This is it...my very own website.  I'm very excited about it.  And when I say "excited", keep in mind I am not wearing any pants. 

This page is dedicated to my whacky sense of humor.  You can READ MY BLOG, view MY PHOTOS, watch MY VIDEOS and listen to my tunes.  It's all about making you laugh.  If I start to get too serious, somebody kick my ass.

Thanks for stopping by!

CB

HOW I GOT MY NICKNAME

During the summer of 2001, I was working for an Atlanta-based sound and lighting production company called The Show Business. We handled live concert production needs for many events in the Atlanta area. Being the type of person that knows a little bit about almost everything, you could find me doing just about anything from one week to the next. By being a dependable, versatile and hard worker, I had the privilege of working with many entertainment legends. One week I would be Lighting Director for Smokey Robinson or The Drifters. The next week I would be Monitor Engineer for The Marshall Tucker Band or even The Beach Boys. And I didn’t just work with “oldies” acts. I was stage manager for concerts with bands like NOFX and I worked shows with bands like Poison, Cinderella, Montgomery Gentry and Kenny Chesney.

Looking back, it was pretty amazing. I only ever worked with each artist or band for a couple of shows. But I worked very closely with them and they depended on me. I worked really hard to make sure I was put in positions of responsibility. Our company was young, and I really wanted to make sure that each artist or band had the best experience possible during their brief time in our care. I wasn't the "star", but I wanted to make sure the real stars didn't have anything to worry about. By stepping up and putting myself in these high profile jobs, I was also taking a big risk. For most of the shows, if I screwed up, it could seriously have affected the show in a negative way. It would have been much easier and less nerve-wracking if I had just been content to be among the guys who simply unloaded trucks and pushed gear around the stage. I did all that work, too. But when an artist or their tour manager had a problem, all the other guys pushing gear knew to point in my direction.

I always approached my job by thinking about things from the artist’s point of view. I am a musician, and I had been performing professionally for many years. I had experienced first hand what happens when things go wrong. I knew what it was like to try to perform in front of an audience while gear was malfunctioning or the crew was incompetent. I knew the stress of traveling and the pressure of delivering a winning performance first-hand. I always tried to stay several steps ahead of any situation and give the artists nothing to complain about.

Of course, it is impossible to please everybody all the time. And some artists are just impossible to please at any time. I can remember a few soundchecks that went on for hours and hours, where nothing any of us could do would satisfy the artist. But for the most part we managed to do a good job and it was usually appreciated. You always know when things are not going well because the band or more often their tour manager is doing a lot of yelling. If things were going well, there was simply less yelling.

Every once in a while there would be a small gesture that made the 20 hours of back-breaking, sweaty work truly worthwhile. I was stage manager for Tony Orlando. You might not even know who he is. But I grew up watching his television show in the 70’s. And this guy used to hang in Vegas with the likes of Frank Sinatra. To me, he’s a legend and I was excited and nervous to work his shows. He put on a great show both nights, and at the end of the second show, as he walked off stage, he handed me his microphone, smiled at me and said, “Thank you…great job!” ME! He said that to me. Our company had 20 people working that show, but I was the one he talked to. Then again, I was the one who would get yelled at if things had not gone well…I made sure I was THE ONE. I didn’t do it because I cared about meeting famous people or because I wanted the praise (or the abuse). I wanted to be THE ONE because I tend to believe that I am the one person who can and will get the job done right. I had spent too much time seeing other guys do bad work and not care. I just can’t live like that. Although there were guys who’d worked for that company for many years longer than I had, I quickly pushed to make sure I was the one who was going to take responsibility for these artists. And I knew I was doing a good job when people like Mike Love of The Beach Boys walked off stage and shook my hand, saying, “Thank you, that was a first class job on the monitors!”

I didn’t always do a great job. I made mistakes all the time. One time, while climbing down a ladder, I actually stepped on C. C. DeVille’s head. Fortunately, he has a good sense of humor and laughed about it. There was so much to do, and so much to know. I am naturally a bit insecure, and so even though I was strong on the outside, I was usually fairly freaked out on the inside. But my insecurity worked on my favor. Along with insecurity came obsession. I would spend a week preparing for a show. I would go over the production requirements a hundred times. I would make sure there was more gear than we really needed, in case something broke, or the band asked for something that wasn’t in the contract. I thought about my crew and tried to place the right guys in the right positions. During load in and set up, I would double- and triple-check everything. I was at the venue at 6am. By the time the band arrived for soundcheck at 3pm, I usually had already checked all of their gear myself and made sure it was right. In my head I thought, if these guys can walk in here and say, “Wow!” then I am doing it right. More often than not, I got it right.

One of the most memorable concerts (actually, two concerts) I worked was for the guitar legend, Chuck Berry. I could have run monitors for these shows. The monitor system is what the band hears on stage. Each member of the band has his own set of speakers with his or her own “mix”. Many times, the various musicians will all want changes in their “mix” from song to song. It’s a challenging job to keep up with everybody on stage. Usually the mixing console is off to the side of the stage. I had grown bored with running monitors. It’s a crucial job, but we had other good monitor guys. I liked to be stage manager. I had more freedom to move around and oversee a number of important aspects of the show. Plus, that made me the boss of everybody on stage, including the monitor engineer. It also made me directly responsible to the artist.

For the shows with Chuck Berry, I also took it upon myself to double as “backline manager”. For some of the shows we worked, the bands didn’t actually travel with any drums, keyboards, guitar amplifiers or other gear. They would just bring their guitars. Our company had a small supply of “backline gear” but usually we’d have to find what the bands wanted from other companies that specialized in that sort of thing. Chuck demanded special amplifiers that were hard to find. We eventually found some in Nashville. It turns out one of the amps had actually belonged to Chuck many years ago. It was exciting to me to be handling this vintage equipment.

All week before the shows with Chuck Berry, I was extra nervous. It was widely known that Chuck was eccentric and often difficult to work with. He was old, paranoid and downright strange. He was known to even be verbally abusive to his band and crew. At least, that is what I’d heard. I was glad we’d found the right guitar amps! I made sure the day of the first show to set up his amplifiers EXACTLY as they were shown on the diagram that had been provided. I mean, I had a tape measure out to make sure they were in the exact spot specified in the picture. In the afternoon, the band showed up without Chuck. They were all fairly nice and easy to talk to. I got to hear a little bit about what it was like playing for Chuck. None of them ever traveled with Chuck. They just met up with him whenever he called them. The keyboard player was basically the Musical Director, in charge of making sure the other musicians knew the songs and he acted like a tour manager, since Chuck didn’t actually have a tour manager. The funny thing was, this guy didn’t really know much about Chuck’s gear. He just seemed very nervous and wanted me to assure him I’d gotten everything Chuck asked for. I was told Chuck would not attend soundcheck. Then I was handed a guitar case. The keyboard player said, “Here’s Chuck’s guitar. Can you please plug it in and check it?” ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Suddenly I am standing on stage holding THE guitar. Chuck Berry’s famous red Gibson. Never, at any point in my life of listening to music and watching musicians on TV and going to concerts and dreaming about my life in “the biz” did I ever think I would be holding Chuck Berry’s guitar in my hands. And now I was given the responsibility of plugging it in and making sure everything worked. Well, I had asked for this responsibility!

So, I take the guitar out of it’s case and I am immediately faced with a problem. A string is broken, and the rest of the strings are very old. I show the broken string to the keyboard player who promptly freaks out. Apparently the stories about Chuck are true, because this keyboard player was suddenly at a loss as to what he should do and he did not look happy about having to go tell Chuck Berry about a broken guitar string. I said, “Hey man, it’s cool. I’m a guitar player and I brought fresh strings for just such a situation. I’ll just change the strings and everything will be fine.” Honestly, I didn’t see what the big deal was. But the Keyboard player says, “Oh, I don’t know! I mean, I have to go talk to Chuck and see what he says!” In my head I’m thinking, “What’s Chuck going to say? CHANGE THE DAMN STRING!” But I tell the keyboard player, “Look, I can change it in just a minute and it will be fine, trust me!” And he goes on, “No, you don’t understand…Chuck gets really freaked out about these things and…I just better go talk to him.” I say, “Okay, “ and shrug my shoulders. And as soon as he walks away, I begin changing the broken string. You have to understand my frame of mind by 4pm on Show Day. I’ve been working all week for this show. I’ve been at the venue for ten hours already, and I won’t be going home for another 8 hours. I have a lot of stuff to do and I’m hungry. It’s about 98 degrees, I’m hot, tired and I just want to get things done so I can finally sit down for a minute. When the keyboard player comes back ten minutes later he hurries up to me, out of breath, and says, “Chuck says to go ahead and fix the broken string!” He tells me this as I am strapping on the guitar. I flip a switch on the amplifier and turn around and hit a big chord on the most famous guitar I personally know of in the world. I am wearing one of the biggest smiles of my life. The keyboard player’s mouth is hanging open and it takes him a few seconds to figure out what I did. I think he was so relieved that Chuck didn’t fire him and everything was fixed that he couldn’t think of anything much to say except, “Oh, good.” The Front of House sound engineer (who happens to be Matt, our company’s owner and my boss) pulls up the guitar channel and I do my best Chuck Berry impersonation for soundcheck. All my crew are cracking up laughing and I know the stress of a long hot day is draining out of everybody for at least a few minutes. It’s one of those times when everything is just…cool.

A few hours later, as the opening band is going through their set, Chuck Berry suddenly appears at the side of the stage. He looks in the direction of the monitor engineer and shouts, “I’m Chuck Berry, who’s in charge around here?” The monitor engineer, Greg, does not hesitate to point directly at me. I’m already making a beeline for Chuck. I step right up and announce, “Hi, I’m Chris, what can I do for you?” “Chuck replies, “What’s your name?” “Chris…Chris Butler. I am the stage manager. I’m in charge.” Chuck says, “Armpit? What kind of name is Armpit?” In that one thousandth of a second I have to think about what he just said, I realize that everything I ever heard is true…this man is NUTS and I can see and feel everybody looking at me and I know they are all REALLY glad they are not in my shoes at that second. Greg, our monitor engineer is staring at us with his mouth hanging open in disbelief. I ignore Greg and say, “Armpit? Um, no, sir. My name is Chris…” Then Chuck says, “Right, well listen here, Armpit, I’m gonna need you to turn those amplifiers around and point them at the drummer.” I blink and ask, “You want me to turn your amplifiers away from you and point them at the drummer?” Chuck confirms, “That damn fool don’t know what the fuck he’s doing and I want to make damn sure he can hear me!" Again, I have one thousandth of a second to digest what is coming out of Chuck’s mouth and decide how to respond. You see, I had spent the better part of two weeks finding those amplifiers. And I had spent considerable time studying the stage plot and a good part of my morning making sure those amplifiers were EXACTLY where they were supposed to be. Now, with the opening band about to play it’s final song, and with only ten minutes in-between to clear the whole stage of the opening band’s gear and make sure everything is ready for the headline act, I have now just been told I have to move half the gear on stage. It’s going to take more time and more people than I have. I take a breath and tell Chuck Berry, “Okay, I will move them and point them at the drummer just as soon as the opening band is finished.” And with that, he turned around and disappeared.

I had just a few minutes to think. We had a short amount of time to do the set changeover and all of my crewmembers already had specific tasks to perform. I didn’t have a big crew near the stage anyway, so I had to figure out how to make this happen. I knew I could count on our monitor guy, Greg, to watch the other guys clear the stage of the opening band’s gear. We always do a quick line-check to make sure nothing got unplugged or otherwise screwed up. Greg said he’d handle that. I had to scramble to find somebody who could help me move Chuck’s amps. They are large, and heavy. And I had to move each one of them a considerable distance. As soon as the opening band hit their last note, I jumped into action. The drummer was already getting ready behind the drum kit and he gave me a “what in the world are you doing!” kind of look. I yelled that Chuck just told me to point the amps at him. He rolled his eyes as if this was not really a surprise and muttered something about, “that crazy old man.” I got the amps moved and everything else looked good. I looked up in time to see Greg give me a thumbs-up and I knew everything was ready to go. I saw Chuck appear on the side again and I went straight to him to assure him. He started telling more stories about what an idiot the drummer was, while at the same time there was a blaring in my headset. It was Matt, up at the mix position out front. He wanted to know how this show was going to start. Usually, a stage manager or somebody with the band would have long ago told us what the opening of the show would be…maybe there would be some intro music for us to play, or a special lighting setting or a total blackout as a queue to start. But since Chuck traveled with no manager, and I’d not seen him until just a few minutes ago and I was so busy moving amps, I had not had time to find out how he wanted to take the stage. The house lights were on and some lame music was playing through the system while the audience waited. Matt’s yelling in my ear and suddenly Chuck asks me, “What time is it?” Before I can answer, Chuck looks at his own watch, announces, “It’s 8 o’clock, I get to get the fuck on stage!” He then grabs his guitar from my hands and walks out. I’m yelling back to Matt, “He’s on! He’s on! NOW!” The spotlights come on and the house lights come down as the crowd cheers and Chuck yells into his microphone, “Hello!” and the band starts playing. Matt comes back over my headset, “Well…that’s one way to do it.” I look over at Greg and shrug my shoulders.

Chuck and the band play hit after hit for about half an hour before a problem arises. The show is in an outdoor amphitheater. It’s summer time. There are bugs. Flying bugs. That’s life in the summer in Georgia. But there is this one rather large bug that keeps dive-bombing Chuck. Chuck is trying to tell a story to the audience, but he seems distracted by this large bug. Chuck looks over in my direction a couple of times, but it doesn’t occur to me that there’s anything I can do about a bug. The keyboard player starts yelling at me, “PSSSST! That bug is freaking Chuck out…you have to DO something!” Really? I have to do something? What could I DO? I mean, I will do just about anything to make the show go right. But WHAT can I do about a bug? It’s not even flying anymore. It’s just on the ground. Chuck won’t go near it. I mean, the concert has literally come to a halt. Now, I would not normally actually go out onto the stage during the show unless there was something obvious I needed to fix or unless I was actually summoned by the performer. In this case, there was nothing obvious to me that I could, because I really didn’t understand what the problem was. And Chuck had not motioned for me to come out or anything. It was one of those times where I really had to second-guess my decision to be stage manager. The keyboard player is now yelling at me to go help Chuck. I yell back, “What do you want me to DO?” He says, “Just GO!” I start to walk out on stage. It’s a sold-out concert that has now become an uncomfortable silence. As I walk, I keep waiting for Chuck to freak out ON ME for coming out there…but he says nothing. As I walk past the drum riser, I pick up a towel…not really sure what I am going to do. I am trying to be invisible. It’s not working. I am now standing center stage in front of 2,500 people with Chuck Berry and a bug. Chuck’s just looking at me. No words. No anything. I fear he might actually kill me. I slowly bend down and scoop the large bug, a beetle, onto the towel. I had thought about just stepping on the bug, but for some reason that felt wrong, at least in front of all those people. Who knows? There might have been some bug-lovers in the audience. Heck, at this point, it couldn’t get any stranger, could it? I just scoop up the bug, and then make a rather exaggerated display of protecting the bug with the towel. Chuck just stares at me like I am the crazy one. I know it took only seconds, but it felt like hours. And suddenly I was off stage and setting the bug free. Chuck then addresses the audience. “Most people would have just killed a bug, but Armpit here is a special kinda guy with a warm heart.” The audience laughs, and he kicks into “My Ding-A-Ling”.

Again, Matt, my boss, is talking to me in my earpiece, “What in the world was THAT all about!” Dude, I have no idea. Can we just get this over with?

The rest of the show goes on. Chuck, even at an old age is still a pro and does a great job entertaining the audience. I am thinking that soon, it will all be over and I can go home and pass out. And then I look up and Chuck, who is still playing his guitar, is waving to me. What? Me? Is he waving at me? NOW WHAT? What does he want? I just don’t get it. Usually the artists don’t want anybody on stage. I can’t see anything wrong. This would have been so much easier if he’d come to soundcheck to explain himself a little. I don’t know Chuck. I don’t know what he expects of me! He starts boogying his way towards me…the band is still playing…he’s waving at me to come towards him…Matt is back in my ear, “NOW WHAT?”…so I just go. I walk out there…meet him halfway, and while he’s still playing the guitar, he starts to take it off. He leans over and yells in my ear, “Take this damn guitar, I got to get the fuck outta here!” And he slips the guitar around my shoulder and walks away. The band is still playing, the lights are on, the crowd is cheering and nobody has a clue what to do next. I’m just standing on the stage in the spotlight with Chuck’s guitar and he is GONE. But then the band begins to roll out the finale and so I take off the guitar, and place it on the guitar stand and slip off the stage. The show is over!

As the audience files out and my crew starts cleaning up the stage, everyone is coming up to me, asking me what was going on. I mean, it was such a strange night. I was drained because it all stressed me out. Then there is a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and it is some lady. I have no idea who she is. But she reaches out and hands me a guitar pick. She says, “This is from Chuck, he wants you to have it…and he says, Thank You.” And she smiles and walks away.

I have performed as a guitar player and bass player from one end of this country to the other, in front of countless people. I have seen so much, been there, done that. I have hung out and partied with all kinds of people. From the production side of the business I have worked with many famous people. Life really has been kind of like a dream in many ways. But one of my absolute favorite memories is the time I spent with Chuck Berry.

And that's how I got my nickname.