Chapter 15: In the Flesh

Los Angeles, California
September 16, 1995
Jake’s plane touched down at Whiteman airport just past one o’clock in the afternoon after the short flight from Oceano Airport. He and Laura had flown home yesterday afternoon but now Jake had a two-thirty appointment at the Aristocrat Records Office in Hollywood, and, after that, he needed to report to the Forum in Inglewood by five o’clock for a sound check. Tonight was the opening night of Bigg G’s national tour and Jake was going to be a special guest of the show; a special guest who would also perform at the shows in Portland and Seattle the following week, thus setting the precedent that he might show up at any further shows.

Jake parked his aircraft in one of the transient spots in front of the office and shut down the engines. He and Laura got out and, after removing the two cased guitars and Laura’s suitcase from the cargo compartment, the two of them secured the plane to the tie downs and locked it up. They then made the short walk to the hangar buildings to retrieve Jake’s Ford pickup, which was parked inside, patiently awaiting his return to the hated LA region.

Jake kept the truck’s battery on a trickle charger when he was away from it for long periods of time—as he had been while he and Celia and the others had been working on their new CDs in Oregon these last three months—so it fired up immediately when he turned the key. He pulled it out of the hangar and, once Laura closed the roll-up door behind him and locked it, she hopped in and they made the short drive to their second home in Granada Hills, where they stayed on those rare occasions they had to spend the night in LA.

The Granada Hills house did not really feel like home, not like their Oceano cliffside house did; not even like the Coos Bay house they stayed in while recording. Still, it was comfortable enough, and fully furnished with brand new everything, and clean, with a maid service and a landscaping service coming in at regular intervals to keep it that way. The refrigerator was stocked with beer and soda and non-perishable food, and the bar was stocked with wine and liquor and ice.

Since he had a meeting to attend, and since he had a live performance to give after that—something he had been looking forward to for weeks—Jake grabbed a can of root beer instead of barley beer. Laura, who had no such concerns, opened a bottle of chardonnay and poured herself a healthy glassful. She then pulled a little baggie and a pipe out of her purse and began setting herself up a nice hit.

“Celebrate a little, why don’t you?” Jake said lightly, partly amused with his wife, partly jealous.

“I think I will,” she returned, flashing him a smile. “We’ve been going full-steam ahead on the CDs for the past two weeks. I’m going to enjoy my time away from the studio.”

Jake could have pointed out that, although she came to the studio with them most days, she wasn’t really doing much there. They were done with all of the actual recording, done with most of the mixing, and were working primarily on the mastering now. Though Laura’s trained musical ear did come in handy on occasion when a difference of opinion between Jake, Celia, and the Nerdlys needed a little extra input, and, she was, subsequently, starting to learn about the mixing and mastering process, it was not like she was a vital part of the operation. Jake had, however, learned discretion was the better part of valor and kept one firmly traveling down the road of marital harmony and continued sexual bliss since he had put his name on that little piece of paper, so he said nothing. And Laura would be fully immersed into blowing her horn again soon enough. As soon as they had masters in hand—hopefully in the next two or three weeks—it would be time to start putting together Celia’s tour. Laura had already agreed (without discussing it with Jake beforehand, and somewhat to Jake’s chagrin) to be Celia’s tour saxophonist on the North American legs.

Jake sipped from his root beer and then went into the living room and sat on the couch. On the end table was a cordless phone sitting in its charging socket. Next to this was a leather-bound address/phone book. Jake had still not made the leap to owning a cellular phone yet, though Gordon Paladay had. Jake picked up the phone and set it in his lap. He then opened up the phone book to the Gs and found G’s cell phone number hand written below his personal home number and his assistant’s number. He dialed it, listened for a moment as the Los Angeles region’s communication system thought the request over, and then, finally, a ringing sound began to issue in his ear.

It only rang three times before there was a click and G’s voice was there. “Jake!” G said happily. “My man!”

“How did you know it was me?” Jake asked.

“This phone of mine got that caller ID shit on it,” G told him. “Once I put in your number and assign a name to it, it tells me on the screen when you’re calling me. Lets me know who the fuck is there so I can decide whether or not to answer.”

Jake knew they had caller ID for landlines (if you paid for the service, which he did), but he had not known the technology extended to cellular phones. “That’s cool,” he said, honestly enough. “And you don’t even sound like shit like most cell phone calls. I guess the technology is improving?”

“Fuckin’ A,” G said. “Nerdly told me recently that in another ten or fifteen years, most people won’t even have a landline anymore. They’ll just use their cellphones.”

“Now that’s quite a stretch,” Jake said dubiously. Though he usually had faith in Nerdly’s technological predictions—especially since the appearance of free pornography on the internet, as prophesized—this one seemed quite unlikely. Why would someone give up their landline when cell phone conservations cost twenty-five to thirty cents per minute? And what about long distance? How would that work?

“I’ll put my money on Nerdly any day of the week,” Gordon said. “And I have, as a matter of fact. I got my broker investing a good chunk of my money in the cell phone industry. So far, it’s working out for me.”

“Hmm,” Jake said thoughtfully. “Maybe I’ll talk to Jill about all of this. Anyway, I’m in town. Laura and I just got in to the Granada Hills house.”

“I know,” Gordon said. “I have this number listed as ‘Jake’s Granada Hills crib’ in my phone. Tell me something I don’t know, motherfucker.”

Jake laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “I came in early today because the suits over at Aristocrat want to talk to me about something. I’m supposed to meet them at two-thirty in Hollywood.”

“Just you?” Gordon asked.

“Just me,” he confirmed.

“What about?” G wanted to know. “You’re still working on your masters, right?”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “And they didn’t say what it was about. Just: ‘since you’re in town for Bigg G’s shows anyway, how about you pop in and have a word with us?’ Apparently, it’s about something ‘mutually beneficial’.”

“Of course it is,” G said, chuckling. “Think they’re just trying to get a head start on the MD&P contracts for the next CDs?”

“Maybe,” Jake said with a shrug. “But they know we always have Celia and Greg and Pauline on hand when we’re meeting about that.”

“They might be trying the old divide and conquer routine,” Gordon suggested.

“My, but we’re cynical about their motives,” Jake said. “Did it ever occur to you that they might just be checking in with one of their most lucrative clients and that they might have some innocent topic to discuss with me that does not involve sticking an unlubed member up my proverbial ass?”

“No,” G said simply. “That never occurred to me.”

“Yeah,” Jake said with a sigh. “Me either. Anyway, I guess I’ll find out what’s it’s all about at two-thirty. And we have the soundcheck at five, right?”

“Right,” G said. “We’re on our way to the Tower of Power in Compton right now. After that, I have an interview at KSOL. We’ll roll into the Forum just before five.”

“Sounds good,” Jake said. “I’ll see you there.”

“Looking forward to it, brother,” G said. “We’re gonna turn some fuckin’ heads tonight.”

“Fuckin’ A,” Jake agreed.

The meeting took place on the top floor of the Sunset Vine Tower in Hollywood; the nineteen-floor building where Aristocrat Records kept their offices. Miles Crawford, head of the A&R department, was the only person present. He wore his typical custom-tailored Italian suit while Jake wore a pair of tattered blue jeans and a rapidly fading shirt from the Lighthouse Brewery in Coos Bay. They shook hands as if they were friends and Crawford made the obligatory offer of a drink or perhaps a line of cocaine, which Jake obligatorily declined.

“Okay, Miles,” Jake told the suit. “The ritual of the preliminaries has been performed. Now, tell me what this is all about.”

“Okay, right to the point,” Miles said as he sported his best used-car salesman smile. “I like that about you Jake. You keep the bullshit to a minimum.”

“Just trying to set an example,” Jake said. “So ... what’s the deal?”

“The deal is that I ... that is we at Aristocrat, think it’s about time we start talking about a Jake Kingsley tour once the new CD hits the shelves.”

“A Jake Kingsley tour?” Jake said, surprised; and more than a little suspicious. “Are you suggesting that KVA finance such a tour? Because we’ve told you before, we are not prepared to undertake an obligation like that. True, we could afford it now, especially after all the Brainwash income, but we don’t think it would increase sales of my CD enough to justify the expense.”

“We at Aristocrat are fully prepared to finance such a tour,” Crawford said generously. “It would be under the same terms we use for Celia’s tour contract; with the same distribution of profits.”

“Really?” Jake asked, his eyebrows spiking up a bit, correlating with his suspicion level. “And why would you offer such a thing, Miles? We haven’t even presented the masters for the next CDs to you yet. We haven’t even started to negotiate the terms of the next MD&P contract. Why are we talking tour when it’s not even a given that you’ll be promoting my next CD?”

“We have faith that KVA will sign with us for the upcoming projects,” he said. “You have finally made your point to us that you know what you’re doing. The Brainwash project has been extremely profitable for our stockholders and is proof positive that you have an uncanny, almost supernatural ability to correctly predict musical success. We are very eager to keep up our relationship with KVA and I have been assured that we will not allow ourselves to be outbid when the time comes to award a new MD&P contract to KVA.”

“So ... this is about Brainwash then?” Jake suggested knowingly. “You’re trying to kiss my ass a little so we’ll be sure to involve you in their next CD?”

“That is not what this is about,” Crawford assured him. “Although now that you bring it up, when do you plan to have those fine musicians report back to the studio for the next round?”

“Probably not until next summer at least,” Jake said. “Their debut album is still charting quite nicely, as I’m sure you’re aware. And their latest single release is still climbing the Top Forty. You know as well as I do that it would behoove no one to have their current CD competing with their next CD.”

“We do know that, of course,” Miles said. “But it never hurts to start working on the next release anyway. You can always hold it in reserve until the time is right.”

“Why, thank you for the advice,” Jake said sarcastically. “If it’s all the same to you, however, we’ll make our own decisions about when Brainwash starts working on round two.” He gave him a steely look. “Are you sure that this meeting isn’t about Brainwash now?”

“Quite,” he said. “This meeting is about a Jake Kingsley North American tour, as I informed you. We want this to happen, Jake.”

“And you’re prepared to finance such a tour?” Jake asked. “Assuming we do, in fact, sign with Aristocrat for MD&P.”

“That is correct.”

“Why?” Jake asked.

“Because we believe in you, Jake,” he said warmly. “We know you like touring and that you’re eager to get back out on the road to promote your music and let it be heard by the people. And the people want to hear your music. We genuinely wish to help you and the people achieve that noble goal.”

Jake was unmoved by this speech. “Uh huh,” he said. “I feel like I’m about eyeballs deep in the bullshit here, Crawford. What’s the real reason?”

Crawford sighed. “Profit, of course,” he said. “This new custom of charging market value for concert tickets has resulted in an unexpected, though very welcome surge in profits for our industry. Sending Jake Kingsley out on tour and charging the new industry standard rates for reserved seating would bring in an estimated three million dollars for each leg of such a tour. That is why we are suggesting this. And, of course, that profit will be split fifty-fifty, just like with Celia. And we will pay all promotional costs and arrange all of the logistics of the endeavor.”

The idea was growing on Jake. But something still did not smell quite right here. “You think people will pay triple digit prices for Jake Kingsley tickets?” he asked. “The same prices they pay for Celia Valdez tickets? For U2 tickets? For Eagles tickets?”

“Perhaps even more,” Crawford said. “The numbers I’m hearing tossed around are ninety dollars for the rear bleacher seats, one hundred and fifty for the lower level side bleachers, and up to two hundred and fifty for the stagefront seats forward of the sound board.”

Jake scowled a little as he heard this. “No way in hell,” he said. “Nobody is going to pay that to see me get up on stage and perform my solo tunes. The only way they would pay that much would be if I were...” The scowl turned to a glare as realization struck him. Of course! Now he knew what the game was! “ ... if I were doing Intemperance material.”

“Exactly!” Crawford said, delighted that he and Jake were on the same page now. “We’re figuring on a set that contains at least two-thirds Intemperance material. Now, we understand that you’ll probably want to sing primarily your own compositions, and we’re okay with that. The fans will still pay the price.”

“No,” Jake said simply.

“But they will!” Crawford insisted. “And if you’re worried about the rights for those tunes, you don’t have to be. We’ve already talked to the executives at National Records, who owns those rights, and they’re willing to play ball on this. They’re asking for twenty-five percent royalties on ticket revenue and ten percent on merchandising profits.”

“No!” Jake said, more firmly this time.

“You don’t understand, Jake,” he said. “I’ve been authorized to tell you that we will pay National’s cut out of our half of the profits! Your entire revenue stream will stay intact. You can’t beat a deal like that.”

“I’m not planning to try,” Jake told him. “I will not perform Intemperance material in concert. Not a single lyric of it. Not a single note.”

“That’s an absurd stance to take, Jake!” Crawford cried, seemingly near tears. “You wrote those songs! They’re a part of you! And the people want to see them performed by you! They will be willing to pay top dollar to see that! You have to give the people what they want, Jake! You simply have to!”

“No,” he said mildly. “I really don’t. And I really won’t.”

“But why?” Crawford cried.

“I don’t really think you would understand, Crawford,” Jake told him.

“Try me.”

Jake sighed. “Those are Intemperance tunes, not Jake Kingsley tunes. Yeah, I wrote the lyrics to my tunes we did, and I composed the basic melodies, but I was not singular in making those tunes what they are. Matt Tisdale came up with the riffs that were born from my basic melodies and Matt Tisdale came up with the solos in those songs. And Matt and Nerdly and I all worked collectively on the engineering of those tunes. They belong to Intemperance. They are Intemperance tunes. I will not perform them as a solo artist.”

“Are you saying you are incapable of performing those tunes without Tisdale?” Crawford asked.

“Not incapable, just unwilling. It wouldn’t be right.”

Not it was Crawford who sighed. “You’re right, Jake,” he said.

“So ... you understand where I’m coming from?” Jake asked.

“No. I mean you were right when you said that I would not understand. I don’t. I just know that you want to throw away millions of dollars in potential profit.”

Jake shrugged, and then quoted Popeye. “I am what I am. Now then, was there anything else you needed to talk to me about?”

“No,” Crawford said sadly. “I think we’ve covered it.”

“Groovy,” Jake said. “I’m gonna head back downstairs then. I got a show tonight, you know.”

Bigg G was experimenting with the new concert ticket pricing as well. For the first two shows in Los Angeles, the show in San Jose, the show in Portland, and the two shows in Seattle, the prices had been set at seventy-five dollars for the rear bleachers, ninety for the side bleachers, one hundred and twenty for the floor level seats behind the sound board, and one hundred sixty for the floor levels forward of the soundboard. There had been some grumbling about this in some circles—words to the effect that Bigg G was putting on airs and had forgotten where he came from—but all six shows had sold out quickly and the reports were that the scalpers were charging as much as four hundred dollars for the premium seats and two hundred for the not-so-premiums. For the month worth of shows scheduled beyond Seattle—dates in Boise, Salt Lake City, Denver, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Phoenix, and Las Vegas—the tickets had been placed on sale, but at even higher prices. Some tickets had been sold, but most were still awaiting buyers willing to pay those prices. It was hoped that those buyers would materialize after word spread that Jake Kingsley might actually show up on any given night; though Aristocrat and Bigg G would be extremely careful not to imply his commitment even indirectly to any particular date.

The Bigg G show opened up with the first tune—Terrorize Me, off the new CD—at 7:30 PM that night. In addition to embracing the new ticket prices, G had also embraced the longer set in lieu of an opening act. He would play from 7:30 until 8:40, take a twenty-minute intermission, and then return at 9:00 and play until 9:50. Three encores would then take them to 10:00 PM. Neesh and Laura Kingsley were in the house, sitting in a special, roped-off VIP section just in front of the soundboard along with a few dozen family members and friends of the other band members and two large security guards. Jake himself was backstage when the show started. He was dressed in a pair of black slacks, a white dress shirt complete with a fashionable tie, and a pair of polished patent leather shoes. This outfit would go nicely with the formal prom-style wear that G and the boys would sport for the first seven songs of the set.

Jake watched as G and his band played their opening number to an enthusiastic crowd that was made up mostly of African-Americans, but with sizable minorities of Latin Americans and good old white boys and girls as well. At the moment, everyone seemed to be heeding Rodney King’s advice and were just getting along. No one in the audience except those in the VIP section had any suspicion that a very special guest would be appearing tonight. There was an extra microphone stand on the stage, sitting just to the left of G’s primary microphone stand. Two effects pedals were sitting at the base of it, one on each side. Jake knew that if he were in the audience, he would have noticed such a thing immediately and would have started to wonder what it was all about. But he didn’t think your average concert goer was that in tune with such details.

G ran through Terrorize Me, All the Way In (from his last CD) and then launched into his classic Down With It (the title cut from his first independent CD). The audience cheered wildly as each song was started, even louder when they were concluded. As Down With It was being played, Jake stood from his chair and began to stretch out a little. He would be onstage for the next number. Sitting next to his seat were his two guitars, the black Les Paul and the acoustic/electric Fender Grand Concert. Both had been sound checked, and their knobs and switches marked. As Down ended and the audience cheered loudly, Jake picked up the Les Paul and slung it over his shoulder. Bark Stevens, G’s primary assistant, came over to Jake and motioned for him to turn around, so his back was to Bark. Jake did so and Bark plugged a three-foot guitar cable into the wireless transmitter that was attached to the back of Jake’s belt. Jake then plugged the other end into his guitar. This would be his first time using such a device in front of an audience. It had worked fine in rehearsal, but if anything could go wrong...

As the cheers died down, Bark slapped him on the back, indicating that he was now live. All he would have to do when he stepped out was spin the volume knob on the guitar to full power. Everything else should already be copacetic. Jake nodded and stepped toward the stage left doorway.

“How y’all doing out there tonight?” G asked his audience. They blasted out applause and cheers that seemed to indicate they were doing just fine.

“All right,” G said. “Thanks for joining us on the opening night of our tour. It’s really an honor to be here in LA, playing for y’all.”

Another set of cheers rolled in.

“We’re gonna do a song off the new CD now,” G told them. “It’s the first song we’ve released for airplay, a little tune I wrote and put together with a good friend of mine by the name of Jake Kingsley—do y’all know my brother Jake?”

The cheers indicated that they did, indeed, know Jake.

“I guess you’ve heard of him,” G said with a chuckle. “Anyway, Jake and I got together last year on a little tune called Step Inside, which we’ll be performing later on in the set by the way, and people liked it so much that we decided to put something else together for this CD. I know they’ve been playing it on the radio this last week, and it’s kind of a fusion between the hip-hop that I do and the hard rock that my man Jake does. Have y’all heard it?”

They had heard it, and they seemingly approved of it based on the enthusiasm of their cheers.

“Fuck yeah!” G said. “Now ... obviously we put this set together with the intention of playing I Signed That Line in every show. My brother James here on the lead bass...” He nodded toward James Whitlock behind him. “ ... he plays a pretty mean electric guitar too and he’s the one who will be playing the guitar parts for the tune, as well as for Step Inside, during this tour.”

More cheers, which James acknowledged humbly with a wave and a nod at the audience.

“And my brother Fro over there on the second bass guitar,” G said, “has a pretty good singing voice and can belt out Jake’s lyrics like no fuckin’ tomorrow!”

“But tonight, however,” G continued once the cheers died down, “James and Fro are just gonna keep playing those bass guitars of theirs, because, you see, while they do a real good job of playing those parts just like Jake Kingsley would, it’s always better to have the real thing, isn’t it?”

The cheers began to wind up in volume as the audience started to suspect where he was going with this.

“Isn’t it?” he repeated. The cheers got louder, more enthusiastic. “Fuckin’ A right, it is. So ... with that thought in mind, why don’t y’all help me welcome up onto the stage, the one, the only ... Jake motherfuckin’ Kingsley!”

The audience erupted into the loudest cheers of the night so far, the decibel level deafening. Jake felt the power of those cheers surging through him. A smile formed on his face as he trotted out the stage left door and onto the lighted stage, stepping in front of nearly eighteen thousand people. He waved at them as he came out, guitar in hand. He then walked over to G. The two of them exchanged a complex handshake that ended with a fist-bump and finger slide (they had rehearsed this shake for nearly an hour after the sound check). Jake then walked over to the microphone stand with the effects pedals at the base. He spun the volume button on his guitar all the way up and then stepped down on the left pedal, which would give him distorted reverb output. Bark, meanwhile, had carried an electric piano out and set it up in front of G’s microphone stand before retreating hastily from the stage. G replaced the microphone in the holder and then took position behind the keyboard.

“All right, LA!” G said. “Let’s do this thing!”

They did this thing. G began to play the opening piano melody of I Signed That Line while Rickie played a soft, accompanying turntable backing. And then the main beat kicked in. The drummers and the bass players began to hammer out the rhythm and G began rapping out the angry lyrics. The audience clapped along with the beat.

The first chorus came. The beat changed over from a rap rhythm to a hard rock rhythm and Jake began to play, his pick hitting the strings with his right hand, the fingers of his left hand fretting his guitar in the three-chord riff he’d composed. The sound surged out of the speakers and Jake began to sing.

The fans were on their feet now as Jake silenced his guitar and the band switched back to the rap rhythm in E major and G began to belt out the next verses. Jake continued to stand at his microphone stand, tapping out the beat on the side of his guitar, moving his shoulders and head to the rhythm. And then the chorus came around again and he ground out the crunching riff once again, singing out his next part; the lyrics different on this rep except for the first line and the last.

This brought them to the bridge portion, the first true fusion of the two sounds. They extended it out another twenty seconds for the live performance, building it up in intensity before Jake sang out his portion of the angry retrospect of a first-time contract. G then added his portion of the bridge vocals and that brought them to the guitar solo.

Here we go, Jake thought nervously, feeling an intense sensation of stage fright as he prepared to shred a solo in front of an audience for the first time in his life. Let’s see how they like this. Assuming I don’t fuck it up.

He did not fuck it up. His fingers began to move up and down the fretboard while his guitar pick struck the individual strings in rapid succession, producing a cascade of notes that flowed out of the speakers. He did not miss or mistime a single note. And the audience, which consisted almost entirely of rap and hip-hop fans willing to pay top dollar to see this show, went truly crazy as he played. The jumped atop their seats and clapped out the rhythm as he performed. Feeding on their energy, feeling their love and appreciation for what he was doing, Jake let the moment take him away. He bent and twisted his body as he played, pushing the neck of his guitar up, down, sideways, while his fingers hammered out the solo. And when it wrapped up and it was time to switch back to the E major rap rhythm for G’s final verses, the band had to improvise out an extended transition because the cheers and applause in response to the solo were so overwhelming.

Yes! Jake thought, a large smile on his face as he acknowledged the cheers with a wave. This is what is missing from my life right now. I need to get out and do what I’ve been put on Earth for a little more.

They finished up I Signed That Line with an extended outro and a final flourish of instruments. As the last note faded away and the applause and cheers washed over them once more, G walked over and grasped Jake’s right hand with his left. He raised their hands into the air in triumph and then the two of them shared a brief bow. Jake then headed back for the stage left door.

G went over and snatched his microphone out of the stand. “Jake Kingsley everyone!” he yelled. “Let’s hear it for him one more time!”

They let him hear it one more time.

Jake sat back down on his stool in the backstage area while G and the boys launched into the next song in the set: Move Along, from G’s second independent CD. He drank some Gatorade from a bottle that Bark had handed him and then took off the tie and the dress shirt, leaving him only in his slacks and a simple white undershirt. Bark put the used shirts in a bag, where they would be laundered and neatly pressed along with the rest of the group’s stage clothing.

“That was fuckin’ tight out there, Jake!” Bark said, shouting into his ear to be heard over the music from the stage.

“It was, wasn’t it?” Jake shouted back.