She-Rox: A Rock & Roll Novel (4 page)

Getting into Raven’s Honda Element, she asked, “How’d it go with Daphne?”

“I’m not sure,” Eddie said. “Was she a parole officer in her previous life?”

“Astral Agency keeps her hangin’ around so she can see who we’re screwin’, if we’re boozin’, chowin’ down or gettin’ high. I don’t know about you, but I left my mother back in Mount Revelstoke.”

“
Where?
”

“It’s in Canada, about four hours west of Calgary,” Raven explained, watching the afternoon traffic.

“Is that where you’re from, Canada? What brought you to Los Angeles?”

“The sun for starters” she stated. “I had to get the hell out of the cold. I used to play in a band with my brother and his friends. We’d get booked all winter long at the ski resorts and I hated it.”

“Why?”

“Are you kidding? I was hauling my bass amp through blizzards in six feet of snow to play in some nasty bar. Sometimes the storms would get so bad that by the time we would get up on stage to play it was “ashtray night.”

“Ashtray night?”

“That’s when there is more ashtrays than people. The heavy snowfall would keep the skiers from drinking at the clubs, and Eddie, that’s a
lot
of snow. I would go into the bathroom to change from a puffer coat, flannel shirt, and heavy hiking boots into spiked heels, a skirt and
freeze my sweet ass off.”

“Why didn’t you just wear warmer clothes?”

“Because the bar owner booked us by our band photo. They’d say ‘You can play here, but cha’ gotta bring her and she better look like that.’ Of course, I’d done my best Tina Turner impression at the shoot. I’d be setting up my bass amp all bundled up, and there’d be some wrinkly-faced bar owner, circling the stage, asking, ‘
Where’s the dress? I paid for a dress
.’ Those clubs were full of nothing but unemployed hot-doggers still in their ski clothes.”

“Raven L’Amour?” Eddie asked.

“When I auditioned for the Katz, one of their conditions was that I couldn’t go by my real name.”

“It goes well with the whole Kat thing,” Eddie nodded, remembering she had been asked one too many times about her stage name. “You were somebody’s mystical love child.”

“It’s a far cry from Enola Killough, I’ll give you that.”

“Enola Killough?”

“My real name -- My mother’s from the Kitasoo Tribe in British Columbia. Enola means solitary, because I’m the only girl. I have four brothers, and my dad’s Irish. He’s tall and skinny with red hair—freckles all over. Put the two together and this is what you get.”

“Whatever it is, you’re a knockout.”

Raven/Enola had silky long, almost black hair that was parted in the middle and went down to her elbows. Her skin was a smooth olive tone and dark almond-shaped eyes—an exotic Canadian that spoke like a Valley Girl.

“You have to look hot if you want to be in this band,” Raven shot. “I know this is your first day with us, and rumor has it that you’re some kind of musical Svengali, but go easy on Gretchen. She’s feeling pretty whipped right now.”

Monday Morning

Eddie toyed with one of the Katz’s songs called “1-900,” while sitting in Melodic Improvisation, her pencil reworking the parts.

At the front of class, Mr. Frank Janow, her teacher, wrote Bmi7(b5), E7(b9), Ami7 on the board. When finished, he turned to say, “All right, I got a call from an agency this morning. They need a few tracks recorded. Granted it’s a small job, but whoever is first to give me some brilliant ideas on what to play through these chord changes I wrote up here, gets the gig.” The room fell silent. Mr. Janow pushed, “Did I happen to mention this is a paying gig?”

The magic words, “paying gig,” got one brave student to suggest, “What about B Mixolydian?”

Frank challenged, “B Mixolydian—over a minor seven—I don’t think so.”

“Anyone else?” he pressed.

Eddie looked up at the board. Contemplating the chords, she said, “Well, it’s a two-five-one in minor, and if you didn’t know the melody you
could
just play B Locrian.”

“Yes, you could . . . anything else?” Frank asked.

“Then go to E Phrygian with a major third to resolve to A harmonic minor . . . even a simple blues scale would work.”

“See me after class.”

Tuesday Night

Eddie stopped at the security booth of Sunset Recording Studios. The guard asked for her name. After looking down his roster, he gave instructions that she was booked into Building 2, Studio B. She parked her van and spied four men walking out of the studio for a smoke break. Eddie sat in her seat, stalling, watching them smoke and laugh.

She found her nerve and walked into the studio. A man, seated in a chair, was looking at wave files running across his computer monitor. Eddie gaped at the studio’s huge mixing console. It must have had three thousand buttons, dials and knobs which spanned almost the entire room.

The man asked, “Who you looking for?”

“Taz,” Eddie answered.

“You’re Eddie?”

“Yep.”

“Allied Artists sent you?”

“Well, Frank Janow got me the gig, really.”

“Frankie?” His eyebrows shot up, checking her out. “Alright,” he said.

“Where do you want me to set up?”

“Anywhere in the there,” he said, pointing to the main recording room.

Eddie left to haul in her keyboards. When she was set up, she said, “I’m ready.”

Taz dropped his current issue of “MIX” magazine, got her keys hooked up to the huge console, and turned back to the computer. After handing her a set of headphones and pushing a button on his panel he asked, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We have to get a sound check in here, so show me what cha’ got, hot stuff.”

She blew out a few chops putting to rest any misgivings Taz may have had about her ability.

“Okay, I got it, I got it,” he said. “I don’t know
where
Frankie gets you guys, but this oughtta be a cake walk for you. It’s pretty straight forward. All they want is some strings and maybe some other instrumentation done underneath the main tracks, fill it out. So, here it is.” Taz hit “play” and Eddie heard a very short jingle that didn’t last more than 15 seconds.

When booking a flight

Is a must

We do it better

Call us!

Universal Skyway

We rise above the rest!

Eddie looked at Taz and asked, “That’s
it
?”

“That’s it.”

Knowing she had worried herself sick over nothing, Eddie hit some buttons and worked.

It was over before she knew it and the drudgery of tearing her equipment back down began again. As she rolled up the cables, one of the guys from the parking lot walked in. Taz listened to an overwrought roadie in dire need of a guitar string.

“Sorry, man,” Taz said, “I don’t play. I’m just the lowly sound man who pushes all the buttons.”

The guitar tech asked, “What about him?”

“That’s no ‘him,’ corrected Taz, “that’s a ‘her.’”

“Oh, hmm, well, do you think she has one?” asked the moaning guitar tech.

“I’ll ask, but she’s dismantling keyboards. I don’t see any guitar around.” Taz pushed the button, asking, “Hey, Eddie, we got ourselves a real emergency. Bruno here, if he doesn’t produce an “E” string pretty quick, he’ll lose himself a spot on a European tour. Do you happen to have one in all that keyboard equipment of yours?”

Eddie stopped wrapping cords and looked at the forlorn Bruno. “Too bad your luck isn’t as cool as that t-shirt you’re wearing.”

Bruno glanced down at his 1977 Pink Floyd European Tour concert t-shirt. His gesture of hand on hips suggested the situation was dire.

“An “E” string . . . you mean like a nine gauge?” she teased.

Both yelled, “
Yes
.”

“What if I do? Can I trade the shirt off your back for the string?”

“Sugar, if you can get me an Ernie Ball Super Slinky nine gauge or anything remotely close, you can have whatever you want – just name it.”

“Well, Bruno, I don’t have
an
Ernie Ball Super Slinky . . . I’ve got
two
. But, seriously, I’m going to have to ask you for that Floyd t-shirt, or the deal is off.”

“Deal!”

“Hang on – the strings are in my van. I’ll be back in a sec.”

Taz gave Bruno a look that said, “Who knew?”

Eddie went to retrieve the strings and came back to the sound of additional male voices. The rest of the guys from the parking lot were in the control room, lounging on the couch that ran along the back wall.

She held up the strings in their hot pink wrapper and told Bruno, “The shirt first.”

“Now?” he asked, incredulously.

“Don’t you want them?”

“No, actually, I don’t. They’re not for me, they’re for him,” he replied, pointing to one of the occupants on the couch.

“I’m afraid that’s true,” said the stranger on the couch.

Only to Eddie, he wasn’t a stranger at all. The requester of the string was none other than Slade McAllister, England’s rocker bad boy, who had come over from the Mother Country to get himself a piece of the ‘American Music Machine,’ making him more popular than a New York socialite during the high season.

Getting off the couch, all 6’2” of him, with long dark blonde dread locks and sharp blue eyes, he looked at Eddie over Bruno’s shoulder, “But, seriously,” Slade clipped in his British accent, “you couldn’t possibly want some funky, stanky, beer stained t-shirt from Bruno, here. We can do a lot better than that, especially since you’re helping me out of a jam.”

“Nah, the shirt’s enough,” she said.

“Wouldn’t you rather have one of our concert t-shirts?” Slade asked, dressed in slouchy black leather pants, a white tank top that exposed his shoulders, a dragon tattoo, and the heavy silver jewelry he was famous for. “It’ll be brand new, never worn.”

“But, I like
that
one,” she answered in a small voice.

Taz broke the tension. “Sounds like the lady knows what she wants.”

“Indeed,” Slade responded.

Eddie clarified, “Well, the way I see it, if I were to put the Pink Floyd for sale up on e-bay, I could get a good hundred and fifty bucks for it. Yours, on the other hand, are all over the place, so, really it’s just a question of good economics.”