2008 - Kill Your Friends

by John Niven

  But then we’re off again. We’re dancing in some packed, steaming rave-tent and I’m kissing some rave-boiler, then I’m pulling her zipper down, freeing her breasts and trying to suck them right there on the heaving dance floor and there’s a slap and some rave-guy wading in and then we’re heading somewhere else and I’m high on a Ferris wheel with Ross, snorting poppers and roaring with laughter as the cold black air swirls around and around us, and there’s thousands of orange fires and coloured lights stretching off into the night, and then there’s an argument with the owner of an ethnic foods stall, who goes lunatic after I career into his falafel wagon or tofu cart, smashing it to pieces and simply thrusting a bunch of fifties into his hands in lieu of an apology, and all the time I’m thinking fucking Parker-Hall, fucking Parker-Hall, fucking Parker-Hall.

  Now the dawn is coining up and a bunch of us are stretched out up in the Green Field. For some reason I can’t remember we’re all wearing hats—huge felt jester caps in grape, canary yellow and red. How did we get them?

  I’m lying flat on my back and listening to a three-way conversation between Darren, Ross and Leamington that goes something like this:

  “How long do you reckon it takes to clean this up?”

  “Wimbledon?”

  “The hats?”

  “No, I mean…”

  “On the centre court?”

  “Hats?”

  “Cheese?”

  “I want to know what’s happening at Wimbledon…”

  I don’t know who’s saving what and it doesn’t really seem to matter much.

  “Oh God…” I moan quietly and I sit up and survey the field in the chill dawn mist. It’s an almost cliched post-apocalyptic landscape. Doomed, lonely figures wrapped in tattered blankets stumble through the cold mud. Bodies are littered all over the place. The smoke from all the thousands of fires has created a battlefield pall over the place. It’s like someone dropped the bomb.

  “Is this the Green Field?” someone says.

  “Who gives a fuck?” says Trellick, pulling his Nokia out, the screen already glowing a beautiful civilised green, like it’s the only piece of technology to have survived the epicentre. In the context of where we are Trellick’s mobile looks like the black obelisk from 2001, gleaming in the desert among the apes.

  “Shall we do one back to the hotel, boys and girls?” he says, dialling calmly.

  ♦

  Barely an hour later Ross and I are neck-deep in hot, bubbling water, clinking brimming flutes of Bollinger. A few feet away, Trellick, snugly wrapped in one of the hotel’s thick, white towelling robes, chops out some lines and bellows at room service for more, colder, champagne. Burt Bacharach purrs smoothly from the Bang&Olufsen.

  “Oh, I love Glastonbury,” Ross sighs contentedly.

  Trellick’s phone rings. He picks it up and looks at the screen. “Shit, fucking Derek.”

  “What the fuck can he want at this time?” Ross says.

  “An AIDS helpline?” I reply before slipping down under the surface, my temples throbbing as the hot water loosens the grime of the festival from my skin.

  Trellick is gone for a while. When he comes back he looks stunned. It takes a lot to stun Trellick.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Strap yourself in, matey boy,” he says, looking at me, allowing a dramatic pause.

  “For fuck’s sake, James…”

  “Listen! It looks like we’ll be signing the Lazies after all.”

  “Go on!” I yell, leaping up in the tub and pumping my fist. I am the King. I am the King of fucking Rock. Fuck Parker-Hall. Fuck him. Ross starts clapping and whooping.

  “Hold your horses,” Trellick says, starting to laugh now, “Parker-Hall is actually signing them.”

  Eh? “What do you—”

  “The band want to sign with Parker-Hall. No one else. It seems Derek’s been talking to Parker-Hall for a while now and, well…he’s our new Head of A&R.”

  “I don’t under…” The words dribble off because my mouth isn’t working properly. I am just standing there—literally up to my knees in hot water.

  “Derek, our Managing Director, has just hired Anthony Parker-Hall,” Trellick says, speaking simply and clearly, as you would to a child. “Parker-Hall is coming to work for us as Head of A&R, effective immediately. He is bringing the Lazies with him as his first signing.”

  They both look at me, standing there in the middle of the hot tub, my mouth hanging open.

  “He’s your fucking boss,” Ross says.

  They both start pissing themselves.

  Parker-Hall—younger than me—chewing me out in meetings. (“Gawdnbennet, Steven, wot da fuck’s appening wiv dem poxy remixes?” )

  Parker-Hall parking his car so much closer to the building than me.

  Parker-Hall questioning my expenses.

  “How much?” I say in a strangled whisper. I’m trembling now too. “How much are we paying him?”

  Trellick: “I’ve been told not to discuss it and, trust me, you don’t want to fucking know.”

  I am Herve Villechaize.

  It hurts.

  I am dying now.

  July

  Simon Cowell signs a boy band called Five. For reasons I can’t quite workout there is a lot of interest in this Paki band called Asian Dub Foundation. (Who the fuck is Satpal Ram?) Sony are about to launch a pop singer called Jimmy Ray, who is managed by Simon Fuller who manages the Spice Girls. Sony’s marketing guy Mark Richardson says, “I dare anyone to listen to the single ‘Are You Jimmy Ray?’ and tell me it’s not going to be a hit. It’s both retro and contemporary.”

  Eleven

  “After you’ve finished being smart in the record business you’ve also got to be lucky.”

  Dick Asher, MD of CBS Records

  “As you all know,” Derek announces, standing up at the head of the big conference table, his eyes—predatory eyes, queer’s eyes—flickering around the boardroom, “it’s been a very difficult year so far for the company, what with Roger’s tragic death…” Everyone nods sadly. I look around the room. Pretty much the whole company—about thirty people—are crammed in here, for this miserable ‘celebration’. I catch Rebecca’s eye and she looks away. “…and Paul Schneider’s decision to move on,” (‘Move on’? Yeah, right), “we’ve been missing…” he searches for the right word, not wanting to put the boot in on me and Hastings too directly, but wanting to put it in a bit no doubt, “leadership in the A&R department. Well, I’m very pleased to say that’s all about to change.” He drops his hand onto Parker-Hall’s shoulder, who has been sitting next to him throughout this, looking embarrassed. “As I’m sure you all already know Anthony signed his contract last week and is officially our new Head of A&R.” Derek leads the applause as Parker-Hall squirms in his chair, gesturing for people to stop. The applause goes on for a while. In Stalinist Russia, if you were the first person to stop clapping after one of old Joe’s speeches, they came and got you in the night. A few weeks of solid dawn-to-dusk beatings with a car battery permanently hooked up to your shaved nuts, and then you were off to the salt mines for the next forty years. Top lad, Stalin.

  “I won’t embarrass Anthony any further by listing his resume here but, as I’m sure you all know, he’s just had an incredibly successful run over at EMI where he signed—among others—Ellie Crush whose album has now gone double platinum in the UK and sold over a million copies worldwide.”

  But everybody knew this. Last week it was the front-page story on Music Week. There was a big photo of Derek, Parker-Hall, Trellick and Marcy from the Lazies and an accompanying story saying how Parker-Hall’s contract had expired at EMI (he’d let it run out), how he had been unable to agree new terms, how we’d come in just at the right time, with the right offer—(How much? How much are we paying the little bastard?)—how excited Parker-Hall was to be able to make the Lazies his first signing…

  The story went on to list Parker-Hall’s A&R achievements, focusin
g on Ellie Crush’s continued US success, and stressing the fact that he has just turned twenty-six. It concluded with a horribly magnanimous and ominous quote from Parker-Hall:

  “I’m really looking forward to the challenges of my new role. The label already has a vibrant A&R culture, one I’m aiming to take to the next level.” (“The next level’! One of those spastic music-business phrases—like ‘does what it says on the tin’ and ‘it’s not rocket science”—that spill from your mouth in meetings. Meaning absolutely fuck all.)

  After I read the story I spent forty-eight hours in bed.

  Parker-Hall stands up and does a bit of awkward shuffling, really laying on the ‘I’m not worthy’ crap. “Thanks, everyone. I’m not much for big speeches, so I’ll just say how excited I am to be here and how pleased I am to have a fantastic band like the Lazies to bring to the table…”

  More applause, led now by Dunn. The next Lazies single is already recorded and Dunn is convinced that it’s going to stroll onto the Radio 1 playlist. Consequently he’s been licking Parker-Hall’s Ronson like it’s going out of fashion.

  “Obviously I already know Steven and Rob,” he indicates me and Hastings, the broken men, “and I’m looking forward to getting us all pulling in the same direction so we can get stuck in and sign a few more great bands for you all to work on. Thanks very much.”

  Cue applause and cheers and Derek nodding as though he’s just negotiated world fucking peace.

  I’m walking in a forest. I’m walking in a forest.

  Later, on the stairs, I pass Nicky. Normally the most I ever get from the monstrous diesel is a tight little smile but today she’s beaming, I mean fucking beaming at me. Her smile says: “End of the line for you and your turkey acts, loser. There’s a real A&R guy in town now. How can you even stand to come into work?” The urge to kick her down the stairs, to jump on her head, to pummel her gloating dyke-face into an unrecognisable porridge of blood and bone, is tremendous. But, using incredible reserves of will-power, I manage to ignore her and continue on towards marketing.

  ♦

  Rebecca comes in. Today she’s wearing leather trousers. I’m not kidding. Leather. Fucking. Trousers. If I had any self-respect left I’d fire her.

  “That policeman’s here to see you again,” she says in what she imagines is a meaningful tone of voice. I just yawn and click the mouse to close the window on my laptop. A graphic close-up—too close in fact, I’d zoomed in until the image was just a smear of pixels—of a bull ejaculating a ludicrous payload of glutinous semen into a Latino girl’s grateful face vanishes. A Mexican website Trellick turned me onto.

  “Send him up,” I say, pushing the screen down, the laptop closing with a snick.

  I knew Woodham was coming. I’ve finally agreed to see him to talk about the tracks he recorded for us a few weeks ago. I’d been dodging his calls.

  Basically, figuring there was no downside to keeping him sweet, I sprang five hundred quid from the demo fund and he went into the Stoneroom in Acton with his band where the mad cunt managed to bang down something like fourteen songs in two days. I’ve managed to listen to two or three tracks and they are appalling. You couldn’t have got arrested with them even last year, when any scavenger from north of Watford with a fucking giro in one hand and a semi-acoustic guitar in the other was getting on the cover of the NME. Woodham’s demo is so bad that there can be no prevaricating, none of the ‘lots of potential’ crap. I’ll just have to be honest and tell him straight out to forget it.

  He comes in and we do the hey-how-are-you-can-I-get-you-anything stuff before I say, “Look, Alan, about your demos.”

  “Actually, before we get onto that, I need to talk to you in connection with Mr Waters.” His tone is different. Formal. Less matey.

  “Roger?” I say.

  He takes out his notebook and flips to a page. What the fuck is going on here? “There’s something that’s been puzzling me. You said that the last time you saw him alive was when you dropped him off in Notting Hill around 11 PM before you took the cab onto Maida Vale.”

  “That’s right.”

  He consults his notebook and taps his pen against his leg. “You were at the Dublin Castle on Parkway, weren’t you?”

  He looks up at me. He looks like a different guy now. He’s suddenly older, more serious. He’s suddenly very fucking serious.

  “Yeah…”

  “And you caught a cab on Parkway?”

  “Urn, yeah. I think that’s right.”

  “It seems a long way round, doesn’t it?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Parkway’s one-way. You’d have had to head up further into Camden and then up towards Chalk Farm.”

  “Sorry, Alan, I’m not quite following you.” But I’m beginning to.

  “Well, you said you dropped him off. But you live in Maida Vale. To Maida Vale from Chalk Farm via Notting Hill? You pretty much have to go through Maida Vale to get to Netting Hill from there, don’t you? Why didn’t you get dropped off first?”

  “Ah…” I am dying here. My head is pounding. Think. “Why didn’t I get dropped off first?” I repeat while, in my head, Def Con 3 goes on. A long time passes. Woodham says nothing, looks straight at me. The silent close.

  “Ah!” I say, and I actually snap my fingers together. Jesus Christ, this is like a fucking masterclass in bad acting. “Sorry, we were going to drop me off first but neither of us had any cash,” this is so lame, “and I’d left my wallet in the office, so we went onto Roger’s place, he had some cash in the house and, yeah…” he continues to look at me evenly, “that was it. Sorry, I’d had a few.” I laugh. He doesn’t.

  “So—you dropped him first and then went back to Maida Vale?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Sorry.”

  He writes something down. Jesus Christ. Jesus fucking Christ.

  “OK,” he says, snapping the notebook shut, “so what were you going to say about the demos?”

  I clear my throat. “I have to be honest with you…I think the songs are incredible. Some of the best material I’ve heard in a long, long time.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. What we should do, what I think we can do, is we should look at trying to get you a publishing deal.”

  “Seriously?” he says, smiling now for the first time since he came in. “Well, that’d be great, Steven,” he says getting up.

  “Yeah, let me look into that. Make a few calls. And, sorry about the confusion there, with the Roger stuff.”

  We shake hands. “Don’t worry about it,” he says and he leaves.

  I close the blinds, avoiding Rebecca’s concerned gaze on the other side of the glass. I cross the room to my little fridge, chug a bottle of Beck’s in one go, and open a second one. I sit down and torch a Marlboro Light with a trembling hand and I try to work out if what I think was just happening was actually happening.

  So, on top of everything else, on top of Parker-Hall, on top of the hundred-grand dance single that stiffed at 68, on top of the bridging loan for a ruined house that a gang of speed-fuelled Albanians are busy dismantling, on top of the American Express and Visa bills totalling six and a half grand I received this month, I now looks like I’ll have to find a publishing deal for a copper who thinks he’s Noel fucking Gallagher.

  Cheers.

  ♦

  Meet the new boss.

  Parker-Hall takes me and Hastings to the River Cafe for lunch. A sort of getting-to-know-you combined with ‘here’s my vision’ deal. We have pasta and Hastings fidgets and looks uncomfortable the whole time, probably wondering why there’s no chicken fucking tikka on the menu. We’re all drinking Evian. “Bottle of still water, mate,” Parker-Hall had said when the waiter rocked up and I looked up from the wine list I was examining and said, “Same.” If they drink…

  “The way I see it,” Parker-Hall is saying, “there are two categories of acts; there are entertainers—Robbie Williams, Spice Girls, what have you—and there are artists
—Radiohead, Weller…Ellie…” You pompous little cunt. “Now—”

  “What about the Beatles?” I interrupt. “Weren’t they both?”

  “Well, if you wanna split hairs, Steven, they were entertainers who later became artists. Anyway,” he waves it away, you pompous smart-arsed little cunt, “a label needs both. You need the entertainers in the short term so you can develop the artists for the long term. Now you guys both have different strengths; Rob, you’re coming from an indie guitar-band area,” Hastings nods enthusiastically, “and, Steven,” he indicates me, “your roots are more in the pop-dance area of the marketplace. So…”

  He goes on, but I don’t hear much more of it. I get lost in a rapturous fantasy vision where I’m grabbing the steak knife from the table in front of me, I’m vaulting across and burying it in Parker-Hall’s jugular vein and throwing him to the floor, then I’m jumping up and down on his head, slipping and sliding in his blood as I pound his stubbly, shaven little elfin head into fucking jelly, the other diners looking on in horror as I scream, “Shut the fuck up! What the fuck do you know about anything, you jammy, fluky chancing little prick? Ellie Crush? You won the fucking lottery with that cow. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.”