“Blake Records? Ain’t that the place owned by that country singer dude?”
“Right,” Jake said. “OB2. We call him Obie. He’s charging us a pretty penny for the studio time, and he gets to kidnap Nerdly and Sharon for a while, but he’s going to let us record there. It’s a completely digital studio.”
“That’s fuckin’ awesome, Jake,” Coop told him. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Jake said. “I’m looking forward to putting something out there. So is Celia.”
“That explains why we couldn’t get Nerdly to help us with the final mix on our album.”
“Yep,” Jake said. “He was working with us.”
“I guess I’ll forgive him for that shit,” Coop said. “But tell me something.”
“What’s that?”
“Did you ever even get a feel of Celia Valdez’s titties?”
Jake shook his head sadly. “Not even a feel,” he said.
Coop dropped Jake back at Pauline’s house a little after three in the afternoon. He was most definitely not within the legal parameters of sobriety for operating a motor vehicle, but he proclaimed himself to be fine.
“It was good catching up with you, Coop,” Jake told him as they shared one last bro-hug in the circular driveway.
“Fuckin’ A, Jake,” Coop told him, seemingly near tears. “It was almost like old times, wasn’t it?”
“Almost,” Jake said.
“Well, I’m gonna hit the fuckin’ road. Go home, take a little nap, then go find me some big fake tittied bitch to bone.”
“Sounds like a good plan,” Jake allowed.
Coop climbed back in his car. Just before he drove off, Jake leaned in the driver’s window a little. “Remember,” he said, “that shit about me and Celia and our solo albums ... mum is the word.”
“No problemo,” Coop said, making the my lips are sealed gesture, followed by the throwing away the key gesture.
They promised each other they would get together again soon and then Coop drove off. When his car disappeared from sight, Jake turned and headed, not for his own car, but Pauline’s front door. It opened just as he mounted the steps and Pauline was there, looking at him.
“Well?” she asked.
He gave her a thumbs up. “The rumor that Celia and I are working on a solo album and have rented studio time from Obie should start circulating from Aristocrat Records and spread far and wide from here. I give it a week, maybe less.”
Pauline smiled. “Excellent,” she said. “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
“I’m sure,” Jake assured her. “Slow release of information without any means to verify it or, more importantly, listen to the efforts we’re producing, will generate interest far ahead of the release. You just get your ‘no comments’ ready when they start asking.”
“Armed and ready,” she said.
Jake took a deep breath. “It was good catching up with Coop like that, even if it was to use him as a rumor conduit.”
“He’s a good guy at heart,” Pauline allowed.
“He is,” Jake agreed. “Now then, do you mind if I crash out in your spare bedroom for a bit? I think I need a nap.”
Chapter 3: The Supporting Cast
Posted: 04.11.2022, 14:19:08
Santa Clarita, California
July 15, 1991
The headquarters (and the only physical building) of KVA Records was located in a nondescript single-story office building in the midst of hundreds in a newly developed Santa Clarita business park. The buildings were all black and gray with large tinted windows and spacious parking lots. They had all been constructed in the last two years with the intention that family doctors and dentists, personal injury lawyers, chiropractors, low-end accountants, and minor league architecture firms would be the target tenants.
Unfortunately for the real estate developers who had planned and built the complexes, the economy had taken a sharp downturn shortly after the wildly successful conclusion of the Persian Gulf War. Fully ninety-five percent of the more than one million square feet of office space in the complex stood unoccupied and with no prospects in sight. KVA Records, the lessees of three thousand square feet of rear building space at 2501 Prospect Park Lane, did not mind this at all. They had been able to sign a two-year lease on their offices for the absurdly low price of twelve dollars per square foot per year. The owners were so desperate for tenants that they had even thrown in the required sound-proofing of the studio portion of the office for ten percent less than cost.
It was ten minutes to nine o’clock in the morning when Jake pulled his BMW into a parking spot in front of the office. Already parked in their accustomed spots were a silver 1991 Mercedes S-class, and a lovingly cared for gray 1985 Honda Civic. That meant that Celia and the Nerdlys were already present and accounted for. This was typical. There was not a battered 1982 Toyota pickup or a 1988 Honda Accord currently parked in the lot, however. That meant that Ted Duncan and Ben Ping, their hired drummer and bass player, respectively, were not here yet. This too was typical. Ben always showed up exactly at nine o’clock, which was starting time. Ted tended to come rolling in at least five minutes late, sometimes as much as twenty.
Sitting next to Jake, in the passenger seat, was his mother. She was dressed in a pair of tan slacks and a white button-up blouse. Her hair was loosely tied back in a ponytail. She sipped from an insulated mug of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee that Elsa had prepared for her to take on the road. Today would be her fifth session in the studio and she was still enjoying the novelty of working with her son and his friends and learning the ins and outs of how their music was put together.
The two of them stepped out of the car and walked to the main office door. It was made of reinforced glass and was secured by an electronic lock. KVA STUDIOS LLC was printed in simple white text at eye level. He punched in the code—it was 40191, the date they had moved into the building—and the lock disengaged. He opened the door for his mother and they entered an empty reception area. There was no furniture here, no water cooler, no telephone. There was no need for a receptionist at KVA currently and no money to spare to hire one even if such a position was needed.
At the back of the reception area was another door that had no words printed on it at all. They walked through this door and into a hallway. Opposite the reception area door was a restroom that contained a simple shower area. Left from the reception area door, the hallway led to a conference room in which a simple wooden table and eight simple chairs had been placed. Here, a phone sat upon the table and, in the corner, was an IBM computer that, at the insistence of Nerdly, was hooked into a separate phone line and connected to something called CompuServe, the purpose and usefulness of which only Nerdly himself understood. Jake ignored the empty conference room and turned right instead. Here, the hallway ended in a heavy soundproof door. Beyond this door was the actual studio part of KVA Records. This door was of steel construction and was equipped with two deadbolt locks, a security bar, and was wired to a remotely monitored security system. No one gave a shit if a burglar made it into the front part of the building, but the heart and soul—not to mention a good portion of invested money from the partners—was behind the studio door.
Jake disengaged the locks with a key and they went inside. The studio was fifty feet by twenty, windowless, and featured cheap industrial gray tile flooring. The walls were bare of pictures or other decorations. The studio chairs were identical to the conference room chairs, which was to say that they were cheap office supply chairs designed for maybe two years of useful service. The recording equipment in the room was not commercial quality. It consisted of an analog sound board hooked to three amplifiers and a bank of cassette player/recorders. There was a platform just in front of the soundboard, made of treated plywood. It held Ted’s ten-piece drum set. Sitting to the left of the drum platform was Nerdly’s pride and joy: the Korg M1 digital synthesizer. To the right of it was a Yamaha electronic stage piano on a stand. Scattered haphazardly to the sides of the platform were a variety of guitar cases, extra microphone stands, extra amplifiers, and extra chairs. In racks installed on the walls were the guitars. There were seven of them. Ben’s Brogan bass hung in the center. To the left of it were Jake’s guitars: a black Les Paul that was his primary weapon, a Marshall acoustic-electric, and a Brogan Les Paul knock-off that was drop-D tuned for some of the heavier of Jake’s songs. To the right of the bass were Celia’s guitars: A Fender Grand Concert acoustic, a Brogan acoustic-electric, and a drop-D tuned Fender Stratocaster that she did not play on any of her tunes, but that she used to back-up Jake on a few of his.