Last year I saw Jean Luc Ponty play with Return to Forever at the Beacon Theather. The warm up band was Zappa Plays Zappa and Jean Luc came out and played “Fifty Fifty” with the band. I had only seen him play once before and that was with Dweezil’s Dad at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. You can buy a T-Shirt of this image at Red Bubble.
Jean Luc Ponty
Stanley Clarke playing at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. The guitarist was Ray Gomez and was part of the School Days album tour in 1976. We recently saw him play with Return to Forever and he has not lost a lick. One of the best bass guitarists of all time.
Stanley Clarke at the Stanley Theatre in Pittsburgh
When you think about Zombie films you got to think about the make up. Dawn of the dead in 1978 had a lot of Zombies and they all had different looks. They would arrive on the set hours before the shoot and patiently wait until one of the three make up artists could make them up. Make up would some time include bloody appendages and body parts that were usually made by the Zombie Master Tom Savini. The extras would hang out, play cards, drink coffee and other things until they could be properly gored up.
Waiting for Make Up
I had the pleasure of meeting George Romero in his Pittsburgh Office in 1978 to get press credentials for being on the set of “Dawn of the Dead”. Even though he could have had an assistant handle this, he wanted to meet me first. He basically just asked questions about me and my background and then turned me over to Mike Gornick (Director of Photography) to explain the “ground rules”. This is a picture of him stifling a laugh on the set at Monroeville Mall which was printed in a Pittsburgh Magazine article.
George Romero on the Set of Dawn of the Dead
I had the privilege of being a journalist on the original 1978 “Dawn of the Dead” and have offered some of the behind the scenes images for sale on my commercial site. I don’t have too many of Gaelyn Ross who was the pretty blonde star of the movie. She was hard to get to unless she was in a shot since every male extra and crew member on the set were acting like male dogs. It turns out she became a pretty good documentary filmmaker who made Killing Kasztner in 2008 among others. Here she is being filmed byy Michael Gornick in a scene form Dawn of the Dead 1978.
Gaelyn Ross
This past year, Don Van Vilet passed on. In 1973 I took this picture from the stage wings right before I was thrown out. It was easier to get on the stage back then but I had no credentials and eventually someone ratted me out. The Band started to play and the Captain was standing next to me waiting for his entrance. I looked at him and he nodded at me and then went on stage and launched in to “Crazy Little Thing”. A magic moment with the magic band.
Zoothorn Rollo with Captain Beefheart an dHis Magic Band