Dean smells car fumes and his own aftershave. ‘Bet it’s raining in England, now. Here we are in short sleeves. They’ll never know. Our families, I mean. We can describe it, but unless they’ve been here, unless they’ve lived it …’
‘I’ve had that thought too,’ says Elf. ‘It’s melancholic.’
‘Turn around, everyone,’ instructs Mecca.
They obey – Click ’n’ FLASH! Scrit-scrit …
‘Yer don’t tend to ask, do yer?’ remarks Dean.
‘No, she does not,’ says Jasper.
‘Either you ask politely,’ replies Mecca, ‘or you get good photographs.’ Click ’n’ FLASH! Scrit-scrit …
‘Let’s go tell Doug we’re here,’ says Levon.
Doug Weston’s upstairs office vibrates in time to the support act’s bass. 101 Damn Nations, a local band, are good enough to ‘warm the seat’ but not so good as to threaten Utopia Avenue. Doug Weston, a giant in green velvet with anarchic blond hair, is the most affable club owner Dean has ever met, and when the rest of the band go downstairs, he stays to chat a while longer. Doug discusses the Randy Thorn episode and takes out a Sucrets throat-lozenge tin. ‘It was the most compelling live TV since … well, I’d propose Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination, but that would be tasteless. People were phoning in on KDAY-FM, KCRW. They’ve been playing “Roll Away The Stone”. You’re the conversation in LA today. If Levon wasn’t so Canadian, I’d be thinking, Shit, did he set the whole thing up?’
‘That’s Randy Thorn’s theory, I’m told,’ says Dean. ‘’Cept in his version, I set the whole thing up.’
‘Randy Thorn’s days of being taken seriously by anyone except his mother and his dog are over.’ Doug clears space on his desk, pushing aside bills, papers, letters, acetates, ashtrays, shot-glasses, a Pirelli calendar and a framed photograph of Doug and Jimi Hendrix. Doug opens the small tin and takes out a loaded spatula’s worth of cocaine, deposits it on the cover of Newsweek, and makes a white line running between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. He hands Dean a rolled-up dollar bill and tells him, ‘Rocket fuel.’
Dean snorts the cocaine up his nostril and flips his head back. It burns, freezes and exhilarates. Ten espressos at once. ‘Lift-off.’
‘Ain’t that just the smoothest shit?’
‘The stuff at home just butchers my nose.’
‘Keith Richards preaches two cardinal rules: know your dealer and buy the best. If you don’t, your shit’ll be cut with corn starch, baby milk or worse.’
Dean glows. ‘What’s worse than corn starch?’
‘Rat poison’s worse than corn starch.’
‘Why would a dealer poison his customers?’
‘Profit. Indifference. Homicidal urges.’ Doug tips out a second heaped spatula onto Newsweek. ‘I’ve twice your body mass,’ he explains. He snorts – ‘Aaahhhhhh …’ – and smiles like an ugly horse attaining Nirvana.
I wrote a few songs, thinks Dean, they got recorded and look at me now. I’ve bloody won, Gravesend. See? I won …
Doug Weston locks his cocaine stash away. ‘Let’s get you back now. Mustn’t let Levon think I’m leading you down the starry path of rock ’n’ roll depravity …’
The band, Levon and Mecca wait on the stairs leading down to the stage. The Troubadour is packed, twice over. The smoke is thick. Dean’s coming down from his cocaine bump but still feeling semi-indestructible. ‘Here at the Troubadour,’ says Doug Weston onstage, ‘we’ve always taken pride in introducing the hottest talent from England to our City of the Fallen Angels. Utopia Avenue is playing their last night of an un-for-gettable stay here. Randy Thorn sure as hell ain’t going to forget any time soon, anyhow.’ Laughter and cheers surge up the stairs. Dean squeezes Elf’s hand and Elf squeezes his back. ‘But I know the band’ll be playing again at the Troubadour very soon because—’
‘You made ’em sign a blood oath to come back and do shows for the next twenty years?’ calls a heckler.
Doug presses his hand to his wounded heart. ‘Because they have a cosmic future. So with no further ado …’ he turns to face the band at the top of the stairs ‘… Utopia Avenue!’
The applause has grown from a low boil on Tuesday to a roar spiked with catcalls tonight. Dean and Doug pat shoulders as they pass and Doug speaks in his ear: ‘Slay ’em.’ The band take their positions. Dean looks into the dim, brick-walled venue, full of glinting eyes, and thinks, They’re here to see yer ’cause yer the best thing on in LA tonight. He gets a nod back from Elf, Griff and Jasper, comes in close to his mic and fills his lungs:
I-i-i-i-i-f life has shot yer full of holes –
His voice detonates – it is scorched and tortured, like Eric Burdon’s on ‘House of the Rising Sun’ …
a-a-a-a-nd hung yer out to dry …
A figure on the side catches his eye: Dean’s pretty sure it’s David Crosby, late of the Byrds – that hat, that cape – breathe … Dean reaches for the next line … which is … which was … Gone.
What’s the next bloody line?
How can I have forgotten?
I’ve sung it five hundred times!
Then what is it? There’s just a noisy druggy glow in his brain where the words should be. Why why why did I do the fucking cocaine? Now Dean’s panicking, all hope of finding the lyrics is gone, and they’re going to realise I’m an amateur and an impostor and I shouldn’t bloody be here, and Dean feels the eyes on him finding me out, finding me out, finding me—
and slung you in a pauper’s grave
Elf’s voice arrives, like a sonic angel, as if the long pause was deliberate. Dean turns to her. I love yer, he thinks. Not like a boyfriend: I love yer deeper than that. She nods to say, ‘You’re welcome,’ and sings the next line:
down where the dead men lie –
On ‘lie’, Dean and Griff come in. Four bars later, Elf joins in and Jasper kerangggs his guitar into urgent life.
If life has shot yer full of holes
and hung yer out to dry –
and slung yer in a pauper’s grave
down where the dead men lie –
He fluffs the riff a little – if his fingers were a sports car, the brakes would need seeing to – but at least he remembers the words. Swear to God, I’ll never do cocaine before a show again, ever, ever. Here come Jasper and Elf to join in the chorus:
I’ll roll away the stone, my friend,
I’ll roll away the stone –
put my shoulder to the rock
and roll away that stone.
Verse two: the Ferlinghetti Verse. Dean plays his Fender safely and solidly, a fraction of a beat behind Griff, like a drunk sober enough to know he’s drunk and needs to let someone else lead:
If Ferlinghetti frames yer
and throws away the key –
if you were there in Grosvenor Square
where Anarchy killed Tyranny –
Dean realises his mistake immediately: it’s ‘Tyranny killed Anarchy’. Anarchy killed Tyranny means the good guys won. Maybe no one will notice, he tells himself, or maybe everyone noticed. Jasper adds fills to the chorus’s second and fourth lines:
We’ll roll away the stone, my friend,
we’ll roll away the stone –
we’ll get yer on yer feet again
and roll away that stone.
Jasper keeps his first solo close to the album’s. They have ninety minutes to fill and, as Eric Clapton told them, always keep your best fireworks for the second half.
The eunuchs in the harem
will twist the words yer meant,
but they can’t make yer hate yerself
without yer give consent.
Elf plays the Hammond part with her left hand and adds piano with her right:
So ro-oooll away that stone, my friend,
Ro-oooll away that stone –
grip it, heave it, kick its arse and
roll that goddamn stone.
Last is the verse Elf suggested. Dean thinks
it’s the best, but finds that cocaine has boosted not his confidence but his self-doubt, and he’s afraid the verse will sound glib. Dean lets his Fender hang and grips the mic like a man throttling a chicken that refuses to die:
If death touches one yer love,
if grief grips yer in its fist,
honour those who left too soon –
Dean looks over at Elf, knowing who she’s thinking about. On one side is her nephew, an infant everybody wanted but who didn’t survive past the bluebell season. On the other side is Amanda Craddock’s boy. Dean, at least, would rather the boy didn’t exist: but there he is, in a poky flat in North London, thriving and growing and being. Life has a sick sense of humour. The band waits for four beats …
exist, exist, exist.
Until recently, Griff tapped the four beats on the rim of his drum, but they’ve been so musically tight over the last month that he stopped. Dean is so anxious not to jump the gun – and jittery with the coke – that he jumps the gun half a beat earlier. I keep misfiring ’n’ slipping gears. The others stumble to catch up:
Let’s roll away the stone, my friends,
let’s roll away the stone –
persistence is resistance, so
roll away that stone.
The applause is solid, but not ecstatic. Dean is furious with himself. He wants to rush offstage. I want to hide for the rest of the century.
‘Stay,’ says Jasper, into his ear. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Yer mystery, de Zoet, thinks Dean. ‘Sorry.’ Jasper clasps Dean’s shoulder. He’s never, ever touched me before …
Elf has picked up the slack. ‘It’s great to be here, and not in a cell in the county jail facing a charge of aggravated assault with a plywood guitar.’ More laughter. ‘This next is a voodoo curse about art, love and theft. It’s called “Prove It”.’ She checks everyone’s ready. Still floored by Jasper’s empathy, Dean nods.
‘A-one and a-two and a one-two-three—’
Dean steps into the illuminated garden of Cass Elliot’s house. The pool is twice the size of Anthony Hershey’s. Lanterns glow in the trees. Revellers laugh. Lovers enter wigwams and lie in hammocks smoking weed. This is the party I’ve been looking for all my life, thinks Dean. The band’s temporary neighbour Joni Mitchell’s vodka-on-ice voice escapes through a window. The song is ‘Cactus Tree’. Her voice pulses, dives, aches, swivels, regrets, consoles, avows. Dean peers in through the insect screen. Joni’s hair and skin are golden under a marigold lamp. She sings with her half-closed eyes watching her fingers. Her tuning never stays still. This song is DADF#AD with the capo on the fourth fret. I should mess around with tunings more … It changes the voice o’ yer guitar. Mama Cass looks on with a face like that of a woman in prayer. Graham Nash sits cross-legged, gazing up at his candlelit girlfriend. California has worked its King Midas magic on him, too. Everybody here is 15 per cent better-looking than they are elsewhere. A white moth lands on Dean’s watch. Joni finishes the final verse on a strummed discordant ka-dannngggg.
Dean heads for the lookout deck at the end of the garden. Peacocks wander aimlessly underneath the orange tree. A pockmarked half-moon hangs above the wooded mountain. Moonlight is sunlight, bounced. The moon is eclipsed by a black cowboy hat. ‘Congratulations, Dean.’ The cowboy is soft-spoken and intense. ‘Tonight was quite something.’
‘’Ppreciate yer saying so. It had its ups ’n’ downs.’
‘Your downs are higher than most artists’ ups. If I’m any judge of these matters, you’re destined for greatness.’
‘Nobody knows what’s waiting round the next bend.’
‘Prophecy is a fancy name for an intelligent guess. Joint?’ A silver box of reefers is produced from thin air.
‘Why not?’
The cowboy lights one for Dean and slips a second into his jacket pocket. ‘What one thing do all bands have in common?’
‘What one thing do all bands have in common?’
‘One fine day, they cease to exist.’
‘Yeah, but yer can say that ’bout anything.’
‘Jasper and Elf are gifted, yes. But you’re the best songwriter. You also have the looks and charisma to be a solo star. I don’t deal in flattery, Dean. I deal in facts. “Roll Away The Stone” should be a worldwide Top Five hit. With the right marketing, it would be.’
‘What did yer say yer name was?’
‘My name’s Jeb Malone. I work for Mr Allen Klein.’
Dean knows the name. ‘The Stones’ new manager?’
‘None other. Mr Klein admires your songs, your voice, your spirit and your potential. Here’s his direct line.’ Jeb Malone slips a card into Dean’s shirt pocket. ‘If your situation changes vis-à-vis the band, Mr Klein will be happy to discuss your options.’
Take that card out, Dean tells himself, and rip it up.
Dean looks around to check nobody saw. ‘I’m already in a band. I already have a deal. I already have a manager.’
‘And Levon is a very nice guy. Very Canadian. But business is a jungle, and you need carnivores, not nice guys. Mr Klein could close you a deal for two solo records worth a quarter of a million dollars. Not “in theory”. No ifs, no buts. Now.’
The party sound recedes, leaving only the number, which Dean can’t quite believe. ‘Did you just say …’
‘One quarter of a million dollars. A life-altering sum. Think about it. Mr Klein will be expecting your call. Enjoy the party.’ Jeb Malone vanishes in a puff of joint smoke.
Dean heads for the lookout deck at the end of the garden. A quarter of a million dollars. On a nearby roof, cats screech songs of feline lust. ‘Dean Moss,’ says a woman, who might have slid off an Egyptian vase. Kohled eyes, linen shift, stern black hair. ‘I’m Callista, and I have an unusual passion. Maybe you’ve heard of me.’
‘Or maybe I haven’t.’ Dean drinks from his bottle of beer.
‘I take plaster casts of the penises of rock stars.’
Most of Dean’s beer exits via his nostrils.
‘I’ve done Jimi Hendrix,’ Callista recounts, ‘Noel Redding, Eric Burdon, but his broke in two. The cast, I mean. Not the penis.’
She’s serious. ‘Why?’
‘If the penis droops in mid-session, a crack can appear.’
‘No, I mean why d’yer do plaster casts o’ knobs?’
‘A girl needs a hobby. It’ll only take an hour, and my friend comes along to plate you, so don’t worry about stage fright.’
‘Try Griff. A drummer’ll do a lot for free plating.’
‘There’s only one man in Utopia Avenue I really want …’
‘Good luck with yer collection, Callista.’
‘Booo-rrring.’ Plaster-caster Callista exits the scene.
Dean continues his journey over to the lookout deck.
‘Quite a show you guys put on,’ says a face with a horseshoe moustache. He looks like a Mexican bandit who gets shot first in a Spaghetti Western. ‘“Look Who It Isn’t” kinda oiled my gun.’
‘Jesus bloody Christ. Yer Frank bloody Zappa.’
‘On my better days I am,’ says Frank Zappa.
Dean shakes his hand. ‘Janis Joplin put me on to We’re Only In It For the Money. It’s indescribable. It’s—’
‘I’ll take “indescribable”. Like Charles Mingus says, writing about music is like dancing about architecture.’
A woman nestles into Frank Zappa’s side. She’s holding a glass of milk. ‘Hi, I’m Gail. The dreaded wife. We dig your band.’
Mr Zappa smiles at Mrs Zappa with pride and affection.
‘Nice to meet yer.’ He tokes on his reefer. ‘Care for a puff?’
‘We’re abstainers,’ says Frank. ‘The world is majestic enough.’
Frank Zappa doesn’t do drugs? ‘That’s cool. So, Frank, how’d yer get MGM to release the least commercial LP ever made?’
‘My guile and MGM’s ignorance. If you think my stuff’s uncommercial, try Stravinsky. Try Halim El-Dabh. Or try brai
ning Randy Thorn with a guitar on live TV. Pure performance art.’
‘That was just … an unplanned accident,’ says Dean.
‘Accidents are often art’s best bits,’ remarks Frank.
‘It’ll buy you an authenticity that money can’t,’ says Gail. ‘Utopia Avenue are now the Anti-Monkees.’
A diver belly-flops into the pool. Onlookers go, ‘Woooooo!’
‘So what do you think of the place?’ asks Frank.
‘Laurel Canyon? It’s like the Garden of Eden.’
‘The Garden of Eden’s no Paradise,’ says Frank.
‘I thought it was the original Paradise,’ says Dean.
‘It’s the original horror show. God creates Eden and puts a naked man and a naked woman in charge. “All this is yours,” His Omniscience says, “but whatever you do, DON’T eat this apple dangling HERE on the Tree of Knowledge, or BAD SHIT will go down.” Why not go the whole hog and hang an EAT ME sign on it? Adam and Eve deserve medals for holding out so long. God has to crack them with the old phallic talking-snake trick. So they eat the knowledge – as God intended all along – and get punished with menstruation, work and corduroy pants. The carnivores turn on the herbivores and the soil of Eden is soaked in blood. See? The original horror show.’
Dean frowns. ‘What’re yer saying, Frank? That Laurel Canyon’s a bloodbath waiting to happen?’
‘I’m saying,’ replies Frank, ‘that if you ever think, I’ve found Paradise, you are not in possession of the facts. Don’t be dazzled by peacocks either. They’re vain, ornery sons-of-bitches who shit like it’s going out of style.’
Dean stands on the lookout deck at the end of the garden, smoking Jeb Malone’s second joint, imagining himself on the prow of a ship. Insects trill by the million. Stars run rampant by the billion. If, just if, in the future, or a next-door universe where Utopia Avenue is over, and I’m a free agent, and I call Allen Klein and if, if, I got that quarter-million … which one o’ them houses’d I fancy? He settles on a big house three properties over. It’s all arches and terracotta with giant ferns. A couple are enjoying a late hot tub under the half-moon and stars. Dean imagines he’s watching himself and Tiffany. Tiffany’s kids don’t exist in this universe. There’s a garage for Dean’s Triumph Spitfire, which he’d have shipped over, naturally, and space for Nan Moss and Bill, and Ray and his family to come and stay … And what about Harry Moffat? I don’t know. I still don’t know. Some things are so much easier not to think about – and America is an endless, world-class distraction, if nothing else. Elf joins him at the rail. ‘Which house are you planning to splurge your ill-gotten gains on, then?’
Utopia Avenue : A Novel Page 56