by Lewis Shiner
“I actually played what he cued up for me once,” Scott said, as he rolled an office chair into the dj station and pulled the boom mike lower. “Fortunately I faded it out before McLendon heard it.”
Alex’s numbness had worn off. He’d listened to klif since he was 9 years old and had gotten his first transistor radio for Christmas. Like most teenagers in Dallas, he had driven past the studios at night to see the on-air dj through the smoked glass on the third floor, honking in the hope that he would look out or wave. And this, Alex thought, this is only the beginning.
“Gentlemen?” Hornet said.
At the end of the hall they filed into a carpeted room with an oblong wooden table and padded chairs, two of them occupied. The man on the near side was around sixty, balding, wearing glasses, an open-collared striped shirt, and a plaid jacket. The guy across from him was in his early thirties, with longish black hair and thick sideburns, a shiny blue-gray suit, and aviator sunglasses.
The older man stood up and held out his hand. “Julie Greene,” he said, and they each shook hands with him and said their names.
Hornet pointed to the other man and said, “Sid Modesto, booking agent.” Modesto lifted one hand as if the effort was more than they deserved, and Alex thought, who is he trying to impress?
They all sat down and Hornet said, “Julie is looking for business propositions, not a huge outlay, with the possibility of a decent return.”
“Jack makes me sound like such a businessman,” Greene said. “I just want to feel young again. Jack says you’ve got a song, you want to make a record.”
Alex had a moment of doubt. They’d talked about it on the way back from Richardson on Friday night. Cole wanted to know why they had to get other people involved when Alex’s father could easily front the money. Alex truly loved his father, and his father would happily have stepped up with the cash. And yet you knew there were emotional strings attached, at the very least the admission of need, an admission Alex hated to make. Yet here they were, making that same admission to a stranger.
“Yes, sir,” Cole said to Greene. “We’ve got one original song and we’re working on some more.”
“Good for you,” Greene said. “So let me hear it.”
“Sir?”
“The song you want to record, sing it for me.”
Alex had never seen Cole flustered before. “We don’t have our instruments with us,” Cole said, “not even an acoustic guitar…”
“Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, they didn’t need guitars. A song is a song. If it hasn’t got a melody, what good is it?”
“I—” Cole said, and looked to Hornet for help. Hornet smiled gentle encouragement at him. “Yeah, okay, give me a minute.”
Cole looked at the floor for a good ten seconds, then looked up and started to sing. Alex gave him credit—he kept it simple, didn’t try to hum the guitar lick or the solo, just sang the words and put enough feeling into it to sell it.
When he was done, Greene shrugged and looked at Hornet. “Cole Porter it isn’t, but what is, these days? It’s a real song, like you told me. You set up the recording thing, session, whatever it is, I’ll put up the money we discussed.”
Alex reached over and slapped Cole on the back. Mike lifted his clasped hands like a boxer, and even Gary gave up a smile and a thumbs-up.
Hornet looked at Modesto, who said, “There’s an outfit in Arlington called Atlas Records. They’ve got a decent studio, they do quality work, they’ve gotten records on the radio from a couple of local groups. And they’re straight. You pay up front, they don’t own a piece of any of it.”
“Once klif starts playing it,” Hornet said, “kfjz will have to get on it too. After that we wait and see, but there’s a chance it could go national.”
Cole said, “Don’t we have to sign something?”
Hornet said, “I’ll write all this up. You’ll need a parent or guardian to sign for you. This is just for the one record, and it’ll say that Julie gets twenty-five percent of the wholesale price after the initial recordings are paid off. He doesn’t get any of the publishing, and if it goes on an album later, that’s a completely separate deal. As for Sid, that’s another contract, and your parents will have to sign that too.”
“And what do you get?” Cole asked.
“I get to break the record on my show.”
“Why do you want to break their record?” Greene asked. “I thought you liked it.”
“He means he’ll be the first one to play it,” Modesto told him.
Julie shrugged again, using both hands. “Okay, so I’m learning.”
“I’ve got a question,” Alex said, his ravaged voice barely audible.
“Shoot,” Hornet said.
Alex turned to Modesto. “What kind of suit is that?”
“Sharkskin,” Modesto said. His smile showed a lot of teeth. “I like sharks.”
*
Normally on a Friday afternoon, Steve Cole tried to get out of the office early and beat the traffic. Today he’d worked late and settled for a plate of Dickey’s barbeque instead of a home-cooked supper in order to meet the kid at a rock-and-roll radio station and sign a contract.
His father used to tell the old Arab story about the camel and the tent. First you let them stick their nose in, and then next thing you know, the camel’s inside and you’re out in the cold. That was the way this music business had turned out. Once he’d backed down on the guitar, it was one retreat after another. Letting the kid stay out until two am when they had a job. Letting him have his own record player, and having to constantly tell him to turn it down or turn it off and do his homework. Letting him grow his hair and sideburns. Letting him miss meals without warning. Letting him spend the night again and again at a house Steve had never been in, with this kid Alex’s family, whom he’d never met.
That, anyway, was finally going to change. Alex’s father would be at the station, along with the fathers of the other two boys.
He checked his watch in the hallway outside the conference room. Ten past seven, ten minutes late. Not a very straightforward way to express his anger, he knew, and it made him a little ashamed.
The room was hazy with cigarette smoke, warm from holding 11 bodies where only six fit comfortably. The kid looked up as Steve came in, then immediately went back to talking to an older Mexican, obviously Alex’s father. Betty claimed he was always provoking the kid, and this was a perfect example of how it cut both ways. Steve was tempted to turn around and walk out. Then where would they be?
Some 20-year-old hepcat in a black turtleneck and corduroy jacket introduced himself as Johnny Hornet, as if Steve was supposed to know who that was. At least Hornet had some manners and thanked him for coming. He led Steve around to an empty chair next to the kid. At that point the older Mexican stood up and said, “Al Montoya, Alex’s father. So glad to meet you at last.” He had a firm handshake and no apparent accent.
“Steve Cole.”
“You must be so proud of your son.”
“Why?”
Montoya flinched ever so slightly at that, then laughed as if Steve had been kidding. “Well, for one thing, this whole party is because of the song that he wrote.”
The kid finally spoke up. “With Alex.”
The kid hadn’t mentioned writing it, and now Steve felt like he’d been made to look foolish. He laughed it off and said, “People write those things?”
“Some of it, I agree, it’s hard to tell,” Montoya said. His diplomacy seemed unforced. “Looks like we’re getting started.”
Hornet handed out copies of a mimeographed contract, two pages long. “Short and sweet,” he said. “The terms are pretty generous—ten cents a copy artist royalties, five cents a song mechanicals. We’ll press 500 copies, 50 of which are promos, on which no royalties are payable. Artist royalties go to recoup the recording costs, which are itemized, and the mechanicals pay from the get-go. Take a minute to read it over and then let me know if you have questions.”
/> Montoya handed his copy to a skinny guy in wire-rimmed glasses and a rumpled suit. Brought his own lawyer, Steve thought. Smart, and also not so smart. This evening’s billables would cost him more than the record would ever earn.
Steve read through the contract, most of which made little sense to him. What were mechanicals? What was normal in a case like this? The main thing, the thing he was looking for, was to make sure the kid wasn’t obligating himself, or his parents, for anything beyond this one record, and that much looked okay.
Montoya’s lawyer said, “Julie, did you write this?”
An old Jew at the end of the table grinned and said, “Maybe I did.”
The lawyer said, “That’s good enough for me.” He handed the contract to Montoya and said, “Sign it quick, before he changes his mind.”
The old Jew laughed and everybody around the table laughed and the mood shifted from wariness to good humor. The other fathers all got out their pens and started passing around copies and signing, so Steve did too, though he was still a long way from amused.
After all the copies had gone around the table, Steve said, “Is that it?”
“One more,” Hornet said, and handed out another, longer set of mimeoed pages. “I think Sid wrote this one, so you better read it a couple of times.” A shady-looking character in the corner barked a single laugh.
This was an agent’s contract, and Montoya’s lawyer had a few quibbles—the contract could be terminated by either party without obtaining mutual consent, artists could request an audit with-out notice, and so on. As each point was agreed to, they all wrote in the changes on their copies. Steve checked his watch. Finally the lawyer said, “That’s all for me. I think it looks good. Anybody else?”
“I have a question,” Steve said. “Who picked the record company?” He already knew the answer, because he’d asked the kid.
“That was me,” said the guy Hornet referred to as Sid.
“Did you get a kickback?”
The room went quiet.
“A what?”
“Surely you know what a kickback is. A payoff, from the record company, for picking them.”
He and Sid looked at each other for a few seconds. Steve had some practice staring down leasing agents who fancied themselves tough guys. Steve believed business was not a prizefight. It was business, and honest people shouldn’t be afraid of honest questions.
Sid let out his breath. “I have an understanding with the company.”
“That’s good,” Steve said, and made a show of signing his copy and initialing all the changes. “Because otherwise this didn’t make a lot of sense. And I appreciate the fact that you didn’t try to bullshit me.”
He passed his copy to Montoya and everybody else signed and initialed and passed, and then Steve said, “Are we done?”
Hornet said, “Don’t you want your countersigned copies?”
“Send them home with the kid,” he said, and stood up. He nodded to Montoya, ignored the kid, and walked out.
On the street the cold air sobered him up. He knew he’d been a horse’s ass. The smart thing would have been to glad-hand all those North Dallas rich men and their rich sons, to act impressed by the flashy dj and the rich Jew and the sleazy agent. To pretend that this was a real business, where real products were made by the sweat of men’s hands and brows, and that it meant something and it was going to lead to something besides heartbreak. He might have done it, too, if the camel hadn’t already pushed him more than halfway out of the tent, and if the desert night was not so terribly cold.
*
The following weekend, Cole made the transition from amateur to pro. Saturday morning, a two-hour photo session among the leafless trees of Lee Park and Turtle Creek, with the goal of an 8 ✕ 10 publicity shot. The photographer was in his twenties, Fu Manchu mustache, yellow-tinted glasses. He had them in their blazers and ties at first, holding their instruments, cavorting Beatles-style around the Robert E. Lee equestrian statue, leaning, squatting, arms around each other’s shoulders, all smiles. For round two they changed to black turtlenecks in the bitter cold and looked moody and intense and fought to keep from shivering.
Sunday six to eight pm was the recording studio, “off-peak” hours courtesy of Sid. Two hours to set up, get their levels, and record two songs. “Laura Lee” for the A-side, their abridged version of Dylan’s “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues” for the flip. Cole had them arrive half an hour early and they put everything together in the parking lot.
The sky was overcast and a cold wind whistled across the industrial wasteland of Arlington, a city that had yanked itself up out of nothing in the 1950s based on a gm plant and endless miles of warehouses and business parks.
At ten till, Cole rang the doorbell and got no answer. The building was a windowless cinderblock cube that could withstand a nuclear strike.
“If there’s nobody here,” Gary said, “and we did all this for nothing…”
Cole pounded on the hollow metal front door. Nothing. Alex said, “You know Friday the Thirteenth comes on a Sunday this month.”
“There’s two other cars out here,” Cole said. “They have to belong to somebody. If they don’t open up by six, we’ll send Mike to look for a pay phone.” Cole sat on the open tailgate of Mike’s mother’s station wagon and hugged himself for warmth. Mike and Alex sat in the front seat and Gary paced by the door.
At 6:01 the door opened and a guy in a white shirt and tie and heavy black-framed glasses stuck his head out. He looked about forty. Heavy jowls, dark hair slicked straight back. “Chevelles?”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “Didn’t you hear us knocking?”
“Sorry, it’s just me here on the weekends. Looks like you’re all set up. Great. Give me one second.”
He went inside and closed the door. “Cheapskate,” Gary said, “fly by night…”
“Fucking Sid,” Cole said. “I’m going to kill the son of a bitch.”
A minute later a big man in a brown suit came out. Behind him was the guy in glasses, carrying one end of a portable organ. On the other end was a large woman in her thirties with cat-eye glasses and a huge bouffant. As the three of them headed for a black Coupe de Ville, Cole grabbed his guitar and rolled his amp inside.
The cramped reception area was done up in cheap laminated paneling. Cole followed a hallway and ended up in the studio proper. He couldn’t suppress an anticipatory thrill, though the place was a dump. The air smelled of stale cigarette smoke and sweat. Stained carpet on the floor, yellowed acoustical tile on the walls. Mike stands held together with gaffer’s tape and coat hangers. An overhead fluorescent fixture that flickered in an epilepsy-inducing rhythm, and a spiderwebbed crack in one corner of the control room window. Still, it was a real studio, real records supposedly came out of it, and Cole was jazzed.
By the time the guy in glasses stuck his head in, they had all the gear in the center of the room. “I’m Vince,” he said. “You guys want Cokes or anything?”
Cole said, “We’d like to get started, sir, if you’ll tell us where you want everything. We’ve only got—” He looked at his watch. “—an hour and fifty minutes to do this.”
“Relax,” Vince said. “You guys are the last session of the night. I’m not going to bust your chops if we run a little long. You guys are with Sid, right?”
Cole and Gary looked at each other. “That’s right,” Cole said.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”
“In that case,” Alex said, “I’ll take a Coke.”
In ten minutes Vince had handed cold Coke bottles around and positioned the instruments. Gary was in a corner, behind a cardboard screen cut out of a refrigerator box and padded with foam rubber, low enough to see over. A single microphone sat above his bass drum, pointed at his snare, and three more mikes were aimed more or less at their amps.
“What about vocal mikes?” Cole asked.
“Up to you,” Vince said. “My idea was we’d get the instruments for
both songs, then overdub the vocals. You want to do ’em live, that’s jake with me.”
“Overdubs are good,” Cole said, looking at Alex, who nodded.
They all put on headphones, and Vince gave Cole a mike to do a guide vocal. “Let’s hear what you got,” Vince said.
They ran through a minute or so of “Laura Lee” while Vince, in the control room, pushed faders up and down, then waved them to stop.
“From the top again,” he said. “Keep it simple.”
They played the song through to the end and Vince said, “Okay, what’s the other one?”
Mike said, “Shouldn’t we, like, record this one before we move on?”
“You just did,” Vince said. “What’s the other one?”
Mike switched to organ for the Dylan song. Both Cole and Alex hit some bad notes. Vince reluctantly let them do a second take.
“Can we hear that back?” Cole asked when they finished.
“Later,” Vince said. “Let’s do the vocals.” It was two minutes past seven, with an hour to go. “How many singers?”
He wheeled out a big boom mike like the one in the klif studios and said, “Circle up. Lead singer stands this far away, harmony singers this far. Got it? You, the drummer. Come in the booth with me, we’ll throw some handclaps on the A side. The rubes never get tired of handclaps.”
The vocals for both songs were done by 7:30, and Vince finally played the songs back. He’d added enough reverb to the vocals to sweeten them up. The drums popped, the guitars sparkled, the bass hit right in the solar plexus.
“Holy cow,” Gary said. “You’re really good.”
“Been doing this a few years,” Vince said. “Laura what’s her name, the one that sounds like ‘Daytripper,’ that’s the A side, I assume. Want to juice it up a little more?”
“It sounds good now,” Cole said.
“Up to you,” Vince said. “We can ping those tracks onto another machine, throw some organ on there, where you can’t hardly hear it, and double the guitar part, this time without the fuzz. While you two do that, we’ll beef up the handclaps.”
