Requiem

Shower. Shave. Look in mirror and see a few grays. Bummer: I didn’t notice those yesterday.

Coffee – gotta have coffee. Ahhhh. The caffeine seeps into my veins and it feels good.

I pull on the standard uniform: Levi’s and an oxford. And Tevas. I hate shoes.

Los Angeles is at its best early in the morning, before the traffic heats up, before the sun beats down, before the tourists are out, before the day begins. As I drive downtown, the local denizens are just starting to stir. The coffee place is packed with yuppies who have to step over the homeless guy on the grate in front of the building in order to get in. What a city.

“Hey Mayne. The usual?” asks the guy behind the counter.

“Yup.” I drink a lot of coffee. You could say I’m a caffeine junkie. I probably drink eight cups of coffee before noon, and then coast down on the buzz for the rest of the day.

My name is Mayne. Maynard Michelangelo Moore. Really. My parents had a cruel sense of humor. Maybe you don’t think Maynard is so bad, but you probably didn’t get beat up in the schoolyard because of your name. But I digress.

I run a mid-sized, moderately successful indie record label. By moderately successful I mean that it pays the bills, keeps the attorneys in fresh meat, and on occasion I sell one of my acts’ contracts to one of the big labels. I treat each band as a separate business deal. I use the classic dot.com model: start with an idea, get a few investors lined up and work like hell. If the band takes off without any losses attributable to the rock and roll lifestyle, everyone makes money. I keep my investors diversified across genres: R&B, Alt Country, Rock and Roll, Emo. I don’t touch Rap or Hip Hop, mostly because I don’t like the music much, but also because quite frankly, those guys scare me. Gangsta rappers project a general Bad Ass image and I, for one, believe it.

I do my homework. I research sales patterns and demographics. I target the audience that has the most disposable income. Ultimately you have to know from whose pockets the money is going to come.

I’ve been pretty fortunate so far. I manage to get lucky on about one in every ten acts. That’s because I’m discriminating about the talent I bring in. Lately I’ve been mining the Emo vein. You know, the Blink 182 clones. It’s what’s hot right now and you have to be quick to recognize a trend and jump on it if you want to make any money in this business. As a consequence I have a dozen bands fronted by 20-year-old geniuses out there thrashing away in the clubs most nights.

The care and feeding of a band is a tricky issue. Each one is different and needs to be handled accordingly. My M.O. is to find the band, do a quick talent assessment and if they’re any good, sign them. Then it gets interesting. We’ll get them a rehearsal space and record a demo. If it doesn’t suck we’ll put some real effort into recording a CD and getting it out to the music buying public. I pay for the recording. I pay for indie promotion and distribution. I pay for marketing. I pay for lunch. Unfortunately, I pay for it all. Fortunately, I can write most of it off, and at the end of the day I own the recordings. I like the control that gives me.

I park my car and walk into a low-rise building on the north side of Hollywood near Hollywood and Vine, where the old Capitol Records building is. My building is one of those ugly cement and glass boxes built in the ‘70s. It has all the grace of a dead albatross. On the plus side, that means the rent is cheap.

I walk in the back door and downstairs to the basement. Rounding a corner, I can hear a wounded Stratocaster yelping for its life. I poke my head into the Pit. Edgar, demigod of the recording studio, sits behind the console with his eyes closed, a cup of coffee steaming close by, listening to the kid in the recording booth bash away at his guitar.

The Pit is Edgar’s milieu, his home away from home. Edgar is a recording guru, a maharishi of music. He runs the show down here and I wouldn’t dream of getting in the way. We have a mutual appreciation club. He appreciates the fact that I leave him alone to manage the recording sessions, and I appreciate that appreciation.

Edgar runs the studio as he sees fit. I’d like to say that I let him, but the reality is that he does what he wants and I stand back and watch the magic happen. He’s here when I get here in the morning and when I leave at night. I wonder when he sleeps. I wonder where he sleeps. Sometimes he doesn’t cash his paychecks for weeks. Edgar is a strange man.

I can bring a group of unkempt “musicians” in and Edgar can make them sound good, sometimes even great. Plus, he has a gang of studio musicians lined up that can be ready at a moment’s notice. They’re kind of like the Wrecking Crew who recorded the music from so many of the famous albums made in the 60’s and 70’s. Hal Blaine’s gang, including Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, Tommy Tedesco, Leon Russell and Barney Kessel worked on hundreds of hit records. They played for Sinatra (both Frank and Nancy), Elvis, the Beach Boys, the Byrds; you name it, they played it.

Edgar’s gang is much the same. They’ve played more of the music you know than anyone else. It’s crazy.

Here’s one of the dirty little secrets of the music industry: most of the music you hear is played by a very small group of the same musicians. These unsung musical heroes are mercenary. They live and breathe music and don’t give a damn about being famous. I guess that’s the difference between a real musician and a rock star. Edgar calls his gang the MOD Squad. MOD stands for Masters of Disaster.

Oddly enough, Edgar started out his professional life selling tutus. His family owns a dance supply company. He would have been a wealthy man had he stayed on, but he would have hated it. Edgar needs music like fish need water.

Every day I go into the Pit to see what’s lined up and to find out if we’ve stumbled on to the next multi-platinum band howling on a local stage.

“That take sounded good. The turnaround after the bridge was just a little rushed so lets do it again. But you’re on the right track,” Edgar says into the talkback mic. Looking through the glass partition into the recording booth I see the kid, clearly in need of a haircut, guitar slung low, looking frustrated but nodding. My guess is that he’s on take seventeen.

“Ah. The old Praise Sandwich,” Edgar mutters to himself. “Works every time.” He finally notices I’m in the control booth behind him and turns the monitors down to a low roar while the kid plays the same fifteen seconds of a song over and over again trying to get it right. “’Sup, boss?”

“Nothin’. I just wanted to take a listen. See if we have any of that special spark today.” I’m not impressed by what I hear through the monitors.

Edgar presses the record and signals the kid. The kid nods and begins beating on his guitar like the proverbial redheaded stepchild. It screams in response, which I guess is the sound he’s after. Fortunately, I know Edgar will bring in the MOD Squad and make it sound great.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ll bring in the MOD Squad and make it sound great.” We’re definitely on the same wavelength. That’s why I hired him. “I’m just running the kid through his paces. He still thinks being a rock star is all booze and broads. I want him to sweat a little. I’ve had him here all night and he’s not happy about it, but I think it’s starting to sink in. All work and no play, you know. Maybe we can get him a better guitar. When he’s done with this take I’ll get him to try again with a Les Paul.”

“Where’s the rest of the band?” I enquire.

“They left hours ago. I sent them home because they were getting stir crazy waiting for young Jimi Hendrix here to get the lead right.” The taskmaster takes a sip of his coffee. “Can you smell that? Half French Roast, half Espresso. My own mix. I call it the Brutal Blend. You need anything?”

“Smells great. No, I don’t need anything. Be sure we make them do a cover or two before this is all over,” I tell him. I like to throw a cover into the mix; usually it’s a song that you haven’t heard for a while. What the DJs call a deep cut. You know, it rings a bell but you’re not sure why. This way I stand a better chance of at least getting a One Hit Wonder type of thing going, so my investors make a little money. The finance industry calls it hedging. I call it covering my butt.

I walk out of the Pit and up two flights of stairs, past Wendy my receptionist and into my office. Wendy is a force to be reckoned with. She follows me with a stack of phone messages.

“’Morning, Mayne. You’re a popular man this morning. The manager from Monkey’s Paw called like six times already. He’s starting to annoy me. And it turns out that the bass player from Sirius is underage. We’ll need to get his parents to resign all the docs he’s already signed. Jimmy English from La Cantina over on the Strip says he needs to talk to you about some band he’s never heard of before that was in last night with like eight hundred kids from the valley. I didn’t know that many kids lived in the valley. Oh. And Mike called. Says you should call him back pronto.”

“Is that it?” I ask.

“Oh no. There’s always more, but these are the ones you need to respond to right now.”

Wendy Callaghan has strong Midwest accent, a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from a Liberal Arts college I’ve never heard of, a tattoo of the sun in the small of her back and a great ass. But mostly, she has a passion for the music biz. I pay her pretty well, but I suspect that she’d stay if I paid her minimum wage. Wendy was the first receptionist I ever hired and I got lucky. Until she came along I ignored the phone when it rang unless I recognized the number on the caller ID screen. Now I wonder how I ever got along without her.

I tell her I don’t want to talk to anyone until ten this morning. “Except Mike,” I say. “I’ll talk to Mike.” Mike is my attorney. I always make time for him because I’ve known him since we were nine years old.

I snicker while I dial his number because the last four digits spell out an obscene word. Some people never grow up. I’m pretty sure Mike got this number on purpose so his ex-wife would have to dial up the word he used to describe her during the divorce proceedings whenever she calls to ask for more money.

“Langley” says the curt voice at the other end of the phone when he finally picks up.

“Mikey. Who loves ya, baby?”

“Dude. You have got to stop with the Kojak impression. You suck at it.”

“Since when has that ever stopped me from doing anything?” I know the impression sucks, but if it weren’t Kojak, it would be Axl Rose or Michael Jackson or… or someone. “What can I do for you this lovely morning, my fine, finned friend?”

“Dude, you are in deep shit.” The beauty of talking with Mike is that he doesn’t mince words, unlike so many other attorneys I have met. No Heretofores, or Notwithstandings. Just plain old English. Or something resembling it.

“OK. I’ll bite. How deep is this shit you speak of?” I ask.

“Deep. Neck deep. Nose deep. Eyeball deep. How soon can you get down to my office?” I’m concerned because Mike is usually a very laid back kind of guy, except for the attorney part. And the attorney part is at the forefront right now.

“I guess I can get there this afternoon. My schedule is pretty full today.”

“Now. You gotta come now. You have a problem, my friend and I’m not sure how we get out of it unscathed.”

“Mikey, you need to give me more than that. I can’t drop lunch with the boys at A&M for no good reason. It took Wendy a month to set up this lunch. It will make getting my bands signed a whole lot easier. And you know that this connection to one of the big labels will help everyone’s paycheck, including yours.” I know I sound like I’m pleading, but I throw it out there anyway.

“Mayne, a girl was found dead behind a club on the Strip last night. I know that a dead girl behind a club known for it’s less than selective clientele isn’t that unusual, but this one had your card in her hand with my phone number scrawled on the back. You’re lucky this hasn’t leaked out yet. We’re lucky it hasn’t leaked out. The last thing I need is some pushy cub reporter trying to turn this into something it isn’t.”

Shit. Shit shit shit. This isn’t good.

“C’mon, Mike,” I say as I get a grip on what he just said. “You know I hand my cards out all over this town, in every club that has live music, to every club owner who thinks he’s king of the world. She could have picked it up anywhere.”

“Dude, just get your music-producing ass down here and help me sort this out,” he says before he hangs up in my ear.

“Wendy, I have to go see Mike,” I say as I head for the door.

“Don’t forget A&M!” she screams as I blow past her. “If you fuck up this lunch I’ll kill you. I worked my ass off to get this lunch for you, dammit!”