Rock and Roll Voodoo

by Mark Paul Smith

  The party came to a screeching halt. People scattered like frightened animals, stashing drugs and guns in the hall and slowly walking away from the club without getting into their cars or onto their bikes. Nobody felt sober enough to be on the road with federal agents prowling the area.

  The band packed it up for the night, hiding their marijuana and cocaine in instrument cases. Butch asked if anybody had seen Pete all night.

  Jesse shook his head. “He told me he was definitely coming. As far as I know, he never showed.”

  “Big surprise,” Butch said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Butch took a deep breath before continuing. “You know how you can tell if someone’s a drug addict?”

  “How?” Jesse played straight man.

  “He’s not around.”

  Jesse groaned in agreement. “Let’s just hope he didn’t have anything to do with Dupre’s arrest.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  METRO GNOME

  The week after New Year’s, thanks to Pete, the band found itself in a professional recording studio in New Orleans. The place was awe-inspiring. The control room had a twenty-four channel mixing board surrounded by amplifiers and sound processing machines with blinking lights, a two-inch, reel-to-reel tape machine, monitor speakers and more electronic gear than anyone in the band had ever seen. Looking through the glass wall in front of the control room, they could see into a large performance area with a piano and at least ten microphones on stands with cords coiled like snakes on the floor. Off to the side of the main staging area were soundproof booths for drums and vocals. Once again, Pete was missing in action.

  A pale-faced, thirty-year-old hippie in blue jeans and a Grateful Dead T-shirt rose from behind the board to greet the band. “Welcome, Divebomberz. I’m Jonathan, your chief engineer. I own the place, or maybe I should say it owns me.”

  An impeccably dressed man Jesse knew he’d met somewhere also introduced himself. “I’m Drew. I’ll be producing your session for Pete. He can’t be here but he told me to make sure we get a hit record tonight.”

  Butch restated the obvious. “Pete’s not here a lot more than he is here.”

  Dale stopped gawking at the studio. “Where is Pete? We’re starting to get worried about him.”

  Drew spoke up in Pete’s defense. “Nothing to worry about. He’s off on some real estate deal.”

  Jesse had met with Pete regarding Dupre’s arrest at the Raceland Music Hall. Pete did not look good, like he hadn’t slept in days. But he convinced Jesse he hadn’t gotten himself into legal trouble and that working with the feds was the last thing on his mind. He was mainly concerned that his new and improved supply line for cocaine would dry up. Or worse, that Dupre would inform on him. He said Dupre’s arrest had more to do with murder charges than drug dealing. The newspaper had reported charges for both murder and dealing. Too many people had been dying for the authorities not to take some action. The truce had cooled things down for a short time, but nobody expected it to last.

  Rene didn’t seem to care where Pete was. He was all business with the studio engineer. “Where do you want me to set up my drums?”

  Jonathan led Rene to a small room with a door that opened onto the main performance area. “Let’s put the drummer in the drum booth. We’ll run a click track through his headphones.”

  “What’s a click track?” Rene asked.

  Jonathan did a double take to make sure Rene wasn’t kidding. “It’s a metronome so you can keep the band exactly on time.”

  Rene would not enter the drum booth. “I’m the one who keeps the band on time. I hate metronomes. They keep speeding up and slowing down.”

  Drew wasn’t sure if Rene was kidding. He decided to exercise his producer prerogative. “Let’s mike him up and see how it goes. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Rene.”

  Jonathan helped direct the set up. “We’ll put the bass, guitar and fiddle in the main room. You guys set up however it makes you feel comfortable.”

  “Wait a minute,” Rene said. “You mean I’m not going to be able to see them when we play?”

  Jonathan tried to be reassuring. “There’s a window in the booth. You’ll be able to see everybody just fine.”

  Rene put his hands over his face in obvious disagreement. “It doesn’t look like it to me. Come on, guys, don’t let them put me in that room with their metronome.”

  The band couldn’t help but laugh. Rene sounded like he was being sent to Siberia.

  Rene wasn’t about to walk into the drum booth. “It’s not funny. I don’t like small spaces. My drums need room to sound out.”

  Butch came over to put his hand on Rene’s shoulder. “Your drums are going to be miked up. We’ll all hear them in our headphones. Just try it. If it doesn’t work we’ll put you in the grown-up room.”

  Watching Rene go into the drum booth like a reluctant racehorse into a stable stall, Jesse realized he wasn’t the only musician in the band who had bouts of self-doubt.

  As Jonathan and Drew began having discussions with Rene about how to mike a drum kit, Jesse shouted out to the entire studio. “We’re all egomaniacs suffering from inferiority complexes!”

  Everybody in the studio stopped dead in his tracks upon hearing the pronouncement. Jesse did not elaborate, which was unusual for him. Nobody commented on the statement. They considered it for a full ten seconds, and then got back to work. The thoughtful moment had a calming effect on the session.

  It took forever to get a drum sound that made both Drew and Jonathan happy. They argued about where to place the microphones, how many to use and what effects to use on each one.

  Drew tried to use his producer title to pull rank on Jonathan and put reverb on the high hat and phase shifting on the snare. Jonathan wasn’t having anyone tell him how to be an engineer in his own studio, and he didn’t want the recording to sound like “disco from hell.” Between the producer and the engineer, it took way too much time to get the guitar tone, the fiddle tone, the bass tone, the slide guitar tone and the vocal tone. Two and a half hours after entering the studio, the band still hadn’t played a note together.

  Butch took Jesse aside for a two-man huddle. “This can’t be right.”

  Jesse was as bothered as Butch by the delay but he hadn’t been in recording studios enough to know what was normal and what was not. “We’ll just have to see how it turns out.”

  At the three-hour mark, Jonathan finally asked the band to perform as a unit. Drew stopped them before the first verse was over. Jonathan looked at Drew like he wanted to shoot him. “They’ve got to keep playing if I’m going to get my levels.”

  The band was having trouble with the mix in their headphones. Half an hour later, they started playing again. This time they made it through the entire first song, “Hurricane on the Bayou,” written by Jesse and Butch and most famously performed at the hurricane party at The Sea Shell.

  Drew got excited about the performance. “Love, love, love the song. We might want to end on a vocal chorus instead of the instrumental thing. Come on in for a listen.”

  The band came into the boardroom, expecting to hear a polished, radio-ready recording. What they heard made nobody happy. Jesse wanted more bass, Rene wanted more drums, Butch wanted more guitar, Tim wanted more fiddle and Dale wanted more vocal.

  Jonathan let them have their say. “Okay, guys. You see what’s happening here. Everybody wants more of himself. That’s quite common. Don’t worry, we’ll get the mix eventually. Right now, we want to make sure we’re getting everything down.”

  “Tell you what,” Drew said. “Let’s everybody come up to the board and grab the fader switch that controls the volume level on your instrument. Come on up, there’s room.”

  “This is a bad idea,” Jonathan said.

  Drew was not about to be denied. “No, come on. Let’s try it. I’m the producer and I’ve done this before and I know it will work.”

  Once the band crowded
up to the mixing board, Jonathan reluctantly hit the play button to roll tape. By the end of the song, each musician had his own level turned up so loud that the recording sounded like an electrical explosion in a fireworks factory.

  “See what I told you,” Jonathan said.

  Drew smiled triumphantly. “No. See what I told you. Now, we know what will not work. Too many producers spoil the broth.”

  The band had to agree with his assessment as they went back out and prepared to play again. They also agreed that Drew’s idea of ending the song on a vocal chorus was a good idea.

  At that point, Jesse remembered where he’d met Drew. Late, late one night, on the tail end of a mushroom trip, Jesse was sitting on a bench, alone, in Jackson Square. Drew sat down next to him, looking for sexual action. When Jesse said he wasn’t interested, Drew adroitly turned the conversation into what a great musical producer he was and how he could help Jesse and his band. Jesse had realized Drew was too much of a self-promoter to be the real deal. Now, in the studio for the first time, he got a sinking feeling that the session in progress might not turn out as well as everyone hoped.

  Rene sat down next to Jonathan. “How about turning that click track off in my head? It’s driving me crazy.”

  “Okay,” Jonathan said. “Click track is off. Let’s try another take.”

  “You’ve got a better one in you, gentlemen,” Drew encouraged.

  Four hours later the band was totally exhausted and burned out. They had recorded three original songs and the Steve Miller tune. Their first studio experience had been more than uncomfortable.

  Jesse took off his headphones, too tired to care.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ROD’S

  The band retired to Rod’s, an all-night breakfast joint in the French Quarter. Almost all the customers were very tall shemales dressed in harlotry. The “girls” were rowdy as all night can get. They paraded and sang and danced and shouted across the room at each other, mostly good-natured and pretend bitchy. Theatric behavior was tolerated and even encouraged at Rod’s. There was only one rule. It was written in red lipstick on a white poster board near the front door.

  “No Food Fights.”

  The bacon and coffee air was filled with catcalls and lewd remarks when the band arrived and took their place in line to order. A man dressed as a playboy bunny called out to the band in a deep, booming voice. “Hey cute boys, come on over and talk to me.”

  A tall man wearing mesh stockings flirted in a voice that sounded almost like a woman. “Ooh, real men.”

  “You boys must know how lonely a girl can get,” a drag queen called out.

  Dale took the lead as he always did when the going got gay and the gay got going. “Good morning ladies. I know you’re all big fans of The Divebomberz.”

  The girls did their best high-pitched imitations of teenyboppers at a Beatles concert. Jesse couldn’t help but laugh as he covered his ears.

  “Are there any women here?” Rene asked Dale in a whisper. It was Rene’s first time at Rod’s. The rest of the band had been regulars since their days at Fritzel’s.

  “The ones with Adam’s apples in their necks are guys,” Dale explained discreetly. “But sometimes you can’t tell because they have operations to shave the Adam’s apple down.”

  Rene headed for the door. “Oh, man. This is all too much. I got to get my Cajun ass out of here.”

  Dale grabbed him by the arm. “No, no, no. You need to broaden your horizons, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  Dale pushed Rene into the line in front of him. “Besides, it’s the best all night food in the French Quarter.”

  Rod was at the grill, cooking up grits, biscuits and gravy and three-egg omelets. He wore a white skullcap, blue jeans and a black t-shirt with a pack of Camels rolled up in his right sleeve. A lighted smoke always dangled from his lips, which explained the occasional ash garnish on an egg dish. “Adds to the flavor. Part of my recipe.”

  Rod was a sailor from Russia who jumped ship years ago and defected to America. He waited tables in the French Quarter until he saved enough money from tips to open his own restaurant. He liked to make a big deal out of the band’s arrival. “Ladies and gentleladies,” he shouted. “As you can see, we have celebrity company, The Divebomberz, live and in person. They are my personal favorite band. Keep your hands off them if you can.”

  Everybody laughed and cheered. Anybody who came into Rod’s was likely to be announced, even if Rod had no idea who they were.

  Rod was fifty-two years old but insisted he was forty-two. He was bald but he never showed it. When he wasn’t wearing the cap, he was wearing a wig. He had a butch look with the t-shirt and the smokes, but the eye makeup and rouge gave him away as a person of cosmopolitan proclivity. Every single soul who entered his restaurant was treated with dignity and kindness. Rod had found his place in the world to make a stand. He loved people, rich or poor, gay or straight. It wasn’t uncommon for him to give away a breakfast to someone in need.

  Actually, he didn’t give it away. He took the money out of his tip jar, which was a gallon-sized pickle jar. It was always stuffed with bills. Rod never made anybody feel like they were getting a handout. “Pay me double next time or I’ll feel like you don’t love me.”

  The Divebomberz began giving Rod their breakfast orders. He took his own orders and always had a friendly word with each customer. Servers delivered steaming plates of food to long wooden tables once the diners had taken their communal seats. Rod was as much an artist as a cook. Plates of food were well-balanced marvels of composition and color. For finishing touches, he added flowered carrots, cucumber ribbons, or radish fans.

  The man relished his place in the world. “I’m a feeder of the people. I fill their bellies and I fill their souls.” Even the rowdiest of guests settled down once she’d had her moment with Rod and been served a gourmet breakfast.

  When it came Jesse’s turn to order, Rod lowered his voice and said, “Ruthie the duck lady was in yesterday. She said Madame Carmen is looking for you.”

  Jesse leaned in close over the counter. “I’m looking for her too. Things have been getting weird lately.”

  Rod left his grill untended for a moment to get close enough to whisper to Jesse. “Tell me about it. The feds were in two days ago. Your name came up.”

  “Oh, great,” Jesse said. “What did they want to know?”

  “They wanted to know about you and some guy named Dupre. I told them I knew you to be a fine young man but I had never met Dupre. What’s up with the feds?”

  “Dupre’s gang, the Wheelers, kind of adopted the band. They follow us around. Dupre got arrested at our New Year’s gig in Raceland.”

  “For what?”

  “Murder and dealing narcotics.”

  Rod took a deep drag on his cigarette and exhaled thoughtfully as he returned to his grill. “Oh, my, how perfectly charming. By all means, do invite him to Rod’s.”

  “He’s innocent,” Jesse said.

  Rod sounded deeply distracted as he flipped the potatoes and onions. “We all are, my boy. We all are. But I digress. What are you having this fine morning?”

  “What else?”

  “Rod’s cheese and hot pepper omelet with homemade corned beef hash and a side of fresh fruit?”

  “I do believe that would make the world go away,” Jesse said.

  “I’m afraid the world is here to stay, my boy. But, anyway, Bon Appetit.”

  Jesse took his seat with the band. He didn’t share Rod’s message and warning. They were already in full discussion regarding the recording session.

  Butch was in a playful mood. “That producer at the studio was trying hard to impress. Looked like he might be interested in you, Dale.”

  Dale almost choked on his water. “Not my type. All he seemed to do was piss off Jonathan. Now, that guy, I love.”

  Rene was still feeling uncomfortable. “I hated his drum booth almost as much as I hated his click track. I didn’t feel li
ke myself all night. I think this record is going to suck, big time.”

  Butch tried to bring Tim into the conversation. “What about you, Tim? You’ve been pretty quiet all night.”

  Tim stretched his arms out on the table. “I know man. I’ve been tripping my brains out. I’m sorry. I did a hit of LSD just before we started.”

  Jesse was surprised. “You could have fooled me. You played your ass off. It didn’t sound like you were high.”

  “It did to me,” Tim said. “The whole thing was too far out. I had to really concentrate to stay with the song. Hope it doesn’t sound too bad. Wish I hadn’t done the acid. It pretty much ruined the night. Except for I feel pretty good now that I’m coming down a little.”

  Dale gave him a pat on the back. “Trust me. Everybody’s studio experience got ruined tonight.”

  Five beautiful plates of breakfast arrived simultaneously. They smelled and tasted better than anything at Brennan’s.

  Jesse savored his corned beef special. “I’ve got a feeling this breakfast is going to be the best part of our recording session.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE WARNING

  Jesse took Tim to see Carmen the day after Rod’s warning about the feds. She was helping a customer at the cash register so Tim had time to take a good look at her shop. He wandered to the back wall where the Voodoo dolls were displayed. “This place is far out. I’ve got to get a Gris-gris. I could use a little Voodoo thing around my neck for protection.”

  Carmen was finishing with her customer when she heard Tim’s comment. “Come here to Madame Carmen. I’ve got something special for each one of you, my Jesse and my Timothy. How about our night at Tipitina’s? Was it the best ever? And Tim, that fiddle of yours will take you places you never dreamed, if you can stay out of trouble.”

  Jesse gave Carmen a big hug. “Are we in trouble? Ruthie the duck lady told Rod we needed to come see you.”