Rise From Rock City: A Lesbian Rock Star Romance (Revolving Record Book 1)

by Nicolette Dane

  I stood backstage up against a wall, dressed in a little black dress like a doll might wear. White frilly collar, matching white wrists. Black tights. Black flats. It made me feel a bit like Wednesday Addams or something. I even had my hair woven into two thick braids, hanging over my shoulders in the front, the black of my roots transitioning down to blue. Although I had grown up on punk music and my style reflected that, Cast Party was far more straight forward rock. Or, like James had talked about, garage rock. Kind of fuzzy. Loose. Distorted amps and some simple rhythms, our music was constructed to sound easy but we put a lot of thought into it.

  And, as I’m sure you can imagine, I was backstage feeling like shit again. I breathed slowly, trying to calm my heart down, trying to keep cool. It just sucked, it really sucked. I always knew that once I got out on stage, I would be fine. I became someone completely different when I was actually in front of the crowd. It was the lead up to it that was a killer. Anxiety is a bitch.

  I could feel the intensity of the crowd from where I was backstage. The roar, the energy, the pressure. The opening band’s set was coming to an end and we were just about up.

  Just then, a young woman walked up to me with a smile on her face. It took me a moment, but I recognized her as the guitarist and backup singer from the band that had gone on first. She was cute, punk, bubbly. She had kind of a goth cheerleader thing going on. I had seen her band around town but I hadn’t watched them that night. When I had a show to prepare for, I always had to be off in my own space.

  “Hi,” she said. “I’m Krista.” She stuck out her hand and I slowly took it.

  “Layla,” I said.

  “I love Cast Party,” said Krista. “You guys are fucking nuts. So much fun.”

  “Thank you,” I said with a demure smile.

  “And you’re an inspiration for me,” she said. “You totally make the band.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I said, trying to be humble. But her words made me feel pretty good.

  “No, really,” she said. “You just have this… glow about you when you’re on stage. You command it. It’s like you’re a star.”

  “Okay, stop,” I said with a nervous laugh.

  “I’m sorry,” said Krista. “I guess I’m just a fangirl. But I wanted to come over here and meet you and thank you personally for putting us on the bill with you. We just about shit ourselves when we found out.”

  “You guys are good,” I said, though I didn’t know too much about her band. I was struggling to remember their name. James had been in charge of putting together the bands. “I’ve seen you around and you’re a lot of fun.”

  “That’s so good to hear!” said Krista. She was acting starstruck and while it made me a little bit uncomfortable, it also inspired other weird feelings inside of me. My ego was stirred. “Where did you get the name Cast Party?”

  “What?” I said, taken aback by Krista’s question. But my brain quickly worked it out and assembled the response. “Oh, well, in high school, James — the guitarist — and I were into theatre. And, like, you know after a performance the cast all gets together for a party? A cast party?”

  “Oh yeah?” said Krista with a smile growing on her face.

  “But to us, we kinda came up with our own meaning,” I continued. “Whenever we snuck out to smoke weed we’d call that ‘going to the cast party.’ It’s stupid,” I said, grinning as I remembered it, looking away from Krista’s eyes. “‘Are you going to the cast party?’” I intoned, as if James and I were talking. “‘Yeah, I’m down.’”

  “Like, are you down to smoke? That sort of thing?” said Krista, smiling wider now that she knew a little more about us.

  “Exactly,” I said. “That’s where it came from.”

  “That’s cool,” she said. “That’s a cool thing to get your name from.”

  “I suppose.”

  “God, you’re so cute,” said Krista, looking me up and down. “I love that doll dress.”

  “Thanks,” I said, looking down at myself.

  “Okay, I’ll stop bugging you now,” she said. “It was really great meeting you, Layla.”

  “You too,” I said.

  “I’m gonna get out there in the crowd to watch you,” she said. “Thanks again for letting us open!” Krista gave me one final smile and then wandered off. I could tell she was really pleased with herself. She probably had to muster up some courage to come talk to me. It’s embarrassing to go up to people you might look up to and talk to them about themselves. Or maybe that’s just how I felt. I knew that I would probably not have done what Krista had done if the roles were reversed.

  I took another deep breath and released a long sigh. Then, from my right side, James came speeding by with his guitar already wrapped around him, the head pointing in the direction of the stage. As soon as he saw me, he stopped.

  “Shit, there you are,” he said. “Are you ready? We’re just about to go on.”

  “Do you remember in high school,” I began. “When we’d sneak out to have a ‘cast party?’”

  “Do I remember?” James said with a laugh. “You’re crazy, Layla. Let’s get out there.”

  “Okay,” I agreed. James put a hand on my upper back and began leading me toward the stage. As we closed in on the entrance, Paul and Renee were standing there with grins. The stagehand, a swarthy guy with a headset, looked to James. James gave him the thumbs up and the he muttered something into his microphone.

  Then, he pointed us out onto stage.

  I blinked and James, Paul, and Renee were already out on stage, offering waves to the audience while I just stood back. I shook my head, I inhaled and filled my lungs, and exhaled and clapped my hands. Then I picked up my feet and ran out. It all hit me and I changed. I smiled wide, seeing that packed house of people screaming, waving their hands in the air. The cloud of cigarette smoke hung above their heads, I could hear beer bottles clanking together. The light was orange and hot. And everything was just a little bit muffled.

  “Clutch Cargo’s!” I cried into the microphone, pulling it toward me, the stand moving at an angle. The crowd cheered back at me. “We’re so glad you could make it out tonight on this snowy winter weekend.”

  “You rock!” I heard called from the audience.

  “No, you rock,” I said, smiling down, not really knowing who said it but not really caring anyway. “My name is Layla Bean and we are Cast Party!” The people roared again, calling out my name, calling out song titles already, just generally going nuts.

  I looked over to James who just gave me a knowing nod.

  “This one’s called The Forfeited.” As soon as I said that, the band kicked in and I could feel the air from the speakers behind me blast against my back. I laughed and started to dance, excited for the show to really begin. I counted the bars until the verse began, counting each with the tap of my foot. Reaching for the mic once more, I pulled it close and I opened my mouth wide. Rainbows came out.

  “Thanks for meeting us here,” said Arnie, the A&R guy from Municipal Records. We were in a meeting room at the Pontchartrain, a hotel across from Cobo, in downtown Detroit and just off the river. Arnie was a skinny older guy, bald, with tinted glasses and he didn’t wear a suit. Rather, he was in a tight white ringer tee with navy blue accents. His assistant, Micah, sat next to him. Micah was younger, probably our age, and had a similar lazy slacker look like James had.

  And next to him was Daisy.

  Daisy was stunningly beautiful. She was like the prom queen or something. Perfectly natural shimmering blonde hair — or, rather, it was dyed so impeccably well that it looked natural. She had a slim figure, wrapped in a conservative white button down shirt and dark blazer, but with a noticeable chest that she allowed you to peek at just slightly thanks to a few very un-conservative popped buttons. This chick was just the all-American girl. You could tell she was happy. You could tell she was successful. There was something so pristine about her.

  I felt all bubbly and melty as
I sat across the table from her, and I couldn’t help but look into her eyes when she had her attention directed elsewhere. Big, beautiful blue eyes. Daisy was like the antithesis of me. She reminded me, in a way, of the girls that hated me in high school. But with the way Daisy’s face looked, the way her smile turned, I couldn’t imagine she had an ounce of hate in her heart.

  The four of us from Cast Party sat there at the table, all of us trying to contain our excitement, all of us eager for Arnie to speak.

  “I just want to say,” Arnie went on. “Loved the show last night. I know Micah and Daisy dug it, too.”

  “It rocked,” said Micah.

  “It was a lot of fun,” said Daisy. Her voice was breathy, sexy, like she knew something she shouldn’t know. After a moment, Daisy looked at me, catching me looking at her, and she smiled at me. I smiled back.

  “You’re exactly the kind of group we’re looking for at Municipal,” Arnie continued. “What you do is trending up, the garage rock thing, the fuzz rock thing, and we’re definitely interested in stocking our roster with powerhouse bands such as Cast Party.”

  “That’s great,” said James. “We’re so stoked to be talking to you.”

  “It’s a bit of a surprise that you don’t have a manager,” said Arnie. “But we can assist with that. It’s all part of the package deal, you understand. We can do it all, from soup to nuts, from the managing to the recording to marketing and tour and merch and all of that.”

  “I’m sorry you had to talk to my Mom,” said James sheepishly. This gave the Municipal team a tickle.

  “Quite all right,” said Arnie, stifling his laugh. “No, Barbara was a nice lady, very warm, assured me you’d get the message. No, we’re just glad we could get in touch.”

  “We’ve been scouting Detroit for a while,” said Micah. “I’m actually from Chicago originally and have had my ear on Detroit and what you guys are doing. It’s killer. It’s something special.”

  “And you’re something special,” said Arnie. “Especially this lovely lady here,” he said, motioning toward me. “This chick can rock. We’re all in love with you, dear.”

  “Thank you,” I said in a low timbre, smiling demurely.

  “You’re sort of a Joan Jett, you know?” he said. “A Debbie Harry. But, you know, modernized. Pretty and, I don’t know, almost naive looking. But if you take your eyes off of you, you might just give ‘em a boot to the throat!”

  “I’ll take it,” I said. The three of them laughed at me.

  “And the rest of the band,” said Arnie, looking over to the others. “You’ve got this tall drink of water with the long hair. Love it. And he can rock, too!” James nodded.

  “No doubt,” said Micah.

  “Chick drummer!” beamed Arnie, pointing at Renee. She just straightened her lips and shook her head. Renee knew what Arnie was doing, and while I knew it offended her on some level, she was also extremely eager to turn this band into something real. “Love you, girl. Love the hair, the attitude. You’re cool.”

  “Thanks,” said Renee.

  “And this guy,” said Arnie finally, motioning his hand toward Paul. “The stoic bass-man. The bossman. You know you keep these other kids in check, nobody falls out of time with you walking that neck.”

  “Right,” said Paul. Paul loved that, I was sure of it. He fancied himself exactly as Arnie had painted him.

  “Together, this is a team,” said Arnie. “This is a band. Cast Party!” he said, waving his hand in the air as though he were reading our name from a marquee. “Love the name, too. You guys are the total package. The songs rock. I definitely heard a few in that set last night that could be singles. Am I right?” he said, looking over to Micah.

  “Absolutely,” said Micah. “I counted probably three or four possible singles.”

  Normally, I probably would have been pretty nervous by all this. And yeah, I could feel a little pit of anxiety in my stomach as Arnie did his hard sell. But I had become obsessed with Daisy. Something about her calmed me. Her beauty assuaged my fears and my doubts. It was almost as though they brought her along for the sole purpose of hypnotizing me into being cool and collected. Like they knew. She couldn’t have been much older than me, 30 max, but I looked up to her in a weird way. She was so put together. So perfect.

  “We’d get you into the studio immediately,” said Arnie. “We don’t want to sit on this potential. We can’t keep Cast Party bottled up. We’re gonna play you on the radio.”

  I can’t speak for the others, but I was pretty certain we all felt the same way when Arnie said that. Even though my punk ethos bitched and moaned about ‘selling out,’ when someone tells you they’re going to play your music on the radio, you can’t help but feel crazy excitement. I grew up on the radio. I grew up listening to 89X. That’s where I heard Jane’s Addiction for the first time. Nirvana. The Pixies. Maybe some other little girl would get to hear Cast Party on her 89X equivalent. When someone offers that to you, it’s just about impossible to tell them no.

  “I love Kim Deal,” I said out loud, suffused in a reverie.

  “What?” said Arnie abruptly. My bandmates looked at me and James couldn’t help but laugh. He knew who I was.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking about radio. Kim Deal. From the Pixies. I’ve always loved her.”

  “Yeah, Kim Deal,” said Arnie. “Of course. Who doesn’t love Kim Deal? Sweetie, you want to meet Kim Deal? We can make that happen. Is she with us?” asked Arnie, looking over at Micah.

  “No,” he said. “But I know someone at her label.”

  “See?” said Arnie. “We got you. Municipal’s got you.”

  “So what do we do?” asked James. “How does this play out?”

  “This boy’s right to the point,” said Arnie, pointing at James but looking at Micah. “I’m glad you asked, sir. The terms are simple, they’re all laid out in our contract.” With that, Arnie fished through a folder he had in front of him and slid over contracts to each of us to look at. “You’ll get an advance, surely, that comes off of future earnings. We pay for the studio time, the pressing, the distribution, we pay for radio support and tour management. All of this simply comes from your future earnings, which, as we know… are just going to be huge!”

  “How many records?” asked Paul quietly.

  “What was that?” said Arnie.

  “Records,” said Paul again. “How many records is this for?”

  “Well, this is a three record deal,” said Arnie. “That’s standard for us. And we have no reservations that Cast Party is going to get all three of those records.”

  I knew what that meant. With these record company contracts, if your first record doesn’t sell well and they pull support, you’re still bound to them contractually so you can’t go anywhere else. It ties your hands, in a way. And it’s the death knell for a lot of bands. But I was feeling confident in our abilities, in our music, and I knew James felt the same way. You have to be positive at a time like this. You’ve got to think happy thoughts.

  “And another thing we provide,” said Arnie, changing the subject. “It’s obvious that this little chickadee here is the face of the band,” he said, waving toward me. “No offense to the rest of you, you’re all beautiful, but lovely Layla here, she’s front and center.”

  “She’s the first thing people are going to see,” added Micah.

  “Right,” said Arnie. “So that’s why we’ve got the very talented Daisy here with us,” he said, making a sweeping gesture toward Daisy who was smiling back at us. “Daisy is great at constructing image. And don’t think she’s in this to change you.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Daisy, grinning at me.

  “She’s going to take your finer points and accentuate them,” said Arnie. “Smooth out any rough edges. She’ll make the public love you.”

  “I think Layla’s got a great image,” said Renee, looking to the Municipal team, looking to me, and then back again to them. “Peop
le love her just how she is.”

  “Of course,” said Daisy. “Like Arnie said, we’re not going to change anything. We’re going to accentuate.”

  “Accentuate?” said Renee.

  “Bingo!” said Arnie. “Listen, we’ve been doing this a long time and we’re absolute professionals. We’re going to make Cast Party huge. I know it, you know it.”

  Although I should have had more to say about the whole thing — we were talking about me, after all — I was too busy thinking about Daisy. I was smitten with her. And the fact that I was going to get to work with her, despite my band’s protests, made me extremely excited. I had butterflies, and not the usual worrisome rotting anxiety butterflies.

  “I can tell you’re all excited,” said Arnie. “I’m excited, too. I’m ready to take you kids to the top.” He paused for a moment, a grin on his face, looking across the table at each of us. “So what do you say, folks? Do we have a deal?”

  Things irrevocably changed for me after that meeting. As soon as we signed with Municipal, the MetroShout did a cover story about us. It was huge news in our scene. Everybody knew the major labels had been creeping around Detroit to pluck some of our bands from obscurity and throw them onto the national stage. It wasn’t a question of if, but when. During that time period, the entire country knew something was going on in the Detroit music scene and they wanted a taste. Cast Party was a major signing in the scene and it was a huge deal, not just for us, but for the entire city of rock n’ roll hipsters.

  And it was a pretty huge deal financially for us, as well. It was one of those contracts that very few bands get. Sure, we were getting screwed — all bands got screwed in record deals — but the money we got up front in an advance, the gear they offered us, the hype Municipal was building for us, it was more than I could fathom. And we didn’t even have our first record out yet.