by Mark All
“Can I make you some coffee?” David asked, leading her down a short hallway into a sterile-looking living room that clearly didn’t see much action. It reminded her of a Rooms To Go showroom.
“That sounds good.”
He went through a second door and she followed him into the kitchen. It seemed more lived-in; a few dirty dishes soaked in the sink, and bills and a guitar magazine were stacked on a small breakfast table. She set her pocketbook and briefcase down in an empty space. The chairs were perfectly positioned except for a single misaligned one, which renewed her sense of loneliness, as did the location of the salt and pepper shakers before that place setting rather than the middle of the table.
David went to the sink and started swishing out the coffee pot. “I called Mike and Alan and told them about the show. They’re pretty psyched. Couldn’t get John on the phone, left him a message.” He rolled his eyes. “I can tell you, though, he’s not going to do it. I’ve already started mixing a performance version of the album, with a click track, the keys, and the bass.”
She’d been afraid this would be the case. “Is that going to work okay? I mean, a band’s live performance is crucial to energizing a fan base.”
He laughed. “You do sound like a record company rep.”
“I know my business.” She smiled. “Rest assured, I’ll be your partner with the label. They call me the Musician Whisperer.”
“Okay, I’m looking forward to that.” His eyes caught hers briefly and her belly tightened. “Um, anyway, we’ll be fine,” he continued. “Alan’s a great front man, and we’ve always had a good stage presence. We’re so involved in the music, it’s contagious.”
He filled the pot with water from a dispenser in the refrigerator door and dumped the old coffee grounds. “So how are downloads of the single?”
“Kicking ass,” she said. She had wandered over to an iPod in a docking station player on the far end of the counter.
“I saw some news reports,” he said, measuring out what seemed an awful lot of coffee. “They’re saying it’s affecting people.” His voice was noncommittal, but held an undercurrent of tension.
“Yeah,” she said, keeping her own tone neutral. “I’m gonna be optimistic and say that any buzz is good buzz.” Before she’d left the office, she’d read a popular music blog that had some particularly nasty things to say about the forthcoming Penumbra album—which of course they hadn’t heard yet—based on news reports about the bizarre Looper phenomena. Eager to avoid that line of thought, she hit the iPod’s Play button and jumped back, startled, as high-volume, grinding, bluesy metal pounded from the small but quality speakers.
“Hey, this is pretty good, what is it?” she asked, squinting at the odd name of the song on the display, which seemed to be a code of some sort, including a date.
“An original I did a few months ago,” he said. “It’s just riff-based bar band crap. Don’t worry, it’s not on the album. I could only write good stuff with Vince.”
A troubled look clouded his face, but her attention was drawn back to the music as it ventured into a surprisingly hooky chorus that would almost have been at home in a pop song. It was pro level song-writing and performance. Not outstanding enough for Sage to gamble on right now, and it probably wouldn’t move enough units, but no need to mention that. “You could do this style for a side project on your own.”
David turned the coffee maker on. “Nah. It adds nothing to the canon of rock music, and it doesn’t have enough commercial appeal. You know that better than I do. Like I said, I only managed to come up with really original stuff when I worked on songs with Vince. My own material just doesn’t merit pursuing.”
Jessica shook her head. “Too harsh on yourself. You should embrace who you are and what you naturally do.”
David leaned against the counter and crossed his arms. “Look, I need to be straight with you, Jessica. The band recorded some of the album tracks before Vince died. The rest…I found on DVDs in Vince’s safe deposit box. He wrote over half the material.”
He fell silent, looking at Jessica, waiting, and then it dawned on her. “You won’t be able to pull off a follow-up album.” She moved to the table, dragged out a chair and slumped into it.
David sighed deeply and glanced away. “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you when we first talked. At least before you drove all the way out here. I just…I just have to get this music out there.”
Jessica had gone numb. No way would Sage invest in a band that couldn’t follow up on a successful first album. All this publicity, all her hopes, would be all for nothing.
“After the experience of making this album, I might be able to continue on in this vein and write quality material like this—or I might not,” David said. “Whatever. This CD is…it’s rock history. I think you know that, that’s why you’re here, even though half the songwriting team is dead. This will be our legacy, and it will be big for you.”
She knew she should be furious with him, but oddly was not, and that wasn’t because she was attracted to him. It was the music. No matter the source, he had brought her the music. Even if it was like an addictive drug and they had no source for their next fix, it was too brilliant, too important, not to bring out.
Ben would shit a brick, but he was just going to have to understand. She wouldn’t tell him until after she’d gotten the contract signed.
David looked at her with hesitant expectancy. She drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “Okay, so the next album will be different. Maybe better.” She shrugged. It could happen. “Touring changes a band, so who knows what ideas you might come up with in your hotel room after a show.”
“So…you’re still going to offer us a contract?”
Jessica huffed and stared at her fingers. “Yeah, but you’ve just lost a lot of bargaining power, dude.” She looked up at him and smiled, and he returned it, looking relieved and grateful.
She straightened in her chair. “I think Oblivion will be big enough to make your career.” And save hers. “After that, it’s up to you and your muse. Here’s my advice. Don’t live in Vince Buckley’s shadow. You’re living in between his world and your own; between shadow and light. Like your band name. I confess, I had to look ‘Penumbra’ up. Who came up with the that, by the way?”
“I did.”
“Any reason you chose that word?”
“It sounded cool?”
“People don’t do anything without a reason. Your unconscious chose that for you. You know what, though? You shouldn’t always listen to your unconscious. Sometimes you have to give it marching orders. You’re on the edge of the shadow, David, move into the light. Create your own light. After Oblivion, it’s going to be your show.”
She couldn’t read his reaction, even when he began to smile. “Anyway. That’s what I think.”
The coffeemaker beeped and David busied himself getting mugs and pouring.
Jessica moved to the wide window over the sink and looked out at the back yard, which seemed more homey and welcoming from the upper story. She felt a touch of sadness at the thought that the band had probably had a lot of good times down there before the accident that killed their keyboard player and aborted their career. Well, she was here to kick start them again with a second chance, and that cheered her up. This was what she did: provided a value to musicians as well as the fans and the company.
That was what she needed to get on with now. Get the band to sign the contract—and commit to a tour. She hoped the tour wouldn’t be a sticking point. Although the prospect of going on the road often took part-time bands aback when things started looking real, it was critical, from Sage’s point of view, to boost unit sales.
“So,” she said, turning to him. “Guess what I have in my briefcase?”
“A bunch of money?”
“Figuratively, yes. The contract.”
“Okay, partner, that rocks,” David said. “Let’s go down to the studio to go over the details. You can check out the rest of the al
bum.”
She briefly went cold and said hastily, “No, that’s okay. I have a feeling we might never get around to contract negotiations if we start listening to Oblivion.” It was insane to hand him a contract without listening to the album, but the contract was contingent on Ben hearing and approving it. Even if the rest of the songs weren’t as stellar as “Fire It Up,” it would sell in big numbers anyway. Besides, her gut instinct (or something…) compelled her to just get it done.
“Negotiations, huh?” He handed her a mug of what smelled like particularly strong Starbucks. “Drive a hard bargain, do you?”
“Not if you’re reasonable,” she replied with a sly smile.
“I can do reasonable. Let’s go down to the studio anyway. It doubles as my office. I promise, no music.”
He led her through a door by the pantry and down a set of carpeted wooden stairs. At the bottom lay a hallway that opened on the left to a family room—party room, knowing bands—with the wide sliding glass doors fronting the concrete turnaround behind the house, and two doors to the right. He opened the first door, and as she stepped through into a surprisingly professionally equipped control room, the quiet engulfed her, as if she were returning to the womb. It insulated, comforted, and provided an intimate privacy.
She was relieved the basement studio didn’t have the moldering smell of most bachelor’s houses and band basements she’d been in. Those studios reeked of dampness and the underlying odor of urine wherever a bunch of men congregated; they never seemed to clean the walls surrounding the toilet or even the toilets themselves. Why couldn’t men just sit down to pee? she wondered. At least this guy must clean the bathroom.
They settled into comfortable padded office chairs before the mixing console, an analog dinosaur, although a set of huge, wide monitors sat atop it, and a Mac Pro tower squatted underneath.
She took a copy of the contract from her briefcase and gave it to him, then sipped her coffee.
David leafed through it, scanning the clauses as if he were familiar with boilerplate. “I’ll have to have an attorney I know in Atlanta vet it before we sign.”
Great.
“Probably make some reasonable requests here and there,” he continued.
Shit. “Don’t forget,” she said, “you’ve lost a lot of leverage after divulging that the majority of the music was written by the late Mister Buckley, who is unlikely to make a return appearance for the follow-up album. Sage contracts for bands, not albums. We expect to be investing in a career that will continue to pay dividends. Which is not a given in this case.”
With a mysterious smile, David restacked the papers. “Did I mention that three other record labels called me?”
Jessica managed to keep herself from squirming in her seat. This wasn’t her first time around this rodeo. She put on a perfectly believable confident smile. “Yet here we are, going over a contract. Sage has provided you a hell of a lot of advance publicity on ‘Fire It Up’.” Which Penumbra could’ve done themselves. Which they knew. Of course, they couldn’t match the eyeballs Sage’s web site had, but she suspected that the song would’ve ended up going viral regardless.
“Yeah.” David studied her, seeming to size her up, or judge her. “I do have a good feeling about you. About Sage. I think you’re the one to get this album out there.” He sighed. “I think we can reach an agreement.”
“Fantastic.” She tried not to show relief or too much excitement, but it was a strain.
“A couple of things bother me, though,” David said with a thoughtful, serious look.
Damnation.
“The tour.”
She’d expected this, she could handle it. She took a breath. Musician. Fucking. Whisperer. “The tour’s kind of a deal breaker,” she said evenly. “If Sage commits to you, we need to maximize our investment and ensure we can recoup our costs with sales and downloads.”
He smiled again, with confidence. He had the product she wanted, follow-up be damned, and he knew it. “I think you’ll be able to recoup your costs. You didn’t pay for the studio,” he pointed out, “and won’t have to pay for mastering if you like my work. You’ll have to pay for manufacturing, but you won’t need as many units as you used to, given the proportion of downloads to CD purchases, not to mention subscription services. I know you’ll put a lot of effort into marketing, but the most effective form of marketing is social media, not exactly a budget-breaker. Not to mention, the tour itself will cost money.”
“Yeah, but the tour will still make money. Okay, you’re playing the Indie card, and I can’t really blame you. Cut out the middleman, do it all yourself, why do you need us, blah, blah, blah. Here’s the thing. We get deals on production costs from the major vendors that they won’t give you. We foot the bill for distribution of the CDs, as well as online distribution of the MP3s. We have full-time staff to do all this.” She had to admit she loved the business. She knew her shit, and it was more of a collaborative game when the clients knew it, too. “Sage also has deep pockets for promotion and publicity beyond posting and tweeting. Ads on Facebook, Google, magazines. Interviews and ads on FM and satellite radio. Again, we have the personnel to arrange and schedule all this.”
“The free download’s generated more publicity than any band’s ever gotten from the typical marketing campaign. The social media took off on its own.”
“That’s why we’ve made the financials so favorable to you.” Checkmate!
David flipped pages in the contract, eyed the embedded spreadsheets, then nodded. “True enough. I’m more than willing to tour. Hell, I’m dying to—but I can’t speak for the others. Alan has his painting business; he not only owns it, but does a lot of the work himself. His wife Nancy acts as his personal manager, so you’d have to talk her into it. She’s a freelance web designer, she could do her job while on tour with him, but I don’t know if he could run his company on the road. Mike has his music store to run.”
“The advance we’re offering is significant for these days. It’s not big big, but it’s what we call a ‘nice deal.’ They could hire temporary help. Make that money back on the tour, and more, from the increased sales after each show.”
“We’re an Internet sensation after only the one song,” David replied. “We’re going to sell a lot of albums with or without a tour.” They could do it on their own, without Sage, she was sure he was implying.
Jessica reached out and touched his hand. That usually had an appreciable effect, and—well—she just wanted to. “David. You’re a rock musician. You want to go out there and own that stage. That’s what you do, that’s what you write music for: to play for people. To experience your music in the most immediate way, getting that feedback from the audience, passing that magic to them and them passing it back to you amplified. Rock is an experience. You know you want it.”
He briefly squeezed her hand and let it go, and she was a little sad in the back part of her mind, but she was in the game now, and she needed to win.
The guy studied the fine print, looking so pensive he was practically scowling. Come on, dude. This is right! She knew it, and she knew he knew it.
He finally looked up. “Okay, you got me. I’m in. I’ll even forgo the obligatory niggling over details.” He turned to the last page, picked up a pen, and signed.
Jessica just about came out of her chair. She wanted badly to hug him, and not just because he’d given her what she wanted. Not just because she wanted to touch him, either. She felt a strange kind of energy arising from their mutual purpose and dedication. She’d felt it before, although never this fervently, and the intensity bothered her, frightened her. So she restrained herself and only grasped his hand in both of hers for a moment, then released it.
“I’ll try to talk them into touring,” he said. “It’s…it’s what we always wanted. It’s the Dream Come True. I can’t guarantee they’ll go for it, but I’ll do my best.”
Packing the contract back into her briefcase, Jessica said, “I have a feeling
they’ll come around.”
He looked serious again. “Then there’s John. He was pissed before, I had to record his parts myself, and I can’t get him on the phone now. We’ll be lucky if he just doesn’t sue us.”
“Don’t worry. That’s my job. I’ve got a release form. I’ll talk him into it. I’m good at it.”
“Right. The Musician Whisperer.”
“Worked on you, didn’t it?”
She only wished she felt as confident as she sounded.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Friday late afternoon
David packed his equipment in a euphoric haze. He was energized with excitement about playing live again for the first time in over a year, about getting a freaking recording contract with a major label—and from his meeting with Jessica Chandler.
The woman was smoking hot, in a corporate go-getter kind of way, but a record company exuded a distinctly different vibe than an insurance company or even a software business. She was an entertainment power-player, but had an approachable girl-next-door personality and was adorably spunky. He could tell she genuinely cared about the music, not just Oblivion, and regarded her job as something beyond selling product.
When their eyes met and he took her hand, there had been an indefinable connection between them. He didn’t believe in Destiny, but he thought that on rare occasions two people’s paths might randomly align and they could meet and instantly find themselves mutually attracted and compatible. It seemed an even less likely event than five musicians with harmonious skills and personalities coalescing into an exceptional band, but it happened from time to time. Lightning had struck him twice, first with Penumbra, and now with Jessica Chandler.
David stacked his laptop and guitars to the side of the sliding doors to the parking area. The computer held the prerecorded songs with the keyboards and a few backing vocal tracks, a couple with the bass already mixed in for sound check. He’d update the rest of the songs the next day and copy them to the laptop at the show.