Rock and Roll Voodoo

by Mark Paul Smith

  “I don’t know. But I’m going to find out.” Jesse got out of bed and threw on some clothes.

  “Where are you going?” Amy stood up on the bed.

  “I’m going to Rene’s cabin to see if he’s still here,” Jesse said.

  Amy hopped down to the floor and started getting dressed. “I’m going with you. I’m your wife. Or, I will be in a few hours.”

  “You’ve been my wife since the moment we met. And I’ve been your husband. We were destined.”

  “I love it when you talk like that,” Amy said as she tried to keep up with him on the way to the band van.

  Rene’s truck was in front of the cabin as they arrived. Jesse sighed in relief. “That’s his truck. He’s still here. That’s a good thing. Now, let’s see if he’s okay.”

  Rene answered the door in his underwear. “Jesse? Amy? What are you guys doing here? It’s the middle of the night.”

  Jesse gave him a big hug. He was so relieved to see Rene alive and in good health. “I was worried about you. You weren’t at the beach fire. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  “Oh, thanks, man. I’ve been having a tough time. The money thing had me down for a while. Don’t worry. Polly and I took the night off and had a good, long talk. We know things will work out. And, don’t worry, we wouldn’t miss the wedding for the world.”

  Amy gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Good. We’ll let you get back to sleep.”

  Rene was pleased Jesse and Amy had come over. “Thanks for the bed check.”

  The sun was shining for the wedding. Jesse’s father was best man. Amy’s sister was her maid of honor. Amy’s niece made the wedding couple matching outfits, a dress for Amy and a peasant shirt and pants for Jesse.

  The guests hiked up to the ceremony site on top of the sand dune. Even the elderly and those with health issues made it to the top. The view of Lake Michigan through the pine trees was nearly as breathtaking as the hike. The beach below stretched down the coast as far as the eye could see. The sky was as blue as the lake.

  Jesse’s brother-in-law, a Presbyterian minister, conducted a traditional ceremony, complete with wedding rings and simple vows. The service was short and sweet, but all who gathered were deeply moved. Amy and Jesse were crying and smiling at the same time, kissing each other when the time was right.

  As the guests were lining up on a pathway down the forested dune to greet the happy couple, Jesse looked up at the tallest tree over the ceremony. Sure enough, there was Casey, mooning the entire wedding party. Everybody laughed. No one thought it inappropriate. This was a rock and roll wedding. The unexpected was expected. In fact, the traditional ceremony had been somewhat of a surprise to those who climbed the sand dune, not knowing what to expect at the top.

  The band was set up on the lower sand dune. It was somewhat of a miracle that they had electrical power. Three extension cords, plugged together, were barely long enough to reach from the cottage. Jesse used the microphone to make a toast to his bride.

  “This beautiful woman has shown me what it means to be in love. I knew from the day we met that she was the girl for me. Besides being the world’s greatest living artist, she has been a huge help to The Divebomberz. I see some of you are wearing the t-shirts she silkscreened by hand. She helps everybody she can. And that is one of the many reasons I am proud to introduce my brand new wife, Amy.”

  Everybody cheered. The champagne began to flow. Amy stepped up to the microphone to thank her family for coming and to thank Jesse’s family for throwing the party. She didn’t like public speaking much but she spoke from the heart.

  “I’m so happy. I want to tell everyone how grateful we are that you came and climbed the dune with us. I don’t think any of us will ever forget this perfect day. I know I won’t. It’s so good to be here with Jesse and the band and my family and Jesse’s family. I am so happy for us all, but especially for me. I want everybody to love everybody.”

  Jesse kissed her and lifted her over his head in triumph. She waved with both hands as the crowd cheered and applauded.

  He put her down and strapped on his bass. He was itching to play. It had been a while since the last performance, and he was excited to see how the band sounded on a sand dune overlooking an endless body of water. They started off strong, shocking those who had not heard them before. This was a road-tested rock and roll band. The only thing missing was Rick’s Hammond B-3 organ. It was too heavy to haul up the dune. He made due with an electric piano.

  People kicked off their shoes to dance barefoot in the sand. Some had partners. Others went solo. It was almost impossible not to move to the music. The band was jubilant if not triumphant. Playing on a sand dune for such an uplifting occasion had inspired each and every member of The Divebomberz, even Rick and Rene. Children were dancing with their grandparents, husbands were dancing with their wives and Amy danced with her sisters and their husbands. Eventually, a giant circle formed with everybody holding hands. When they all came to the center, they shouted out whatever they felt like shouting, then fell back to reform the large circle. It was amazing no one was injured, considering how much chest thumping and body slamming was going on in the middle.

  As he watched people having fun, Jesse continued to wonder about the message from the Voodoo voice. Was Rene the drummer who had to die? Or was the drummer merely a metaphor for something else that needed to end? But if it wasn’t about Rene, why did he have the vivid dream about Rene? The dream was as Voodoo as the voice.

  The raucous festivities kept his mind from dwelling on what the voice had said. Many a guest seized a microphone to boom out congratulations to the newlyweds. One of Jesse’s college friends slurred an embarrassingly long salute to Amy for tackling the dangerous task of keeping Jesse in line. Amy grabbed the microphone from him before he became totally rude.

  “Thank you, Randy, for your kind words,” she said. “We don’t even want to guess what you were going to say next.”

  The crowd cheered her impromptu censorship.

  The band took a break for a picnic dinner on the cottage deck. The cake was cut. Guests, young and old, made long and short toasts. Some were serious, others funny. The generation gap closed quickly over the course of the party.

  During the band’s second set, Jesse began to realize an important lesson. It was such an obvious truth, it was a wonder he had not seen it coming. It was a simple lesson: Never play in the band at your own wedding.

  Somehow, Jesse thought he could pull it off. After all, he could talk to everybody at once with the microphone. What he forgot was the importance of mingling and pressing the flesh. It’s impossible to mingle over a microphone. Talking to everybody at once is not the same as greeting individual guests, shaking hands, hugging and kissing. Worst of all, he couldn’t dance with his bride or his mother or anybody else while he was playing in the band.

  He made sure the band stopped playing for the day after a long, second set. Rene was the only band member to complain. “What do you mean? We came all this way to play two sets? I was just getting warmed up.”

  The celebration went on without missing a beat. Tim kept the P.A. going with taped music. The party became progressively more reckless and wild as the alcohol and marijuana consumption continued at a record-breaking pace. Some of the more liberated guests began running naked down the dune. For raw entertainment, nothing beats flopping body parts and Tarzan yells streaking into the water.

  Jesse’s father took him aside for a private moment. “You know. I really like this girl. I think you’ve got a keeper. Look how happy she is. Look how she talks to everyone.”

  “She’s a jewel,” Jesse said.

  His father had something to get off his chest. “I just want you to know your mother and I are proud of you. I’m proud of you, whether or not you go to law school.”

  Jesse hugged his father and felt a rush of incredible gratitude. He had two parents who loved him and who had done their best, and were still doing their best, to raise him. He wonde
red how people got along with no parents to love them. He had enough issues even with everybody wanting only the best for him.

  Another beach fire began at sunset. Storm clouds were beginning to roll into view. The band made sure to pack up all its gear before settling down to some serious beach theater.

  “Do you feel any different?” Amy asked Jesse when they caught a rare moment with each other.

  Jesse pretended to slur his words. “Yeah, I’m feeling pretty damn loaded.”

  Amy punched him playfully on the shoulder. “You know what I’m talking about.”

  Jesse got serious. “I feel better than I ever felt in my whole life. And it’s all because I married you.”

  “That’s more like it,” she chuckled as a new set of well-wishers came up to congratulate them.

  The party began to blur for Jesse around midnight. Part of it was the booze and pot and part of it was the relentless socializing. During a break in the action, he grabbed his new wife’s hand and led her into the shadows and away from the fire.

  They were asleep in the cottage by 1 a.m. when a group of party marauders burst into their bedroom. Casey, of course, was leading the charge. “What’s this? Are the newlyweds asleep on their wedding night? You two should be giving each other the performance of a lifetime.”

  “We’ll get on that first thing tomorrow,” Jesse said as the pranksters wisely decided to leave the exhausted wedding couple in peace.

  Amy didn’t even wake up. She had knocked herself out for days trying to make everyone feel welcome and included in the wedding celebration. The girl isn’t lazy, Jesse thought. She had more energy than any three people he knew.

  Jesse hugged her in her sleep. She let out a deep sigh. Once again, he felt like a lucky man. He knew he would take care of her. As he drifted off to sleep, he heard thunder rolling in from the lake.

  The rain came down hard at 3 a.m. Only a few people on the beach had set up tents. The rest got soaked.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE TAPE

  Nine weeks after the wedding, The Divebomberz finally made it to the recording studio near Dallas, Texas. Attorney Steven Mory was paying for the session to see if the band was good enough to warrant his representation. The band had been playing four nights a week since the wedding. They were well rehearsed and ready to record. The steady work had also helped them get back on their feet financially. The experience in the studio turned out to be vastly more productive than the ill-fated recording session many months earlier, sponsored by Pete in New Orleans. The only similarity between the two sessions was that the person paying for the time was not present.

  Two engineers had the band miked up, plugged in, and ready to sound check in less than an hour. After a few minor adjustments, each member of the band had a good sound mix in his headset. Rene got to play in the big room with everybody else. All the instruments went to the mixing board by way of a direct box so there was no drum bleed on the guitar tracks. Dale’s lead vocal was a dummy track so it didn’t matter if the drums came through in his microphone. He would sing his lead vocal on a later track in an isolated vocal booth.

  The lead engineer was a thin man with a little grey in his beard. He looked like Beatle George Harrison. “You guys sound like the real deal. I can tell you’ve been gigging a lot. We’ve got rhythm tracks on four songs in less than three hours. That’s what I call a road band.”

  Butch was more than pleased by what he was hearing on the playback. “You guys are the best. This studio is sounding better than anyplace we’ve ever played.”

  “Thanks for letting us play together like we do at a club,” Rene said.

  The engineer was satisfied. “These are basically live tracks. They sound good enough already. But just wait until we put a little fairy dust on them.”

  “I like the sounds of that,” Dale said.

  The engineer got the band together. “We’ll start with Dale’s lead vocal. Then, we’ll do harmony parts and group backing vocals. We can layer as many vocal tracks as you want.”

  Tim was sober for this session. “Can you make us sound like the Norman Block and Tackle Choir?”

  Everybody laughed except the engineer.

  No matter, spirits were high. Jesse felt better than ever. It was a huge relief to finally be making a record with someone who really knew how to do it.

  Dale recorded his vocal, then Butch, Jesse, and Tim. The engineer blended the voices perfectly. Nobody had to ask for more of himself.

  The engineer surprised them with a suggestion. “Okay, here’s what we’ll do next. I want all six of you to stand around one microphone and sing on the choruses.”

  Rene started walking out of the room. “I’m not a singer.”

  The engineer coaxed him back. “Everybody’s a singer. Don’t worry about finding a harmony part. Just sing the song like you would in the shower.”

  The first time through, singing as six, the band was blown away by how good they sounded. Rene found himself a nice part on the low end of the layering. Rick added a surprising harmonic high line. The track sounded good by itself. It sounded even more rich and full when mixed with the other vocal and instrumental tracks.

  Tim spoke for the entire band. “Holy shit. We sound like a hit record.”

  “Muscle Shoals got nothing on this, baby,” Rick said, referring to the legendary studio in Alabama. “These boys in Texas are breaking us into some new territory.”

  Tim was excited. “We’re a six-headed vocal monster. Looks like we’ll have to get a vocal mike for Rene when we play live.”

  Rene didn’t like that idea. “I don’t know about that. I hear myself on tape and it doesn’t even sound like me.”

  “Everybody feels that way at first,” the engineer said. “You’ll get used to it.”

  By the end of the recording, Jesse knew the band had passed its electronic audition. He also knew the lead engineer would tell Atty. Mory he had a potentially hot act on his hands.

  Jesse sat in the control room and didn’t say a word while the engineers did a rough mix. It kept sounding better and better until the lead engineer stood up to speak. “That’s good enough for now. How do you like the way you sound?”

  Dale dropped to his knees in mock worship. “We sound better than we ever thought we could. You guys have done an amazing job.”

  The engineer was pleased as the band showered him with congratulations. “You guys did the job. I haven’t seen any band put down four original songs faster or better. My personal favorite is ‘Hurricane on the Bayou.’ That should be your first single.”

  “Too bad we couldn’t put down ‘Red Light,’” Jesse said. “That’s been going over great everywhere we go.”

  Rene laughed at Jesse. “Just because you wrote it doesn’t make it good.”

  “I wrote them all,” Jesse said. “Butch and I wrote them all. Don’t laugh at me just because you can’t write your way out of a paper bag.”

  Butch stepped between Jesse and Rene. “Now, boys. Let’s stay on our best behavior here.”

  Dale jumped into the mix. “Don’t forget. I helped write a few.”

  Tim held out his hands as if in prayer. “More importantly. We all play them. The songs only sound good because we sound good together.”

  His comments helped the band move on without the usual squabbles about song selection, copyright and what to do with all the money they had yet to make. Afterword the band packed up their gear and loaded it into Jesse’s van, Rene’s truck and the homemade trailer. They were tired and more than a little cranky. Playing four nights a week for several weeks in a row had been tiring and stressful. Adding the recording session to their schedule was definitely working overtime. They were ready for a break.

  The engineer gave the session tape to Jesse as the band was leaving the studio. Without thinking, Jesse got in the van and drove off with Atty. Mory’s tape, completely oblivious to the problems this would cause.

  Two days later in New Orleans, Jesse got an angry ph
one call from Atty. Mory. “We agreed the tapes belong to me. I paid for the god damned session and you ran off with my recording. I can’t believe you would do this to me. I thought you were a man of your word.”

  Jesse was caught off guard. “Wait a minute. I didn’t run off with anything. I’ve got the demo tape right here. I know it’s your tape. I’m not stealing it. I can drive it over today if that’s what you want.”

  The attorney dialed down his angry tone a couple notches. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “I didn’t mean to piss you off,” Jesse said. “They offered us the tape so I took it. Did you hear it? They made us sound great.”

  Atty. Mory sighed in exasperation. “No, I did not hear the tape. You took the tape. How could I listen to it when you have it in your possession?”

  Jesse continued on the defensive. “Oh, I thought what they gave me was a copy of the original.”

  The attorney tried to be patient. “No, you have the original tape. There are no copies. Now, listen to me carefully, Jesse. You own the copyright to the song, I own the copyright to the production of the song; my production, the one I financed. That means the tape stays with me.”

  Jesse didn’t understand what the attorney was saying. Nonetheless, he agreed to ship the tape that afternoon, by U.S. Mail.

  Two weeks later, Amy called Jesse in Shreveport to tell him a package had arrived from Atty. Mory.

  She was out of breath. “I opened it, Jesse. I was so curious. It’s a contract. He wants to represent The Divebomberz. He wants you and Butch to sign it as key members of the band. This is so exciting.”

  Jesse tried to contain himself. “What does it say? Can you read it to me?”

  “It’s thirty-five pages long, Jesse. I tried to read it and I don’t understand it at all. It seems like he gets twenty percent of whatever he makes for you but it doesn’t say how much he’s going to make you.”

  Jesse realized she wouldn’t be able to explain the contract over the phone. “Is there a date on it?”