Tonight! The Charlie Manson Band

by Michael Beiriger

  Marv always panicked at even the thought of being a tire jockey at the family store. Maxie’s two brothers already worked there, and Marv knew he’d be a marginalized salesman forever - and on a straight salary, at that. He could do the math and figure exactly how much money he would make for the rest of his life, to the dollar. It was a schmuck’s game, and Marv was determined not to be that guy. If he had wanted a straight job, he would have worked for his father.

  Marv pulled into the underground garage of his apartment building in Studio City. He was happy to be home after his all-day adventure. This building was relatively new - a more modern design than the old, rundown Spanish stucco two stories from the ‘teens and ‘twenties that he hated. Marv’s building even had an elevator to connect the three floors and garage, which he thought was very far out. It was located on a quiet cross street off busy Ventura Boulevard.

  Marv grabbed his bag and struggled with the boxes of tape Charlie had given him. Each box was a different size, and it was challenge to get a grip on the stack. He was just able to press the elevator button with his pinkie.

  He walked out onto the third floor landing, came to his door, and banged it with his foot.

  “Maxie! Help me with door!”

  Marv heard footsteps on the other side, and the door opened only after several locks were unfastened.

  “Where have you been?” Maxie demanded. She stood leaning on the edge of the door, as if exhausted. “I’ve been waiting and waiting – I get so scared when I don’t know where you are!” Maxine Solis was a cute 29 year-old blonde, still the fresh-faced California girl that Marv had fallen for ten years ago on a gig he played at the Palomino Club in North Hollywood.

  Marv plunged through the door and into the apartment. “Good to see you, too, darling!” he joked as he dumped his load in a plush chair in the living room. James Taylor was playing softly on the elaborate stereo system. “I’ve been to hell and back today. But it’s gonna be great, babe!” He hugged Maxie and gave her a big kiss.

  “Wow! Did you get a new record assignment?” she asked.

  “No,” Marv said as he collapsed onto the sofa. “This is completely my own new thing. I’m going to produce and manage a new artist. You know how I’ve always said I’d find someone to promote? Well, I finally have.”

  “Who is she?” asked Maxie, already suspicious of Marv’s new idea.

  “It’s a guy named Charlie Manson, honey. I’ve heard him perform at a bunch of industry parties I’ve been to lately. There’s been a lot of interest in him, but nobody has snatched him yet – until now!”

  Maxie sat down next to him on the couch, looking up at his face. “So, you’re going to do this on your own?”

  Marv was buoyant. “Yep! That’s the beauty of it, babe! No one to skim off any profit, no splits, no kickbacks. And he’s into it! He’s a little wild, but I can smooth out his rough edges. Still keep his fire, though. The guy is very karma, uh, charact – uh,” Marv said, fumbling with his words.

  “Charismatic?” Maxie volunteered.

  “Yeah – that’s it! He’s a goddam natural, and he’s right on the edge of what’s happening – vegetarian, back-to-the-land, all that stuff. The girls love him, too - that’s very important!” he said, winking and laughing. “Plus, he’s new to the biz – so I should be able to handle him a lot easier than someone who has had a deal before.”

  “Sounds good, I guess” Maxie said, trying to be enthusiastic. “Does this mean you’ll be home more?”

  “I think so,” said Marv, wary. “But it’s going to be a crazy amount of work.” He raised her chin with his finger. “Gonna need your help, baby!” Marv knew he was golden when he saw Maxie smile and giggle.

  Marv noticed that the television was on, but the sound off. His new Zenith Color Space Commander with the Miracle Remote Control showed Walter Cronkite announcing the news. The picture changed to footage of Cielo Drive and the massacre in LA.

  “This thing is on the national news?” Marv said. “Wow!”

  “Marv, it’s on all the time, there’s nothing else people are talking about! The police still have no suspects – no idea what happened!” Maxie whimpered, trembling. “That’s why I’m so scared! Whoever did it is running around out there. It’s horrible!” She grabbed his arm and burrowed into his side. He could feel that she was genuinely frightened.

  “It’s just some wacko,” Marv said, pulling her closer. “Probably just a drug deal gone bad, somehow. You shouldn’t worry, baby. They’ll get him.”

  “I can’t help it. Everyone is freaked out, Marv! It’s like everything used to be so happening, but it’s been turning more and more disgusting lately!”

  Marv kissed the top of her head and squeezed her tighter. “I’ll protect you, babe. I can take a crazy drug addict any day! I just need a very big gun,” he joked. Marv got up and headed to the extra bedroom he used as an office. “I gotta go make a bunch of calls. Then, I say we take our lives in our hands and walk down to Miceli’s for dinner. OK?”

  As he turned into the hallway Maxie got up and went to the apartment door. She checked the lock again, and slid the deadbolt into place.

  Mean with a Blade

  August 12, 1969

  5:30 pm

  Marv drove into the parking lot of Goldstar Recording Studio on Santa Monica Blvd. in Hollywood. Goldstar was an L.A. studio where a great many hits from the fifties and sixties had been recorded. ‘Tequila,’ ‘La Bamba,’ Sonny and Cher’s blockbusters – tons of hits. Its recording space was smaller and more intimate than the cavernous recording rooms of the major studios. Sinatra or Mantovani would not be recording here.

  He gathered the boxes of tapes under his arm, and got out of the car with a little difficulty. The stack of tape boxes always seemed slippery and awkward.

  He pushed the button on a little box next to the door.

  “Goldstar.”

  Marv leaned down to talk into the box. “Uh, it’s Marv Feld. I have an appointment with Bob Helios, Studio 1.”

  “Hold on …”

  About 15 seconds later a buzzer unlocked the door, and Marv went inside.

  “That’s new” said Marv, nodding at the intercom box and buzzer.

  “Yeah,” said a woman sitting at a desk near the door. “We just put it in. Clients demanded it. Too many weirdos running around, now. But, hey! Now it’s also easier to keep the fans out.” She had a cigarette going and maybe ten in the ashtray, half smoked. Marv had heard she was about 40, but she looked more like 65 – a kind of haggard likeness of a once cute girl. “Bob’s almost done. You can wait in the lounge.”

  “Thanks, Dee.”

  Marv went down the hall and turned into a small room with a Coke machine, a candy machine, and a coffee brewer. The coffee pot contained about a half inch of what looked like bubbling tar in it. He sat down on the lumpy old couch and leafed through a Billboard magazine dated three months earlier. Why are recording studio and radio station lounges so awful? Marv wondered.

  Marv didn’t like being in recording studios. He really only visited them to bring a flack to interview an artist, or for record release parties - those types of things. He found studios to be uniformly sinister, dimly lit buildings where people worked a strange magic. Marv knew some artists who loved working in the studio, while others felt it was pure torture.

  As Marv pondered whether to get a Coke he heard a door open down the hall, and music spilled out. He looked up to see Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys leaving, laughing with another guy. A minute later, a young man poked his head into the lounge. “Are you Marv? Bob can talk to you now.”

  Marv stood up and followed him into the studio through the heavy sound lock doors. The air in the control booth of the studio was close and thick with cigarette smoke. Bob Helios sat at the desk, on the phone speaking low and intently to someone, his face obscured by falling thick dark hair. Marv noticed a small mirror with a razor blade at one corner of the control desk.

  ‘Fuck you!” he ye
lled, and slammed the phone down. The bell inside the phone rang out, sustaining the bad vibe. “Asshole!”

  “Bad time, Bob?” Marv asked, kidding.

  Helios swung around in his chair, away from the recording console. He tried to smile. “Nah, just my dealer giving me a hard time. How you been, man? Haven’t seen you since that Eddie Cochran greatest hits release party. What’s happening, baby?” He had a full moustache that grew into wide sideburns, and wore a draped purple satin shirt open past his breastbone. He flicked some cigarette ash off his shirt.

  “Same ol’, man. Laying rubber up and down the I-5, adding to my speeding ticket collection.” Marv sat down in an empty chair. “Getting tired of it, too. Thinking about staying closer to home, maybe get into the production side of things.”

  Helios laughed. “You know that old Chinese saying?” He affected a terrible Chinese accent. ‘Confucious say: Be careful what you wish for’!”

  Marv laughed too. “Yeah, man. I know it ain’t easy. But I think I might be on to something. I found this guy – he’s kind of a Pied Piper, or something. It’s like you can’t ignore him when he plays. He’s kinda wild and untrained, but I think it’s happening.” Marv looked at Bob Helios hopefully. “Would you mind taking a listen?’

  Marv thought he saw Helios sag a little.

  ‘Sure, uh, yeah.” Helios looked at his watch. “But I gotta be at RCA by 7.”

  “Far out, man! Cool - I got some tapes right here.” Marv held the tapes out toward Bob. Bob recoiled from the tapes as if they were diseased, and leaned back in his chair. “Give ‘em to Roger. This is Roger – my engineer.”

  Roger, the guy who brought Marv into the studio, took the tapes. “Which one do you want to hear first?” he asked.

  “Um, the one with ‘Look at Your Game, Girl’ on it, I guess” Marv said. “And - can you make a copy for me at the same time?”

  Roger looked at Bob, who nodded.

  Roger took the tape out of the box and put it on a tape machine about the size of a clothes dryer. He threaded the tape through the machine’s guides and rollers, and cinched the free end of the tape onto an empty reel. Then he repeated the procedure on a second machine, but used a roll of blank tape from a stack on a shelf.

  Roger turned back to the console and pressed a few switches. Both machines began to roll tape. He controlled the sound coming from the speakers with a large knob.

  Immediately, Marv was embarrassed as he heard all kinds of sounds he hadn’t noticed at Dennis Wilson’s house. There was a constant hiss, and a low hum. Manson began a song, hit the microphone, and stopped, laughing. He began again, stopped again. “Man, is there any weed around?” He started the song a third time. Charlie’s voice sounded stressed and reedy.

  Bob Helios looked over at Marv, one eyebrow raised. He turned back to the console and began filling out some studio paperwork. He was clearly not anticipating anything impressive.

  “It’s just a demo – things are very loose.” Marv said over the music.

  “Yeah, yeah. I dig.” Bob mumbled.

  A second song played, this time with a lot of girls’ voices singing along and laughing. Sometimes it made sense, sometimes it didn’t.

  “What the hell?” Bob said. “Who are they?”

  “Like I said – Charlie’s got this thing with his girls. They follow him around. They all sing together.”

  A third song began, and Marv was depressed to see Helios visibly wince a few times.

  So it went for six songs, until Helios signaled a stop with his hand. The engineer dove for the switch to stop the machines.

  “Marv,” Bob said, “I’m sorry, man, but I don’t hear anything there. It all sounds kind of, um, wild to me. Are you sure about this guy? Does he play around anywhere?”

  “Um, no, not yet, but you should see him at parties, man. People just stare at first, but then they go wild! A lot of cats know about him: Melcher, Neil Young, John Phillips. But none of them have the time to really get down with it.”

  “Well,” Helios said, laughing, “I know about that problem myself. Speaking of which …” He got up and collected his things into a large brown leather bag.

  “Bob, how about a little love, man?” Marv said earnestly. He hadn’t expected Helios to just blow him off. “I’m trying to get this ball rolling. I’ve helped you out lots of times, man.”

  Helios sighed, annoyed. “Marv, I love ya, babe, but, one - you were just doing your job, two - you have no idea what making records is all about, and three - something like that will take days, man. Weeks, maybe.”

  “I don’t think finding you five grams on Christmas Eve is just ‘doing my job’, Bob!” Marv fumed.

  “OK. Cool it! Don’t blow it, Marv!” Helios said, angrily. “Look – I’ve been up for like three days, man. I don’t need this shit!” He opened the studio door. “You oughta go home to that cheerleader chick and forget about making a silk purse from a pig’s ball sack. And Roger!” he barked, “Tomorrow things had better be ready to go, on time, man. Don’t ever embarrass me in front of my clients like that again!” He stormed out.

  Marv slumped in his chair. He had never truly considered that Bob wouldn’t be excited, or wouldn’t help him. Maybe Charlie isn’t as good as I thought Marv reflected, sinking.

  “Jesus – what an asshole!” Roger hissed, shaking his head. “Ladies and gentlemen, the lovely and talented Bob Helios!”

  Marv looked up. “Have you been his engineer long?”

  Roger snorted. “His engineer? I’m not his boy, man, I work for the studio. I’m just the latest knob nigger for that guy. And I don’t know for how much longer, either.”

  Marv looked at him. “Well, do you think I’m totally wiggin’ here?”

  Roger sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know, man. Only God knows what makes a hit.” He sighed. “I think maybe there’s a song or two that might have potential. Take a lot work, though. Maybe get some good players on it.”

  “You mean Charlie and the girls can’t cut it?”

  “No, man!” Roger laughed. “But they can still be out front. Almost none of those groups you hear today play on their own records. Maybe Ricky Nelson – a few others. Most kids still don’t know that the Monkees didn’t play on all those hits!”

  Marv paused, thinking. “What about the old ‘studio magic’, man? Isn’t there something I can do to get a record out of this? I know you guys save the day all the time.”

  Roger lit a cigarette. “Sure. Let’s have some fun.” He sniffed sarcastically. “I live to make idiots sound great.”

  Roger went over to the tape machines. “OK - that song, uh, ‘Game’? There are, like, two takes, and one where he stopped, I think.”

  Roger played all the takes of the song again, and took notes. He stopped the machine. “OK. Yeah. The second take has a good chorus – I can copy that and use it twice. The first take has a great fade where he kind of goes crazy, but he keeps the rhythm good.” He looked at his notes. “The intro is good on the incomplete take, first verse is best on take two, second verse is great on take one.”

  Marv felt confused and out of his depth. He remembered listening to the takes of the song with Bob Helios and realizing that none of them sounded right. “But - none of those takes are very good.”

  “Watch and learn, man!” Roger picked up a small piece of cardboard from a tray resting on top of the machine. He unwrapped the cardboard from around a fresh, single edged razor blade. “I am mean with a blade, brother!”

  Marv watched Roger as he played various parts of the song, from the different takes. Each time Roger came to an important spot, he would stop the machine, then move the tape slowly back and forth, using a hand on each reel. The sound from the speakers was low, jagged, and druggy, and made no sense to Marv.

  But Roger was listening for something in there. When he found the exact spot he wanted, he marked the spot and put the tape into a little holder. Roger took his razor blade and sliced right throug
h the tape, then took the sections of cut tape and hung them over the other machine. Cigarette and hair dangling, he began to attach the sections together with tiny pieces of adhesive tape. He grabbed a little reel full of white paper tape the same size as the recording tape, and attached a long piece to the beginning of the composite, edited take.

  He flopped into his chair at the console and pressed a button. “Voila and shit!” Roger crowed as the new, Frankenstein tape played out of large speakers.

  Marv was utterly shocked. Now it sounded like a real song! Not just someone bashing on a guitar and singing. Somehow, without the count off and studio noises on the original, he didn’t even notice the hiss and hum as much. He was thrilled!

  “Wow! Super cool, man!” shouted Marv.

  “If someone plays or sings something enough times, you can usually put a complete take together. Like monkeys and typewriters, man, ya know?” Roger explained. “But - this song would still need a lot of work. You can add some pros to it, and it could sound pretty good.” Roger said, nodding.

  “How could I do that?” Marv asked.

  “With money, man!” Roger laughed. “Lots of money. Seriously? We record the new instruments while playing back this tape, and record it all onto a new tape that has more space. Then we combine all those parts in a final mix of the song.”

  “So – could you do that for me?” Marv asked.

  “Well, do you mean produce the record?” Roger said. “I could - sure. We’d have to work out a deal - you know.”

  “Um –” Marv hesitated. “I wanted to produce it myself, but …”

  ‘Hell – you can call yourself producer all day long, man, as long as I get paid!” said Roger.

  “Well, Roger – uh, what’s your last name, man?”

  “Dimes – spelled like the coin.”

  “Marv Feld.” The two men shook hands.

  “OK, Roger! I’ll get with my lawyer and we can work some things out. I want to get this off the ground as soon as possible. I want it out after Labor Day, when school is back in.”

  “Solid, man! Let’s make it happen!”