Tony Aliprantis or how I learned to love punctuality

As a teenager I was in a band.  Like most teenage bands we were terrible and looking back on it we were probably more terrible than most bands.  Some people found us charming mainly due to our enthusiasm and naivety. In particular there was one man who took a liking to us. A man we found in the phone book.

We were sixteen and after about a year of practicing we had decided that the world needed to be able to take our music with them wherever they went.  A central theme throughout our career was that we had no idea what we were doing nor how to go about doing it.  We would make countless mistakes but we would learn from them.  A pretty great mistake that we made was to find a place to record not by asking other bands or going to different studios that recorded albums that we liked, but rather to grab the yellow pages and picking the first studio listed in our neighborhood.  We probably should have been tipped off that this was a mistake when we called the number listed and it wasn’t the studio’s number but the electrician’s who wired the studio. 

Instead of looking for another studio we decided to hoof it over to the address listed and book the space with a whopping $200 burning a hole in our band fund.  The doorbell for the studio was a red button mirroring any spaceship’s self-destruct button.  The owner or operator of Ragnarok studios was Anthony “Tony” Aliprantis.  Tony looked like he walked out of a metal video; with a panache for black, with thin black hair stretching half way down his back, with dark sunken eyes covered in scars.  He was surprised that the add he took out had the wrong number on it, which should have been a clear indicator of his level of professionalism but we were young and chomping at the bit to record.  Our second and third indicators of who were dealing with were that he was free the very next day and he would do it all for our $200. 

Over the years I’ve learned how good a recording is by how long it takes you to start hearing the problems with it.  A good recording will take you 4-6 months for things to bother you.  A great recording is over 6 months before you hear anything that strikes you funny.  This recording we heard things on the car ride home.  Usually if you are moving quickly you can finish recording a song in about 8-10 hours.  If all goes well you get all the sounds and basic tracks done in about 4 hours, vocals and the rest in about 2-3 hours and then about 2 hours to mix the song. That day we finished 8 songs in 8 hours and Tony mixed all eight songs in 35 minutes.  Now you can see why the warts became glaring on the car ride home.

That being said, Tony was always very good to us, he liked something about us and it most certainly wasn’t our music.  We spent a lot of time at the studio learning what we could and hanging out when we had any free time.  Tony became a resource for us.  He would barter studio time for us promoting the studio and any other odds and ends he could come up with like going to store and picking up iced teas and rolling papers.  Oh, and something worth mentioning, Tony loved his weed.  He would smoke constantly and then the 180 degree mood swings would kick in.

Much like most teenage bands we were poor and would scrap by either pooling our money and buying what we needed or borrowing from whoever we could.  We were playing a show and we needed a drum throne, the seat that the drummer sits on.  We called Tony and asked if he had one we could borrow and since he was on a good weed kick, he said of course, but with one caveat.

“Guys, I need the throne back tomorrow first thing in the morning.  I have a session and it’s the only one I got.”

“Sure, Tony.  Not a problem.  Charles will drop it off first thing in the morning.”

At the time we were practicing in Charles’s house and I was living in long island, a good 45 minutes away.  Charles was also closest to Tony so it made the most sense for him to drop it off. 

We played a completely forgettable show and reminded Charles to drop off the throne.  We agreed to have practice the following Saturday afternoon. 

Saturday comes around and we all get together in Charles’s basement.  Staring us right in the face is the throne.  You know the throne that was supposed to be dropped off a week ago, first thing in the morning.  We decided to practice and immediately walk over to Tony’s and return the throne and face the consequences.  Because of his demeanor, his proclivity to switch from the nicest guy to someone who would blow a fuse in the course of 30 seconds, we were all terrified.  Straight up terrified.  The entire walk over to the studio we were speculating over what Tony we’d get.  We were trying to gauge how angry he’d be because in a effect we were costing him money, probably weed money. Since it was Charles’s responsibility to return the throne, it was decided that he’d stand in front of the line with me second and Chris third.  We thought we had speculated every possible outcome of what would happen after we pressed the red self-destruct doorbell but nothing prepared us for what happened next.

We were severely on edge and every second felt like a lifetime, that’s just how intimidating Tony Aliprantis was.  Fear would permeate you to your core over returning a drum throne to a friend one week late. 

The door flies open and there’s Tony wearing a “Heart of Darkness” t-shirt rife with holes, hot pink Animaniacs sweatpants, holding a cocked shotgun.  I immediately thought we were all going to die and given how close we were standing together if it would take only one bullet from the shotgun to murder all three of us.  My bet was yes, only one. 

“Hey guys!  Come on in!  I’m cleaning my Civil war shotguns. What brings you by?”

After collectively ruining our pants we returned the throne apologizing profusely for its delay. 

“Oh don’t worry about it, who wants to go get me an iced tea and some rolling papers?” 

For the first time we all jumped at the chance to go buy him rolling papers.