by Max Frick
Steve Steve. He was seated in a high-backed, soft-leather swivel chair, pushed out a bit from the desk, wearing an immaculately tailored three-piece pinstriped suit with perfectly co-ordinated collar and tie. His left ankle was resting on his right knee and he was gently gyrating this way and that as he listened (mainly to himself) and spoke.
‘...C’est la vie, Don, c’est la vie. I can’t afford to care. The music business is a business like any other. He was initially given a three-month window in which to structure a suitable package and utterly failed to deliver. I can’t justify throwing good money after bad, funding the dubious lifestyles of has-beens and idlers. It’s time to cut him loose...’
The raising of the phone to his ear had pulled the sleeve of his jacket back from his shirt cuff to reveal an over sized pearl cufflink where a button would’ve sufficed, while the three tortoise-shell buttons on his waistcoat curved neatly and evenly over a replete stomach. His hair was slick and his shoes highly polished. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five.
‘...Now that, Don, sounds like an interesting proposition. Let me see...da-da da da...’
He leaned forward and tapped a few keys on his computer.
‘...Hmm,’ he said. ‘Da-da da da da da...’
And in order to think on his feet, he actually got up out of his chair and began, not pacing, exactly, but strolling to and fro behind it.
‘...Da-da da da. Factor in the retail component. Da-da da da da da...’
In mid stroll he swept the front of his jacket back behind his hip and casually slipped his free hand into his trouser pocket, halting before the middle one of three large arched windows to gaze ankle deep in thought out over the rooftops of his city. The ‘winder’ on his heavy-duty platinum wristwatch caught on the pocket’s rim preventing his hand from going any deeper inside.
‘...Okay, Don, offer him three percent less than industry standard on a take it or leave it basis. If he baulks at it up the ante... No, cap it at one percent. I don’t shit pound sterling. I want him on the books, Don, but not at any price...’
Nor was it difficult for Tony to imagine the complete range of his extracurricular activities: rolling into the clubhouse car park in some model of sports convertible, a leisurely elbow resting atop the driver’s door; lifting his kitbag and clubs out of the boot; teeing off on the front nine with the clubhouse as backdrop, in sunshade, slacks and a light Pringle roll-neck, adjusting and re-adjusting his grip and stance before, club head still skywards, following the ball with an anticipatory gaze as it sails through the air down the fairway. Or afterwards in the self-same clubhouse, ensconced in a buffed brown leather, Chesterfield style armchair, sipping at a brandy, periodically swirling it gently round the wall of the glass; or smoking a fat cigar, sucking and blowing at one end while lighting the other, turning it, turning it, turning it as he did so, releasing ever enlarging puffs of smoke from the corners of his mouth.
‘...For sure, Don, for sure. And, Don, let me know the upshot asap. All going well I want a press release Tuesday. Now, was there anything else? ...Ah, that, I’m afraid, will have to wait for some other time, my friend. I have a young man here right now who, if we strike while the iron’s hot and employ the correct strategy, could well turn out to be the next big thing... Okay, Don. Okay. Chow.’
He snapped shut his phone and turning back towards Tony extended a cordial, confident, unapologetic hand.
Pinching the creases of his trousers, drawing the legs up an inch or two, he again sat himself down, and it would have come as no surprise to Tony if he’d swung first one foot then another up onto the desk and proceeded to get down to brass tacks cross legged and lolling in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head.
‘Tea? Coffee? Water?’ he asked instead, indicating the telephone on his desk.
‘No, no thanks,’ replied Tony.
‘A real drink perhaps?’
He opened a door in the desk and produced a small decanter and two brandy glasses.
Tony suppressed a despairing shake of his head to maintain his passable impression of respectful politeness.
‘Eh, no, no thanks,’ he said again.
Wheeling his chair in closer to the desk, Steve Steve poured himself a brandy, and swirling it gently round the wall of the glass, gazed upwards over Tony’s head to where an array of framed gold and silver discs adorned the office wall.
‘ “Drako”,’ he said musingly. ‘I like that. It’s got a certain ring to it. I think I can work with that.’
He was again looking at Tony.
‘Tony,’ he said. ‘Let me tell you why you’re here.’
And, after savouring a sip of his drink, he had gone on to outline his proposal.
‘You, my friend,’ he said, again pointing pistol-like, this time directly at Tony. ‘You, my friend, are a very hot property. A very hot property! Your exploits have caused quite a stir within the industry. “Tony Drake” is thee name on everybody’s lips. Granted, not everyone is singing your praises exactly. In fact almost to a man they condemn your actions. But universal condemnation is, in my experience, every bit as lucrative as universal adoration. And that, in corporate terms, makes you, Tony, a very viable project. Now, I would like to make it known at this juncture that whatever you did or did not do to Ryan Watson, whatever the truth of the matter, it’s of no interest to me primarily as a businessman. There is no place in modern business for the… shall we say… the morally impeccable. My principal concern, in fact my only concern, is how best to capitalise on the resultant controversy. There are two routes to success in music, Tony: the first is to spend a great deal of time and money promoting your acts to the level of household name. The second, by far the quickest and most cost effective, is to take an existing household name and provide him with a saleable product. You, my friend, are an existing household name!
‘Now, according to the newspapers, you were listening to a particular song on that night. An old song called Debaser, by a band called the Pixies? Am I right? So I’ve taken the liberty of having the boys downstairs chase up a copy. Not bad. Not bad. A little too ‘alternative’ for my own taste, but that’s merely a personal opinion and of no importance here. It pays in this business, Tony, to have an ear, to have several ears, to the ground at all times, to keep abreast of current trends, and detailed analysis shows that the market for exactly this type of alternative music is once again in the ascendant. In fact, leaving ‘pop’ out of the equation – bread and butter to industry moguls like myself and by far and away the dominant force in the modern market place, accounting for forty-three percent of all records sold – alternative music, with a pretty impressive eighteen-point-two percent market share, rising at a steady two-point-four percent over the last two years, is now second only to ‘techno’, in all its various forms, genres and sub-genres, with a share of nineteen-point-six percent. All of which means, in layman’s terms, Tony, that there’s a handsome profit to be made if we act quickly. The thriving market coupled with your widespread notoriety is a sure fire recipe for instant fame and fortune, my friend.
‘Now, as we speak, the legal department are busy securing the rights to what those boys in the Hollywood hills refer to these days as a re-imagining, a cover version, in vulgar parlance, of Debaser. And I want you, Tony, to be the front man, the lead singer. And when I say want I mean need, my friend. Need! Without you the song is worthless to me. But with your name behind it the sky, as they say, is the limit. How do you like the sound of that?’
Tony, inexplicably cowed by this interview-esque situation, was sitting upright with his hands almost obediently clasped on his lap, and could only shrug his thumbs while blankly nodding and bobbing his head in no determinate direction. Steve Steve took this as a yes.
‘Good,’ he went on. ‘Now, in this business, Tony, as in any other, speed is of the essence, so I’ve had the contracts drawn up, to be signed forthwith, and we’ll set a completion date for the whole package two days hence. On conclusion of our meeting in here I’ll
have my secretary escort you downstairs to the studio to lay down the vocals, due for completion by close of business today, leaving the boys in production a small window in which to tweak and polish the music. Meanwhile I myself will personally schedule a series of project specific interviews for you with one or two of the more prominent music journals, to inform the record buying public of your imminent arrival.
‘Now, irregardless of whoever the real Tony Drake may or may not be, I suggest, for want of a better word, that in both the vocals and in the interviews you venture to live up to the public’s perception of you as an angry young man. We must give the people, not what they want per se, but what they will certainly expect based on what they’ve read about you in the papers. And what they’ll expect, Tony, is anger, real anger. Raw emotion. Passion…’
He was talking upwards now, over Tony’s head, as though searching for just the right word among the gold and silver discs on the wall.
‘...They’ll expect... da-da da da da da... defiance...!’
He snapped his fingers at this mot juste and for the last time pointed pistol-like at Tony.
‘...Defiance, and statistics will bear me out on this point, is a perennial favourite with the record buying public and therefore a very valuable commodity. The only question