The Last Gig

by Norman Green

  “That was me,” he said. “Soundman extraordinaire. Not that anyone gives a shit about sound anymore. At your service.”

  “I was gonna get some coffee, Luke. You want?”

  “No,” he said. “But you can buy me a bourbon. I know just the place.”

  Rushton held the door for Alessandra, waved her in with a gallant flourish, then chuckled to himself as she preceded him inside. It was a dark place, pseudo-Spanish décor, heavy wood, wrought iron, crimson vinyl booths along one wall, bar along the other, empty tables in between. There was a restaurant attached. Al could hear voices, the clink of cutlery, and the reek of stale pastrami was inescapable. The bar, however, was empty. She picked a table in the middle of the floor, her survivor’s instinct fully alert. Rushton left her there and went off to order drinks. He brought them back, set her coffee down in front of her, cradled his bourbon lovingly. He shook the hair back out of his face and in the dim light, the folds, creases, and lines bracketing his mouth gave him the arid and bitter look of a man facing too much ill-tasting medicine. He drank his bourbon at the same speed and to the same apparent effect as she drank her coffee, which is to say, none at all.

  “So?” she said.

  “The biggest lie,” he said, “is a good place to start.” Even his half-smile was acrid, with a touch of anger. “‘It’s all about the music,’ isn’t that what Ellison kept saying? That’s so pathetic, it’s almost funny. What is going on with BandX has, really, nothing to do with their ‘sound.’ Nothing at all. At this point, it makes no difference to anyone what they ‘sound’ like.”

  “Apparently they got enough talent to fill that theater tonight. So if it isn’t talent that’s gotten them this far, what is it?”

  “I didn’t say they weren’t talented,” he said. “I just said that their ‘sound’ had nothing to do with their success. Listen, let me tell you how this business really works, okay? It’s a little like baseball. You take the Yankees, or the Red Sox. God only knows how much money those teams pull in, even after paying million-dollar salaries to the GM and the manager and the guys on the field. But they have to keep it going, right? They have to keep looking for the next Manny Ramirez and Mariano Rivera, because they’re using up the ones they got as fast as they can. So they have this minor league system, which they lose money on, but they don’t care about that. They’ll employ hundreds of ballplayers just so they can find the two or three that will make the whole thing pay off. Because it isn’t about the game, you know what I mean? It’s never about the game.”

  “You don’t have to be able to sing,” she said. “Or play an instrument.”

  “Please,” he said, pity heavy in his voice. “Do you honestly think that what you hear coming out of your radio has anything more than a distant relationship to what musicians actually do?”

  “Well,” she said, “I know that there are things you can do in a studio . . .”

  He was shaking his head. “It’s all technology,” he said. “None of it is any more real than a video game. For every sound, okay, for every instrument, for every chord, tinkle, thump, cough, and fart you hear on a recording, there’s an engineer running a program. You don’t need a drummer, you haven’t needed a drummer in, Christ, twenty-five years, you don’t even need a drum machine anymore. For years now, drummers have just been guys who like to hang with musicians. But now you don’t need the rest of them, either. Every possible sound that a guitar can make—or a piano or an organ, or a human throat—every one of them has been digitized, cataloged, stored, bought, sold, racked up like books in a library. You want to use one, you find it, you make a copy of the part you want, and you plug it in.”

  “Has it really gone that far? When I hear my favorite singer . . .”

  “Maybe she sat in a studio for an afternoon,” he said. “Okay, yeah, she sang the tune. But her voice didn’t wind up on a tape. It wound up stored in a computer. On a screen, it’s represented by a graph.” His fingers danced in the air, following an imaginary chart. “You can pinpoint exactly where your singer was off-key, or late, or shrill, or whatever, right there on the screen. So the only person whose talent actually counts for anything, which would be the recording engineer, he runs Auto-Tune, or one of a dozen programs just like it, and he repositions the graph. For lack of a better term, he moves the notes around on the screen until they’re all exactly where he thinks they ought to be. And when he’s done, the singer is dead-on, the guitar player bends the note just so, the drummer and the base player and everybody else nails it clean and perfect before a single one of them has even done their first line of coke for the day, let alone showed up and actually played something.”

  “So when they go up on stage . . .”

  “They play behind recordings,” he said. “Or sometimes they’ve actually learned to play an approximation of what the engineers have manufactured for them.”

  “So BandX,” Al said. “Is that what they do? Because all that technology and engineering sounds expensive as hell, and they don’t look like they’ve got the money.”

  “Ah, but they’re under contract now,” he said. “They might not know it yet, but they’ve become part of the machine. They’ve been signed up for the full treatment, and baby, they’re gonna get it. It ain’t gonna be about five guys kicking it, not anymore. It’ll be all about the fucking producers, the fucking hit doctors, the fucking computers, the fucking A&R douche bags like Ellison, the fucking publicity men, and all that shit. And it won’t have a goddamn thing to do with what you’ll hear these guys doing tonight.”

  “Well, if that’s true, why did BandX get picked? What’s the criteria?”

  “Criteria?” he snorted. “There isn’t any criteria. The record company just keeps throwing shit against the wall, hoping that some of it will stick. They make so much money off of one Don Henley’s Greatest Hits or some goddamn thing, they can afford to bankroll a thousand acts like BandX, and you can bet your last nickel that nobody at corporate has listened to ten seconds of music from any of them. There’s a hundred guys like Ellison, arrogant little pricks with an MBA from Wharton and a coke habit, and every one of them is out here hustling.”

  “Looking for the next Manny Ramirez.”

  “You got it. Nobody gets a recording contract because they’re any good. They get it because Ellison’s boss owes him a favor, or because it’s his turn, or maybe the guy wants to give Ellison enough rope to hang himself. So BandX becomes a part of this season’s bucketload, and they’ll get thrown up against the wall along with the other fortunate few. And maybe they’ll stick and maybe they won’t, but either way, it won’t have a goddamn thing to do with whether or not they’re any good. Success in this business is a crapshoot, nothing more. Nothing ain’t got nothing to do with nothing.”

  “Okay. I don’t quite know how to ask this, Luke, I mean, it seems like an obvious question . . .”

  He looked at her. “What am I doing here?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  He shook his head. “I ask myself that almost every day. But I been in this business ever since I was in high school, and believe me, that was a lotta years ago. This is all I know. Shit, I remember back when it really was all about the music.” He glanced over at her. “Back before you were born. It was great for a while. I was in a lot of bands you never heard of. A couple of times, I came close, Jesus, we almost . . .” He shook his head. “Almost don’t count.”

  “You could do something else if you really wanted to,” she said.

  “Maybe,” he said. “But not for long. No matter how much this sucks, no matter how lousy the money gets, I still can’t see myself anywhere else.”

  “Back to BandX,” she said. “Is it true, what I hear about them opening for Shine, at her concerts in Jones Beach?”

  He nodded. “So far. I thought that was gonna go by the wayside when Willy C got whacked, but as far as I know it’s still on.”

  “Is that a big deal? Could it do something for BandX?”

 
“Ahh, who knows. It ain’t gonna make them any money, that’s for goddamn sure.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, God’s manager . . .”

  “You lost me. God? Who’s God?”

  He looked up from his bourbon and grinned. “Shine, aka God. You don’t think she’s a mere mortal, do you? She lives in a different universe than you and me. Anyhow, her manager cuts a deal with whoever is gonna do the openers. I mean, it ain’t just him, that’s the way these things usually work. He’ll say, ‘Look, you guys can open if you pick up tour expenses,’ or something like that.”

  “So it’s ‘pay to play.’ ”

  “Same old shit. God makes a hundred and fifty, two hundred grand per show, BandX makes five hundred bucks. But they get to play for a whole new audience that never heard of them before, and maybe they’ll hawk some T-shirts and CDs and shit. If they’re lucky, they’ll break even. That’s the theory, anyhow. In practice, half the audience will be out in the parking lot smoking dope until BandX finishes their set.”

  “So if I get this right, Shine’s manager calls up BandX’s manager, and . . .”

  “Usually. That ain’t how it went down this time, though.”

  “No? How did it happen this time?”

  “Well, what I was told was that Willy C was sleeping with God, and God decided she was gonna take care of Willy C, and by extension, BandX.”

  “Is that true?”

  He shrugged. “That was the rumor. Willy would never say. He even got some love from the tabs, but he would never give them anything. Didn’t matter, they just took his picture and printed what they wanted. Anyhow, that was what was supposedly behind the Jones Beach gigs, and all the buzz about BandX.”

  “You mean it really wasn’t all about the music?”

  He laughed, sounding unnaturally loud in the empty room. “Shit,” he said. “I gotta get back. Come on back and hang out, I’ll get you a good ticket and a backstage pass. I might not be good for much, but I can still swing that. That douche bag Ellison has probably forgotten all about you already.”

  “Story of my life,” she said. “Thanks, Luke.”

  He shook his head. “Nothing to it.”

  BandX was actually playing when she got back, making music. She had expected generic white-boy rock and roll—overproduced, overamped, and overwrought—but BandX was much better than that. Ellison, it seemed, had not been entirely full of shit. The band was doing more with less than just about any other act she could think of. She couldn’t make out any of the vocals at all, but that probably didn’t matter a hell of a lot. Cliff, the lead singer, had a voice with enough weight and timbre to reach right past her logical mind and deliver its emotional freight to the most primitive parts of her brain, the parts that didn’t need words. Maybe she couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she knew what he meant . . .

  She found herself liking Willy Caughlan a little better. Maybe he had been a spoiled rich white boy, but he had tagged the diva of the moment and he’d kept his mouth shut about it. He’d had some class. But had Willy gotten too close to the fierce heat of celebrity? The potentially toxic mixture of sex, money, and notoriety had a long list of deadly side effects. When you already have your hands on everything in life that Madison Avenue teaches you to want, how hard would it be to run across someone who would lash out at you, either from envy or greed?

  The song they were playing faded away. Sandy Ellison stood down at the stage apron, applauding loudly. “Goddamn!” he shouted. “God, that was hot! Goddamn!” Cliff, the lead singer, glanced at Ellison, then turned his back as the drummer counted off and BandX launched into their next tune. Maybe these guys will make it, Alessandra thought. If the music counts for anything . . .

  Eleven

  The radio in the van didn’t work.

  Maybe it’s just as well, Al told herself. You’ve had enough music for a while. She was still rattled from the sensory overload that was BandX in full cry. They had played at a volume just short of her pain threshold, but it had been as good a show as she’d ever heard. The music, almost a physical sensation, had washed over her in waves. Her seat had been about twenty rows back, just left of center. The people around her had risen to their feet almost as soon as the concert began, and had remained standing the rest of the night. She stood as well, peering around taller bodies to try to get a sense of what was happening on the stage. TJ Conrad was obviously the band’s leader, even though he tended to stay out of center stage, letting Trent, the second guitarist, take most of the flashier solos.

  She ignored the reek of marijuana and the chemical stink of crack that floated past. She herself was far too paranoid to surrender even partial control of herself, particularly in a public space, surrounded by people she didn’t know. She shook her head at the courage or foolhardiness of those who chose to do so. As if, she thought, the sheer volume of BandX was not stupefying enough.

  She’d thought about leaving for at least half of the three hours BandX was on stage, but she couldn’t, they held her there, rapt. About halfway through, the band ripped into a bunch of old R&B covers, some of them classics, some of them obscure, all of them rendered with enough verve, soul, and cool to rival the originals. God, Al thought, these guys really are something else.

  Toward the end of the concert, the crowd and the band went into their ritual mating dance, the musicians walking offstage, the people standing, clapping, and screaming until the band came back out, okay, a couple more, all right, this is it, really, okay, one more and then we really have to go . . . The house lights came up, finally, and that signaled the end of the show.

  The ringing in Alessandra’s ears was actually more of a hiss, but it was clearly audible over the drone of the Astro’s engine and the waves of sound from the other cars and trucks as she drove south. A soft rain pebbled the windshield, smeared away rhythmically by the wipers. Funny, she thought, you put those five guys up on stage and they approached transcendence. See them afterward, what a bunch of jerks. It had taken her a while to make her way backstage after the show, just to find that the term “backstage” was a misnomer. Three of them, Cliff, the singer, Trent, the guitar player, and the drummer, whose name she did not know, were already in the tour bus, which was in the alley out back. It was a big, shiny chrome behemoth parked under a streetlight, lights out, big diesel grumbling. A guy stood on the bottom step of the bus, his hands held out for quiet. A group of maybe thirty females was gathered close, and the guy on the bus shook long blond hair back out of his face and thrust his chin forward. Dude looked like a soprano getting ready for her solo. “Ladies,” he said, and they all fell silent at his feet. “Ladies . . .”

  None of them had looked like ladies to Alessandra. To her, they looked like a bunch of fourteen- to sixteen-year-old suburban schoolgirls with a few older aunts mixed in. They were all what her father would call “dressed for the corner.” It wasn’t true—most of the streetwalkers Al had seen dressed far more modestly than these.

  “Ladies,” the man continued. “Nobody gets on the bus without ID. Okay? If you don’t have ID, thanks for coming, have a great night, see ya. Next, if you don’t want to have sex with the musicians, thanks for coming, have a great night, go on home. We’re clear on this, right? Third, the carriage turns back into a pumpkin at one in the morning. That’s when the bus leaves, so make sure you have transport home, because if you didn’t get here on the bus, you aren’t leaving on the bus. Okay?”

  Al sensed a presence behind her, and she turned to see Rushton, the sound guy, at her elbow. He grimaced. “You believe they pay that creep more than they pay me?”

  Al took a step back, putting a bit more distance between the scene at the bus door and herself. “This a normal occurrence?”

  Rushton looked at the women. “BandX has played here a lot,” he said, a little defensive. “They’ve got a following.”

  “This is like the zoo during rutting season,” she told him. “I’m not gonna get anything here tonight.”

/>   “I should have warned you,” he told her. “You probably could have went home hours ago. Except TJ and Doc, they ain’t on the bus. I can get you in to see them.” He grimaced. “Doc won’t be good for much, he’s always bummed after a show. And TJ, well, he’s TJ. But you can probably talk to him.”

  They actually had part of the place roped off.

  It was a couple of steps up from the joint Rushton had taken her to earlier. This place was what was once called a nightclub, small stage on one side of the room, dove gray and pink décor, lots of tiny tables, mirrors everywhere, annoying lights that danced and flickered at odd angles. It was crowded and noisy, but there were only about a dozen characters behind the thick velvet rope. The only two that Alessandra recognized were TJ Conrad and Doc Jamison, the bass player. Doc, a black guy with a shaved head and dark glasses, was elbows down on a table in the far corner, and TJ was sitting across from him. A bouncer stepped up on the inside of the barricade when Rushton and Al approached. “Evening, Luke,” the guy said. “She with you?”

  “Hah,” Rushton said, as though that were not even a remote possibility. “No, she’s a reporter. TJ and Doc are gonna want to talk to her, believe me.”

  The bouncer shrugged. “Whatever you say.” He stepped to one side, holding the barrier aside so the two of them could pass. TJ looked up as they approached his table, while Doc continued to stare into his drink. TJ shook his head.

  “Beat it,” he said. “Take her out to the bus. They’re out in the alley. Nothing happening here.” For a moment, Al thought about kicking TJ’s chair out from beneath him, but she didn’t. And why is it, she asked herself, why can’t you be attracted to some nice, normal guy with a job? Why are you always drawn to jerks like this?

  “Dude, she’s a reporter. She’s doing a story on the band. You need all the ink you can get.”

  TJ rocked back on the rear legs of his chair, then stood up, bowed slightly, held his hand out. The expression on his face never changed. “My apologies,” he said. “I thought . . . ahh, well, anyhow, lemme make it up to you. Have a seat. I’ll buy you a drink, Doc and me will answer all your questions.”