by Lewis Shiner
He got there at eight, after a cab ride through streets full of kids in beat-up cars. Mrs. Jay’s was a white brick building on a corner lot, facing the ocean, dingy with soot, with Harleys and hot rod Fords, Dodge Darts and Volkswagen Beetles parked out front, rough kids in jeans and dirty white T-shirts and tattoos lounging against the walls, smoking and watching him suspiciously. If it hadn’t meant another three-hour bus ride to get home, Dave might have chickened out then and there.
He also regretted wearing a suit, which had lost its press on the bus. He’d been afraid people might not take him seriously if he did end up handing out the new business cards he’d brought, the ones with the Columbia logo on them without Columbia’s permission. Now he worried that they’d think he was a cop.
Hunger decided him. He pushed through the double glass doors into the end of the dinner rush. The interior was a gigantic sweat box where waitresses squeezed through the crowd with trays overhead, everybody was talking at the top of their lungs, and a blaring jukebox was barely audible in the background. He found an open stool at the bar and ordered the blue plate special: chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, roll, and iced tea for 89 cents. By the time he finished, the band was loading in their equipment.
At first Dave took them for older, maybe past their prime. On second glance they were just tough, working-class Italian kids, probably tired from schlepping their gear all the way from Bayonne, that gear including a full-sized Hammond B-3 and Leslie, two matching Vox Super Beatle amps, and the biggest drum set Dave had ever seen.
After the setup and a quick sound check, they disappeared for half an hour. Then, at 9:30 exactly, they hit the stage running, now dressed in matching black shirts and white ties, guitars tuned and strapped on, and they plugged in and counted off the first song before the audience had fully registered that they were there.
The first song was “Shotgun,” the Junior Walker hit, and they blasted it out in four-part harmony, with blistering guitar fills and percussive riffs from the B-3 that sounded like a helicopter landing on the checkered linoleum floor and felt like a boxer pounding on Dave’s solar plexus. No vestige remained of their earlier fatigue as they charged into the next song, and a crowd started to form in front of the stage.
By the time that second song was over, Dave knew he wanted to sign them, and by the third he was afraid someone was going to beat him to it.
The rest of the first set stuck mostly to R&B, soul, and blues standards: Bobby Bland, Smokey Robinson, Little Eva, Bo Diddley. The occasional curve balls included Elvis’s “Don’t Be Cruel” and the Rascals’ arrangement of “Good Lovin’.” Everybody except the drummer took turns singing lead, and they switched off between guitar-driven songs and organ-driven songs. They changed up the keys and the tempos and ended with a ten-minute workout on Ray Charles’s “What’d I Say,” going straight into “Green Onions” for the break.
Dave was petrified. All the lines he’d rehearsed deserted him. Only the fear of another scout being in the audience got him onto his feet. In a haze of fear, he followed the band and an entourage of girls into an overlit break room with a noisy refrigerator, a sink, a Formica table, and a collection of mismatched chairs.
The guys collapsed into the chairs and one of the girls went to the fridge and passed around bottles of beer. The rest of the girls seemed unsure what to do now that they were here. Dave felt much the same way. The guys had noticed him, however, so he had to say something.
“My name is Dave Fisher. I’m from Columbia Records and I think you guys are great.”
They looked at each other and the sudden wonder, hope, and excitement on their faces boosted Dave’s confidence. He grabbed a chair and sat in it backwards. “Have any of the other labels talked to you yet?”
They had probably been imagining this moment for years, Dave thought. The drummer was the first to respond, a shake of the head.
“Have you got a manager? A booking agent?”
The organist spoke up. He’d recovered his wariness, and though he was hollow-cheeked skinny, he had a wiry menace. “To play dumps like this one, we don’t need a manager.”
“Bodyguards, maybe,” the drummer said, and they all laughed.
“How about original material? Do you guys write any of your own songs?”
“We got a few,” the organist said. “Maybe five.”
“Six,” the guitar player said, sitting up self-consciously, like he’d been called on in school. “We got ‘Paradise,’ remember?”
“Six,” the organist said.
“Have you recorded any of them? Demo tape, singles, anything like that?” All but the bass player shook their heads. “Could you do me a favor, maybe play some of them tonight?”
“We’ll play ’em all,” the drummer said, then looked at the organist for confirmation.
“Sure,” the organist said. “Not in a bunch, though. This crowd, they like stuff they know from the radio.”
“That’s the way of it, isn’t it?” Dave said. “The clubs want covers, but you can’t make that next step until you do originals.” He was talking too much. “Listen, I can’t promise anything. But I would maybe like to put together a showcase for you in the city, get some people from the label down to hear you, see what they think.”
“Hell yes,” the drummer said.
“Showcase?” the organist said.
“A club gig with some big shots in the audience. You’ll want to pack the house, you know, get lots of girls there who’ll scream and dance.”
He glanced at the girls, who were watching with wide eyes. One of them said, “I can scream.” She smiled and licked her lips.
The organist looked at her and said, “See me after the show.”
“How can I get hold of you?” Dave asked.
The organist took a business card out of his wallet. Under the name the meteors was a drawing of a rock with speed lines, the names Sal, Tim, Rocky, and Mike, and two phone numbers.
“Who’s Sal?”
“That’s me,” the organist said. “The first number on the card is me.” Dave shook his hand and Sal said, “What was your name again?”
Blushing, and hating it, he said, “Dave. Dave Fisher.” He remembered his own business cards and passed them around, shaking hands with the others: Tim on guitar, Rocky on bass, Mike on drums.
“Anybody under eighteen?” Dave asked.
The guys all shook their heads. One of the girls started to raise her hand and the girl next to her slapped it down and said, “Not you, stupid.”
“Good, good, that’ll make it easier if we get to the point of a contract.” Time, he thought, to quit while he was ahead. “It was good meeting you guys. I hope to talk to you soon.”
“You too,” said Mike the drummer, and Tim the guitar player chimed in with, “Thanks.” Sal was reading Dave’s card like a cryptogram he was trying to solve. Rocky remained inscrutable.
Dave let himself out, and as soon as he closed the door, he heard the band let out a cheer. Dave felt like cheering, too.
He spent the rest of the night in a daze. He had tunnel vision and his brain kept flying to the four corners of the universe, already trying to picture the album cover, to decide which cover tunes to keep, how he would mike the instruments. Two of the band’s originals sounded like hits, and two more were good enough for B-sides or album filler. Enough for a start.
He knew that word of who he was had spread through the club when people began to sneak looks at him. He was two parts embarrassed to one part pleased with himself. During the third break, a tall, skinny guy with the oversized jaw and forehead of acromegaly sat hunched and uninvited at Dave’s table and explained that he was the next Dylan. To get rid of him, Dave traded one of his new business cards for the kid’s address scrawled on the back of an envelope.
By 1:30, when the band finished, the club had emptied out except for a few old men passed out in the booths and a dozen or so girls. Dave said goodnight as the band was tearing down and pro
mised to be in touch.
At the bar he asked where he might be able to find a room. “No chance,” the bartender said. “On a Friday on the shore in July? Everything’s booked up months ahead.” He was dipping beer steins, two at a time, in a sink of gray suds.
“Can I get back to Manhattan?”
“First bus is six in the morning.” He didn’t meet Dave’s eyes.
“What am I going to do?” Dave hated the desperation in his voice.
“Can’t sleep here,” the bartender said. “Try the bus station.”
A female voice behind him said, “I can take you as far as Bayonne.” He turned to see a blonde in her mid-twenties, a bit the worse for wear, dark roots, sympathetic eyes. “You can cab into the city from there.”
Her name was Crystal and she had a blue-and-white Chevy Bel Air with a sizable dent in the rear bumper. As they got in, she said, “I imagine you’re worn out, so if you want to sleep, that’s okay. I’m a nurse, so I’m used to being awake at all hours.”
“I may never sleep again,” Dave said.
She smiled like she meant to collect that verbal iou later, and put the car in gear. “My ex used to tell me I was to talking what a hurricane was to fresh air, so feel free to interrupt if I get on a streak.”
“You’re very generous to help me out.” Trusting was the word he was thinking, which she seemed to pick up.
“Oh, you’re safe, I can tell.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”
“Believe me, I had enough of the other with my ex.” Contrary to her ex’s warning, they cruised in companionable silence down Asbury Avenue, past the boardwalk and the weathered wood-frame shops and the last of the tourists.
“What’s your connection with the band?” Dave finally asked, as they turned onto the Garden State Parkway.
“One of my girlfriends dated Sal for a while.” She gave him a sardonic look. “‘Dated.’ Yeah, right. Anyway, we followed the band around a little. I love music, I love to dance, and they’re the best combo in Jersey, so I kept going after my girlfriend got tired of standing in line for a turn with Sal.” She looked at him again. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, she’s too old for this. Among other things.”
“I’m way older than you are. And here I am.”
“Yeah, but that’s your job. Right? I mean, I heard you’re a producer for Columbia?”
Already Dave liked her enough not to say yes. He explained the leap he was trying to make, which led to telling her stories about the studio and travelling with the Spoonful, whom she loved. She had a raucous laugh that matched her working-class Jersey accent, and Dave did his best to hear it again and again.
She pulled up in front of her apartment building a little after three am. She turned sideways on the seat to face him. “I can call you a cab, or…”
“Or?” he said.
She smiled. “Or.”
This was where, he thought, the old Dave would have been overcome by shyness and run away.
“‘Or’ sounds good,” he said.
*
Dave didn’t leave her apartment until Sunday afternoon. It had been a long time for him. For her too. She made breakfast and lunch and ordered in the best delivery pizza Dave had ever eaten, and in between she told him about Bayonne.
“The whole town is in a time warp. You can still hear doo-wop groups practicing in the alleys where they can get a good echo. People who are born in Bayonne work in Bayonne and die in Bayonne. My mom is at the Maidenform factory up the street and my dad was at one of the refineries out on the Hook until they moved it down south to get away from the unions.”
She told him about boarded-up store fronts and that the closest thing to parkland when she was a kid was vacant lots. Her older brother Tommy hated it and was always going over the bridge to Staten Island, where the drinking age was 18. Until the night eight years ago when his best friend’s car crashed into the concrete abutment coming off the bridge onto the Boulevard. The other kids had gotten away with contusions and Tommy, riding shotgun, had gone through the windshield. Her parents found a way to blame each other and Crystal moved out as soon as she finished high school.
She played him her well-worn 45s, from the Church Street Five and the Dovells to Mitch Ryder and the Young Rascals. She’d gotten the music bug early, hypnotized by the juke box at the candy store where the kids all hung out, drinking fountain Cokes and working out jitterbug moves.
This is the world we’re tearing down, Dave thought. Mitch Miller’s world. The world of crew cuts and soda fountains and dead-end factory jobs.
When he finally got in the cab for Manhattan, he had a tentative promise that she would come into the city the next weekend, and he would take her to the Village and the Garden and the Park, anywhere she wanted to go.
On Monday he called Joe Marra at the Night Owl, who agreed to hire the band on Dave’s recommendation and found him a Wednesday night slot two weeks away. He called Sal that afternoon to confirm the booking. Sal pushed for details: who would be there, what would the next steps be, what kind of advance was Dave thinking of. Dave tried in vain to scale down his expectations.
“You do like the band, right?” Sal said. “You do want to record us?”
“If everything works out,” Dave said, “we’ll see.”
On Tuesday he made an appointment with Columbia’s new head of A&R, Morgan Conrad, who had replaced Mitch Miller the year before. Although Dave barely knew him, Conrad was the one who would have to okay his move from engineering to production. Dave got 15 minutes before Conrad was scheduled for a working lunch.
He tried not to let himself think about how much was at stake. This was the way of things, after all. Bring the company a great band, get to produce them as your reward.
Conrad was running late. Dave lost the first ten minutes of his appointment, and Conrad looked at his watch as soon as they’d shaken hands. He was tanned and fit, his white hair was cut short, and a display handkerchief stuck out of the pocket of his Italian suit.
“I’ve been hearing good things about your work,” Conrad said. “In and out of Columbia.”
Dave ignored the implied reprimand. “Thank you, sir. I know you’re in a hurry, so I’ll get to the point. I’ve found a terrific young rock group and set up a showcase for them two weeks from tomorrow. If you think they’re as commercial as I do, I’d like the chance to produce them.”
“Whoa, slow down, Dave. Who gave you permission to scout acts?”
“I was showing initiative, sir. That’s always the way it’s been here, all of us on the lookout for talent that might bring the company a hit record.”
“I appreciate the history lesson, but I’m not automatically persuaded that ‘the way things have always been’ is the best way to do business. Furthermore, there’s no established career track from engineering to A and R. They’re two very different professions.” Conrad had produced a few stereo demonstration records in the late fifties for Audio Fidelity, then moved into entertainment law. He’d been at Columbia less than a year.
To his surprise, Dave’s feelings of panic were manifesting as homicidal rage. He struggled to keep his voice even and reasonable. “I apologize if I was out of line. Regardless of how it happened, there’s going to be a terrific group called the Meteors playing at the Night Owl on August 10, and Columbia has the inside track on signing them.”
“What did you promise this group?”
“Nothing, sir. I told them I liked their sound and that I would like some other people at the company to hear them.”
“And did you represent yourself in any way as having the authority to offer them a contract?”
“No, of course not. I just told them that I worked at Columbia.”
“And I hope that continues to be the case.” At that, Dave’s hands clenched the arms of the chair as if he had them around Conrad’s throat. “I suggest you cancel this showcase and return to your assigned duties. In time, if your work re
mains solid, maybe we can let you co-produce one of the existing acts on our roster.”
Dave was too livid to speak. He got up and started for the door.
“Dave?”
Dave hesitated with his hand on the knob.
“We’re not cowboys here,” Conrad said. “Not anymore. It’s a new day.”
Dave managed to not slam the door on his way out.
*
Dave spent the afternoon waiting for callbacks from Jake, from Tom Dowd at Atlantic, and from Phil Ramone at A&R Studios. They were the only people in town that he trusted with the Meteors, and all three eventually phoned to say they would be there for the showcase. They all wanted to know why he wasn’t signing them to Columbia, and he said, “Columbia has made it clear I don’t have that authority.”
He needed Dutch courage that night before he called Crystal. He hadn’t eaten all day, and he wasn’t used to drinking in the first place. He needed three tries to dial her number because of the shaking in his hands. She was completely tied up with the Meteors in his mind, and he knew that the longer he waited to call the harder it would get.
As soon as she heard his voice, she said, “What’s wrong?”
He gave her the blow by blow. She was quiet for so long after that he finally said, “Are you there?”
“Why didn’t you go to this Tom Dowd guy and say, ‘If you like this band you have to hire me as producer’?”
“None of these guys are in a position to hire me, except maybe as an engineer.”
“So are you going to engineer the record if they produce it?”
“That would be like… that would be like going to watch a woman I was in love with marry somebody else.”
“Jesus and Mary, you’re not even going to the club to see them, are you?”
“I doubt it.”
After another excruciating silence, he said, “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Dave, wait,” she said, but the blackness of his mood had swallowed him and he hung up the phone. A part of him hoped she would call him back, and when she didn’t, he turned out the lights and got undressed. He lay on his back and listened to the noise of the street through the open window, the sirens and the horns and the squealing brakes.
