Emily Baker, Night Vision, doesn’t actually make me that much money. With a few notable exceptions, female DJs don’t do that well. Back when I had the club, I booked Lisa Loud, Connie Lush, Marina Van Rooy, Daisy, Princess Julia and Nancy Noise, but for every one of them there were scores who were still worth booking but who weren’t. Female DJs more often than not have great taste and play the cool, righteous house music I like. But they generally aren’t as obsessive-compulsive as male ones. In short, they have lives. Even those who don’t are still tough to break, as the industry is extremely sexist. If they ain’t lookers, they don’t get taken seriously, ignored by the promoters. If they are lookers, they don’t get taken seriously, cruised by the promoters.
I’m not going to mention the track or the studio though, that will set Emily off; it’s great but she lacks confidence in it and I cannae give anybody lessons in how tae live. I have more hassles with my DJs than I do with my own kid, the difference being that I try harder tae make a difference with them. When I tell people what I do for a living, the daft cunts actually see it as glamorous. Is it fuck! My name is Mark Renton and I’m a Scotsman who lives between Holland and America. Most ay ma life is spent in hotels, airports and on phones and email. I have around $24,000 in an account at Citibank in the USA, and €157,000 in the ABN AMRO in the Netherlands, and £328 in the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland. If I’m no in a hotel, my head rests on a pillow in a flat overlooking a canal in Amsterdam or a balcony-less condominium in Santa Monica, a good half-hour walk from the ocean. It’s better than being on the dole, stacking shelves in a supermarket, walking some rich cunt’s dug, or cleaning some slavering fucker’s arse, but that’s about it. It’s only in the last three years I’ve started making serious money, since Conrad has broken big.
We’ve caned it a little at the hotel and get taxied to the club. Conrad seldom does coke or E but smokes a ton of weed and eats like a beer-titted horse. He’s also narcoleptic and has fallen into his customary deep sleep in the anteroom off the green room, which is a busy space, full of DJs’ managers, journos and hangers-on. I head to the bar with Miguel to talk business, and when I go to check on my superstar DJ around forty minutes later, something isn’t quite right.
He’s still under, lying on his side, his arms folded, but… there’s something attached to his forehead.
It’s… it’s a fucking dildo!
I pull gently on it, but it seems stuck fast. Conrad’s lids dance but remain closed, as he gives out a low growl. I let go.
Fuck! Which cunt…?
Carl! He’s in the DJ booth. I head back to the green room, where Miguel is conversing with Emily, who is about to go on. — Who the fuck… In there, his heid, I point, as Miguel moves through to investigate while Emily shrugs blankly. — Carl… That cunt…
I charge out to the booth as Carl is finishing up for an unenthusiastic audience, on a quarter-full floor. Emily appears at my shoulder, ready to replace him.
— C’mere, ya cunt. I grab his wrist.
— What the fuck –
I’m pulling him out the booth, through the green room and into the anteroom, pointing at the still power-napping, dildo-heided Dutchman. — Did you do that?
Miguel is in attendance, looking at us with startled wide eyes. Carl laughs, and slaps the Catalan promoter on the back. Miguel chuckles nervously and raises his hands. — I saw nothing!
— Looks like one more complex management problem for you to resolve, bro, Carl grins. — I’m heading out onto the dance floor. There was a sultry wee honey I kept making eye contact with. She could be getting rode. So don’t wait up. He punches my airm, then shakes Conrad’s shoulder. — Wake up, ya dickheided Dutch dope!
Conrad doesn’t open his eyes. He just shifts onto his back, the cock pointing upwards. Carl departs, leaving me to sort this fucking mess out. I turn to Miguel. — How the fuck do you remove superglue?
— I do not know, he confesses.
This isn’t good. I always feel that I’m on the verge of losing Conrad. Big management agencies have been sniffing around. His head will be turned. It happened with Ivan, the Belgian DJ I broke big, and the cunt jumped ship as soon as the royalties started flowing in. I can’t afford Conrad to do the same, although I scent the inevitability.
Watching him slumber, I pull out my Apple Mac and batter through some emails. He’s still under when I check my watch; Emily is coming to the end of her set soon, so I shake him. — Buddy, time to rock.
He blinks awake. His eyes roll into his head as his peripheral vision sees something loom above them. He touches his forehead. Grabs at the dick. It hurts. — Ow… what is this?
— Some cunt… probably Ewart, fucking around, I tell him, trying to make light of it. Miguel is over. The sound engineer shouts that Conrad is due on.
— Tell Night Vision to hold the fort, I say, pulling on the dildo. It looks like it’s growing out his head.
Miguel looks on in mounting perturbation, his tones sepulchral. — He will have to go to the hospital to get it removed!
My touch isn’t that deft, as Conrad lets out a howl. — Stop! What the fuck are you doing?
— Sorry about this. After your set, bud, we go straight to casualty.
Conrad sits bolt upright, storms over to the wall mirror. — What… His fingers pull at the phallus and he yelps out in pain. — WHO DID THIS? WHERE IS EWART?
— Pussy hunt, mate, I advance timidly.
Conrad is gingerly probing and pulling at the cock with his doughy fingers. — This is not a joke! I cannot go on like this! They will laugh at me!
— You have to play, warns Miguel, — we have an arrangement. Sonar. It is in the contract.
— Conny, I beg him, — help us out here!
— I cannot! I need this off me! He tugs at it again and screams out, his face contorted in pain.
I stand behind him, my hands on his big shoulders. — Don’t, it’ll take your skin off… Please, bud, go out, I implore. — Own it. Make it your joke.
Conrad swivels round, breaking my grip, panting like a pressure cooker, looking at me in pure, earnest execration. But he’s off, led by the big cock, and he steps out behind the decks to cheers and the flashing of camera phones. Fair play to the fat lad, he rolls his head and lets the dick flop around, to feverish screams from the floor.
Emily stands back and giggles through her fingers. — It’s funny, Mark.
— It’s not fucking funny at all, I declare, but I’m laughing too. — I’ll never hear the end of this. He will make me pay with my blood, sweat and tears. I was relying on him to help me elevate you and Carl, but he’s no going to play nice now!
— Everything happens for a reason!
Like fuck it does. I have to hand it to Conrad though: he sidelines his petulance. On the chorus of his hit ‘Flying High’ with the refrain Sexy, sexy baby, he faux wanks the cock to great cheers, roaring into the mike, — I luff house muzik! It is the ultimate headfuck!
It’s a monster gig, but when it’s over Conrad’s understandably back in the strop big time. We get him to the hospital where they apply a solution to loosen and remove the dildo quite easily. He still isn’t happy, as a nurse sponges the excess glue off his forehead. — Your friend Ewart, trying to build his comeback on my reputation. There is no way! I am laughing stock! It is all over social media! He shows me Twitter on his phone. The hashtag #dickhead has been well used.
The next morning sees the familiar shaky rise for another flight, this time to Edinburgh. A favourable article I find while netsurfing lifts my spirits. It’s by an influential dance-music journalist who was at the gig. I show Conrad, who reads, his eyes bulging and a wheezy purr insinuating from deep within.