Road Rash

by Mark Huntley Parsons

  “Well, we open for lunch at noon, and the lunch crowd’s gone within a couple of hours at the latest. Then we open the bar when we start serving dinner at five.”

  Glenn nodded. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” Jake said. “I’ve got to get back to work. You guys take care.”

  After he left, Brad turned to Glenn. “Why’d you tell him we could do it?”

  “I’ve never bailed on a gig in my life, and I’m not going to start now.”

  “But it’s only one night, so why are we gonna kill ourselves over it? He said he could get someone else to cover it.”

  “It’s not just one night—it’s the whole summer.”

  “Huh?”

  “You think these guys don’t talk? If we shit the bed on this, the first thing Jake’ll do is complain to Corey, who’s going to swear on a stack of Billboard magazines that he told us all about it. Then Jake’s going to call all the other managers on the circuit and let them know how ‘difficult’ we are to work with. Sounds like the perfect way to kill a tour—get your agent mad at you and get a bad rep with the other club owners before you even get started. No thanks.”

  “So, how are we supposed to morph into a classic-rock band overnight?”

  Glenn raised his eyebrows at me. “What do you think, Zach?”

  I shrugged. Why me? “Well … I’d say get down here first thing and woodshed until they open for lunch,” I said to Brad, “then put in a few more hours in the afternoon. Same thing for Friday and Saturday, too. I’m up for it if everyone else is—it’s the only option I can see if we’re gonna cover this thing.” I felt a little weird telling him how to run what was supposedly his band, but that was how I saw it.

  Brad thought about this for a minute, and you could almost see him switch hats. “Okay, that’ll work. We’ll meet at ten tomorrow morning. I’ll tell the others.” He looked at his watch. “Time to play.”

  For the rest of the gig they dug out the most popular tunes they could recall from their overall repertoire and we worked them into the set. It was probably hardest on me—almost none of them were on the list I’d practiced, and many of them I’d never actually played before, period. I kept a close eye on Danny and he helped me out with cues, and I managed to get through it without causing a train wreck.

  We even took a few requests along the way. At one point someone yelled out, “Play some Clapton!” Damn, I guess Jake was right—they really did go for the old stuff out here.…

  I looked at Brad. “You know ‘Layla’?” I figured that was the ultimate Clapton song.

  Brad looked up at the ceiling and nodded his head in time as he sang the words to himself. “Yeah, I know it.”

  “Cool.” I looked at the others as I started tapping the tempo on my hi-hats. “We good with that?”

  I was waiting for the opening riff when Glenn shook his head. I was surprised—I knew it wasn’t the easiest song on guitar but I would have bet my snare drum he could nail that thing in his sleep.

  He let out a breath. “Sorry, man. Let’s do something else.” And without waiting he fired up the opening lines of “Crossroads.” Luckily, I’d heard it enough to fake my way through it.

  I finally realized that if you don’t really know a tune too well, it only makes it worse if you approach it all careful-like. No matter what, you have to play it like you freakin’ own it. Sure, once in a while I guessed wrong or missed a cue or something, and if anyone was really paying attention, they probably noticed, but I learned to recover and just keep on driving, full speed ahead.

  And the funny part was, Jake was right … at least partly. The songs we pulled out of the hat were the ones that got people out of their chairs in the first place. But I took pride in the fact that once we got them on the floor, we kept them there with our regular material by sheer force of groove, if nothing else.

  It wasn’t exactly the most relaxing gig I’d ever played. But by the end of the last song—after the applause had stopped and Brad had said, “See you here tomorrow night, and bring your friends!”—I realized it might have been the most satisfying.

  From: Zach Ryan [ZR99@westnet.net]

  Sent: Thursday, June 24 2:42 AM

  To: Kimberly Milhouse [kimmilhouse@cencast.net]

  Subject: Road life

  Yo, Kimber—

  What a day. (Or maybe it’s two days. Uhh … would you believe three?) The highlights so far:

  I drove all night the first night. Pretty surreal, flying down the road in the Bad-Mobile at three in the morning with five people I barely know sleeping in the back. Lots of time to think, mostly about Kyle and the guys. I was totally bummed about the way things turned out—maybe even more than you know—but I think I have a handle on it now. Maybe. I hope things work out for them and their big recording plans, but all in all, I’d rather be here right now.

  So I went to sleep last night as Zach Ryan, newbie touring drummer, and I woke up as some kind of Musketeer. (Kind of a fraternity initiation. Uh, don’t ask …)

  Anyway, here we are in Bozeman. And after a few bumps in the road, our first night at the first club went pretty well. (Basically, you don’t bring a knife to a gunfight and you don’t bring a modern-rock band to cover an oldies gig. But we figured it out and we’re still employed. For now.)

  So far I feel like I’m in school, getting a degree in improvisational stagecraft with a minor in political science. If I make it to the end of this, I’ll have a freakin’ PhD …

  Speaking of PhDs, how’s my favorite little professor doing? Are you enjoying summer school? Okay, dumb question. But hopefully it’s not too painful … You and Ginger staying out of trouble—or at least not getting caught? And has Kevin Flanders been leaving you alone? If not, just tell him I’d be happy to repeat our pleasant little exchange, free of charge. (Just kidding. I think.)

  Well, I hope you’re having fun this summer. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to talk with you more at Paisano’s, because obviously you were a little bummed. I’m sure it seems like this on-the-road stuff is one big vacation for me, but believe me, it’s work, just like any other job. (Okay, it beats the hell out of being a yard boy, but still …) And since you’d asked about the “when & where,” attached is our travel schedule.

  Well, I’ve gotta get going. We need to do some serious (unpaid and unplanned, but totally required) rehearsing in the morning.

  Talk soon,

  Z

  PS—Hey, one more thing. Sorry for calling you little sister—I’ll try not to do it again. Explanation to follow at a later date … ☺

  JUNE 21 DEPART LOS ROBLES, CA

  JUNE 23–JUNE 26 BOZEMAN, MT

  JUNE 29–JULY 3 BILLINGS, MT

  JULY 6–JULY 10 HELENA, MT

  JULY 13–JULY 17 BUTTE, MT

  JULY 20–JULY 24 W. YELLOWSTONE, WY

  JULY 27–JULY 31 JACKSON HOLE, WY

  AUGUST 3–AUGUST 7 COEUR D’ALENE, ID

  AUGUST 10–AUGUST 14 MEDICINE HAT, ALBERTA, CAN

  AUGUST 17–AUGUST 21 LETHBRIDGE, ALBERTA, CAN

  AUGUST 24 ARRIVE LOS ROBLES, CA

  16

  “Poker Face”

  Glenn woke up around nine, probably because of me ticktacking at my computer.

  “What are you hacking away at?” he asked, one eye open.

  I looked over. “Trying to save your unblemished reputation.”

  “She said she was eighteen, Your Honor. I swear.”

  “Not that reputation. I’m talking about you never bailing on a gig.” He gave me a blank look, so I nodded toward my computer and the headphones that were plugged into it. “I’ve got tons of tunes in here, old and new. I’m going through them for stuff that might work for us, building a Jake-worthy playlist for us to woodshed.”

  “Cool.” He yawned and stretched. “And thanks for the help last night.” He must have seen my blank look. “I meant with Brad, about the Saturday thing.”

  “Yeah, why’d you have me explain to him what we should
do? I’m pretty sure you’d already decided on everything I said.”

  He didn’t say anything for a second. “Maybe,” he finally replied as he started pulling his clothes on, “but I think it’s good for him to hear it from someone besides me.” He came over and looked at my screen. “So what’s the plan for the songs?”

  “Well, I took some of the older stuff we faked our way through last night and I found thirty or forty more that fit the same mold and saved them as a big playlist. Now I’m going through it and breaking it into four sets and putting them into order.”

  “Wow. Did you do that for the Sock Monkeys?”

  “Yeah, sometimes. Or I’d keep the master list by my kit and call them on the fly. Depends on the gig.”

  “Sure,” he said, nodding. He paused. “But before you go too far arranging sets … You know how you can get through a tune with just a few clues?”

  “Yeah …”

  He pointed to one of the oldies at random. “Take this one—‘Hot Blooded.’ Let’s say you were raised in a cave and had never heard it. I could tell you, ‘It’s just a four-on-the-floor straight-ahead rocker … maybe a hundred and twenty beats a minute … has a few accents during the verse, but no sweat—you’ll get it after the first four bars, and even if you just play right through it, you’ll still be okay.’ Would that work for you?”

  “Uh, I hope so. That pretty much sums up last night.”

  “Right. But now let’s assume you’re going to have to sing this song that you’ve never heard.…”

  Whoa … If I were a character in a manga, there would have been a little lightbulb going on over my head. “Oops—good point. So what do you think?”

  “I think … that I’ve said enough.” He grinned. “Me, I’m going to go find some breakfast before practice. Most important meal of the day, right …?” He grabbed his stuff and left.

  “Thanks for all the help …,” I mumbled as the door closed behind him. Speaking of breakfast, I’d been thinking along the same lines. But instead I dug up a power bar and took a bite as I got out my little printer.…

  Brad and Jamie came in together, each holding a Starbucks. Venti, no less. Man, you’re killing me, I thought.

  Jamie must have seen my look. She held up her cup. “You want some coffee?”

  I figured she was just being polite. “I’m good. But thanks.”

  I must have paused a little too long. “Amber’s still there,” she said as she took out her phone. “What do you want?”

  “Just a coffee. Cream, no sugar. That’d be great.”

  “No problem,” she said, texting away. “You eat yet?”

  That power bar was just a lump in my stomach. A very lonely lump. “Uh, not really.”

  She nodded. “Okay.” She hit a few more keys and put her phone away.

  Glenn walked in. “Hey, guys,” he said. He looked around. “Does anyone know where Danny is?”

  “He’ll be here in a few,” Jamie said. “He’s with Amber, getting some coffee.”

  Looks like I had some time. I turned to Brad. “Hey, do you have a minute?” I held up some papers. “I have a few questions about some songs.”

  “Sure.” He headed to a nearby table. “Let’s do it.”

  We sat down. “I’ve got a bunch of classic-rock tunes on my computer,” I said, “and I put together a big list of the ones that kinda fit what these guys seem to be looking for.”

  He nodded real slowly, like he wasn’t sure about this. “Okaaay …”

  “But you have to sing them, not me.” I took out the master list I’d just printed. “So, anything on here look doable to you?”

  His mood lightened. “Let’s take a look.” He took the list from my hand and started running down it. “Hmm, let’s see … I know this one … and this one.… God, I hate that one.…”

  I gave him a pen. “Here, why don’t you mark all the ones you already know. And maybe also mark some of the other ones that you like and you think you could learn pretty easy.”

  “Dude! You’re like a den mother. Are you always this organized?”

  “Hey, just trying to save us some time.” I probably came off a little defensive, but I guess I expected something more for trying to help. “You’re not the only one who’d like to get out and see something other than the inside of this club.” Oops … I guess I had been cooped up too long.

  He looked at me for a second and I wasn’t sure what was going through his head. Then he finally grinned. “I hear ya.”

  He started marking the list. A few minutes later Danny and Amber walked in, laughing.

  Danny held out a bag to me with a flourish. “It’s Coffee Boy, at your service!”

  “Thanks, man.” I looked inside. There was a venti coffee and some sort of enormous muffin with nuts and berries and, I don’t know—small winged creatures?—sticking out of it. I glanced up from the bag and saw Amber looking at me. She was standing there with a receipt in her hand. Oh, yeah …

  “Um, it’s fifteen twenty-two. Let’s call it fifteen bucks even.” She was serious.

  Fifteen dollars? For that? So far this road thing was more rash than riches. But I’d ordered it. Sort of. I reached for my wallet as I swore that this was the last time I got on this particular bus.

  Right when I got my money out, I noticed Amber was busting up. “Just kidding,” she said. “And thanks for breakfast yesterday.”

  Danny held out his hand for her to slap. She did, but at the last second he closed his hand and snagged hers. “Damn, you’re good,” he said to her. Then he turned to me and winked. “Don’t ever play poker with her, bro—you’d lose your Underoos.”

  “Hey!” Jamie said to the room at large. “Are we gonna make some music or what …?”

  We got down to business.…

  “According to what Jackie said, it ought to be here somewhere,” Glenn said.

  “Jackie?”

  “Yeah. That trippy young-old waitress …”

  I let it go.

  We were walking up the main drag, looking for a bite. I’d figured we’d eat in the D&P’s dining room like yesterday, but after practice Glenn had said, “C’mon, let’s get out of here—I know just what you need.” I literally hadn’t been out of the club since we’d arrived, so I jumped at the chance to stretch my legs and see a little bit of Bozeman, but we ended up in a restaurant that wouldn’t have been my first choice … Yamaguchi Sushi.

  The place was a lot busier than I would have expected a Japanese restaurant in Montana to be. And different. Meaning it was clean and comfortable, but there weren’t any bamboo screens or whatever in sight. More like some of the nicer Southwestern places we have back home. And there was disco music, of all things, coming from the ceiling, and a big screen above the bar was showing a ball game with the sound turned off. Kimber would have called it “eclectic,” in her professor voice.

  “You okay with this?” he asked.

  “Uh, sure …”

  “You like sushi?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know—never had it.”

  When the waitress came over and said, “Hi, what can I get for you?” Glenn looked at me. “Okay if I call it?”

  I nodded. “Lead on …”

  He ordered a few different things, and I just figured, What the hell, bring on the bait—I’ll choke it down.

  After the waitress left, I said, “You know, I was way impressed by how fast you guys made the new stuff sound totally pro today. I mean, on the first run-through some of those songs sounded like a record. That was like magic.”

  “You were there, too.”

  “All I did was pay attention.”

  “Exactly. You’ve got big ears.” He saw my expression and laughed. “Not on the sides of your head.” He tapped his forehead. “Up here. You listen. That’s the big secret.”

  “That’s it?” I was kinda hoping for something more.

  “You know who Eddie Bayers is?” he asked.

  I’d read that name somewhere recentl
y … maybe in Modern Drummer? I shrugged. “Is he a drummer?”

  “Oh yeah. An A-list Nashville studio drummer. Played on tons of sessions—you’ve probably heard him on hundreds of songs on the radio. Anyway, I was at a big music convention in LA and I wandered into a clinic he was giving. He’d brought some other session guys with him and they were set up onstage. The clinic was called Anatomy of a Session, and the guys onstage were looking at charts. They’d handed out copies of the chart at the door also, so the audience could follow along. And here’s the brilliant part—this was the first time Eddie’s guys had ever seen the song, so we were going to get that fly-on-the-wall look at what really goes down at a pro session.”

  “Wow, that’s totally cool.”

  “Yeah, they sat there talking about the tune, and Eddie’s saying, ‘The feel is like this …’ and he sort of hums the basic groove, and the bassist says, ‘So I come in after four bars, then?’ and the guitar player asks about one of the chord changes, and so on.”

  “Sounds pretty normal, so far.”

  “Yup. So far. And then after a couple minutes of this, Eddie looks around and says, ‘We good?’ and everybody nods, and he counts it off. And that’s where ‘normal’ went right out the window. Man, those guys nailed it, first take, cold. I don’t mean they got through it without a disaster. I mean it sounded like a polished record. Even the guitar solo—perfect. I’ll never forget it.”

  “And they had those ‘big ears’ …?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. Huge ears. That was really the lesson for me. When those guys played, they weren’t about themselves. They were all about listening to each other and playing for the music. It wasn’t a chops fest at all—nothing to prove. We’re trying to do the same thing now, only instead of charts, we’re using tunes off your playlist.” He paused. “Remember your audition?”

  “Huh?” I deadpanned. “Did I audition for this gig?”

  He laughed. “As painful as it might have been, in an hour you put together some concepts that took me a whole lot longer to figure out. I was as impressed by that as much as anything.…”