t’s the summer of 1978 and after living my whole life as a 145 pound weakling my father encouraged me to consider weight training. So we went to Sears and bought a set of those plastic weights, the ones with the sand inside and a workout bench. I would work out in the basement every single day, sweatin’ and puffin’, pleading for just an inkling of muscle growth and much to my dismay it never really happened.
So then I turned my focus to supplementation. If it had the name Weider on it, I bought it… protein powder, dessicated liver, amino acid tablets, gladulars, you name it. So as luck would have it, hundreds of dollars and 1000 smelly farts later I still had no discernible increase in muscle mass.
Realizing that there what no magic pill or potion I then began to focus on nutrition. I ate and drank everything that the magazines said I should eat to get big, whole milk, cheese, beef and more. Finally, results! I hit about 185 pounds and decided to join a local gym, Dynamo. Here, I quickly absorbed everything that I could about training and put the so-called “Weider Principles” to work.
After a year or two I decided with a little help from a couple of guys in the gym to hit the bodybuilding stage. So, here I am at nearly 200 pounds ready to rock the house but much to my dismay when I dieted to get that highly sought after ripped look I was a mere 159 pounds. Disappointed nonetheless I competed in a local AAU contest placing 5th in my class and let’s just say I was hooked. So, from ’84 to ’88 I competed in lots of shows always placing in the top 5 and finally taking the overall prize in The AAU Novice Nation’s Capitol.
After years of hard work in the gym and the kitchen it was time to retire the posing trunks and I earned a spot in the AAU as a national judge in the Sport of Physique. I served as a national judge for many years getting the chance to travel across the U.S. and scrutinize many of the nation’s top male and female athletes.
Now let’s get to the good part. It was 1991 and my good friend Pete Miller was an AAU promoter in D.C. Pete many of the areas biggest competitions. I would attend or judge many of his events and became increasingly irritated by the quality of sound and overall production of the events. You could not hear the emcee, the music was grossly distorted, cues were missed, etc. So one day I asked Pete how much was he paying this sound guy? He said $200. I said, look give me $200, I’ll go rent some stuff and I will make sure that the audience and athletes get the sound that they deserve.
Rewind to the early 70’s… I grew up playing drums in a local rock/funk band, Soul Formula, so I knew a thing or to about good sound. I figured I could parlay that experience into this and do a hell of a lot better job than the current sound guy.
So I did and everybody noticed the difference and loved the show. I did it again and again for Pete until finally after other promoters began asking for my services a light bulb went off in my head and I turned to my childhood friend Anthony Rucker and said let’s start a business providing audio services exclusively to the bodybuilding community.
I busted out the credit cards, went to the music store and put together the best sound system that I could and BodyRock Productions was born. We quickly caught the attention of most all of the bodybuilding promoters in the Mid-Atlantic region and soon we were doing about 2 shows per month. It was not hard to find work and we were really enjoying helping to make all of these shows more professional and successful. Athletes would even ask the promoter who was doing sound and if they said any name other than BodyRock sometimes they would not even enter the show.
It gets better. I was at a small show in Annapolis, Maryland one day and across the room I saw a guy who I recognized as a famous pro bodybuilder. I sheepishly approached him and introduced myself as I had heard that he was co-promoting an upcoming contest. I told him who I was and what I did and quite honestly he seemed genuinely disinterested. He probably thought I was just another weirdo fan. Well, the next thing I know his boy calls me up and asks me to do the audio at this pro bodybuilder’s first competition with his name on it. His name… Kevin Levrone. The show… The NPC Kevin Levrone Classic.
I will never forget when Kevin walked into the auditorium that day during sound check and he just stood there with his mouth wide open and nodded his approval to me as the music blared from the speakers. He then came over to me and after a couple of positive expletives I knew that he was utterly impressed. During the show he kept coming over to me in disbelief and after the show he said he’d do whatever he could to get the word out about how great BodyRock was.
Next thing I knew I was in MuscleMag magazine in a photo with Kevin Levrone as he praised my work in the text accompanying the photo. I’ll get back to Kevin later.
It’s January 1993 and I got a call from NPC Maryland Chairperson Lisa Hopfer. She asked me to consider becoming an NPC promoter. She thought that my skills as an audio provider would carry over well into the arena of contest promotion quite well. I wasn’t so sure. I was scared to death to try this as I did not know how, where or what I was going to do. Finally, after talking to a couple of promoters to get ideas I decided not to follow any of their molds but instead create my own. I had a vision.
On September 23, 1995 The 1995 NPC BodyRock Classic hit Bowie State University in Bowie, Maryland like nothing anyone had ever seen before. I got together some of my best friends, most of whom were already involved in bodybuilding in some way and I put together a small but very capable staff to assist me with this new endeavor. There was a live band, The BodyRock Band, with me on drums, new IFBB pro sensation Mike Francois fresh off of two pro wins in his rookie year, the incredible national bodybuilder Ivory “Papoose” Turner who popped and locked his way into the hearts of everyone that night as his wife was in labor with his son and an unknown up and coming amateur named King Kamali. I secured as my emcee former D.C. 101 dee-jay, The Smash.
The set design was an awesome sight to behold with construction scaffolding and rocks (simulated) eight feet tall, rock concert style lighting and of course house-shaking sound. Seven hundred plus screaming fans voiced there approval of the new look and format and without me knowing it a new era in bodybuilding had just begun… Bodybuilding as entertainment. No longer were the athletes just posing and getting a trophy. They felt like rock stars on the stage with over-the-top lighting and big, big sound. The audience members were getting an incredible treat too because they now had the chance to see the hottest guest posers in the world at that time… Don Long, Kevin Levrone, Dale Tomita, and even a pre-Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman. There was a mini-expo outside of the venue with 10 to 12 vendors from the fitness industry showcasing their stuff. Everybody was loving it.
Rewind back to Mr. Levrone. Kevin was busy preparing for the 1994 Mr. Olympia in Atlanta when he heard that I had been creating posing music for a number of amateur athletes. The most notable were Paposse and King Kamali. King had really been making a name for himself since his appearance at the BodyRock with his robotic pop and pose style. Kevin asked me to help him put together something for that show and I did. It was the first pro show that I had ever attended and I remember feeling nervous waiting for Kevin to come out. When he did it was amazing. I thought an IFBB Pro is posing to my music at the biggest contest in the world, The Mr. Olympia. He placed second that year but as promised he continued to spread the word around the industry about the talents of BodyRock.
Soon, I was doing music for Diana Dennis, Adela Garcia-Friedemansky, Theresa Hessler, Jenny Worth, Ronnie Coleman, Melvin Anthony, Flex Wheeler, Darrem Charles and many, many more. Oh yeah, I got more write ups in the mags, too.
But what about The BodyRock Classic? Well, we hit a bump in the road. We stayed at Bowie State University for two more years 1996 and 1997 when I realized that although I’m having great fun and making an incredible impact within the industry and gaining notoriety around the nation, the fact is I was losing lots of money. My money!
So, in 1998, I walked away from promoting but continued to provide professional audio services to others. Each night that I would sit there doing audio for the other shows it was eating away at me… “I really miss this, I want to come back.” But if I do it’s gotta be big, enormous, huge”. I thought, “What can I do to make the BodyRock stand out. How can I make it vastly different than any other offering out there?” The year 2000 was quickly approaching and I thought how awesome it would be to resurrect The BodyRock at the turn of the century.
Then it came to me. It’s like a giant rock hit me on the head… a BodyRock! I had my answer. Monica Brant. Monica Brant you ask? Well, you see the NPC fitness division had been rolling for a while and I fashioned myself a purist and said I would never add fitness to my bodybuilding show. Fitness is too corny. But, the hypocrite that I am, I was also the nation’s biggest Monica Brant fan. She had retired from professional fitness competition by this time but she was still the biggest name in IFBB Fitness. I figured that if I could get her to partner with me on this it would be huge. Precisely what the doctor ordered.
So, I put together an extensive proposal, tracked down her phone number and “cold called” her. She probably didn’t know what to think. Maybe I was just some crazed fan trying to pull something. But she asked me to send the proposal and much to my delight and surprise she called me back and we began to talk about the details.
She was excited. She gave me her input as to how she wanted to be involved when it came to the fitness ladies but for the most part she trusted me to create the show that I thought was appropriate to carry the name of the goddess of IFBB fitness.
So off I go. I secured the 1800 seat Center for the Arts Concert Hall at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virgina. I hired one of the D.C. areas premier lighting companies, Atmosphere. Wanting the sound to be even more spectacular, I contracted Springfield Sound who brought in the type of system you’d find at a full-on rock concert… 8 monstrous subwoofers and 12 speakers flown from the ceiling.
Next, I always felt that we must find a way to keep folks entertained all day so that once they get to the venue they’d want to stay and watch all of the activities. I had been many times to Columbus, Ohio to attend The Arnold Classic so I decided to present my “expo” in that manner. First, build a stage in the expo area which was just outside of the main auditorium. Second, secure the hottest acts possible. Third, attract the biggest names in the health and fitness industry to exhibit at the show. And finally, wait for it… wait for it. DON’T charge admission.
So what happened? After careful planning and lots of road work beating the pavement at other events including the Arnold, passing out sponsorship information and talking ‘til I was talked out, it happened. The BodyRock was resurrected. We called it BR2K… The NPC BodyRock Bodybuilding Championships and The Monica Brant Fitness Classic.
The buzz in the industry of our return was fantastic. All we had to do now was execute the biggest show of our lives. I remember standing in the expo area that day looking around at over 40 vendors. Met-Rx, Universal Nutrition, Weider, Flex Magazine, American Bodybuilding and more. The expo stage was jumping all day long with karate and yoga demos, tanning, training and nutrition seminars, push-up and sit-up contests, guest posings and more all under the watchful eye of emcee Dawn MacLear, a super wacky and super talented yoga instructor that I found at a local Gold’s Gym. I remember feeling the energy and electricity and seeing all of the smiling faces and wide-eyed attendees.
I then knew that we had done it right.
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What Happened To Bodyrock
