Bart left us off at a pizza joint near Berklee and Ziggy’s apartment. I got myself a spinach pie that was too hot to eat without burning my fingers and Ziggy got a couple of slices of pizza that were too cold to let sit around for very long. When he was done inhaling them, though, he said “You know, for two guys who spend so much time together, I don’t think I know you very well.”
I was going to say ‘likewise’ but didn’t want to draw attention to any secretiveness there might have been on my own part, so I didn’t want to imply it on his. “What do you want to know?”
“I dunno, where you’re from, shit like that. You aren’t originally from Providence, are you?”
“Fuck no. It’s much worse. I’m from New Jersey.”
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The next couple of weeks were uneventful. Bart and I took a few trips to Providence to do some sessions with someone he knew there, a violin player doing some kind of electric avant jazz, which was fun and paid okay, and Moondog Three played out about once a week. We opened for Dali’s Express who had just made their “major label debut” and we got written up in one of the local music zines as “fun.” I supposed I could live with that description. I accidentally missed an afternoon of work when I was putting lyrics to the new stuff I’d been working on and ended up completely hoarse and almost without a job, but Michelle covered for me and I worked overtime that weekend to make up for it. Living near Berklee, I browsed the used section of their bookstore a lot and picked up a bunch of textbooks on the music industry. And read them.
Not being famous but working real hard at it seemed almost like a routine I could settle in to.
Until Remo called from the road. Continue Reading »
After Bart dropped Ziggy off, he turned the car toward Cambridge. We parked behind the McDonalds, but crossed the street to the Middle East where greater quantities of food could be had, cheaper, if you didn’t mind rude waitresses and a lot of spillover noise from the club room in the back. He wanted to know what had gone on between me and Zig on the loading dock. I told him how I came down on him for not being reliable and how he came down on me for being a self-righteous prick. In other words, everything was fine.
We talked about the indie label idea again, and about finding a drummer. I fretted. Bart suggested we not hold our audition in the park this time. “We must know someone,” I said, again.
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A lot of the time when I play, it’s like my brain shuts off. Later, I kind of wake up in the middle of a song and I can remember everything that has been going on, but it’s almost like someone else was doing it. I don’t realize it when I’m slipping into that state, but when I come up sometimes it’s a cold shock and I hate it. This rehearsal was a lot like that. We got grooving right away, everything so bright and real while it went on, but then I was coming up to a solo, and there was Ziggy with this crazy maniac’s grin on his face, like he was waiting for me to deliver the note that would drive him over the edge, and as I started that first pick up note, I came to. I was walking toward him at the time, like I was going to do something, but what I don’t know since suddenly real life flooded back and I not only flubbed the note, I physically stumbled.
I went down on one knee and kept my eyes on the ground. Bart had stopped playing but the drum machine droned on. Ziggy took a step toward me — are you okay? –but I pulled away, getting to my feet and stamping on the pedal that shut the drum machine up. It was quiet now, but my head continued to pound. The other two were staring at me.
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Okay, time for a liner note, if for no other reason than OH MY GOD FOLKS WE DID IT! We won the 2010 Rose and Bay Award for crowdfunded fiction!
I say “we” because this really is a group project, and it was followers/readers like you who voted for DGC to win the award. I’m humbled by some of the names we beat out, too. (You can see the original nominees list here: http://community.livejournal.com/crowdfunding/164346.html. Lots of good serial novels and online fiction worth reading there.)
While we’re on the subject of cool stuff found on the Internet…
Do you know about the CodeOrgan?
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The name on the card Artie had given me was Michael Knight. I had figured he’d be a guy a lot like Artie, but he wasn’t really. We played phone tag for about two weeks and then one day his secretary caught me at home and told me Mister Knight was on the line–after which she put me on hold for a few minutes. When he did come on he sounded incredibly uncomfortable that I didn’t have a last name.
I was even more uncomfortable with the deal he wanted to make, in which he would put up seed money for us to produce an album which he would then essentially own. He would then shop the product around to different labels. When I pushed him on the details, eventually his strategy came out–make a band big in the “underground” music scene, and then when the big labels start to show interest, auction them off to the highest bidder. I was cringing when I asked, “Is this what a music publisher does?”
He went on to describe other benefits he could provide, like contract negotiating and in-house producers, while I was thinking: isn’t that what a manager is supposed to do? I’d already heard more than enough but I let him go on until the clock read 6:15. “Look, I have a rehearsal to get to.”
“That’s fine, my boy. Send your demo tape around to me and I’ll send you a contract.”
My boy. Jeezus. Continue Reading »
Another shiver ran through my shoulders, and I wondered if I should put my jacket back on. I wondered if I should just sit here and see what attention I might snare, or if I should be out hunting more aggressively.
I had stumbled my way through the bar ritual before in Providence. The last time had been one night I had talked my way into the No Name. I ended up at a dorm room at Brown University, where my pickup convinced his roommate to go to his girlfriend’s room while I hid my face in the bathroom. We used condoms he’d gotten out of a candy dish in the bar. An hour later I was on my way home, all the while worrying his roommate recognized me from the two gigs we’d done on the campus. As I was leaving I saw two people I knew from the Copa in the hallway and never went back there again.
The man in the leather vest stood up, putting down his beer glass with a loud thump. His eyes passed over me like searchlights. He had the same mustache as the bartender. A pair of mirrored sunglasses rested at the center of his shirt collar, dragging it down to show a tuft of chest hair. He circled around behind me and I shivered again, feeling like a diver in a shark cage. He looked rough, gruff, and tough, like a drill sargent or a prison guard. If he touched me or spoke to me I wondered what I would say, or if I would just flee like the prey his attention made me feel like I was. Perhaps I would merely be transfixed by him, unable to refuse. The very thought made me want to get up and leave, but I didn’t.
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I fumbled as I put the token in the turnstile. The meeting had shaken me, not just because of what Artie had said, but because I realized I’d had some illusions about how much power Artie himself had, illusions that were shattered now. I remembered Artie from a few years ago as a kind of hero, who rode in one a white horse and rescued Nomad from a lifetime of obscurity. Now that I thought about it, I knew my memories were simplified. The night he’d met Remo and me and the band, he’d had to make a tape of us to bring back to the city with him, for approval. I’d always thought that some kind of formality, but I guess not. Success seemed suddenly more remote and unattainable than before.
Some things Artie had said kept echoing in my head like some horror movie soundtrack. Two problems. Originality, ambition. I liked what I saw. Two problems. Time to grow. I felt like it hadn’t even been me sitting in that chair, it was some phantom in my shape. I sat in a far corner of the train car, letting the roar obliterate the sound of my shaky breathing. Is this who I am? Pathetic, scared and lonely? The only time that had seemed real in the past few days had been those moments on the stage when I had forgotten all the reasons and business and worry. I wondered if that was what it was like for Remo, or if he enjoyed the worrying a little more. My fingers clawed at my jeans. I felt hollow. I wanted to play, to bask on the stage, to make eye contact with someone, to lose myself in playing, to fill up on it. To live.
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I was late to the Wenco office. I could probably have been on time, but when I woke up and felt my head and tasted my mouth, I knew I had to have a shower. Jeremy had every shampoo known to man in his bathroom and offered me the use of his hair dryer, gel, conditioner, and so on. I just borrowed shampoo and left my hair wet. He told me we could come back and play the Pool Bar anytime we wanted, and I thanked him for the floor and the weed and then headed for the subway.
My stomach was in knots, churning alternately with fear and hope. If Artie’d wanted to sign us I’d have known it, he would have said something, I thought. He would have asked all three of us to come down to the office. But then, he couldn’t be meeting me just to tell me to get lost, you suck, he wouldn’t waste his time with that. As the subway car rattled its way uptown I let these two thoughts chase each other back and forth through my brain until I thought I would be sick. I shivered a little, thinking, this is what managers worry about. Ziggy hadn’t even given it a first, much less a second thought, or so it seemed. And I began to wonder where he’d spent the night and almost missed my stop.
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I unplugged from my amp and started rolling the cord in my hands, concentrating on doing it, making each loop of uniform size, keeping my fingers from trembling. I didn’t know if I should be going to talk to Artie, if I should ask what he thought, or if I even wanted to know. I spared a glance back into the club.
Ziggy was planting himself on a bar stool next to a woman with big hair and a yellow miniskirt. Artie was deep in conversation in the circle of execs. I knelt to open my guitar case and stashed the cord in it. Then, instead of putting the Ovation away, I sat down on a milk crate and cradled it in my lap. Should I have brought the Strat instead? Artie was coming this way. Continue Reading »
