Sunday Hubby was called upon to play office manager, handler, wrangler, whatever, at TYE Studios because their usual manager, handler, wrangler was playing the upgraded role of assistant photographer to a client who has worked with some well-known bands (and apparently has an “AWESOME!” digital portfolio).  You can get a better scoop here, on the TYE blog (including a sketch of one of the layouts).

The subject of the photos was Iron Maiden, of 80s metal fame.  Friends of hubby were all sorts of in awe because they cut their rock teeth of her rustiness (come on, “iron” + “maiden”…?).  I was less impressed.  I mean, if you offered me money to name one of their hits, I’d be breaking out the Crackberry and hoping it could connect to Google without you noticing.

I grew up in a small town and my access to music in the pre-internet days was limited to a tiny record store in the next town and the 45/singles bins of the local Rose’s Department Store and, of course, the radio.  Thus, I remember Bon Jovi and Poison, whose hits came along as I finished up elementary and entered middle school.  Those two got radio play and I could convince my mother to buy “Slippery When Wet” because she was naive to meanings other than floor spills since the cover art was water droplets on a black background.  (She’d have needed therapy if she’d seen any of the Iron Maiden cover art, which I suppose was the point.  I mean, it’s intricate but after the first couple of albums becomes rather trite (or maybe/probably it’s just me).)  At any rate, living two miles outside of town and having no job (Iron Maiden’s first album came out when I was approximately four), how on earth would I have acquired such a thing anyway.  For the record, their were metal-heads in high school who all seemed to worship Iron Maiden, but by then the first album was ten years old.  It also seemed to be confined to the clique of wannabe delinquents and kids playing cool to their older siblings, of which I had none.

That said, my fashion sense wasn’t really suited for the metal fans of my high school and I had a tendency to wash my hair, so needless to say… not a fan.

Being IRON MAIDEN, however, one of the members was apparently somewhat taken aback, flabbergasted, confused, etc., when I didn’t seem to have any idea who he was.

Anyway, on to the ironing part of the tale.    The band came with clothes.  Clothes that needed ironing.  (From what I saw, they mostly wore tee-shirts, but I wasn’t really paying attention, so let’s just assume not.)  Hubby called and asked if I could bring over green tape (to hold green screen in place for one of the shots) and our iron.  While I was looking for the tape, he called a friend of ours and asked her to bring her iron because A) our ironing board is broken, B) he’s seen me attempt to iron and C) the friend likes the band and band photography and I had writing to do.  She brought her friend, a devout fan and extra hand to carry the other iron and ironing board.  (He also came in handy dragging light stands and battery packs and staging sections all over the studio.)

I spent most of the afternoon in the learning center of the studio (where the band manager was all set up with his laptop and printer and phone making what vaguely sounded like tour travel plans). I managed to get around 2300 words written in between interruptions before my laptop battery died.  I also discovered that the manager is a nice guy (at least on the surface — who knows what’s beneath still waters) as is the body guard/masseuse who was nearly done ready a Swedish novel about someone fucking something up.  He was a affable fellow with stories about working for a sort of Scandinavian boot camp for delinquents.

As for the band…meh.  At least the ironing maid (she’s married) had fun.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.