Chapter 14: Wheels and Deals Revisited

Los Angeles, California

June 5, 1993

The Waterloo Club was a trendy venue on the west side of LA, known for featuring up and coming rock and roll bands on Saturday nights. Van Halen played the Waterloo multiple times back in the day, as had Motley Crue, Guns N’ Roses, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and a multitude of other southern California acts over the years—some of whom went on to fame, most of whom did not.

Tonight’s featured act was a group called Weezer. Jake, Pauline, Nerdly, and Celia arrived at the venue at 6:00 PM, two hours before Weezer was scheduled to play. They had not come to see Weezer. Of the four of them, Pauline was the only one who had even heard of the group. Her information was that they had been signed to Geffen Records—one of the smaller, newer labels—and had just finished recording a debut album, but it had not been released yet. Geffen, it seemed, was a little more liberal about allowing its artists to play gigs prior to an album release than National had been for Intemperance.

The band opening for Weezer was called Lighthouse. It was they the three musicians and their manager had come to see and they were also the reason Lighthouse had gotten such a good gig in the first place. The band featured Ben Ping on bass guitar (and sometimes on acoustic rhythm guitar), Ted Duncan on drums, Phil Genkins laying down the lead vocals, and a man named Lenny Harris on lead guitar. Lenny, like Ben himself, was a lifelong guitar player who, not having made the big time, had gone into teaching the instrument. He was the lead instructor and primary driving force of the guitar program at Thomas Jefferson High School in the valley. The band had been in existence for a little over nine months now and was just starting to pick up some local popularity in the clubs. Whether this was because they were actually good, or because it was known that three of the four members had been the musicians on both Celia Valdez’s and Jake Kingsley’s hit albums, was the subject of endless debate.

The club was moderately crowded as they entered and, within thirty seconds of walking through the door, everyone knew that Jake and Celia (oh ... and Nerdly too) were in the house. The manager of the club, a man named Lou Pinkerton, met them personally at the bar, told them they were not allowed to pay for a single drink during their stay, and then set up a little VIP section for them near the front of the stage.

“Thanks,” Jake told him as they took their seats.

“What can I get for you all?” asked a young waitress with a nose piercing and a tattoo of a snake on her left thigh. She introduced herself as Samantha. She seemed quite starstruck by their presence.

“Captain and Coke,” Jake said.

“I’ll have a glass of the house chardonnay,” said Celia.

“I’ll have an appletini,” said Nerdly.

“An appletini?” asked Samantha, thinking she had misheard him.

“That is kind of gay, Nerdly,” Jake told him.

“Is it?” Nerdly asked.

“Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” Celia put in.

“All right,” Nerdly said. “I wouldn’t want to be accused of consuming a drink associated with male homosexuality. How about an Absolute vodka and cranberry juice on the rocks?”

“Uh ... Absolute and cranberry ... sure,” Samantha said.

“Yeah,” Jake said with a little shake of the head. “That’s a lot more manly there, Nerdly,”.

“Good,” Nerdly said. “I would not want to present a negative public perception regarding my sexuality.”

Samantha then turned to Pauline, the one person she did not recognize in the group. “And you, ma’am?” she asked.

“A Sprite,” Pauline said sourly.

“Sprite?” Samantha asked, raising her eyebrows a bit. “Just a Sprite?”

“Just a Sprite,” she said, her tone turning even more sour.

“All right then,” the waitress said. “I’ll get those right out for you.”

“Thanks,” Jake told her.

While she headed off to the bar to fill their order, Celia turned to Pauline. “Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to be in here, Paulie?” she asked. “All this cigarette smoke is probably not the best thing for your little bundle.”

“Well, I’m not going to make a habit of visiting places like this,” Pauline told her, “but I think we’ll get by with just a few hours.”

“Her developing fetus should remain unaffected,” Nerdly said. “There have been no studies that have conclusively shown passive secondhand smoke in short exposures to be a teratogen. Long term exposure, on the other hand, has been linked by correlation in some studies I’ve read, although, as I’m sure you’re aware, correlation does not equal causation.”

Pauline looked at him. “You read studies about the effects of secondhand smoke on developing fetuses?” she asked.

“Of course,” Nerdly said. “Doesn’t everyone?”

Before Samantha could bring their drinks over, a mob of patrons of the establishment came over and began striking up conversations, asking for autographs from Jake and/or Celia (but never Nerdly) and occasionally asking to have their pictures taken with the two celebrities. Jake and Celia accommodated them with good humor.

“Hey, Jake,” a long-haired, tattooed man in his thirties spoke up, “where’s Laura at? I heard she went out to tour with Bobby Z.” That piece of news had been reported in the entertainment rags several times in the past week.

“Uh ... yeah,” said Jake. “That is true, and that’s where she is. In Pittsburgh getting ready to tour with Bobby Z.”

“She’s a hot piece,” the man told him. “A lot hotter than that fat chick you used to go out with. You know, the pilot chick?”

“Uh ... yeah, I remember the pilot chick,” Jake said. “Although I wouldn’t say she was fat.”

“Yeah, she was fat,” the man said in a matter-of-fact manner, as if his opinion carried the same weight as a law of physics. “She did have some big old fuckin’ titties though.”

“I never really noticed,” Jake said dismissively. He then turned to talk to someone else—a skinny blonde woman wearing a denim miniskirt. She had just asked him if he needed someone to keep him company while Laura was away. “I think I’ll be able to get by,” he told her.

“I’ll be around all night if you change your mind,” she assured him.

“I don’t think I will, but I appreciate the offer,” Jake said.

Celia, meanwhile, was being told by a butch lesbian in leather how deep and meaningful her song Why? was (Why? was currently topping the charts across the United States, three weeks at Number 1 so far) and how it always elicited an emotional response when she heard it.

“I love everything on the album,” the woman told her, “but Why? just gets me right where I live. I play that song over and over again, sometimes thirty times in a row.”

“That’s quite a lot of playing,” Celia told her.

“Yeah,” she said dreamily. She then gave Celia a smoldering look. “So ... where’s your husband? That Greg guy?”

“Greg’s not a big fan of going out to clubs,” Celia told her.

“That’s too bad,” she said. “Tell me ... you ever gotten together with another woman?”

“Uh ... no, I never have,” Celia said.

“Ever thought about it?”

She smiled. “Of course I’ve thought about it,” she said saucily. “But, alas, I am married. I don’t think Greg would approve.”

“Who says he needs to know about it?” the woman asked.

Celia laughed a little and said lightly, “You’re funny.” She then turned and began talking to someone else.

When their drinks finally came, Lou Pinkerton showed up at the table with two large bouncers in tow. They chased everyone away from the table, telling them to leave the special guests alone and let them enjoy the show. There was some grumbling of displeasure but nobody wanted to challenge the bouncers. They all wandered a respectful distance away but stayed as close as they could get away with, in a loosely defined perimeter.

“Thanks for the drinks, Lou,” Jake said, dropping a ten dollar bill on Samantha’s tray.

“Tipping is not necessary, Jake,” Lou told him. “Your presence is gratuity enough, right Sam?”

“Uh...” Samantha started.

Jake shook his head. “I would not dream of not tipping someone who brings drinks to me,” he said. “Especially when the drinks are on the house.”

“Well ... okay, I suppose,” Pinkerton said.

“Thank you,” Jake said. “And thank you as well, Samantha.”

“You’re very welcome, Jake,” she said with a flirtatious smile.

She retreated to other duties and Lou headed backstage. One of the bouncers stayed nearby, to make sure that perimeter around the celebrities stayed intact. They settled in and sipped from their drinks, Pauline making a sour face every time she sipped from her Sprite.

“Tell me again why you needed to drag me here?” Pauline asked Jake as she looked around at everyone staring at them.

“You are the managerial face of KVA Records,” Jake told her. “If these guys agree to sign back up with us for the next two albums, they’re going to need to hear some management shit.”

“They will be just as well compensated for their work on the next two albums as they were on the first one,” Pauline said. “I cannot conceive of musicians of their present stature trying to squeeze out a better deal than what we gave them last time. In fact, we could have just done all of this over the phone and I wouldn’t have to be sitting here pregnant in a smoky bar and Celia wouldn’t have to fend off propositions from bull dykes.”

“Yes, that was quite blatant, wasn’t it?” Celia said with a little shake of her head. “And she really has no chance with me—the poor thing. If I was going to do it with a woman, it would have to be a feminine one. Otherwise, what would be the point?”

“I’m with you there, sister,” Pauline said. She turned back to Jake. “Anyway, those are my feelings on the matter.”

Jake shrugged (still pondering the thought of Celia getting it on with another woman—not exactly an unpleasant mental picture). “I kind of wanted to see how these guys play,” he said. “Ben told me this guy they got on guitar is pretty good with it, and he’s a songwriter. They’ve got like six original tunes in their set.”

Pauline sighed and took another sip of her Sprite. “Okay then,” she said. “We’ll check them out. But can we leave after we talk to them? I really have no interest in seeing Weezer get up there and hack away.”

“Deal,” Jake said with a nod. In truth, he didn’t really want to see the headliner play either. Though he would have declared with a straight face that he was not one to judge a band on its name alone, he privately thought that any group who called themselves Weezer could not possibly be any good.

“We should’ve invited Coop to come here with us,” Nerdly said. “He probably would’ve liked to get out ... you know ... since the whole debacle with Veteran.”

“I’m not sure Coop would have really wanted to see us negotiating with musicians for an upcoming album now that he’s in contract lock,” Pauline said. “Nor am I particularly fond of being reminded of that whole mess.”

Veteran, the supergroup Pauline had been managing and had profited quite nicely from, had had themselves a little meltdown just as they finished up their North American tour. The strife between the band members and the drunken, coked out, stoned performances had become too much for Coop. He resigned from the band and was now back in Los Angeles, riding out the rest of his contract and living off the royalties from Veteran and Intemperance. The band had recruited another drummer but were having endless difficulties putting together material for the follow-up album they were contractually obligated to make. At some point along the way the remaining members decided that their problems were all Pauline’s fault and told her she was fired. She could have fought the firing—after all, she had signed on as their manager for the entire duration of their contract with Aristocrat (four periods) and they really did not have the legal right to fire her—but, tired of dealing with them, she had gone quietly. She would still collect royalties in perpetuity for their debut album—which had recently passed triple platinum and was still selling upwards of twenty thousand copies a month—but anything they sold from here out would go into the pocket of Ronald Shaver, who had swooped in and snatched them up before the ink had even been dry on the severance paperwork between Pauline and Veteran.

“I suppose you have a point there,” Nerdly admitted.

“Veteran’s next album is going to bomb,” Jake predicted. “If they even manage to put one together.”

“Well ... far be it from me to wish ill upon them,” Pauline said, “but ill is what I wish them. Except for Coop, they were nothing but a pain in my ass from day one.”

“Everything in life is a lesson, right?” asked Celia.

“Right,” Pauline said. “And I’m putting the lesson of ‘don’t sign up to manage a band full of egotistical druggies’ right up there with ‘vasectomies are not a completely reliable method of birth control’.”

Jake nodded respectfully. “Well said, Paulie,” he told her.

“Fuck off,” she returned.

Jake managed to get two more Captain and cokes into his stomach before the house lights went down and Lighthouse took the stage. The crowd cheered enthusiastically for them, especially after Pinkerton told them that the key members of the band had been the musicians backing both Jake Kingsley and Celia Valdez on their recent hit albums and that Jake and Celia (oh, and Nerdly too) were currently in the audience to watch their protégés in action.

The band put on a decent enough performance and Jake was impressed with them. It was obvious that they had put in a lot of rehearsal time. They opened up with a cover of Del Shannon’s Runaway, playing it with an almost heavy metal style, including a nicely done guitar solo after the second verse. The only real issue was that Phil, with his baritone voice, was unable to quite hit the high notes in the chorus as Del had back in the day. After Runaway, they stepped neatly into a cover of Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones, again adding a little heavy metal flair to the tune. Then, after a little between song banter by Phil, they launched into two of their original tunes.

The originals were a stark contrast to their covers. The first one—which was apparently entitled The Lost Times—was performed with both Lenny and Ben playing acoustic guitars and only a gentle backbeat from Ted on the drums. The lyrics were a concise and thought-provoking examination of a failing relationship that kept plodding along anyway. The second one, titled The Firing Line, did feature Lenny on the distorted electric and Ben back on the bass, but the tempo was slow and the distortion was not heavy. Essentially a song about taking a chance and trying to change a desperate situation, it played out rather nicely and included a good, mellow guitar solo and some nice vocal work by Phil.

In all, they did all six of their original tunes and four covers, closing out with a pleasant version of While My Guitar Gently Weeps that was played more or less as true to form, as if the Beatles themselves had been up there laying it down. The crowd cheered enthusiastically as Phil thanked them for coming and told them to enjoy Weezer, who would be taking the stage in forty-five minutes.

“Not bad, huh?” Jake asked as the lights came back up and the crowd began to move toward the bar or the restrooms.

“I enjoyed it,” Celia said. “Particularly the last number. I’ve always loved that song.”

“I thought their original material was decently arranged,” Nerdly said. “They really should have someone work on their sound mixing, however.”

“Not everyone can have a Nerdly working their sound, Bill,” Jake told him.

“True,” Nerdly agreed. “What did you think, Pauline?”

She shrugged. “They weren’t painful to listen to,” she offered. “And at least they’re keeping in practice for us.”

It took the members of Lighthouse about fifteen minutes to clear all their equipment from the stage. Once that was done, Jake and the others were led through a small door into the backstage area by Pinkerton himself. As had been the case when he’d gone back to meet the group Brainwash in Boston after Celia’s wedding and the little aircraft incident that had compelled him to stay an extra day (I wonder how Brainwash is doing these days? Jake took a moment to wonder. Are they still together? Still touring?) an overwhelming rush of nostalgia for his own club days washed over him. Everything reminded him of those chump-change sessions they had done for more than a year in Heritage: the smell of sour sweat and cigarette smoke, the tubs of beer on ice, the tiny, cramped accommodations, the instrument cases and amps stacked in a corner, even the filthy, undersized bathroom that smelled like stale urine and had a perpetually running tank.

“Jake! Celia! Nerdly!” greeted Ted as he saw them come in. “Oh ... and Pauline too. Welcome!”

At his voice, the other members of the band offered their greetings as well. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged. Everyone was introduced to Lenny, the guitar player and songwriter.

“Nice work up there, Lenny,” Jake complimented. “Both in playing and composition.”

“Thanks, Jake,” Lenny said, pleased with the praise. “I have to say that I’m having a lot of fun with this group.”

“I hear you’re a guitar teacher like Ben,” Celia said. “At one of the high schools?”

“That’s right,” Lenny replied. “That’s how Ben and I met. We were both at one of the music instructor seminars we were taking for continuing education credits on our teaching credentials. We were the only two guitar players there.”

“That was a stupid class,” Ben said with a shake of the head.

“It was,” Lenny agreed. “Absolutely nothing said there applied to teaching guitar in any way.” He shrugged. “It was eight CEUs though.”

“True,” Ben said. “And they did have that cool bar just down the street from the complex.”

“Hell to the yeah,” Lenny said. “I don’t think the instructors appreciated much that we hit that bar up during the lunch hour.”

They shared a laugh over this.

“Anyway,” Ben said, “Len and I kind of bonded during that class and we got together a few times after it, then we kind of lost touch a bit when I started working with you guys on the albums. When it came time to put Lighthouse together and we needed a guitarist, Len was the first one I thought of. I gave him a call and we got together. It’s kind of a bonus that he’s a songwriter as well.”

“I’m trying to be, anyway,” Lenny said shyly.

“I think you’ve succeeded,” Jake told him. “I enjoyed the original tunes you laid down out there. Good work.”

“Really?” Lenny said, his eyes looking at Jake carefully, as if to see if he were being jerked off.

“Really,” Jake assured him. “I don’t give false praise.”

“I thought you did a good job as well,” Celia added.

“You really should work on your sound mixing a bit though,” Nerdly put in.

A look passed between the members of Lighthouse, a look that Jake was not quite sure how to interpret.

“You really liked us?” Phil asked.

“We really did,” Jake assured them.

“That’s very good to hear,” Ben said. He hesitated for a moment and then said, “You see ... we were kind of hoping that maybe Pauline might be interested in ... you know ... managing us.”

“Managing you?” Pauline said. “You mean like ... as your manager?”

“That’s right,” Ben said. “The way you do Jake and Celia and Veteran.”

“I don’t manage Veteran anymore,” she said. “They fired me.”

“Man, that’s fucked up,” Ted said, shaking his head. “But that means you have an opening then?”

“Well...”

“We’d be really grateful, Pauline,” Phil put in quickly. “I honestly think we have what it takes to make it in the industry once we come up with a few more tunes.”

“Hell to the yeah,” Ted said. “And with your connections, we can get better gigs and get our name out there. Once our name is out there, I’m sure you can get us a recording contract, right?”

“Uh ... well...” Pauline said, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

“Or maybe we could sign with KVA?” Phil suggested. “That would be my preference, actually.”

“Mine too,” said Ben. “I remember hearing your horror stories about signing with the majors, Jake.”

“Uh...” Jake said, and then could think of nothing to follow it up with. This conversation had turned awkward quickly.

“That’s ... well ... a very interesting proposal, guys,” Pauline said, “but ... honestly, I’m not sure it’s feasible at this particular moment in time.”

Their faces all fell a few notches as they heard her words.

“Not feasible?” Ted said. “What do you mean? Why not?”

“Well ... primarily is the reason we actually came to see you,” Pauline said.

“What reason is that?” asked Ben.

“We came to see if you’re ready to start working on Jake and Celia’s next album,” she told them. “They’ve got some tunes they want to start putting together.”

“The next albums,” Phil said slowly. “That’s why you’re here?”

“That’s right,” Jake said. “We would offer the same deal as before. Fifty dollars an hour for the sessions, including the recording time, and royalties on the completed projects.”

They all looked at each other for a moment and then back at Jake. “Uh ... well, we certainly appreciate you thinking of us again,” Ben finally said. “But ... well ... I don’t really think that I’ll be able to do it.”

“You won’t?” Pauline asked, raising her brows a bit.

“Me either, to tell the truth,” said Ted.

Jake had not been expecting this answer from them. After all, they had cleaned up quite nicely on the last albums, each of them pulling in handsome hourlies from KVA Records and, now that Struggle had gone well past double platinum and Down was fast approaching it, were raking in a respectable amount of royalty pay each quarter. “Why not?” he asked them.

“There is no way the college is going to grant me another leave of absence,” said Ben. “That’s the big reason.”

“Me either,” added Ted. “I used up all my favors and strings to pull taking that last LOA. I’d have to quit to commit to you for the next round, or at least drop to part-time and do some really complicated scheduling to meet my minimums.”

“Oh ... I see,” Jake said. That the work conflict might be a problem had honestly not occurred to him.

“I’m really sorry, guys,” Ben said. “I had a blast playing with you the last time—it was the time of my life, to tell you the truth—but now I’ve got a baby at home and a wife who needs to work as well and ... I just can’t commit to the same thing this time around. It won’t work.”

“I see,” Pauline said. It was obvious she had not been expecting this answer either. She turned to Phil. “What about you?” she asked him. “You’ve been doing some vocal sessions over at the studios, right?”

“That’s how I’m getting by these days,” Phil confirmed. “It’s thin pickings at times, I won’t lie about that. The royalty checks from KVA and the money I banked recording with you the first time are what is keeping my head above water most months.”

“Would you be able to commit to being our baritone backup singer once we get to the studio?” Jake asked him. “That won’t be for a few months at least, of course. We can work the tunes up without you but we would need you for the recording process.”

Phil swallowed. “Uh ... well...” He looked at his bandmates for a moment and then back at Jake. “The truth of the matter is ... uh...” He faded out.

“What is the truth of the matter, Phil?” Pauline asked him.

Ben answered for him. “I said that work scheduling was one of the reasons we can’t do it,” he said. “The other is that ... well ... we’re kind of committed to making Lighthouse into a success. We all think we’re making a lot of progress with that. That’s why we were excited to have you come see us.”

“Yeah,” said Ted. “We wanted to show you what we got.”

“You showed us what you have,” Celia said. “And we were impressed.”

“That was our goal,” Ben said. “To impress you and hopefully have you manage us, Pauline.”

“Even if I did manage you,” Pauline said, “and was able to secure a recording contract for you, wouldn’t the work issue still be there? Wouldn’t you still have a baby at home, Ben? Wouldn’t you still have to quit or drop to part-time, Ted?”

“Yes, of course,” said Ben, “but then we’d be getting paid by whatever record company you got us signed with. We would have permanent income to replace our job income and not just a temporary influx of money that is going to end at some point.”

“And actually, we were really hoping that KVA would be the label to sign us,” Ted said. “You guys are badass.”

“Thank you,” Pauline said, “but, unfortunately, there are several things wrong with that scenario. In the first place, KVA is not financially in a position to sign any other acts to the label. It costs about a million and a half or so to get an album into production. We would have to lay out that money in advance, long before any revenue came in from the album itself. With Jake and Celia, we know they’re going to sell enough to cover that and produce profit. With Lighthouse however ... well ... I don’t quite know how to say this, but ... you’re an unknown variable, especially at this point in your evolution. We have no idea if your music is marketable. And even if it is, you would have to tour to promote it, something KVA really can’t afford to finance. We simply cannot risk the unknown like that.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “We have a Japanese accountant and a certain character actor who would ream our asses out if we even considered such a thing.”

They all nodded solemnly at this, but they weren’t giving up quite yet. “What about another label?” asked Ben. “You could still manage us, Pauline, and maybe get us signed to one of the other record labels, couldn’t you?”

She was shaking her head. “I’m sorry guys, but it just won’t work. I’m not a highly connected music manager in the industry. I have some connections, of course, but I’m not well thought of. The best I could ever hope for would be to get someone to at least listen to a demo tape of you, but even if they agreed to sign you, they would push one of those first-time contracts on you. Jake has told you about those contracts, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Ben said slowly. “He did talk about the Intemperance contract a few times.”

“It’s a contract that virtually guarantees you will not make any actual money,” Jake said. “To put it kindly, you would be signing on to get raped in the ass with a sandpaper dildo.”

“Without sufficient lubrication on said artificial phallus,” put in Nerdly.

“And I absolutely will not have any part of signing anyone to a contract such as that,” Pauline said. “I would be the most awful hypocrite if I did, and I would not be able to look at myself in the mirror.”

“But couldn’t you negotiate us something better?” asked Ted. “You know, at least something like the second contract between Intemperance and National?”

“Hey now,” Jake said seriously. “No one ever said there was a second contract between Intemperance and National. That is nothing but speculation.”

“That’s right,” Pauline said. “But let’s talk theoretically for a moment here. If there was a second Intemperance contract—something that made sure the band at least made money for their efforts and removed the sandpaper from the dildo and allowed a little lube to be in place—there is no way in hell that any major label would agree to such a thing for an unknown band represented by me. It just wouldn’t fly. They wouldn’t even listen to me about it. I would quite literally be laughed out of any exec’s office for even suggesting such a thing.”

Lenny spoke up for the first time. “You don’t seem to be very confident in your abilities as a band manager,” he said.

She turned and locked eyes onto him. “I am an outstanding band manager,” she said, “and I have every confidence in my abilities. Part of what makes me effective in this role is my self-honesty. I am not blowing smoke up your ass, my friend. I do not do that. I am giving you a completely realistic assessment of that which you are proposing. The music industry is a brutal game with no clear set of rules. Unknown bands are chewed up and spit out by the industry on a daily basis—and those are the few that are even lucky enough to make it into the mouth to be chewed on. There is no way in hell that the four of you are going to be able to walk into any kind of profitable recording contract right now. Your odds of even getting screwed are pretty steep at this point. I’m sorry if that’s not what you want to hear, but that is the situation as I see it.”

“Damn,” Ted said, shaking his head. “What a bummer.”