my pursuit is to ask, and attempt to answer, ‘What is the coolest thing we can do?’ In other words, I really create from a much baser level.

A method for hallucination opposite the Prankster approach is the focal point of The Simpsons episode AABF12 whereby hallucinations are induced by completely removing external stimuli thanks to a sensory deprivation tank. What is your take on this inward-bound approach to mental stimulation?

Have you seen the movie Altered States? That is one of my favorite movies. It is like a more dramatic foil to the Simpsons episode you mention.

My best work often comes to me in that moment before sleep, but after consciousness. Lying in bed, drifting off with absolutely no input and darkness all around, the brain starts to take off on its own as sleep falls. Quite often, clear pictures come to me in this semi-conscious state. Not an inkling of an idea that needs to be fleshed out, it is like a complete photograph already designed for me. All I have to do is sit up and take notes at that point.

Recently, something hit me like a bolt of lightning as I drifted off. I found myself sitting in the audience at a Phish show watching this entire scene unfold. I sat up wide-awake and wrote it all down. The very next day I got a call from the band asking me to work with them for the New Year’s Eve run this year. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me! I just had this epiphany last night! I haven’t figured out why it sucks or why it’s not a good idea, but tell me what you think…’ I threw it out there and they liked it enough to say, ‘Let’s try to make this happen.’

Although you did not have a hand in this stunt, in 1997, The Great Went culminated with the torching of a giant sculpture fabricated by fans in conjunction with the band. Have you entertained ideas for a similar band-audience collaboration? Perhaps something that connects fans in cyberspace with fans at an actual event?

In 1995, Phish came up with the idea of partaking in a chess match against the audience . When they first brought it up, I thought to myself that it was a foolish, goofy idea. ‘I’ll spend your money for you if you want,’ I told them. [laughs] But then watching it in action, I realized the concept was absolutely brilliant.

I think they would love something on the next level to connect with fans during a tour or during a show. Just hearing about it then makes me think. What could be done that is interactive like the chess match, but with a technological flair? I bet if someone came up with the right idea, they would be all over it.

Thanks in part to its large-scale physicality, your work carries a metaphysical edge. Who else among your peers blurs this line between reality and illusion?

Steve Serio is an artist who has worked with The Residents. His material appears innocent, almost childish at first glance. Only a closer inspection reveals it as the darkest, most twisted stuff you can imagine. There are happy little goldfishes and little suns and cute little moons and yet they are all oozing blood and bandaged. It takes the mind a second to process such an unforeseen, but ultimately striking contrast.

You can trace this style back to Jan Svankmajer, the father of stop-motion animation and a master of blending the macabre with the fanciful. The imagery in his films is incredible. Even though my designs tend to be more cartoon-ish in nature, I have to admit the dark stuff does indeed influence my work, even its manifestation is not immediately obvious.

Do you care to share any other influences?

I could cite a litany of illustrators, comic book artists and animators. However, the most enduring influence on my work springs from my experience with The Residents. They don’t just make music. They are artists, they are a think tank, always on the cutting edge. I urge everyone to spend some time reveling in their music and imagery.

Could you address the challenges inherent in channeling unconventional work into a corporate setting? The web design boutique Hi-Res is notable in this regard for producing the avant-garde companion site to Donnie Darko among other work.

When I began catering to the corporate market, I employed many of the same tactics characteristic of my experimental work: big bold shapes, bright colors, things that glow under blacklight, things that have a haloed lighting effect to them. My ideas will get shot down from time to time for being too theatrical or too over-the-top, but I find it best to start big and then pull back only if need be.

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit it, but there is one project I am extremely proud of. I did the production design and technical direction for the Reform Party’s National Convention in 2000 [video]. That is the year Pat Buchanan came in and hijacked the Reform Party ostensibly stealing the $12 million that they managed to raise.

It was fascinating to watch everything transpire because there were giant walkouts, fist fights on the floor, just massive infighting. And of course, the Daily Show was covering the convention and treating it like an enormous joke. But nonetheless, it was an opportunity to produce on a truly grand scale without, as is my lot in life it seems, a truly grand budget.

Imagine all this politicking superimposed over a scene out of Captain America. A very cartoon-ish element framing the most conservative, nastiest political convention conceivable. I should take the picture I have of me standing next to Pat Buchanan and juxtapose it with the picture of me standing next to Chris Robinson from the Black Crowes flipping off the camera to see if it creates a wormhole. [laughs]

Has Phish contracted you in preparation for their show on The Moon on June 6, 2005?

After a few years apart, I am glad to be working with the guys again. Trey brought me back into the fold earlier this year and I put together a few scenic elements for his solo tour this spring. We hung out a bit when he was at the Warfield and talked about old times, remembering some of the cool stuff we had done together. Working with Phish is truly an opportunity to do something cool for the sake of how cool it is.

But then again, a lot of my work falls into that category. For the second year in a row, I helped put on a giant rock concert out on Alcatraz Island. I have toured with The Residents in Moscow and Warsaw. I put on a Lionel Richie show in Istanbul and did a Diana Ross gig in Venice. Chinese New Year with the Grateful Dead is another one that stands out. I have worked with Chaka Khan, James Brown, The Black Crowes, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker… The list goes on and on! Every day there is a new adventure, a new challenge, new terrain to traverse, new discoveries waiting to happen.

But there is a common thread connecting such diversity. A great thing about this business is being able to take the same sort of sensibility that makes Mike Gordon think, ‘Oh that is totally cool,’ and apply it to something that appeals to conservative politicans. Sometimes I sit back and wonder, ‘How weird is this? How strange is it that people pay me to do this?’ It really is the best, even more exciting than a trip to the moon.

Thanks for reading! Now take a minute to test your memory with this Reading Comprehension Quiz! Check out the Chris McGregor Trivia Challenge Hall of Fame.

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