"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."