Mick, Keith and a 'Friend'

This summer, we asked listeners to tell us about the time they appeared in a music video. Our latest story comes from Eddie, who in 1981 lived in an apartment building that was already famous. Six years earlier, it had been featured on the cover of Led Zeppelin's album Physical Graffiti. Then, the Rolling Stones came knocking.

Well, to be precise, it was a music video director hired by the Rolling Stones, who told Eddie that "a major rock band" would be filming on his street the next day. He asked if Eddie would accept $40 for the use of his apartment. Eddie checked with his two roommates, got their OKs, and agreed to split the sum three ways. 

The next day, Eddie was directed to sit in his window overlooking St. Mark's Place. He ended up in what is probably the best video the Rolling Stones ever made. 

The plot is pretty simple: Mick Jagger waits on a stoop next to Eddie's building with three pals, including the reggae musician Peter Tosh. Keith Richards walks up, slaps a few fives and chats a bit. Mick and Keith eventually walk down the street to a sleazy bar (now the not-so-sleazy V Bar) where they dance a little with Ron Wood and kind of stumble over to their instruments on a tiny stage. That's it.

But Eddie's role was larger than he expected.

"After it came out, people I worked with [went] out to clubs where it was being premiered," Eddie says. They told him"' Oh My God, you are so in this video. You are really in this video.' As soon as I saw it, I was shocked."

As Mick and Keith walk to the bar, the camera pauses for a moment -- about three seconds, an eternity in a music video --- on a young blond man looking out his window. He looks like he's daydreaming or maybe waiting on a friend of his own. That's Eddie. 

He only earned about $13, but those few seconds have made him a little famous. Just a little.

"Looking back on it, I'm glad that it happened," Eddie says. "Strangers still come up to me all the time and say, 'Oh my God, are you in that Rolling Stones video?'"

Watch the "Waiting on a Friend" video, directed by past Soundcheck guest Michael Lindsay-Hogg.