The Rock 'N' the Roll. 'N That

by Steven J. Gill

  “You mean the lazy cunt of a sound engineer did us no favours,” snapped Danny, clearly still harbouring a grudge with the apathetic performance they had been served up by the venue’s resident sound man.

  “Forget that,” interjected Jamie, “that’s history now. Go on then Johnny, tell us what you think.”

  It almost felt like a challenge. Like one of those naff magazine caption competitions whereby you could win a holiday if you described the utopian destination in suitably hyperbolic prose in less than twenty words.

  Inhaling deeply, Johnny composed himself and launched into as spontaneous appraisal as he could. “I think you’re as good a band as I have seen in fucking ages and I include a shit load of signed bands in that. You’ve got some great songs, that believe me, are not a million miles off the finished item. You can all play, fuck me, you can all play. I think your image is cool as well, nice and simple. You look like a gang, which all the best bands always are. And you all love playing, that’s really fucking apparent. Oh, and I wouldn’t fuck with Mikee…”

  Smiling at the staring faces and wanting, no, craving, instant gratification at his little speech, Johnny held his breath.

  “Can’t argue with that,” chirped up Dominic. “And wh…”

  Before Dominic could finish, Danny butted in, direct as ever, “So what about you? What can you offer us?”

  Sensing a little unnecessary hostility, Jamie said, “Let’s pack up our gear and lock up here and go for a pint. We can talk then. And I’m dying for drink and a cig.”

  Nodding in agreement, the band set to packing away their instruments. Flight cases were snapped open and guitars laid to rest with a practiced tenderness. Glancing over at Jamie as he crouched over his battered black case, he noticed the red scarf that he had been wearing at the gig was folded neatly ready for the champagne coloured Fender to be placed over it. It almost looked like a prayer ritual as the three musicians bent over, clasping the cases shut almost in tandem.

  Stepping into a now empty bar – hardly surprising for a wet Tuesday evening in February – Johnny asked his potential protégés what they would like.

  “Two Guinness and two lagers. Cold Guinness,” requested the affable drummer, not able to resist temptation at the hovering punchline, “and I don’t know what these lightweights will have!” Beaming a big toothy smile, Mikee headed for the gents whilst Jamie, Dominic and Danny sat at the same table Johnny had occupied earlier in the evening.

  Fetching the drinks, Johnny sat down on a threadbare red velvet upholstered stool between Jamie and Danny. Dominic and Mikee, who was wiping his hands on the seat of his jeans, sat against the wall on an uncomfortable looking red sofa – the springs groaning their resistance every time the huge drummer reached for his glass.

  Deciding that he needed to take control of the situation, Johnny put his glass down and pulled at the collar of his blue houndstooth checked shirt.

  “Okay. I’ve been more than impressed with what I’ve heard – and seen. I used to look after a couple of bands, so I know what’s involved. It was a while ago, but…” pausing for dramatic effect, “I’ve got a few quid in the bank and I’d put my money where my mouth is. You’d get my time and enthusiasm. Financial support and my worldly wisdom!” Proffering up a final flourish,” and we don’t need to fuck about with contracts at this stage…”

  Johnny waited for the reaction. He’d decided that he would show his hand over the finances but not talk specifics until he knew the lay of the land.

  “That’s cards on the table!” said Jamie, reaching over the brass topped table and patting Johnny, almost tenderly, on his forearm.

  Waves of relieve poured over Johnny, I’m on a roll here, he thought.

  “You need to be rehearsing as often as you can. Two or three times a week ideally. How many times do you manage now?” Before he got the necessary answer, he added, “Get you tight as you like, couple of gigs to road test your songs again and then get you in a studio and put a couple of your best tracks down. You been in a studio before?”

  Answering both questions, Danny said, “We’re rehearsing once, possibly twice a week if we can afford it and we haven’t been anywhere near a studio yet.”

  Seizing the moment, Johnny struck. “I’ll pay for your room for three months, and then we’ll get you into a studio to record three or four tracks – again I’ll pay.” Taking a gulp of his pint, he bowled on. “During that time, don’t post anything online, YouTube or fucking Facebook or anywhere. I’ll sort you out a couple of gigs. And I’ll also speak to a couple of old contacts of mine and see what sort of favours I can pull. Get the track on local radio and the like. I’ve no doubt it’ll sound brilliant when we,” correcting himself with a quick smile, “sorry, you get in the studio. I’m 100% sure it’ll be fucking ace, but let’s not get carried away with ourselves…”

  The four musicians looked at each other, somewhat taken aback by both Johnny’s animated enthusiasm and most significantly, his offer of monies. Jamie whistled between his teeth, looked Johnny straight in the eye, meeting his look with his piercing blue stare. “Give us a minute to have a quick chat and…”

  Getting up from the barstool, Johnny - relieved at the opportunity to visit the gents. “Not a problem, I needed a quick piss anyhow.”

  “Too much detail, but we’ll only be a minute or two,” said Jamie with an amused smile.

  Leaving the musicians to roundtable their decision, Johnny headed for the gents’, with a barely contained skip in his step. Reaching the confines of the toilets, he clenched his fists and whispered, “Fucking yes,” to himself. Emptying his bulging bladder at the old-fashioned porcelain ‘splasher’, he then took extra time and care washing his hands so that he didn’t return to the table before any conclusion had been reached.

  Chin-up, chest out, he thought as he walked purposefully back to the table. Sitting down without saying a word, Johnny held his breath in expectation.

  Swiftly putting him out of his misery, Jamie chimed the words he had been craving to hear. “You’re in! We need a helping hand for some guidance, sorting gigs and shit. And the cash. Well it’s got to help and shows your commitment. We’re not signing anything until we’ve done the practice and recording but…” Jamie paused and adding something of his own to the mix, and certainly news to his bandmates, “we’re not gonna work with you just for the money. We like you and because of that, we’re not signing anything now but anything we record that you pay for, then it’s a five-way split between us all, I can’t say fairer than that.”

  Quietly pleased at the offer that Jamie had made, the band were about to object but Jamie assuaged their concerns with a gentle, almost Jediesque wave of his hand. “This is all going to work out for us all. It’s the start of something big, I can feel it.”

  Grabbing his almost empty pint glass and believing it the only appropriate thing to do, Johnny raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that! Lonely Souls and something big!” One glass became five as they all lifted their glasses to meet Johnny’s. As one they shouted, “Lonely Souls and having it fucking big…”

  ***

  “Cheers Mikee,” the twins said simultaneously as they tumbled from the passenger seat door of their drummer’s works van. Knocking a couple of rogue fast food wrappers into the gutter from the swollen pile of cartons that was a health hazard to any passenger’s footwear, Jamie picked the polystyrene boxes up and popped them in a conveniently placed wheelie bin. “Thanks man, we’ll speak soon.”

  Cranking up the CD player, Mikee offered up a two-fingered peace sign and sped off homeward bound with the van pulsating to the bass heavy sounds of some obscure underground hip hop track.

  Putting his arm around his twin brother’s shoulder, Jamie hugged Dominic into him whispering - as if saying it out loud would jinx it - “It went really well tonight. Johnny will be good for us. And we are gonna crack this rock ’n’ roll thing. I just know it!”

  Picking up his Jamie’s lead, Dominic added, “Cou
rse we will bro. It’s never been in doubt…”

  Taking the key from his jeans front pocket, Jamie opened the door of the cosy terraced house and saw that their mum was sat feet curled underneath her, watching a Channel Four re-run of Donnie Darko. Jamie looked at her, and met her loving smile, live pausing the film, leaving Donnie stood open armed with a translucent blue snake erupting from his chest. “How did my two favourite rock stars get on tonight?”

  Chapter 6

  “You’re home later than you said,” Claire said as soon as Johnny opened the front door, “I’ve already eaten but there’s some pasta left in the fridge that you could have.”

  “Yeah. Ta for that,” Johnny replied absentmindedly, pre-occupied by the evening’s events and the commitment he had made to his new protégés. A quick mental calculation on the journey home had left him looking at a five-grand investment, plus extras if he shelled out for any equipment etc. With the forty-thousand-pound inheritance that he had banked, it wouldn’t be a problem.

  But.

  And it was a big elephant in the room but.

  It was a decision he was making on his own. He was adamant that Claire would see his nest egg as a bigger house or some such expenditure.

  He knew exactly what her reaction to his covert venture capitalism would be.

  Making his way into the kitchen he closed the wooden door, and turned on the digital radio, the pre-set station taking him straight to 6 Music whereby he was rewarded with Doves’ wistfully perfect ‘Kingdom of Rust’.

  Grabbing a chilled Diet Coke, and sitting at the kitchen’s breakfast bar, Johnny closed his eyes and rubbed both hands over his face, catching the rim of the can with his left elbow. He cursed loudly and jumped back before the rapidly spreading liquid could drip onto his suit trousers. The sudden movement caused the top-heavy stool to overbalance and crash loudly onto the slate tiles.

  The clattering crash elicited the predictable response.

  “What the fuck are you doing in there?”

  And showing more concern for any potential material damage.

  “I hope you’ve not broken any of those tiles. Or the stool!”

  Clenching his jaw, but determined to quell any argument, he opened the kitchen door ajar. “Sorry, sorry. I knocked the can over. It went everywhere but everything’s fine. Nothings broken,” he uttered as he simultaneously scoured the Welsh quarry hewn tiles for any discernible signs of damage.

  Righting the stool and breathing a sigh of relief, he grabbed a soggy blue j-cloth from the farmhouse style sink; wringing it dry, he mopped up the still fizzing liquid. Crisis averted, Johnny went into the open-plan lounge to further placate his still concerned partner.

  “Hiya babe. Sorry about that. You know what a clumsy twat I can be.” Johnny wasn’t a huge fan of the cloyingly twee familiarity but felt under the circumstances that it was the least he could proffer as a way of keeping Claire sweet.

  “I know exactly what you are like,” she replied wearily, inevitably adding, “but that stuff doesn’t come cheap.”

  Drinking back the remains of the can, and taking a moment to compose himself, Jonny offered up the palm of his right hand and said as calmly as he could muster, “I know, I know. I shouldn’t have put my coat on it.” He was about to offer up ‘my bad’ as a platitude – Claire’s favourite current expression of choice – but wisely decided against this further blow to his integrity. “There’s no damage done, I was lucky, won’t happ—”

  She cut him off mid-sentence. “Luckily! Apart from to my nerves. I was settled watching my programme before you rocked up. Where have you been till this time anyhow?”

  Having been so consumed by the evenings events, he had had not formulated a plausible excuse. Stuttering slightly, “Err, I went to the gym after work ’cos I was busy at lunchtime. Then had a quick drink after with Paul. His divorce is causing him a load of mither, so I listened to him get it out of his system over a pint. Probably undoing all the good going to the gym did, but—”

  As ever, she was the master of the interjection. “A text would have been nice though.”

  Thinking fast on his feet, he said, “Yeah, but I thought you were at your yoga class on a Tuesday night so we’d both get in at about the same time.”

  “Well. Bella emailed everybody to say she’d slipped a disc in her back and couldn’t take the class, so I came straight home.”

  “Some fuckin’ yoga teacher.”

  Turning sharply and far from happy at his attempts at the ‘last word’, she snapped, “Sorry?”

  “Poor yoga teacher,” Johnny replied, feigning innocence with an exaggerated wide-eyed stare. Adding a sincere consolatory, “I hope she’s right for next week, I know how much you enjoy it.” And with a final misguided stab at humour, “If you want to practise your downward facing dog, I’ve not had my ‘birthday treat’ yet…”

  “If you went about asking like a grown-up, then we’ll see. And stick the kettle on for me.”

  “No problem, proper brew or one of your hippy infusion things?” he asked, not being able to resist the barb at the panoply of weird and wonderful flavoured teabags that seemed to have multiplied every time he opened the cupboard door. Purely for his own childish enjoyment, “Conker & Dock Leaf do you okay?”

  “Oh, you’re so funny,” she snapped back. “A normal tea please and not one of your usual stewed efforts when you forget about it because you’re wasting time on the internet.” Emphasising the ‘normal’ with cloyingly irritating rabbit’s ears air quotes, Claire turned back towards the television and studiously ignored Johnny who was sticking a lazy ‘V-sign’ up behind her back.

  “It’ll be perfect, love of my life” he said, over-sincerely.

  Again, sitting down at the breakfast bar, Johnny grabbed a notebook from the tray that sat atop the microwave and began to write down his proposed outlay and short-term plan for the band. Two hundred & fifty pounds per week for the rehearsal room. About a grand plus per month. Chuck them a grand or so up front for new gear, and then the studio time which he would have to price. Happy that his initial five grand estimate was pretty much spot on, he ripped the offending page from the notebook and put it into his wallet.

  Turning his attention to the steaming mug, he grabbed a tea-towel and draped it over his crooked forearm, subservient waiter style.

  “Madam’s drink, if you would care to sample it.” Bowing slightly, Johnny completed the act of contrition by carefully handing the drink over with his best winning smile. No point making an argument out of nothing.

  Taking the handle in her left hand and smiling up at him, she said, “Thanks babe, you’re not that bad after all…”

  Chapter 7

  It was the band’s first rehearsal after ‘that’ meeting and their first paid practice session. There was a palpable difference and they opted out of their usual ‘smokers meeting’ whereby they would talk aspirations and ambitions.

  They now had a backer, a moneyman, someone who believed in them, someone who could start to make a difference for them.

  Taking off a frayed at the sleeves grey Adidas hoodie, tying it round his waist, Jamie breezily announced, “He’s transferred two grand over to my bank account already, to pay for this month’s practice and sort any gear out we need. I think we need to look at a new kit for Mikee,” nodding over at the imposing drummer who, for a first, was already set-up and sat behind his diminutive drumkit. Idly tightening a cymbal stand, Mikee nodded his agreement.

  “I can pick up a new kit for about a grand. I’ve had my eye on one. A metallic black Tama. It’s fucking beautiful.” Adding an enthusiastic, “It looks cool as fuck and won’t be as small as this one. Reckon you can tap him for that?”

  Looking up from his guitar fretboard and grimacing slightly, Jamie turned. “It’s not about ‘tapping’ him up. He’s investing in us. As a band. If we feel that a new kit is needed, then we buy it and tell him. It’s not wasting anything, you’ll have the kit to show for it and we get an even b
etter sounding drummer…”

  Always there with a wise word and conciliating statement, Jamie felt his pronouncement laid down the simple rules of their newly formed partnership.

  With an ear to ear grin and trying to feign an air of casualness, Mikee reached for his phone from the backpack positioned behind his kit. “Yeah, I’ve got the number of a place on Oxford Road, I’ll bell them tomorrow and see if they’ve still got the kit.”

  Ever the pessimist, Danny pulled his black knitted beanie further over his ears. “We’re happy with this set up then, yeah?” Looking at his three bandmates individually, he said, “I mean he’s the first person that we’ve spoken to, the first gig and we end up with the first dick that waves his wand in front of us…”

  Jamie inwardly conceded that Danny was correct - he wanted all four of them to be behind the mutual decision. Deciding to discard the hoodie from around his waist, and turning to the dissenting bass player, Jamie scratched the back of his head.

  “There is no situation here, we’ve not signed anything, Johnny has just given two fucking grand to four almost complete strangers. We’ve got a plan, a target to aim for. We can go in a studio and record these songs. Our songs. Our fuckin’ brilliant songs that we’ve fuckin’ written and played and played. Imagine how sick it’d be to sit and hear them back.” Taking a step over to Danny, and placing a hand on his shoulder, “We’ve nothing to lose here, I know what you mean about him being the first guy we’ve spoken to, but we all like him, I trust him. Give it a few months and see where we are at.” With a quick squeeze of his friend’s shoulder, “We’ll be right. All of us. WE KNOW WE’RE GOOD.”

  Nodding in reconciled agreement, he said, “Has he really sent you two grand already?”

  Laughing warmly, Jamie said, “I wouldn’t have said if he hadn’t!”