Part I of the Upside of R&R Home

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Part II of the Upside of R&R Home

   Here's a photo from the day we did the CYAN "album shoot" in Venice Beach, CA. I recall being sick with the flu and having a 103º temperature (poor "doggie"). Danny was in the middle of his "Teen Wolf" period and views this picture with just a slight grin followed by "Oh, God."

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   While doing the cover shoot for the Suitable for Framing album, Danny, Chuck and Cory all had molds made of their faces and latex masks, created from the molds. They then altered the masks slightly, and wore them for the cover shot. Later, we used them in an unsuccessful attempt at a bit of visual magic in our show when we played at the Anaheim Convention Center. It involved having a stage/platform behind us, that was specially built for 3DN. Without explaining it, the object was to have the three singers walk up into this thing at the end of the show, and by using lighting techniques, they would appear to have their heads spin around, bodies rotate in mid air, etc. Three dummies were used (pun intended) with the latex masks on each of them. The result was so bad that the audience didn't even realize what was happening, thank God. It was a great idea, but you kind of had to be there to understand the concept. Danny was also searching out live concert concepts that involved 3 camera projection, that would create a hologram above the audience of anyone in the band. A live, moving object that you could reach out and put your hand through, hanging right over your head as you sat in the audience. It was a great idea, but the technology just wasn't there at that time. I don't believe it's been done yet. Danny was always digging hard for obscure, cutting edge things we could do on stage. Flash pods were either brand new or weren't even being used yet. To make a long story short, these "dummies" and latex masks were still at the American Recording Studio when we started recording the Cyan album. When not recording, Jimmy started messing with the dummies. Of course, I couldn't resist and soon Richie was involved, too. It started by placing the dummies in all kinds of compromising positions, then evolved into standing them up, as if to do some vocals. As usual, Danny, Chuck and Cory took our "poking fun" all in stride, and just shrugged their shoulders acknowledging our ignorant attempts at humor. Here, take a look.

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   As you can see in the photo above, lots of goodies were added to the dummies. Duct tape over the "Danny" dummy's mouth, positioning them at the microphone and more. Bill Cooper was tending to some "engineer housekeeping," so it created an opportunity to move on to Sneed. Jimmy and Richie had plans for using a boxer's speed bag as Floyd's Afro-American head. Somehow, Little Jackie Rylands hat got into the mix. See below.

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