The tale of the URO and the lawsuit, brought to us by Sal Clemente and the members of the URO.
***Queen’s Note: If you love rock and haven’t seen the URO in action, SHAME on you!***
Wanna hear an interesting story? Some ‘behind-the-scenes’ band gossip? A tale of woe and dread eight years in the making?
Thought so…
Almost 10 years ago, when Alan and I first conceived (literally and figuratively) the Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra, we really could never have predicted all of the amazing things that have happened to us, good and bad.
We’ve had the chance to work with all kinds of great, and good, people in our time with the URO. Great bandmates, incredible family, and some awesome business/theatre people, who’ve been both ethical and generous with us.
We’ve also had to adjust to the idiosyncrasies of others – a few bandmates (that’s another blog) and one person who, after working with us for several years to try to take the URO to the next level of business success, decided to quit, and then sue us for everything we have.
This is that story –
We met this fellow (let’s call him, ‘Bob’) in March of 2006, after a performance at our beloved Regent Theatre – he came backstage, was effusive about the band, and how much he wanted to work with us.
We got together with Bob several times over the next few months to determine the direction of our collaboration, and in that first year, when the economy was booming and gigs were plentiful, we worked to build the foundation of a good relationship. Bob was inexperienced, older, but certainly enthusiastic and hardworking – kinda like us, so we went for it.
Our first few co-productions were a successful run at The Regent Theatre and a very successful single show at The Berkeley Performance Center.
Now what? We wanted to make a bigger splash, but what to do?
Alan and I pushed to complete a documentary film we were making about the URO and our version of Jesus Christ Superstar (hundreds of hours of footage still rest quietly in the vault), but Bob wasn’t interested – he wanted to put on more and bigger shows.
Bob insisted that the way to go was to push into downtown Boston and make the URO a “theatre event.” He wanted to make us the new Blue Man Group, and we kinda liked the sound of that. Perhaps we were all suffering delusions of grandeur.
Alan and I let Bob know there was no way for us to come up with the money to produce a long run in Boston, but Bob, who drove an Astin Martin when he wasn’t driving his Range Rover, seemed to have the deep pockets needed, and was willing to produce the Wilbur shows on his own. So, after looking closely at all our options, Alan and I agreed to do it. This was in 2007, before our current horrible recession, when W was still president and the world was young…
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