“Eight hours from bottle to throttle,” Jake said. “I’ve never broken that rule yet and do not intend to start tonight.”
“Celia’s house is so far away though,” Nerdly said. “Why don’t you stay with us instead? Our house is much closer than Celia’s. We have the guest room all made up and Kelvin would love to see you.”
“Uh ... well ... uh ... thanks for the offer, Bill,” Jake said, “but we’ve already made the plan. Laura is going to ride home with C tonight and I’ll just meet her there after my business dinner with Matt.”
“Laura could just as easily ride home with us,” Sharon suggested, a little smile on her face.
“That’s right,” Nerdly said. “It would be no big deal for us to swing by and pick her up.”
“Uh ... well ... I don’t want to put you out,” Jake said.
“It would be no imposition whatsoever,” Nerdly said. “And you would be much closer to Whiteman Airport for your trip home in the morning.”
Jake, who did not realize he was being baited, became uncharacteristically flustered. “Uh ... yeah,” he stammered. “The fact of the matter is ... uh ... you know ... that we already promised Celia we would be there tonight ... and she’s made ... you know ... accommodations and things ... and ... uh ... you know?”
“We know,” Nerdly said. “And we understand. Keep us in mind next time though.”
“Will do,” Jake said, obviously relieved.
He did not see the sly little looks that were passed between the Nerdlys.
Jake may have been judicious in directing Matt and his band on what they should do and how they should do it, but the Nerdlys had no such compunction. They entered the rehearsal warehouse like Macarthur returning ashore in the Philippines and took immediate charge of the sound check and the sound board. Matt and the group did not express any resentment toward them, however. On the contrary, they actually appreciated having the experts dial in their sound for them—even if it was just for a standard rehearsal. As Jake had surmised at the beginning of the week, the sound check portion of the day took a little more than an hour to accomplish.
“All right, guys,” Jake said once he and Matt managed to get the Nerdlys to declare a halt to the endless adjustments, “how about you show them what you got?”
“Fuckin’ A,” Matt agreed. He turned to his band. “Let’s do it, motherfuckers.”
They did it. They ran through all twelve songs one by one. Jake and the Nerdlys sat behind the sound board and listened. Jake shared his notes with them, pointing out things he had jotted down about each song. They each had copies of the scores before them and made a multitude of notes of their own.
“Well?” asked Matt once the performance was at an end.
“I think we can work with this raw material,” Nerdly said after a moment’s thought.
“It will most definitely need some major engineering though,” added Mrs. Nerdly.
Again, Jake would have never said anything so blunt to Matt because it likely would have sparked an angry confrontation, but when the Nerdlys said it, the entire band, Matt included, simply nodded, silently acquiescing to their wisdom.
“Do the entire set again,” Nerdly directed. “I want to make some notes regarding my second impression of your work.”
“Right,” Matt said. He turned to his band. “You heard Nerdly. Let’s do the motherfucker again!”
They did it again. And then they did it one more time. The Nerdlys furiously scribbled away on the scores until every sheet was filled with notations and little arrows pointing to various places. Only then did Nerdly begin offering some praise. He was particularly fond of Matt’s work with the effects pedals and the way he combined them to draw unique and unconventional sounds from his guitar. Matt mostly used this technique on his solos, but Nerdly suggested that maybe he could apply some of it to the riffs and changeovers as well.
“Where would I do that?” Matt asked, pondering thoughtfully.
Nerdly flipped through his notes for a few moments. “That distortion you used on the solo for Looking Down,” he said. “You could apply something like that to the chorus to bridge transition on Faithless.”
Matt thought that one over and then nodded. “Maybe,” he said.
“Wouldn’t you have to eliminate the backing guitar for that section though?” asked Sharon. “It would override the effect you’re looking for.”
“Not necessarily,” Jake put in, already liking the idea. “You could just have Corban switch to clean output and keep it soft.”
“And then switch back to distortion after the bridge?” asked Matt.
“Why not?” Jake asked.
“I’d have to get my own step-down pedal in order to do that,” Corban said. “Either that, or I play my double neck.”
“You have a double neck?” asked Matt.
“Goddamn right, I do,” Corban said. “It’s the bomb!”
“Isn’t that a little seventies?” asked Austin.
“Fuck no!” Matt said. “Double necks rock! I used to have three of them—one was the exact guitar that Alex Lifeson played on Xanadu in Toronto when they recorded Exit, Stage Left.” He soured a little. “Of course, I had to sell the motherfucker to help pay off the fuckin’ IRS.”
“Dude,” Jake said longingly. “You should have talked to me first. I would’ve bought it.”
“We weren’t talking to each other then,” Matt reminded him.
“Oh yeah,” Jake said. “Anyway, maybe Corban could play the double-neck during live performances if we like how this goes. For now, do you have another step-down pedal here?”
“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Matt asked.
“Set it up,” Nerdly said. “Let’s see how it sounds.”
They set it up. It took another thirty minutes for the Nerdlys to adjust everything so it sounded as close to perfect as they could make it. They then began to play around with Faithless some more, focusing particularly on the second chorus and its transition to the bridge and back. It was very awkward at first. Matt had to come up with the proper phrasing of the unconventional effect he was using. From there, they struggled with the actual transitions. They did discover, however, that Jake’s suggestion of having Corban switch down to clean output on the bridge complimented the distorted riff quite well, especially when they dialed down the drum strikes and the bass line proportionately.
“I’m thinking we go with this,” Matt said after they finally managed to squeak out a few reps of the measure without fucking it up.
“I agree,” said Jake. “It sounds badass!”
And, though none of them really paused to ponder the situation at that moment in time, the first modification of a Matt Tisdale tune under the direction of KVA Records was accomplished. And it was accomplished without argument or hostility.
There was only about ten thousand more to go.
The Nerdlys joined Matt, Jake, and Matt’s band for the post-rehearsal dinner meeting. They went to a local Mexican place. Everyone ordered Mexican beer and ate chips and salsa from well-stocked bowls. Jake deliberately waited until everyone had at least two beers in them—this was the point in the meal between ordering and receiving the food—before he started to talk music.
“All right,” he said. “I’m encouraged by the progress we’ve made today.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Matt said. “I dig what we did with Faithless. It fuckin’ rocks!”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Jake said. “It means that despite our past differences, maybe we can work together and put something out that will catch attention and sell a lot of CDs. I was a little worried about how this was going to go, but so far it seems to be working.”
“So far,” Matt agreed, sipping from his third beer, which had just been delivered.
“Having said that,” Jake went on, “I want to go over a few suggestions I came up with while watching and listening these past few days.”