"What do we know about this band?" Jake asked. "Where'd they come from? How'd they get here? Are they really Venezuelans or is Aristocrat making all that shit up?"
"No," said Crow, "La Diferencia is really from Venezuela from what I understand. They come from some small town in the middle of nowhere and got noticed by the Venezuelan music industry. They put out an album of traditional Latin tunes early last year and it sold well enough in Venezuela that some record exec from Aristocrat decided to meet with them. They did up some tunes in English with more Americanized musical backing and the rest is pretty much history. They're a hit."
"They're a flash in the pan," Matt opined. "Just like most of the rest of the crap you record people put out."
Crow didn't even bother denying this. Flashes in the pan, after all, translated to lots of money for the music industry, so they were not really considered a bad thing.
"What about the band itself?" Jake asked. "How many people are in it? Who plays what?"
"Why are you so interested in these suck-ass pop assholes?" Matt asked.
Jake shrugged. "Know thy enemy," he said.
"Well," said Crow, "it should be quite obvious that the talent of the band is Celia Valdez. Without her, the rest of them would still be herding cattle or processing cocaine or whatever it is they do in that place. She sings and plays acoustic guitar. Her brother — I don't know his name — is the lead guitarist."
"Lead guitar my ass," Matt said. "He can't even play a simple three chord riff. It's a bunch of repetitive two-chord shit that just backs up the piano and the synthesizers. He doesn't do any solos, intros, or even mixes. The acoustic is the real lead in those tunes and the electric is the backing."
"He's her brother?" Jake asked.
"Oh yes," said Crow. "And the piano player is her sister. It's kind of a family band, you see."
"They keep that sister on the piano in the background in the videos," Matt said. "Her face ain't bad — though not as good as the lead singer bitch — but they never show her body at all. I bet she's a fuckin' whale."
"And she's certainly no great talent on the piano either," put in Bill. "She sounds like a first year student reading from a piano book."
"It's just like the lead guitar," Matt agreed. "Simple, repetitive melodies over and over."
"Are the rest of the band members relatives?" asked Jake.
"The guy playing the drums is a second cousin from what I understand," Crow said. "The bass player is a family friend and the gossip columns have been hinting that he and Celia are romantically involved."
"You gotta respect him if he's tappin' into that shit," said Matt.
"Hell yeah," said Coop. "I'd buy him a drink for that."
"The synthesizer player is the only one who was not an original member of the group. They got him from some band in Caracas when Aristocrat signed them. They originally had two acoustic guitar players and a bongo player to go with the drummer. They kicked them out and replaced them with the synthesizer guy in order to convert to American style tunes."
"So their material was fed to them by Aristocrat?" Jake asked.
Crow didn't like that particular terminology very much but he nodded. "Most of it," he agreed. "I think they have two of their own songs on the album and the rest are composed by American songwriters who work for Aristocrat."
"Including the two hits they've had so far?"
"Exactly," said Crow, smiling. "Do you see now why we encourage you to utilize our songwriters for some of your material? Look what they're doing for La Diferencia."
"Let's not even start down this fucking road again," Matt said. "If Jake is done gathering his intelligence on the beaner band, maybe we can talk about the reason you dragged us out of a fairly productive rehearsal session?"
"I'm done," said Jake.
"Okay then," said Crow. "Let's get to the meat of the matter. How are we coming along with new compositions? Do you have at least ten songs composed yet?"
"Hardly," Matt said. "As of this afternoon, we have three tunes we're pretty happy with, although we're still tweaking them a little here and there, and three more we're in the beginning stages of."
Crow's face turned to instant unhappiness. "Just three?" he asked. "And only three more you're working with?"
"I believe I spoke plain English there, didn't I?" Matt returned.
Crow shook his head. "Gentlemen," he said. "I'm afraid that's not acceptable. You need to work faster. Your deadline is only three weeks away."
"We're doing the best we can, Steve," Jake said. "We told you back when we started this thing that you were pushing us a little too fast."
"But you also agreed you'd meet the deadline," he said. "At this rate you'll have, what? Maybe six songs complete? That's simply not good enough."
"We can only work so fast," said Matt. "We're not machines."
"I've already reserved studio time for you," Crow said. "You're scheduled to enter the studio for full-time recording duties on January 3. And even with that late date and working six ten-hour days a week it will be a chore to be able to finish the album by mid-April."
"We could be jamming right now," said Matt, "but instead, we're in here listening to you tell us we're not doing it fast enough."
"I hardly think three hours off from your schedule is the cause of this delay," Crow said. "You have to work longer and faster. You simply have to. I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist you work through the Thanksgiving holiday period. I know you all have plans, but the show must go on. We need those tunes by mid-December so we can start working on an order of recording and an album theme."
"Fuck that," said Matt. "We've been going eight hours a day without a break for the last three weeks. And that doesn't include the time Jake and I spend at night coming up with the new tunes in the first place. I haven't even scored any puss in a week and Jake here hasn't been laid in God knows how long."
"Three and a half weeks," Jake said sourly. "I've had to resort to porno mags."
"Me too," said Bill. "Did you see this month's Hustler? That punk-rock model on the cover is a premium self-stimulation visual."
"Oh fuck yeah," said Coop. "I got that one. She's hot."
"Did you see that other bitch in there?" asked Darren. "The one who can tie her pussy lips in a knot?"
"That's some seriously over-used pussy if she can do that," said Matt.
"Gentlemen!" Crow yelled, exasperated. "Could we keep on topic here?"
"Forgive us," said Matt. "But I'm sure you can see by our conversation that we're all seriously in need of a break. We need one and we're going to take one."
"I forbid it," Crow said.
"Yeah?" said Jake. "And I forbid the proliferation of nuclear warheads, but guess what? They still keep proliferating anyway. Sorry, Steve. Bill and I have our plane tickets already paid for — out of our allowance I might add — and we're going. Our families are getting together for the holiday at my parent's house, and we're going to be there."
"And I've got myself booked on a private two-day deep sea fishing charter out of Marina Del Ray," Matt said. "I've also got a premium piece of puss scheduled to go with me. So you can suck my hairy ass if you think I'm gonna hang out in a warehouse."
"Yeah," said Darren, emboldened by his peers' defiance. "Coop and I got shit to do too."
Crow looked up at the ceiling for a moment and took a few breaths. Finally he looked down at his musicians. "All right," he said. "I guess I can't stop you from taking your little vacation. But we still need those tunes. The three you have ready. Are they decent tunes?"
"They're more than decent," Jake said. "They're bad ass."
"That's the only fuckin' thing we put out," Matt said.
"Good enough," Crow said. "How about you focus on perfecting those tunes prior to leaving on your holiday. When you get back, work out the other three as quick as you can. They don't have to be perfect, they just have to be palatable."