Matt checked into his suite and looked at the neatly made King-sized bed longingly. He had been up partying until well-past 3:00 AM and then had only bagged a few hours of broken sleep on the bus trip from Santa Fe. He could use a solid crash-out about now. Alas, there was a show tonight so it was not to be. He removed his clothes, put them in a collapsible hamper that was part of his luggage, and then fired up the shower.
Once he was clean and dressed in fresh clothes, two lines of cocaine took care of that fatigue quite nicely. He would have two more just before the record store signings and that would have to do him until after the show tonight. Though he had adjusted his own personal moratorium hours prior to performance—it was currently shakily holding at six hours—he still considered the four-hour mark to be a sacred, unbreakable line in the sand.
It just seemed like he couldn’t get through the day any more without a little pick-me-up to keep him going.
It was probably because he was getting older. That shit kind of sucked, they said.
Though he was tired and out of sorts, Matt was, nonetheless, in a pretty good mood. Hard Time, his new album, was selling very well thanks to the saturation airplay it was receiving on the hard rock stations across the country. Matt’s road song, Time to Go, was currently the most requested tune on the hards nationwide. The title cut of the album, which the promo team had just released for airplay two weeks before, was the third most requested. Now that two songs were being heard and being enjoyed, sales of the album were bumping up quite nicely—Hard Time had just passed Platinum status and was still picking up momentum—as were sales of concert tickets in each city. Matt had sold out his last fifteen dates, had sold out all three of the Denver shows, and was close to selling out both of the Salt Lake City shows after Denver. And, just to add to the fun and nostalgia, the SLC city council was trying to get his concert permit revoked on the grounds that Matt Tisdale did not conform to the community standards of decency in their fair city. The effort had no hope of succeeding—this issue had already been fought and lost several times back in the Intemperance days and a solid precedent had been set—but the publicity it was generating was doing nothing but selling more tickets and albums.
Tower of Power Records, as it had been in the Intemp days, was a major sponsor of Matt’s tour. Nearly every city they visited featured a T of P visit for autograph sessions. The crowds at such events were always large and enthusiastic on this tour. The crowd at the Denver store was no exception. Perhaps a thousand people were there, maybe even more. They stood in a loose, unruly line that stretched from the front door of the establishment all the way around the block. A quartet of Denver police officers and twice that many unarmed private security officers were on hand to keep things under control. Or so they hoped.
The bus parked behind the business. Matt and Greg Gahn got out. The rest of the band stayed on the bus.
“They ain’t here to see your asses,” Matt had told his crew at the very first autograph session back when the tour began. “They ain’t here to get your fuckin’ autographs. They’re here to see me and get my fuckin’ autograph. Now give the people what they want and stay your asses on the bus.”
By this point, the band was well-adapted to the routine and used the time to catch up on some sleep—after all, they’d been partying almost as hard as Matt the night before.
Matt and Greg entered the Tower of Power through the rear door and were led through the business. Cheers erupted as those customers already inside saw the guitarist in their midst. Matt smiled and waved at them, pausing to shake a hand here and there, before he got to his signing table just inside the front door. Here, was a simple folding chair for him to sit in and a poster board tacked to the front of the table showing the cover of Hard Time, at the bottom of which was the times Matt would be available to sign CD inserts: 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM. Next to the table was a display featuring hundreds of copies of the CD, for those who had not already purchased one. The manager of the store had a table of his own set up and a portable cash register available to him so he could facilitate such purchases. One of the Denver PD guys and one of the unarmed rent-a-cops stood at post just behind the table.
Matt greeted everyone at the table, even the cop, and then grabbed a seat. Greg took up position just behind the manager’s position, keeping his trademark phony grin on his face.
“All right,” Matt said, picking up a pen. “Let’s get this fuckin’ show on the road.”
They got the fuckin’ show on the road. One by one, customers approached the table and got to spend about twenty to thirty seconds each in the presence of Matt Tisdale. Overwhelmingly, most were males. When there was a female present, she was generally on the arm of a male. Most were between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, the primary demographic that bought Matt Tisdale albums and attended his concerts. Most were dressed in jeans and rock group shirts—Intemperance shirts being the most prevalent. Almost all had copies of Hard Time in hand when they approached, the inserts pulled out of the case and ready to be signed. The word had been passed well in advance of this signing, as it was for all signings, that Matt Tisdale would not sign any Intemperance albums, CDs, shirts, hats, or anything else associated with his former band. This information had been announced for days on every hard rock station that was helping promote the session. Still, not everyone had gotten the word. Those few that showed up with Intemp material in hand were told at the front door that they would need to stow it out of Matt’s sight and buy a copy of Hard Time if they wanted an autograph.
Matt shook hands, greeted fans, answered inane questions, and signed CD inserts one after the other, maintaining a cool politeness for the most part, but also managing to stay in character.
“You fuckin’ rock, dude,” one twentyish longhaired male told him as he shook Matt’s hand enthusiastically. “You’re like the best fuckin’ guitar player on the planet and shit.”
“Fuck yeah, I am,” Matt told him. “Who the fuck says I’m not?”
This generated a cheer from those in line behind the longhair. Matt then scratched his signature on the insert and thanked the longhair for showing up.
Everything was pretty routine until about forty minutes into the session, when a young man of perhaps twenty-one came up to the table and set down the insert for Next Phase.
“How you doing, dude?” Matt asked him, holding out his hand to shake.
“I’m all right, Matt,” the guy said, shaking with him. “I was hoping I’d get to talk to you before you finished up.”
“And here you are,” Matt said, scratching out his signature just below the picture on the insert. “Not too many people bringing in Next Phase for me to sign. Did you like the album?”
“I fuckin’ loved it, dude,” the man assured him. “I’ve listened to it a thousand times at least. I know every note, every riff, every solo by heart. It’s some of the best guitar ever put down.”
“Thanks,” Matt said, genuinely pleased with the praise. It was always nice to know that someone got what you were trying to do. “I put my heart and soul into that album. A lot of people just didn’t appreciate it, you know?”
“Idiots,” the guy said, picking up his insert. “They don’t appreciate real talent, real energy.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Matt told him. “That’s what I was saying the whole time. What do you think of the new album?”
“Well ... to be honest with you, dude, I’ve only heard the songs they play on the radio.”