“Yeah, of course,” Obie said. “I’ve listened to all your CDs many times. They were recorded in my studio and my old lady sings on them, after all. It’s your tune about flying your plane.”
“Right,” Jake said. “Not one of my most popular tunes. Never got any real airplay and I never bothered trying to get it any. Just a deep cut that only people who bought the CD and listened to it a lot would appreciate. Still, a good, simple tune with heartfelt lyrics about my love of being a pilot—with, perhaps, more than a little innuendo about getting stoned. We extended out the solo from thirty-three seconds on the studio version to six minutes twenty live. I’ll do a conventional guitar solo to open it up...”
“The first solo that Jake himself shreds in the set,” G put in.
“You’re not doing all your own solos?” Obie asked, surprised.
“No,” Jake said. “Lenny is doing most of them. He’s a talented guitarist and he’s able to duplicate all of my solos pretty much to perfection. He’s handling most of the lead guitar duties, leaving me to play rhythm and acoustic.”
“Are you still hung up on the comparisons between you and Matt?” Obie asked. “I told you a hundred times, you ain’t got nothing to be ashamed of with your lead skills.”
“I’ve learned to accept that and embrace it,” Jake said. “If nothing else, publicly playing the lead on the tune that G and I did—I Signed That Line—convinced me of that. It’s just that Lenny can play the parts, can play them well, and it’s a lot easier on me as the lead singer to not have to concentrate on the lead guitar parts simultaneously. In the studio, recording those cuts is one thing. Being out on stage and playing them out while trying to sing at the same time is another. Matt can pull it off—and I salute him for that—and I probably could if I had more time to rehearse it up, but things will be much easier, and, I think more entertaining to the crowd, if I remain the secondary guitarist for most of the show.”
“I guess that makes sense,” Obie said.
“Besides,” G said, “that crowd will have no doubt that Jake can shred by the time he gets done laying down High. Even before he puts his mouth on that talk box, they’ll know they’re dealing with talent.”
“I certainly hope so,” Jake said. “Anyway, as I was saying, we’ll start the solo period with me shredding out the studio solo with an extension on it. I’m going to give them the best conventional guitar solo playing I know how to do. Nothing held back. After that, G comes in with a pretty ripping keyboard solo. Once that’s done, I do the talk box solo for another three minutes, running through various tempos and intensities with it.”
“Do you do some talking guitar shit with it?” Obie asked. “Like Frampton?”
“The whole tune is something of a tribute to Frampton’s Do You Feel Like We Do?” Jake said. “So ... yes, I do some talking guitar. Mostly the first line of the chorus hook, which just happens to be the title lyrics.” He sang a little, softly. “I am high... I am high... I am high up in the sky.”
Yolanda, who had been seemingly ignoring their conversation and just dealing, collecting, paying, and occasionally shuffling, looked up at him at this point, pausing in her collection of Jake’s chips (he had just busted hitting on a sixteen while she showed a ten, losing three thousand dollars). “I’m going to be at the festival tomorrow,” she said.
“Oh yeah?” Jake asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’ve always been a fan of yours. I can’t wait to hear what you were just talking about.”
“Well, I hope you enjoy it,” Jake said.
“I’m sure I will,” she said with a smile. She then looked at G, who signaled for a hit, got a face card, and busted himself. “Sorry,” she told him apologetically.
“Not your fault, baby,” he said. “Just the way the cards fall.”
“This is true,” she returned. “And I would like you to know, Mr. G, that I’m a big fan of yours as well. I’ve been listening to you since high school.”
“High school, huh?” G said with a grin. “And how long ago was that?”
“I graduated four years ago,” she said.
“You don’t look that old,” G told her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“What time you off shift, baby?” Gordon asked next.
“Eight o’clock,” she said.
“That’ll be right about the time we finish up dinner,” G told her. “Maybe you could meet me for a few drinks and we could get better acquainted.”
Yolanda smiled. “I think I would like that,” she told him.
“All right then,” G said. “How about we meet down on the floor, in that big-ass bar they got down there?”
“I’ll be there,” she told him. She then played out the rest of her hand for the benefit of Obie, who had stood on nineteen. She flipped her up her hole card, which proved to be a queen of hearts, giving her a twenty.
“Well, that sucks,” Obie grumbled, watching another four thousand dollars disappear.
“Sorry,” she said again as she collected his cards and got ready to deal another hand. As they were placing their bets, she looked over at Jake again. “I was just wondering...”
“What’s that?” Jake asked.
“The entertainment shows and the papers have been saying that you and Matt Tisdale are possibly going to take the stage together tomorrow and do some Intemperance tunes. Any truth to that?”
That rumor had, in fact, been floating around for the past month now. Pauline and Matt had both denied it vehemently but still it persisted. “No,” Jake said simply. “There is absolutely no truth to that.”
“Oh,” she said, visibly disappointed. “That’s too bad.”
Meanwhile, less than a mile away at the Mirage Hotel and Casino, Matt Tisdale was in his suite on the top floor, drinking a Jack and Coke. Jerry Stillson, the CEO of Music Alive and the driving force behind the TSF, was not an unintelligent man. He was not up there with Nerdly or even Jake in the smarts department, but he had been wise enough to know that housing Jake Kingsley and Matt Tisdale in separate hotels was in everyone’s best interest.
While Matt’s band and his paramedic were downstairs playing various casino games and losing a good portion of their recent earnings in the process, Matt sat alone. As someone who had always had more money than he knew what to do with (until now anyway), he had never quite understood the appeal of gambling, so he had no real urge to engage in the activity. To him, Vegas was about partying and gash, not about games of chance played for money. And even if he were into gambling, he likely would not have been in the mood. He and the boys had gotten in at nine this morning after a long, overnight flying marathon from Rio de Janeiro to Houston and then from Houston to Las Vegas. He was tired, jetlagged, and out-of-sorts despite the nearly eight hours of sleep he’d gotten since arrival. And, to top it all off, he was now getting some less than welcome news about his financial situation.
“Will you be able to come to Los Angeles for at least a day after your performances?” asked Wesley Brimm, his tax lawyer, shortly after Matt got him on the phone.
“I guess,” Matt said. “What for?”
“I have dozens of documents that need your signature,” Wesley told him. “And there are some aspects of the case that we should really go over in person, instead of on the phone.”
“What kind of aspects?” Matt asked.
“As I said,” Wesley told him, “most are things too complex to go into on the phone, thus the reason I am requesting a personal meeting. But, in any case, I now have preliminary numbers from both the IRS and California Franchise Tax Board as to what you will owe in back taxes, interest, and penalties.”
Matt took a deep breath. “I see,” he said.
“Would you like to hear them?” Wesley asked.
“Yeah, but ... uh ... give me a minute here. I’m going to put the phone down.”