Chapter 15A: Crossing The Line

December 17, 1984
Los Angeles, California

It was Monday morning and Steve Crow was going over the music sales reports from the previous week. He was dismayed to see that La Diferencia's debut album The Difference had moved into the number two spot on album sales, selling only six hundred fewer copies than The Thrill Of Doing Business, which was holding at number one for the eighteenth consecutive week. At this rate it was entirely possible that The Difference would take over the number one spot within a few weeks, dislodging Intemperance's album as neatly as I Love To Dance had aced out Crossing The Line and Young Love had aced out Rules Of The Road in singles sales. Young Love was, in fact, still holding strong at number one on the singles chart and would probably continue to for another few weeks. And from what he had heard La Diferencia was slated to release yet another single — Serenade Of The Heart — the moment Young Love started to fall.

"I wish we would've signed those fucking spics," Crow said enviously as he mentally calculated how much revenue that would have brought in and as he imagined how much less of a pain in the ass third world Venezuelan musicians would be compared to the lowlife antagonists he was being paid to manage.

And speaking of those pains in the asses, where the hell were they? It was ten minutes past nine. They had promised him they would be in his office, demo tape in hand, at nine o'clock sharp. It was just like them to show up late for a meeting. These days they seemed to do everything within their power to antagonize or generally annoy him. He wondered if they really had a demo tape for him or if they were just blowing smoke up his ass.

Crow had a respectable network of spies who kept an eye on the members of Intemperance for him. There were the manservants who lived with each band member and there were the limousine drivers who transported them from place to place (except for Jake, ever since that goody two-shoes bitch Mindy Snow bought him the Corvette, that particular avenue of information had been severely curtailed). There were the bouncers and the bartenders at the clubs they hung out in. And just lately there was Darren and Coop themselves. Both were so strung out on heroin these days they would tell him anything just to keep the supply coming. From this network came the information that, upon returning from their Thanksgiving vacation, Jake, Matt, and Bill suddenly decided to abandon the six songs they had been initially working on and start completely fresh. This had alarmed Crow greatly, enough that he had called Jake and demanded an explanation.

"They just weren't good enough," Jake told him, not even bothering to ask how Crow knew that they had abandoned the six songs — something that immediately triggered Crow's suspicions that a game was afoot.

"You said they were quality tunes," Crow said. "The best you've done so far. You said they were the tunes we would probably want to release as singles."

"We were overconfident in them," Jake said. "You know how it is. When we stepped away from them and gave them some honest analysis we found that they really kind of sucked."

"But Coop and Darren said they were bad-ass tunes," Crow protested, not even caring that he was naming one of his information sources. "They told me I would love them."

"Well... you know that Coop and Darren have been suffering from... oh... shall we say, impaired judgment, lately."

Crow had to admit that this was true. Since he had allowed Cedric to introduce Darren to the effects of China White heroin — that magic white powder that had kept many a rock musician under control — both he and Coop had taken to it with perhaps a little more enthusiasm than was desired. They were both mainlining the shit now and spending all day, every day, in a state of near catatonia, a state that was quickly becoming counter-productive to musical production. And Jake and Matt, the two band members that he really needed to get under control, weren't using the shit at all, despite repeated attempts to introduce them to it.

"I understand," he told Jake, "but the deadline is coming up fast and we need at least three quality tunes out of you for single release and another seven for filler. Can't you at least use the six you started as the filler tunes?"

"They're not even good enough for that," Jake told him. "Trust me, they really suck."

"But..."

"Don't worry," Jake assured him. "We'll have twelve tunes for you on schedule. We know how to work under pressure."

And, if last Friday's phone call were to be believed, they had come through. According to Jake and Matt, they had thirteen original songs recorded and ready for submission. Conversations with Darren and Coop seemed to confirm this although both of them had been blasted to the gills when they'd talked.

"Yeah, man, it's like some good shit," Darren told him on the phone at one point. "I mean, I like wasn't so sure about it at first — it's a little different than our normal shit, you know, but the more we jammed, the more I liked it."

"It's different," Coop said later that same day. "But progressive, you know? It's the next level in Intemperance music."

Crow wasn't so sure he liked the terms "progressive" and "different" all that much. After all, formulation was the name of the game when you wanted to keep consecutive albums on the chart. Experimentation was strongly frowned upon since the general rule of thumb was that a band's core fans didn't like change in musical style (the ongoing success of Van Halen's 1984 album was the exception to this rule). But at this point in the game he was approaching desperation anyway. The band needed to be in the studio in less than three weeks and because they refused to do covers or pre-written material (and because no one had thought to put a clause in their contract specifically demanding National's right of musical dictation) Crow was pretty much stuck with accepting whatever they came up with.

"How bad could it be, really?" he asked himself. After all, despite being big pains in his ass and despite their rebellious ways, they were talented musicians and composers. Even their worst efforts would still sound palatable, wouldn't they?

His intercom buzzed and his secretary let him know that Matt, Jake, and Bill had finally arrived. Crow did not have them come in right away. Instead, he said he was busy with something and made them wait for ten minutes just to show them his time was important as well. He spent the time flipping through the photographs of Jake and Mindy naked on the boat and in the water. He had used one of his connections to score a set of duplicate prints from Paul Peterson — prints that did not have the black line across the good parts. As a committed bisexual he became equally aroused by both Jake and Mindy. Finally he put the photos back in their envelope and stowed them in his desk once again. When his hard-on deflated to normal he buzzed his secretary and had her send them in.

The three band members seemed in a jovial mood as they trooped into his office and took seats before his chair. He greeted them pleasantly, asked the normal questions about their health and welfare and they gave him the normal jerk-off answers. He offered them drinks and a few lines of cocaine like normal and this time they surprised him by taking him up on the offer.

"This ain't an official meeting," said Matt, "so why the fuck not? I'll have a Chivas and coke, heavy on the Chivas."

"You got any wine?" asked Jake. "I could go for a little French Chardonnay."

"How about Cognac?" asked Bill. "You have any of that?"

"Of course," said Crow.

"Copacetic," said Bill. "I'll have a double shot of Cognac on the rocks with seven-up and a cherry."

Crow actually winced at this last order but he passed it, as well as the others, on to his secretary.

"How about those lines?" asked Matt once the drink orders were off. "Let's get blown, shall we?"

"Uh... sure," said Crow and proceeded to set them up with two lines of high-grade blow apiece. By the time they had all snorted up, their drinks had arrived and they all took a few sips.

"Here you go," said Jake, setting a large brown envelope on his desk. "The latest collection of masterpiece tunes from your favorite band."

Crow used a sterling silver envelope opener to cut open the top. He reached in and pulled out a cassette tape and a sheet of paper listing the titles of the tracks on the tape. He frowned a little and looked in the envelope again, seeing nothing but emptiness. "Where are the lyric sheets?" he asked.

"They're not in there?" Matt asked.

"No, there's just the track sheet."

"Well fuck my mother with a two by four," Matt said. "I must've forgot to put them in."

"You did make lyric sheets though, didn't you?" asked Crow. "We need those for copyright application."

"Yeah, we made 'em," Matt said. "I bet I left them sitting on my desk at home. I'll send them over to you with the limo driver after he drops me off."

Crow shrugged and picked up the track sheet. He looked at the titles there. The very first one caught his eye: Fuck The Establishment by Jake Kingsley. "Fuck the establishment?" he asked.

"Hell yes," Jake said. "It rocks, man. It's one of our tightest tunes ever. And you gave me the idea for it. Remember when we were in here last month and you said you didn't care if we yelled 'fuck the establishment' over and over? Well that inspired me."

"We can't write fuck the establishment on an album cover," Crow said. "And if you actually say that in the tune, they won't play it on the radio."

"We can write F, star, star, star, can't we?" Matt asked. "And if you do want to release it as a single, they can edit it so 'fuck' doesn't come through."

"Yeah," said Jake, "like that hacker band WASP did with that fuck like a beast tune."

"Well... we'll see," Crow said, already three quarters of the way to rejecting Fuck The Establishment without even hearing it. He looked at the next title. It was another one penned by Jake. "So Many Choices. Now that sounds better... in title anyway."

"It fuckin' rocks," Matt agreed.

"Oh yes," said Jake, "I think its some of my best work actually. It's an examination of the dilemmas that we're all faced with on a daily basis, not just the complex ones, but the simple ones."

Crow nodded. He didn't give a rat's ass what the song was about, as long as people would like it. "Do you think it has potential for release as a single?"

"It's more than that," Matt said. "I think it might take a Grammy next year."

Crow liked the sound of that indeed. He looked at the rest of the titles, seeing nothing that reached out and touched him in any way. He wished they had remembered to bring the lyric sheets so he could get a better idea of what was waiting for him. Oh well. What could you do? At least they remembered the cassette and that was the important part.

The band finished their drinks and then said their goodbyes. Crow, feeling magnanimous now that he had the tape in his possession, told them to take the next two days off and relax.

"Thanks, Stevie," Matt said. "We'll do that. I think another fishing trip is in order."

"I think I'll just get drunk," said Jake.

"And I'm going to get back on CompuServe," said Bill. "You wouldn't believe what you can do on there."

"CompuServe?" asked Matt, shaking his head. "You still playing around with that nerdy shit?"

"I'm a nerd," said Bill. "What else should I do?"

"So you like that service?" asked Crow, who had authorized the software purchase and the monthly charges when Bill had requested it two weeks ago.

"Oh yes," Bill replied. "It's the wave of the future."

"Wave of the fucking future," Matt scoffed. He looked at Crow. "Nerdly here thinks that in the next ten years every fucking computer in the world is going to be connected together and that we'll be able to send mail to each other that way, and pay our fucking bills, and get porn."

"Get porn?" asked Jake.

Bill nodded solemnly. "Historically the pornography industry had been quick to take advantage of fledgling technology and, in a few cases, has even contributed to the technology's success. Look at photography. No sooner had the camera been invented that the first nudie magazines and adult nickelodeons came into existence. Look at the movie camera. Before they even developed practical audio coordination for the technology sex films were circulating via the black market. And with the computer, my guess is that pornography will be what drives the success and makes it a global phenomenon. Nobody will admit they signed up for CompuServe or this new service that's coming out, Prodigy, for the pictures of naked women, but that's why they'll be doing it."

"Well now you're talking my language, Nerdly," Matt told him. "When it gets to the point that I can turn on my computer and pull up a beaver shot at will, you let me know. That's when I'll join the technological revolution."

"Agreed," said Bill.

They left Crow's office a minute later, still chatting about the pros and cons of computer porn and at what point they could expect to start encountering it. The second the door closed behind them Crow got on the phone to Doolittle. "I got the tape," he said. "They forgot to give me the lyric sheets but I'll make copies of the title sheet."

"Good," his boss responded. "I'll get Bailey and we'll meet in my office in twenty minutes to give these tunes a listen."

The second the elevator doors closed on them, Bill, Jake, and Matt started cracking up. It went on for the better part of thirty seconds, a much-needed release after twenty minutes of fighting to keep straight faces.

"Oh man," said Matt as the elevator reached the lobby level and they headed for the doors. "You were killin' me in there, Jake. A fucking 'examination of the dilemmas we're faced with on a daily basis'? Jesus Christ."

"Well, that is what the song is about," Jake said, causing another round of laughter to erupt.

"I'd love to be a fly on the wall of that office when he listens to that tape for the first time," Bill said.

"You ain't shittin'," Matt agreed. "The shock may just kill him."

"But remember," warned Jake. "This was a 'good faith' effort to produce music for the next album. They'll be calling us on this within the next two hours and they're really going to be throwing the accusations around. No matter what happens, no matter what they say, we cannot admit that this was anything less than our best efforts. If we do, the whole good faith concept comes crashing down and they can get a judge to hammer us."

"Fuck the establishment, huh?" said Doolittle as he perused his copy of the track sheet for the first time.

"Well... yeah," said Crow apologetically. He was plugging a boombox into the electrical outlet next to Doolittle's desk. "I'm a little leery of that one, song unheard. Unless it's absolutely ground-breaking in some way, I'm inclined to think that including it on the album — even as a filler tune not intended for airplay — would be more trouble than its worth. Those censorship groups are already sniffing up Intemperance's ass pretty hard. Putting a song with the word 'fuck' in the title might just give them the ammo they need to get some sort of a legal ruling in favor of their goals."

"I agree," Doolittle said. "But still, let's give it a listen. Maybe it is groundbreaking."

"And even if its not," said Bailey, "maybe we can get them to change the lyrics to 'screw the establishment', or something like that."

"Good luck on that," Crow said sourly. He was a veteran of many battles with Jake and Matt over the subject of their songs and so far, they had given him nothing more than an ulcer.

Crow put the cassette into the boombox and closed the door. After a check to make sure it was properly rewound (it was) he pushed play. A slight hissing came out of the speakers and then the lead-in to the song began. It was a bass intro, starting slow and gradually picking up tempo. As with all of the recordings the band had given them in the past, the quality was quite impressive considering the primative equipment that had been utilized to make it.

"So far, so good," Doolittle said as the bass reached top intensity and Matt's guitar sounded in. He ground out a furious, fast-paced opening riff and then settled in to what seemed the main riff, with Jake backing and Bill chiming in just between them. And then Jake's voice began to sing, the tone angry and hateful.

"There comes a time when you have to say,"

"Fuck this shit, I'm doin' it my way."

"There comes a time when you have to say,"

"Fuck this shit, I'm doin' it my way!"

"Wow," said Doolittle, as he listened to this opening verse sung over and over again. "That's pretty harsh, isn't it?"

"And what's with the repetitive lyrics?" asked Bailey. "I thought Jake and Matt both hated that formula?"

Jake sang the opening verse a total of twelve times while the guitars and the piano ground out an angry, spiteful, repetitive, but strangely appealing melody. At last, the tempo slowed down and the lyrics changed to a different style, though no less angry.

"You fucked with me, you fucked me hard."

"For my sense of worth, you've no regard."

"You cheat me blind, you exploit my name."

"My hopes and dreams, you set aflame!"

After this there was a pounding, heavy metal instrumental session followed by a transition back to the main riff and what was apparently the main verse — the line about there comes a time when you have to say, fuck this shit, I'm doin' it my way! This was repeated another twelve times and then there was a guitar solo lasting almost a minute. After this, another verse.

"So fuck you all, time to do it my way."

"Get out of the palace, it's Bastille Day!"

"Fuck the establishment! Fuck you all!"

"I'll see your heads on spikes on the wall!"

From there, the tempo picked up again, the guitars grinding in a dual riff, the drums pounding, the piano keys being hammered. And Jake was now screaming the same lyrics over and over.

"Fuck the establishment! Fuck you all!"

"Fuck the establishment! Fuck you all!"

"Fuck the establishment! Fuck you all!"

He sang this out a grand total of twenty-eight times. On the final recital he stretched out "Fuck you all" for a good twenty seconds, strongly emphasizing each individual word as a crescendo of drums and cymbals and guitar solos ended the tune. As the last sound faded away, Crow reached over and pushed the stop button. He looked at his boss, who seemed a bit stunned by what he'd just heard.

"It's a very powerful song," Doolittle said.

"I agree," said Bailey."

"I mean, did you hear the anger and hatred that Jake managed to convey? Not just with the lyrics themselves, but with the way he sang it. He actually sounded like he was infuriated."

"Even the instrumental sections sounded angry," Crow said.

"Who do you suppose they're so pissed off at?" asked Bailey.

"I don't know," said Crow, "but I'd sure hate to be on the receiving end of that much hostility."

"No kidding," said Doolittle. "So anyway, what do we think about it?"

"It would sell like mad if we actually released it," said Crow, "but I'm inclined to go with my first impression and reject it."

"I reluctantly agree," said Doolittle. "I mean, he must've said the word 'fuck' a hundred times. That's way more than Blackie Lawless in Fuck Like A Beast. If we actually put that on an album the censorship freaks would murder us. They'd get a law passed that only eighteen and older could buy the album and that would kill sales to a good portion of Intemperance's core audience."

"Not to mention opening the door to censorship of other albums," said Crow.

"I'm in agreement with you as well," said Bailey. "And even if we did get him to change the lyrics to 'screw the establishment' and 'screw you all', it would rob the tune of its raw power and make it sound phony."

"Well that's too bad," said Doolittle. "Maybe in a more progressive age we can use it. Let's be sure to keep in on file."

"Right," said Crow. "Shall we listen to the next one?"

Doolittle picked up the title sheet and looked at it. "Hmm," he said. "Another one by Jake. 'So Many Choices'." He nodded. "Sounds a little more reasonable."

"Jake said it's about the dilemmas we face in everyday life," Crow told him.

"Yeah," said Doolittle, "Jake is good at writing about that sort of thing. Let's hear it. If it's got the same power as that first tune, I'm sure we'll like it."

Crow pushed the play button. There was another hiss and then the song started with a standard three chord riff backed by acoustical sound from Jake and a solid piano melody.

"So far, so good," Doolittle said, liking the rhythm.

And then the singing began. Their mouths dropped as they heard it.

"I went down to the store today,"

"I needed some soup to eat."

"I like the kind in the red can."

"Easy to open, easy to heat."

"But there's a whole lot of red cans,"

"In your average grocery store aisle."

"From top to bottom, side to side."

"I knew I'd be here awhile."

"What the fuck?" said Doolittle.