♫♪  R5 - “#RockthatRock” (Official Ring Pop Music Video)

My coworker and I arrived at Gramercy Theater around 3PM and started setting up, but there wasn’t really anything to do. She (full-time) and I (occasionally) work for this company that rents out photobooths for events, although actually it’s more of a backdrop than a photobooth. The idea is that people get their picture taken and it prints a little logo (called the “overlay” in industry speak) of whatever company hired the booth on top of the picture, in this case Ring Pop.

Ring Pop not only hired the photobooth to promote their product, but also this teen sensation band called R5 to write a song about Ring Pops, called “Rock That Rock.” The ring is the rock, you should display it proudly, or “rock it,” but also it’s a pun on rock music, you get the idea.

“Stand over there.” My friend instructed; it was time for some test shots, with yours truly as the subject. I put on some oversized glittery glasses (one of the many photobooth props) and a sequin fedora for good measure. When you laugh at work, you’re never sure if it’s a real laugh or just an attempt to convince yourself you’re not miserable.

Suddenly, the hundreds of preteen girls that had been lined up outside Gramercy Theater, stretching all the way around the block down Lexington Ave., came stampeding in en masse. We still weren’t fully set up, which didn’t matter since precisely zero of the girls in attendance cared in any way about getting their picture taken, or anything other than being as close to the band as possible, and several fights almost broke out over who got to be a few inches closer to the stage.

The lights go dim. A video comes on. The official “Rock That Rock” video, followed immediately by the band’s much applauded entrance onto the stage, who then played the exact same song live. They played about a half dozen songs. They looked like they sort of cared. They would slip in and out of self-awareness of their own status as a boy band, extremely popular, but with little to no artistic credibility, destined to be replaced by the next big thing in probably less than a year, but also aware that their alternative would be working some shitty day job, i.e., mine. Me and R5 were both stuck working at Gramercy Theater that day, but they were on stage and probably making a lot more money than I was; probably they figured that Rocking That Rock was a decent gig and they went for it. I don’t blame them.

There was also a little temporary tattoo both, free popcorn and soda, and some people giving out Ring Pop T-shirts. Of all those hired groups, I’m proud to say that we were the first to get the hell out of there, and in record time, out the door by 6:30 or so. “Say 8:00 on your invoice,” she told me, and I did.

• R5: https://www.r5rocks.com/home
• The Topps Company, Inc.: http://www.candymania.com

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

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