worst client ever

[smojo]

The following is a long story about the ridiculous session I had this week. It's pretty funny if you're interested, and I'm curious if anyone else has a hilarious gong-show client story to share. Really I just have to get this off my chest.

So three weeks ago I get this call at the studio from a guy named "Larry". He's wondering how to go about making an album for a singer, how much it would cost to have her sing over some pre-recorded music and such. I tell him $75 an hour for a solo musician plus materials. He's all excited about that cause it sounds affordable to him and so I book him a tour. He sounds incredibly sketchy, but a gig is a gig... right?


So a week passes and I forget about Larry alltogether. I book loads of tours of this nature and tonnes of sessions for crappy singers who think they want to be stars. I don't think this one is going to be any different.

But Larry shows up, dressed in a fancy three piece suit and carrying a portfolio. This is a little more professional than most people looking for cheap demos. So I start the tour the way I always do: Give him a coffee, walk him through the studios, give him my little speeches about each of them. But he's different from anyone I've ever toured. He's asking so many questions, all of them unrelated to anything I'm talking about. I would say "this is our digital editing facility" and he'd say "so I have a rock opera that I recorded on a cassette player. Can you make that into a CD?" And I'd have to stop mid sentence to try and figure out what the fuck he was talking about.


So I give the whole tour as best I can even though he's totally flakey and finish it up in the controll room of the studio that he can use for $75 an hour where he starts talking about the singer. Telling me that he "found" her, and she's going to be a big star. How he's going to put all kinds of money into making a singing career for her, and how her friends want to put money into it too... And he's asking about full album production too. I thought they just wanted a crappy demo, but he seems to think he's going to take her all the way to the grammys within the week.


So I pull out the price lists and go through it with him. He's very interested in the full-production deal at $4000 a song - produced, arranged, musicans included, mixed, mastered, the whole shebang. But he thinks it might be best to start with our cheapest production deal - the "Karaoke Demo" for $250, seeing as he's NEVER HEARD HER SING.


What the fuck? This guys all over her like whipped cream, she's gonna be a star and shit, and he's never heard her sing???? I'm totally bewildered, but smiling and nodding all the same, and I have no idea what to say.


He starts pulling out the portfolio to show me her pictures that he wants to use for the album cover. He appearently paid $500 for a photo shoot for her album cover, bought her new outfits for it and everthing, eventhough he's got no idea if she can even sing at all. He passes me the picture, and here's where it starts to get really good...


The girl looks like a fucking porn star. Obvious fake breasts, fake blonde hair, fake tan. Not much more than 19. Pouty sexy expressions in all the photos. I look back at him. He's about 5'4", balding, around about 45-50. I look back and the picture and back at him again.


It's beginning to make some sort of sense, allthough I can't quite put my finger on exactly how so. And the type of sense it seems to make is making me uncomfortable.


He decides to lay down the cash for the karaoke demo, even though he says he's not sure if she'll be willing to show up for it. I once again just smile and nod and take his money. As weird as it all is, at least there's some money in it for me.


So three weeks pass and the day before the session arrives. Larry calls me three times that day. I'm hoping and praying each time that it's to cancel, cause I'd way rather just give him his money back than deal with this anymore, but he's just so eager about the whole thing that first he asks if we can do it earlier because she has a 'gig' right after that she needs to 'prepare for'. The next call is to tell me that he's heard her sing and she's great. This is a bit of a relief to me, though I don't fully believe him. The third call is to reconfirm the time. I'm frustrated already and it's not even the day of the session. This dude is way too keen on this.


The next day rolls in, and I show up a little early to set everything up. I'm in the back making coffee when Lanny- my boss - a vetran of the music industry who has sniffed coke with the biggest metal stars of the 80s and recorded film scores for the finest movies of the 70s (let's just say he's been around the proverbial block of the music industry), he comes running around the corner laughing. "You're ten o'cock is here! HAHAHAH!"


I'm like "oh god". I roll my eyes


"Rena! It lookes like hollywood out there! That's how they do it in hollywood! Little old man doing anything for a blow job!"


"Is it that obvious?" I ask, concerned that Lanny was able to pick up on the situation so quickly.


"Um, earth to Rena. Have you seen this girl?"


I make my way around the corner, and there they are. It's nine fifteen in the morning and she's wearing a negilge with a jacket over it and platform heels. The two of them are cuddled up like lovebirds. I am so uncomfortable.


I invite them up to the studio. She's making weird comments about the pretty walls. It seems to me that she might be 'on something', though I don't want to pass judgement.


Once in the studio I begin the process of loading in her track - with a karaoke demo package the artist has to provide their own bed track in the form of a karaoke cd that they can rent or buy from any of the fine karaoke vendors in our town. She has chosen "it's my life" (the No Doubt version, much less cool than the Talk Talk version), but the cd is still in the wrapper. She appearently hasn't done too much practice along with it.


While it's loading she asks me if she can smoke pot in here. I say no, but she's welcome to go outside for that. She says "of course you can smoke it outside silly! Tee hee! But I saw aerosmith on TV and they smoked in the studio".


I explain to her that it damages the gear and aerosmith probably has enough money to cover repairs. But I tell her that I still have a little set up to do, so she can take a few minutes to head out and smoke if she needs to. Larry says that's a good idea and pulls a joint out of his coat for her. Holy fucking sugar daddy, I think.


So they come back in and I set her up on the mic, give her her headphones and get comfy in the control room with my curiosity totally maxed as to wether or not she will be a good singer. I hit the talk back button to speak to her and it freaks her out. She seems to be stoned for sure - not the best thing for singing, but with tits like that I don't think Larry really cares.


I tell her that I'm going to play the song for her and she should just rehearse along with it - I'm not going to record yet, I just need to set volume levels so that she can hear everything and such. So I play it. She kind of mumbles along for the most part, and then wails out the line "it's my life". It's horrible.


At the end she confesses that she doesn't know the words, so I have to get Carly to download the lyrics and print them out for us. It's shaping up to be my worst fears.


Finally we have the lyrics and she's ready to do a real take. I decide to let her do one full take and then we'll go line by line and fix it. But it's terrible. She has no sense of pitch or control. At the end I ask her if she feels like her voice has warmed up and she says she wouldn't know, she's never actually sang before. Larry's sitting on the couch behind me and he says "yes you have sweetie, you sang to me in the car remember? Just sing it like that!"


I turn off the talk back and Larry says, she was really good in the car, I don't know why she can't do it now. I ask him what she sang to in the car since the karaoke disk was still in it's wrapper when they came in and he tells me the radio. So I'm thinking, I know why she can't sing now. Because she never ever could. You heard her to the radio you idiot. Everyone sounds a millions times better along to the song with the real singer in it.


So we struggle through making it sound as good as it possibly can which is still the worst thing I have ever heard. While I'm tearing down I ask her what made her want to take up singing, trying to be really nice. She says her friends are giving her money because they don't want her to do what she's doing now. She tried taking acting lessons with the money but she did a couple of auditions and got rejected, so she figures she'll use the money to become a singer.


Oh, I say, what are you doing now?


"I'm an exotic dancer"


No shit. I would never have guessed. But she seems embarassed about this so I tell her that it's cool, I have some friends that do it in the states - which is all true, but they would never strip in alberta. They say the industry in AB is centered around drugs and controlling the girls. In the states there are unions for dancers in some places, and appearently it can be pretty rewarding. This is obviously not the type of situation our little starlet is in.


She goes on to tell me that she likes to sing while she's dancing. She thinks it freaks the guys out but she doesn't care. "Is that where Larry met you?" as if I had to ask.


"Yeah! Larry says he's going to make me famous."


It all clicks into place.


So they leave, and I spend hours editing, and auto-tuning her vocal because they are going to tell people where they got this done and by whom. I want it to at least be semi-respectable. Unfortunatly no matter what I do, it still blows. It's actually laughably bad and I sent it to several people over msn so that they could share in the simultaneous humor and pitty that comes from hearing someone sing like that.


But seriously. What the hell? How do people like this exsist? I feel so bad for her. She just has no clue about fuck-all-anything. I feel bad for Larry, though slightly less, cuz he's obviously and idiot. But above all, I feel bad for me. They want me to produce a whole album for her. They want me to help promote it. The whole situation just had me so stunned that I couldn't even be honest and tell them that her singing is not up to par. I just kept smiling and nodding.


Lanny tells me I should do it, that money is money and if people are that dumb they deserve to have us take their money. But it's just so wrong. I'd rather give her a job as studio janitor. She could make some actual money for herself, instead of spending it on impossible dreams of stardom. Alas she'd never do it. She wants stardom and the fast life... The whole ordeal makes me nautious.


But hey, I asked for an adventure.

[djgout]

oh my god, the same thing just happened with me, except for the sugar daddy part. my stripper singer was a friend of a good client who was just trying to be nice when she showed some interest........spent like 16 hours on one verse and a hook.

[cgarges]

Wow.


Wow.


I mean, wow.



I say, if you think you can do it with a straight face, go for it. Money is money. And the more you make her sound like herself, the less people are likely to blame you for it. I wouldn't auto tune a thing on a session like that. They'll probably love it, too.


Man...


Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[cgarges]

By the way, thanks for taking the time to really tell that story like it should be told. That's great.

Chris

[Professor]

At $4000 per track to do the whole she-bang I'd say you aren't doing anything to be ashamed of. It might feel weird, wrong, or whatever, but if it's not you it will just be someone else, and if it's not Larry trying to turn her into a rock star, it will just be someone else trying to turn her into a porn star. I'd almost say that you would be doing the right thing by taking them on.
Of course, for practicality I would suggest adding an extra fee in for a "vocal coach" and along with hiring the musicians, hire in a singer to sing all of the vocal parts, then pump those through her headphones so she can sing along. Then she gets what she wants (at least short term) and Larry gets what he wants (and they say money can't buy happiness) and you get something at least somewhat more workable since it's easier to auto-tune when they are least close to the pitches.
I can't imagine that there is really anything that will make the situation feel completely comfortable, except reminding yourself that she has already tried "dancing" as the quick road to fame and fortune, and is likely to do anything if someone tells her it is the quick road. In a certain sense, you're almost helping to keep her off the streets. She just doesn't sound like the kind of self-respecting girl who would resort to waiting tables or sweeping floors while trying to better herself and Larry isn't going to consider paying for college an investment worth making.

It's tough since there are so many things about it that seem wrong, but maybe that little bit of moral outrage you are feeling is what will help you to really try and help her succeed, where the next studio they go to might just decide to use them up and spit them out.
Maybe you need to take an even stronger "producer" stance and get her to start believeing in herself as herself. Tell her that the weed is going to affect her voice, and she needs to stop so she can sing properly - it'll be a huge fight, but it is worth fighting. If you can push towards more empowering music, get her to go with her natural hair color, her natural skin color, and get the poor creature to start realising that she can be accepted and succesful as herself, not as someone's fantasy image of her, then maybe you'll be able to actually help her out of the velvety little gutter she has crawled into.

On the other hand, everyone always loves the "hooker with the heart of gold" stories, and reality tends to prove that those are more often just stories. Larry has his fantasy, and she has hers and one of them is at least somewhat childlike innocent, even if her image is of the rockstar life she sees in the videos. You've met them in person and can better judge the realistic potential of any of these scenarios, and maybe she's too far gone for "saving", but you did say that you would rather hire her as a janitor, so you are at least interested in trying to help.

Damn, since when did morality start becoming a factor in this business?

-Jeremy

[Crono]

They'll probably love it, too.

Exactly. She could be the next William Hung, which, though ridiculous, is worth quite the pretty penny. That $$ will buy you a mic or two, that's for sure.

[wayne kerr]

I feel bad for Larry, though slightly less, cuz he's obviously and idiot.

Are you serious??? A 50-yr old short balding guy getting hummers from a 19-year-old stripper???? Dude's a fekkin genius!

S/H

[Crono]

I feel bad for Larry, though slightly less, cuz he's obviously and idiot.

Are you serious??? A 50-yr old short balding guy getting hummers from a 19-year-old stripper???? Dude's a fekkin genius!

S/H

That's what I was thinking. It's funny...he's still paying, so it's like prostitution, with a studio as the pimp.

[jamoo]

I couldn't imagine.

I could, but it just seems so freakin' goofy. Perhaps you can take the business on the contingency that you use a pseudonym for the studio credit.

I wouldn't feel responsible for saving people from themselves. If they're serious about the production, perhaps you can write your own Mixerman saga, and go on vacation to recuperate. For the writing, this is a solid start...

[wayne kerr]

So three weeks ago I get this call at the studio from a guy named "Larry".

Hmmm... I thought Larry had his own studio... in Portland!



S?H

[Family Hoof]

Rena,
I agree with everything that's been said. Let her suck. Let the idiots waste their money if they have it. If you're worried about your reputation than do your best to make it seem like a joke. I'd rather hear horible singing I can laugh at than horrible singing that's been messed with (causes less laughing and more cringing). For that kind of torture, you should be charging more. Kudos on keeping a straight face and telling the story so well. Keep venting here if you need to. You have your audiance's attention/support.

- Jens

P.S. The world needs (many) more female engineers and fewer bimbos like the one you describe.

[Meriphew]

she-bang

Probably.

[inverseroom]

Mixerwoman Diaries, here we come!

I'd keep those tracks off of MSN, though, smojo, you could get in trouble for spreading them around...

[Professor]

and he-pay

and I can imagine where that can be difficult to ignore in the studio.

-J

[b3groover]

I don't have time to go into details (will later) but I've had a similair experience only we weren't in charge of recording the music. We were in charge of making a music video of a bad "singer" warbling over kareoke country tracks. That one simple video with just the girl in front of a river turned into three videos of varying complexity, having to hire a make-up artist, getting a motor-home for the would-be star's dressing room, etc etc etc.

So much fun stuff... the mid-life crisis producer who thinks he's discovered "the next big thing" (if "next-big-things" were based soley on cup size, he'd have a case), the slutty tramp girl who doesn't know that this guy is a sleaze-ball, the bad talent, lots of money involved, lots of promises, lots of hot air and bullshitting, etc.

One thing I will say... if you do decide to get into this, get the money up front. That "one video turned three" video shoot turned real ugly when it came time to get paid. The guy first didn't want to pay us because the invoice was for "three times as much as what you quoted me". Uh, that's because we quoted you for one video and you then wanted three. Then he threatened court action and... well, it got real ugly.

Get your money up front.