Chapter 10: Tsunami

Indian Springs, Nevada

September 27, 1996

The crowd erupted into deafening cheers as Jake walked out onto the stage, guitar in hand. The applause and screams washed over him, the loudest he had ever heard in his career as a performing musician, not because of the enthusiasm of the crowd—though they were quite enthusiastic—but because of the sheer number of people. Ninety-five thousand voices screaming in unison is up there with standing near a jet engine on the decibel meter. The sun had set more than an hour before and the stage lights were shining brightly as he walked to the microphone, waving his right hand to the crowd the whole time. He could not see them—not beyond the first few rows of the special VIP section and the stagefront seats situated to either side of it anyway—since he was in brightness and they were in darkness, but he certainly could feel them.

He stepped up to his microphone stand and grabbed his guitar cord, which had been hung at the junction where the talk box tube was taped. He plugged it in and pulled a guitar pick from the holder on the other side of the stand. There were nineteen picks stored there, all of them navy blue (Jake’s favorite color) and each one stenciled with the words: JAKE KINGSLEY, Tsunami Sound Festival, 1996 in white. Lenny’s guitar picks were stenciled as well, although with his name and his picks were red. Ted’s drumsticks were also stenciled.

With a swipe of his middle finger, Jake turned the volume on the guitar all the way up. He was now live. He turned back to his band, who, by now, had all taken their positions. He looked at each one of them individually to make sure they were ready to start, doing it quickly, less than a half second per member. First Lenny, then Ben, then Ted, then Phil, then Pauline gave him a nod, indicating all systems go (though Pauline’s nod was markedly hesitant and unsure). He then looked back at Ted again and gave him a thumb’s up. Ted nodded once more and gave a four count by tapping his drum sticks together. On the count of four, they launched into their opening number: Can’t Keep Me Down, the hard driver from Jake’s first solo album.

The roar of the crowd picked up in enthusiasm and decibel level when they heard the distinctive intro chords being hammered out by Lenny and supported by strong strikes on the toms from Ted. They played the intro out to completion and then let the last note fade almost to silence before Jake jumped in with his part, strumming out the primary melody with mild distortion that was just a few steps above clean. They played this out through three repetitions, all of them moving with the beat and getting their groove going. The tune used the varying tempo technique that Jake employed so often on his material. After the third rep of the primary melody, they shifted to a slower tempo, but a more powerful melody and rhythm and Jake began to belt out the lyrics that declared he could be abused, could be knocked down and dragged out, but he would always get back up again and emerge stronger from the experience. The lyrics came out of his mouth naturally, with perfect timing and in key to the music, just as if he had practiced a thousand times over the past few months—which he had. He felt his stage fright slipping away as the dopamine and endorphin release that came from performing well began to surge through his body. In the stagefront seats that he could see, he saw nearly everyone singing along with him. His eye caught a particularly buxom and attractive young women who was probably not even old enough to legally buy beer. She gave him a smile and pulled her shirt up, revealing two gloriously bare breasts capped with huge nipples. He smiled as he saw this, thinking it’s been way too long since I’ve done this last.

They reached the first chorus and the tempo switched back up. Jake sang out the words:

As he sang the chorus lines, Phil and Pauline joined him, giving him soprano and baritone support. Jake smiled again as he heard his sister’s voice mixing with his. She performed her part perfectly, just as she had on the original recording of the tune and just as she had during their rehearsals. Though she had never had any vocal training other than what Jake and Celia had given her, she sounded like a professional.

After the chorus, they switched tempo again for the second verse. Jake continued to play out his parts on his guitar, the fingers of his right hand strumming, the fingers of his left hand fretting automatically, without conscious thought, while he sang into the microphone. He expounded upon his theme of self-liberation and then they ran through the chorus once more. After the second chorus, they played out the bridge, Jake hammering out short, poetic diatribes about those who would try to keep him down while Phil and Pauline hummed angrily in key behind him. After this, there was a final verse, another tempo change, and then three repetitions of the chorus. After the third rep, the outro guitar solo began. On the studio recording, Jake had played the solo (Celia had actually played the guitar parts he was playing now) but had not taken credit for it. Lenny played it now, stepping forward to the edge of the stage and perfectly imitating Jake’s notes with just a little personal phrasing of his own. The crowd cheered for him as he played, most of them nodding their heads in time to the beat.

In the studio version of Down, the outro had faded out. That was obviously not an option when performing live so they had rehearsed up a new ending to put the tune to rest. They played it out now, Jake and Lenny both stepping up, shoulder to shoulder, and hammering out a blistering finale that was accompanied by the pounding of Ted on the drums before cutting off abruptly and letting Lenny’s final note fade out.

The roar of the crowd washed over them once again, the loudest they had heard so far. Jake and Lenny both flipped their guitar picks into the crowd, creating minor scuffles for possession of them where they landed. They walked back to their stations and pulled new picks for the next number, which would be Hit the Highway, Jake’s song about his breakup with Helen, another of his top hits. G came trotting out and sat down in front of his keyboard set, hat and sunglasses firmly in place. Since the cheers remained at the same level, it seemed reasonable to believe that no one had recognized him. If they noticed anything at all, it was just that—as G himself put it—some anonymous brother had come out to play a little keyboards for Jake.

Celia and Obie sat together in folding chairs in the third row of the special VIP section just in front of the stage. Both were drinking draft beer from large plastic cups and having quite a good time so far. The SVIP could accommodate about two hundred people and was pretty much full to capacity. All of the musicians and their special guests for the entire festival had access to it. Most of the other people in the section, Celia did not know. A few she had only met today. There was Jessie, Lenny’s girlfriend, sitting a few seats over. There were the two men that Phil had invited (she had already forgotten their names). There was Mark, Natalie’s husband, and their copilot on the first Celia Valdez Tour. He was sitting on Celia’s left. Suzie had been invited but had been unable to make it (which was a bummer because Celia was approaching the line again with her horniness). A few of Ted’s paramedic friends were sitting just in front of them and had been in those seats all day (and were quite intoxicated). Ben Ping’s wife was sitting just to the right of Obie (and seemed very awed to be in his presence) and, interestingly enough, Rabbi Levenstein, who had married the Nerdlys in Heritage and presided over Kelvin Archer’s circumcision, and his wife were present as well, sitting next to Ben’s wife, both of them dressed in ratty jeans and Intemperance concert t-shirts.

Celia was genuinely enjoying the show so far. She had, after all, played a major part in the production of all of Jake’s music, had played the rhythm guitar on the opening song in the studio when it had been recorded. She had sung along with the lyrics and swayed to the rhythm all throughout Can’t Keep Me Down. And now, as they launched into Hit the Highway, she smiled and began to sing along with that as well. Jake had played both rhythm and lead on the recording of the song, but she had played the lead parts throughout their initial workups of the tune and she knew every note intimately. She played air guitar as she sang along, her fingers fretting imaginary strings in perfect synchronicity with Lenny.

Obie was also enjoying himself. He was dressed in jeans and a tank top that showed off his upper arm tattoos. He had his signature cowboy hat upon his head and his full beard was neatly trimmed for the occasion. He sang along as well. Though his love was primarily country music, classic country in particular, he had a strong affection for any music that was well done and well-engineered. And Jake’s tunes most definitely fell into that category. He even liked the stuff that Jake had done with Intemperance, though only Jake’s tunes, not Matt’s. And, as he sang along and considered the huge crowd of the TSF and the amount of money that Music Alive was making for this shindig, the business part of his mind began to ponder if maybe a country music version of the show could be arranged and if maybe he had the balls to pull it off.

As Jake and the band finished up Hit the Highway and the crowd cheered and whistled and overwhelmed everyone’s eardrums once again, Obie took a little look around, trying to gauge just how the engineering of such a festival might be improved upon. It was then that he spotted a familiar figure standing by the small opening that led from the roped off access area into the SVIP section. He thought he was imagining things at first, but then realized that what his eyes were seeing was accurate.

He pulled on Celia’s shirt to get her attention. She looked at him to see what he wanted. It was far too loud at the moment for verbal communication, so he simply pointed. She squinted in the direction he was indicating for a moment, not understanding what he was trying to show her, and then he saw the figure as well.

It was Matt Tisdale. He was standing there and watching Jake’s performance.

While the crowd cheered the ending of Highway, Natalie made her first appearance on the stage, trotting out and taking her position just in front of the drum set. One of the crew came out and plugged her output cable into the box strapped to her waist. The box picked up the output from the microphone on the bridge of her violin. Meanwhile, another crew member came out to Jake’s position, carrying his Fender acoustic-electric in his hands. Jake turned the volume button on the Les Paul all the way down to nothing, unplugged the guitar cord, and unslung the instrument from around his shoulder. He handed the Les Paul to the crew member and took the Fender in its place. He slung the new guitar over his shoulder and plugged into it before twisting its volume button all the way up. As the crew member retreated backstage, Jake stepped forward to his microphone.

“How’s everyone doing out there in the desert tonight?” he asked the crowd. They roared back at him in a manner that suggested they were doing pretty good. “God damn, there’s a lot of you out there! I hope those of you in the back can see the show. Anyway, we’re really happy to be up here in front of you all to play our set. I hope you’re enjoying it so far.” Another roar of approval indicated they were, in fact, enjoying it so far. “We’re going to do a song now from my second solo CD, a little more mellow of a piece, called The Life I Lead.”

The crowd roared again—the song was the biggest hit from the second CD—and Jake began to play out the melody on the acoustic, strumming in the key of G major while Natalie provided backing melody with the violin and G added some gentle fills with the piano. It was a song about traveling through life, dealing with the bad times and enjoying the good times, about navigating around pitfalls when you could and driving straight through them when you couldn’t. Like Down, it was a piece that changed tempo throughout, slower on the verses, faster and with more distorted electric guitar during the choruses and the bridge. There was no solo of any kind in the song, just a brief instrumental portion between the bridge and the final chorus. They played it almost exactly like the studio version, only extending the outro for another twenty seconds or so and then transitioning that into a finale that ended with an drawn out note of the violin being allowed to finally fade.

The applause washed over them once again. Jake thanked the crowd for it, flipped his guitar pick into the seats, and then resettled his guitar and pulled out another pick while everyone except Natalie, Phil, Pauline, and himself left the stage. Jake was feeling very good, very confident now, knowing that he was doing his job and entertaining people. He could feel the energy and love from the audience surging through his soul. It was a very good feeling, right up there, as he had told Pauline earlier, with sex (but not quite better). He strummed a few open chords on the guitar and then grabbed a G chord and began to play the primary melody for Insignificance, his biggest hit as a solo artist. The crowd erupted once again as they heard it. They then settled in to watch, listen, and sing along as Jake waxed musical poetry about the essential meaninglessness of life. The song featured only the guitar and the violin for instruments. Natalie stood next to him as he played, her bow moving up and down and creating the sweet, melancholy accompaniment to the guitar melody. Phil and Pauline added their voices to the choruses, just as they had in the original studio version.

When they got to the violin solo, Natalie stepped forward to the edge of the stage and Jake stepped back, giving her the spotlight. The solo had been originally composed by Mary Kingsley, Jake’s mother (the first solo she had ever composed), and Natalie did it justice, reproducing it perfectly with only minor variations that could be attributed to individual phrasing. The crowd cheered her as the solo wrapped up and the two of them had to go through one full rep of the primary melody before Jake could start singing the final verse or they would not have been able to hear him. He sang out the verse and the final chorus and then he and Natalie played out the outro together, ending the song after Jake gave her his cue by adding a small flourish as he approached the end of the final repetition.

“Thank you!” Jake said. “We got Natalie Popanova on the violin! Let’s hear it for her!”

Another enthusiastic cheer erupted. Natalie smiled at the crowd and gave a nod of acknowledgment before stepping backwards and resuming her normal positioning. Once she was there, G, Ben, Ted, and Lenny all came back out, Lenny now holding his drop-D tuned Brogan. The crew member in charge of Jake’s guitars came out as well, letting Jake switch from the acoustic-electric to the sunburst Les Paul, which was also in drop-D tuning.

“How about we ramp things back up a bit?” Jake asked the crowd. “Does that sound good to you?”

It sounded just fine to them. Ted gave a four count and they launched into the extended intro for Put Me Out There, Jake’s second hit from his last CD, a hard-driving, complex, and somewhat cynical tune about how music was delivered to the masses by the sale of advertising to radio stations. In the original recording, Jake had played the lead guitar and the solo while Celia had backed him up with her drop-D tuned Stratocaster. Here, Lenny played lead and Jake played rhythm while Ted pounded out the complex beat, Natalie added fills and backing melody with the violin, and G kept up a steady secondary rhythm with the synthesizer. The crowd loved it, many of them standing up and waving their arms as he sang it out.

They love us, Jake thought warmly as more positive energy came flowing in. They fucking love us. We really do belong up here.

Forty-five feet away, Matt Tisdale was having much the same thought. He had come out to the special VIP section for one reason: because he thought that Jake was going to fail, was going to be booed off the stage for daring to play his mellow, alternative rock and easy-listening crap at what was primarily a heavy metal music festival. Matt wanted to see that happen, had been eagerly anticipating it, but he now realized that quite the opposite was actually occurring here.

They fucking love his shit, he thought in wonder. Not just like, not just ‘can get into it’, but fucking love! People were standing and dancing and waving their hands around. They were singing along with his tunes. Matt had even seen a couple of bitches crying when Jake had sung Insignificance. Fucking crying!

Matt could not help but acknowledge and respect how Jake had played the crowd and hooked them. He had opened the set with one of his hardest-driving tunes and one of his most powerful backbeats, thus giving the fans out there what they had primarily come to see—hard rock—before gradually transitioning down into the more mellow shit. And then, after hitting the very top of the mellow meter with Insignificance, just when it seemed like things might start getting cumbersome, he had kicked right back in with another hard-rocking number to reengage them. And, though Matt had not seen them, he smelled the Nerdlys in the background. No one else could have tuned in sound in a venue like this to such perfection. All of the instruments and mikes and the drum set itself were almost exactly in balance and adjusted so that every individual instrument could be heard, every word of Jake’s lyrics could be understood. Even the backup singers—who the fuck brings dedicated backup singers to a goddamn heavy metal festival?—could be perfectly heard and understood. And it was quite obvious that Jake and his band had rehearsed extensively for this performance. He could quite plainly feel the teamwork and camaraderie they shared as they meshed like a well-oiled machine.

Where did he even get these musicians? Matt wondered bitterly. He recognized Pauline as one of the backup singers, but he had no idea whatsoever who everyone else was. But goddamn if they couldn’t play. The dude on the lead guitar—Jake was apparently too pussy to play out his own solos and riffs—was talented, laying down the licks with mechanical precision and artistry. The bass player was solid as well, keeping the rhythm perfectly and transitioning seamlessly through the tempo changes. And the fat guy on the drums! He was pounding out some complex shit up there. Where the fuck had he been when Matt was looking for a percussionist? Who were these people and where had Jake found them?

Put Me Out There ended in a finale of distorted guitar riffs by Jake, a wind-down solo by the lead guitarist, and a flurry of pounding beats by the drummer. The crowd cheered again, the sound of it a physical thing that Matt could feel in his chest. When it began to die down a bit, Jake stoked it by stepping to his microphone and introducing the lead guitarist.

“Lenny Harris on the Telecaster!” Jake shouted. “Lenny Harris. Give it up for him!”

They gave it up. Matt still had no idea who the guitarist was. The name Lenny Harris meant absolutely nothing to him.

A stagehand that Matt now recognized from the last Intemperance tour trotted out on the stage and gave Jake back his black and white Les Paul in exchange for the drop-D tuned sunburst. The drummer gave another four-count and they launched into The Easy Way, which was the very first song that Jake had released and promoted in his solo career; the song with the heavy synthesizer melody, the one Matt had not thought much of upon first hearing it but that had grown on him considerably since (much to his chagrin). It still received fairly frequent airplay on the rock and pop stations, usually in the afternoons, early evenings, and early morning hours. They played through the slow intro part and then went up-tempo after the first verse, adding in the distorted drop-D guitar atop the synthesizer and Jake’s three-chord melody. But mostly what carried the tune was Jake’s most valuable weapon: his voice and the range he was capable of reaching with it. It was arguably the best voice currently singing in rock and roll and Jake knew how to use it. The crowd once again began to dance and sing along with the tune. To his surprise and near-horror, Matt actually found himself swaying his shoulders and singing along with the first chorus. He snapped his mouth shut when he realized what he was doing.

What the fuck is the matter with me? he thought, shaking his head at himself. I need to get the fuck out of here and start prepping for my own show. But he did not move from his spot. And, a few minutes later, during the bridge to final chorus transition, his shoulders started swaying once again and he began singing along with the lyrics, not even realizing he was doing it.

After Easy, Jake and his band raised the mellow meter once again, performing Nothing is Different Now, which used the piano for the primary melody and Jake’s Les Paul in the clean configuration for the rhythm guitar. The lead guitarist played only fills on the in-betweens and the drumming was a soft, repetitive beat that one barely noticed—a stark contrast to the earlier drumbeats. Still, the song was one of Jake’s more popular ones and the crowd enjoyed it. Matt spent the whole tune trying to figure out just who Jake was singing about. Was it Helen? Or that Mindy Snow bitch? Probably Mindy Snow, he figured. Jake always did have this weird habit of getting too emotionally involved with the bitches he fucked. The dumb shit had actually even married one of them. Fucking married! Matt certainly did not understand that.

Different ended and they dialed things up again. They played the song Domain of Eminence, from the latest CD, a tune that was just starting to get airplay across the nation. It seemed to be about greedy real estate developers using their shady connections on municipal councils to forcibly take land from people who had held it for generations just so they could slap down more tract homes, roads, and strip malls. The song hit a little bit home for Matt as he was someone who had recently lost one of his homes to The Man, not by eminent domain, but by tax arrears. Still, he could appreciate the emotion that Jake sung about in the verses and chorus.

When the applause from that song died down, the stagehand reappeared and Jake changed out his Les Paul for the Fender acoustic-electric again. The violinist and the lead guitarist left the stage. Jake walked up to his microphone and began to speak to the crowd again.

“Do you all mind if I introduce you to someone very special to me?” he asked them.

They cheered out their approval of this plan.

“All right,” Jake said, nodding. “I’d like to introduce my wife, Laura Kingsley. Come on out here, Laura!”

Another round of applause, louder this time, erupted as Jake’s bitch emerged from the backstage area, a straight soprano sax in her hands. Matt looked her up and down appreciatively. Yeah, her tits were kind of small, but she really was a hot piece of ass, all considered. He could see why Jake liked fucking her. She had a sweet, innocent face and a petite, rocking body. She was what was known in male circles as a spinner. He wondered if there was any truth to those entertainment rag stories about how she dyked out with female groupies out on tour. After a moment’s thought, however, he decided there probably wasn’t. A bitch that cute and innocent looking probably did not munch muff. And she certainly wouldn’t take it up the ass. Would she even slurp schlong? His instinct said no, but he had to figure that Jake wouldn’t marry any bitch unless she would suck cock and suck it well.

The ginger bitch came and stood next to Jake, a shy, nervous smile on her face. Jake used his right arm to give her a hug. She returned it and then they broke apart. Jake returned to the microphone. Laura continued to stand next to him, looking out over the crowd.

“Some of you may know this,” Jake told them, “and some of you may not, but Laura is a saxophonist. She plays on Celia Valdez’s first and third releases and has just come off a long tour playing for her in North America and Europe. In fact, she flew in from Poland just last night so she could be here to help me out with this next tune.”

Another round of cheers. Matt pondered this information. Yes, he knew that Kingsley’s bitch was that Mexican bitch’s sax player and had been touring with her. After all, the tabloid rags and the entertainment shows had been going on about the whole Celia Valdez and Laura Kingsley lesbian sex scandals for the past few months (Matt could kind of picture Celia Valdez sticking her face in some muff—and the mental picture was not unpleasant at all). But had he just said that she had flown in from Poland? And that she was going to perform with him right now? How the fuck was that possible? That would mean that they had had no rehearsal time for the tune they were about to play (it had to be South Island Blur, Matt realized. That was the only Jake Kingsley tune that had any sax in it at all. And it was soprano sax, the same instrument his bitch was now holding in her hands). Was the moment of Kingsley’s downfall now here? They seriously could not think that they could just step up and pull off a tune like that without prior rehearsal, did they? Even if they were already intimately familiar with the piece, shit like that just could not be done—not outside of a cheesy Hollywood movie or TV show anyway.

“Laura and I met each other,” Jake continued, “back when she first signed on to play the sax for Celia Valdez. You see, Celia and I have known each other for years and we were both rehearsing our first solo CDs in the same building and we both recorded those CDs in the same recording studio up in Oregon. Laura and I did not think too much of each other at first, did we, hon?”

She did not speak into the mic, but she did give a sideways smile and an exaggerated shrug of her shoulders, indicating he was correct. The crowd laughed at this revelation.

“But ... well ... as we got to know each other better, we realized we did have something fundamental in common: our love of making music and playing in front of people. We bonded over that, and that bond gradually became attraction and, eventually, love. And it was during this period, somewhere between bonding and love, that I realized one of the tunes I was working on was missing something, something I could not quite put my finger on. And then I realized what it was. I needed to throw in a little soprano sax to nail down the melody and the rhythm. And I just happened to know a badass sax player. I asked her to work with me on the tune and she agreed. It was during the composition and recording of this tune that we fell in love. The rest is history.”

The crowd cheered loudly again, obviously appreciative of the story, though Matt still did not understand the whole marriage thing. Why did he need to get married to keep boning the bitch? I’ve been boning Kim for almost ten years now and we’ve never even considered getting married, let alone actually gone and done it. What rationale, besides love, which Jake kept going on about (and that Matt did not think could possibly be the actual reason, even if it really did exist), could he possibly have? Was he just deranged? And, of course, he could not possibly be only boning her and no one else, right? No fucking way. Not Jake Kingsley.

“So, we’re going to play that tune for you here tonight,” Jake said. “It’s a tune that I wrote about one of the worst times of my life and I’m now going to play it for you here during one of the best times of my life. Life really is a wheel, people. Here we go now. Let’s do a little South Island Blur.”

A tremendous roar erupted as he said the name of the tune. Though Insignificance was Jake’s best charting tune, Blur was by far his most popular, crossing into nearly all demographics, enjoyed by millions of people who would not be caught dead listening to anything else that Jake or Intemperance had done. The song was regularly covered by bands playing at parties and weddings, was played over boomboxes on booze cruises and tropical pool parties. KVA received twenty to thirty requests a week for permission to perform the tune in live venues (they generally granted such requests for a nominal fee). And this heavy metal oriented crowd was quite eager to see it performed now.

They ran through it, playing it pretty much exactly the same as the studio version. Matt kept expecting Jake’s bitch to fuck up her parts, but she did not make so much as a single error. She played out her part of the melody exactly in key and with perfect timing and phrasing. Though Matt knew this was impossible if Jake had been telling the truth about her just flying in from Poland, she came across as if she had been rehearsing her part in the piece right along with the rest of them. And not only that, she had some pretty impressive showmanship as well—obviously gained by all of her time playing for the Mexican bitch. She stayed close to Jake’s side during the verses, moving her shoulders to the rhythm, her feet dancing a little as she played. And then, when it was time for the sax solo before the final verse, she stepped up to the front of the stage and played it out with style, her fingers moving confidently over her keys, her cheeks puffing in and out as she blew into the mouthpiece, occasionally swaying and turning at the waist. And again, she did not miss a single note, did not have a single moment of mistiming.