Tammany (cont:)
"You're telling me hat." Cale shook his head, obviously frustrated. We left through the main doors, along with approximately half the people who'd been at the concert, which meant that for about two minutes we were too busy being part of a huge shove of people to talk. I nearly got pushed over, was stepped on, and had to use my elbows they way they were meant to be used.
When we finally got out into the street and away from the oozing blob of humanity, Cale seemed calmer. "I'm not going to give in, though," he said. "I'm going to go in there and make awesome music in spite of her."
"You know, if you're really as conflicted as you seem," I said, "Then you could probably channel that."
"Yeah, but that would be making music because of her," he said. "That's the last thing I want to do."
"It would probably be a better stress reliever than what you're currently doing," I said, dodging the ubiquitous drunk puking on the sidewalk.
"Maybe," Cale said. He sighed. "Let's just... not talk about it anymore. Alright?"
"Fine," I said.
"That includes you bringing it up later to try and analyze for me," he said, giving me a suspicious look as we walked beneath a flickering old bar sign.
"Duly noted," I said. "I'm bad at this sort of thing. Why would I do that?"
Cale said, "I don't know, but you do it a lot."
"I'll try and work on that, maybe."
"Good idea."
Andrew:
Halfway through the concert that Tammy had completely surprised me with, during the set break, I spotted Morgan milling through the crowd. I had to go talk to her, tell her that Rhiannon was the woman I wanted for vocals and guitar. Even though I was doing this by myself, Morgan was still the first person I'd ever really shown the songs to, other than someone whom I was actively playing with, and I wanted her opinion.
"Be right back," I told Tammy. "I want to talk to someone (fix), then I headed off to fight through towards Morgan. She saw me almost immediately, and we managed to get to each other relatively quickly, despite the sea of people through which we had to fight. "So," I said. "How do you like the concert?"
"Pretty well," she said. "Rhiannon is one of my favorite local singers - it's a shame that we can't convince her to sign, she'd be a real asset."
"She's the one that I want for my album," I said. "Her voice and the guitar would be perfect."
Morgan tilted her head to one side and frowned lightly. "Yes, I can see that," she said, after a moment. "She'd fit well. Now all you have to do is the impossible and convince her to join."
"I can do that," I said, confidently. "Tammy worked a miracle and convinced her to see me again."
"Wait, again?" Morgan asked, incredulously. "You managed to see her a first time?"
"Yeah," I said. "The night that Nathan... got sick. She's the one I saw that night, and Nathan sort of stomped off after, no offense, making a bit of an ass of himself to her."
"Cale spoke to her?" Morgan seemed a little shocked. "He survived?"
I laughed. "Yeah, but only barely. I sort of wanted to strangle him after that. She was about to hear me out and then he tried to pull some upper-class suave shit on her, and she was having none of it."
Morgan just shook her head. "That entire thing was a bad idea. Just... awful."
"Hey, you didn't know it was going to end like that," I said, comfortingly. "How could you know Nathan would act like an ass?"
"Because I deal with him daily, and he always acts like an ass," she said. "The whole apprenticeship thing was supposed to remedy that."
I winced. "Yeah, then not the best idea. Sending an ass to deal with people just spreads crap around. It doesn't make them less crappy."
"That's a lovely analogy," Morgan said, "Very high class."
"Thank you," I said, modestly. Then, "Oh, since you're here, you should come meet the other two guys I've signed. We've been practicing some stuff, recording it at home, getting ready for actual sessions. And you should tell them some of your ideas for marketing that you were emailing me about - those are stellar."
"Are they here?" Morgan asked as I pulled her back towards my group.
"Yep. Cale and Thomas. I think you'll like them."
"Wait. Cale?" Morgan stopped in her tracks, which would have worked better if I weren't still exerting a constant forward force strong enough to drag her behind me. "Look, I know Cale, we don't get along very well."
"Then you don't have to talk to him much. Just say hi and show him that you're not that bad."
"No, you don't understand," she said, trying to pull her hand away. "We had a huge argu-"
I never heard the rest of the sentence, because I spotted him and said, "Morgan's got some amazing ideas for the marketing end of the band. I wanted her to tell you them herself, Cale."
"Oh, look," Tammy said, excitedly. "Rhiannon's about to come back on. Cale, we should go find Thomas and finish this no doubt stimulating discussion later!" That was a bit of a sarcastic turn of phrase, but I knew that Tammy wasn't exactly the most enthused business person. She was good enough that her sandwich shop did well, but she wasn't enthused enough to have conversations about it.
However, Cale said, smiling, "No,I'm good here. I'll listen."
Tammy headed off, away from the - in her opinion boring - discussion. Unfortunately, it never really started, because that's when Rhiannon came back on stage. She was just as good during the second set. When Tammy did finally return, during the encore that the crowd had demanded, I could tell that she thought it was just as good as I did. When the mmusic finally did end, I kissed her, and said, "I'm going back to talk with Rhiannon." Then I parted ways with them and headed back into the morass that was the backstage area.
During the middle of the show - when everything's on stage, the performers are out there, the sound and tech guys in the booth, and not a lot to be done backstage - that hall is still and silent, except for the sound of the concert echoing through the failing soundproofing on the doors. After the show, it's a completely different matter. After I got past the security on the door, I found myself in a seething mass of humanity, much of which was caring either extremely expensive equipment, extremely large equipment, or sometimes both. I had to duck and weave and apologize my way through until I got back to the dressing room door. There, I took a deep breath, ducked under the bit of staging that was being carried by, and knocked.
"Is it that dude from Farthing Records?" Rhiannon called from within. "Otherwise you can go die in a hole."
"I'm Andrew Farthing, so yeah," I said, eloquently. "Tammy came by earlier and talked to you."
SIlence from within for a moment, and I started getting paranoid that I was going to be left sitting out here in the middle of the chaos, looking stupid and getting in the way. But then the door handle clicked and the door swung open. "You might as well come in," Rhiannon said. "The sound guys get pissy if I leave excess materials sitting in the hallway."
With that less than stellar comparison hanging over my head, I went in. It was a typical dressing room, with plenty of lights, but only the ones on the mirrors turned on. A curling iron sat in the corner, still plugged in, and I could smell the dry powder scent of makeup mixing with the aroma of lightly singed hair and sweat. Rhiannon and the band's street clothes were still there, and I could tell individuals' piles from the exact messiness of that particular area. Rhiannon's were neatly folded and placed next to her mirror, which also had a tidy box of makeup and a book beside it.
I took all this in while she disappeared into the inner sanctum sanctorum of the dressing room, the women's bathroom. I was left sitting there a little awkwardly on a crappy metal folding chair while her bandmates appeared and disappeared into the men's room, taking clothes, makeup remover, and whatnot as needed. I gave the drummer, who made eye contact with me, an awkward smile.
He came over and said, "Look, mate. We all know that eventually Rhi is going to find some gig that she actually likes, and we're going to be SOL. Right?"
"Uh, sure," I said. There wasn't really a correct answer to that question, as far as I could tell.
"Of course sure," he said. "But it's going to have to be one hell of a gig. Now I like Rhi, she's like a sister to me. And I'd love for you to be the guy who finally signs her. Just remember, though, she's got taste, and she'd got enough friends that there ain't a contract that could hold her if she didn't like it. Got it?"
"Got it," I said, faintly. The drummer was wearing a muscle shirt, and there were several highly intimidating tattoos swirling up and down his shoulders and arms.
"Good," he said. "Have a nice night." And he walked out.
Rhiannon came back before any other of her bandmates took it upon themselves to educate me about her. Thank god. "So, what are the terms for your deal with the devil?" she asked. "My soul? My name? What?"
"Nothing much," I said. I quick outlined the basic terms for her. To summarize, they included: a decent percentage of the royalties from all songs - more if she co-wrote or wrote some; artistic involvement in all songs and the ability to veto a song if she felt it wasn't good enough or something; only a two-album lock, although of course we hoped she'd stay with us for longer; and finally, a relatively small requirement for tours. (fix)
She was looking at me warily by the end. "I don't believe you," she said, bluntly. "There's no way that Cobalt would let you keep those as your terms. They eat their people a-freaking-live, then turn the bones into limited release memorabilia."
"I have friends in high places who like what I do," I said. "They let me get away with a lot that the rest of Cobalt doesn't."
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