Queen of the U.S.A.
They actually were not bad. Hopefully this wasn't just an extra tight night. Some sort of friend of a friend from our London sister studio had heard that I was in London on vacation and as always, "hey, we're in this band, we're really good. Come hear us play and you'll see why you want to produce our records." This-tonight, me going to see a band that had choked me with the grapevine, was the first time I had ever done this, and only because I was comatose bored. The band was tearing down their own equipment, which was pretty shitty stuff, but they still had a great sound. A voice. These days all the bands were suicidal skirt-wearing makeup smeared queerdos that only sang about murder and zombies and Halloween. Synthesizers were back. Guitars were fallen soldiers, at least for now. I was an old school blues and metal fan, and I was grateful that I had enough clout to refuse any client that didn't use a guitar. Call me old fashioned.
I was pretty fucking stunned. I had just scored very promising talent from a bar called Borderline in London, England. The irony was not lost on me. The younger kids had left at curfew, now it was full of seventeen and up kids, pink cheeked and raucous from moshing and beer. Shaggy hair, mohawks, skinny jeans, and converse. They stuck themselves to the bar, packed in and milling like a rat colony. I was smack up against a column in the middle of the room with them swarming all around me until Edward Cullen, singer/guitarist/panty dropper, jumped down off the stage and pushed his way through.
"Well, what did you think?"
There was no artifice to his face. He was nervous. The whole band was. They were sneaking peeks at me from the stage while they worked.
"Let's go upstairs so we can talk, okay," I said. None of the kids seemed to be going anywhere even though the show was over.
"Sure. Sure. I'll buy you a drink."
He led me to the staircase and up.
"What's your fancy," he said.
"Midori Sour."
"Wank. Whiskey it is."
He was getting braver by the moment.
"Well? Do we rock?"
"Good show." I finally looked up at him. At his face. He was sweaty; more than sweaty he was gross and smelled of that pheromone tang men got when they worked out. Kind of hot. Okay, very hot. As much as I hated to admit it, he was a future rock star. This was bad. Shouldn't mix business with pleasure, especially in Rock N' Roll. Bad cocktail and bad juju. I'd slept with enough sweaty, gorgeous, beautiful, tragic, long-haired little boys to know they are trouble. Heady, heady stuff, but trouble nonetheless.
"That's what the English are good for, ledde-'evy metew," He turned up the Cockney accent, sounding like a little orphaned newsie. A super hot orphaned newsie with leather pants and nipple rings. Yikes. This was business. I should not be thinking about cock.
He brought me my shot and winked at me. Going to need a lot more whiskey. I'd already been drinking Midoris throughout the gig. Might as well add the scotch. Might be fun.
"No winking, and you're not English, are you?" I said. His accent seemed a little bastardized. I laughed and sipped my drink. I was sipping whiskey. Sipping. in the U.K. I was such a girl, and such an American. Hanging out with a guitar player slash singer in a small town band that I was going to pull strings for because of a lack of better judgment, some really handsome talent, and very likely an unreasonable amount of said alcohol. Fuck. I gave in and knocked it back. Good, good stuff. Smooth, not too sweet, went down loose, then revved up like a Charger. Tennessee was now officially off of my map and I was moving to Scotland.
"Go on wiv yerself, don't you know nofink? Fashion is for the fecking French, leave Rock n' Roll tew us," he said, staring at my throat while I knocked back the shot, "and no, you're on. I'm actually Scottish. I moved to Willenhall when I was eight for my dad's job. Then, I moved to London when I was fourteen." His eyes shuttered a bit. Something was sore there, but then the look was gone and he was smiling again. Not going to touch that.
Scottish. Rock star dough, just bake and the pussy was all done. Dammit. I just stared at him some more. Couldn't help it. I was drunk, it was fun. He was a little different. I had produced a lot of records. Seen a lot of "musicians." This one could play and keep clean fingernails. And cut the shitty dry ends off of his hair. I couldn't even do that. He looked like some sort of wild, crazy hot Native American guy, sort of. All he needed was a big fat braid and a Harley Davidson. Nope, that's stupid. No natives in the U.K. except for the fruity pagans. No, he looked like a vampire. One of those whitehot sexonlegs shiny vampires you find in bad novels. Fuck me, I've lost my mind. I wouldn't be fucking, much less dating, any slummy, skanky rock star ever again. No matter if he has immortal powers and was epic in bed. Not happening.
"See, for God and Queen, we Brits have the rights to the grass roots of decent music today. You Americans are emancipated yes, but you are still owned."
"Fuck off, we're still owned. America created Rock n' Roll by way of blues. Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Hands down."
"You people spurned blues by the time the sixties rolled around and never looked back. We picked up the pieces after the civil rights movement, took all of our hats off for the old school."
"Still what did you do? Did you kidnap them to England and force them to teach you all how to play?" Bella! Oh, no. I was drunk enough for my bunny down there to make her appearance and talk to me. I was fucking delusional when drunk. Completely forgot that right after I tasted that beautiful, hilly green, castles and knights scotch he gave me. Asshole. Bunny chimed in. I believe this is bordering on a political argument, and once it ensues and if I don't get to drop my panties on this guy by the time that they get all of their stuff packed and on the van, you are going to pay in chunks of flesh and the ever ethereal almost there oh please, please let down. Lovely. I was so fucked.
"Why are you looking at me like that," he said.
Oops. Racing thoughts, obsessing. Yep. I'm a psycho banshee. "Like wha?"
"Like you want to eat me and throat punch me at the same time?"
"Oh, as you say, the Brits have Rock N' Roll." That made absolutely no fucking sense, but it changed his focus.
"Yep. The Darkness. Motorhead. Judas Priest. AC/DC."
I nodded.
"You also have Def Leppard," I said, "and AC/DC is Australian, keep up."
There went his eyebrow. I loved the eyebrow thing. When someone could lift one eyebrow and give you that smugsnottycute look. On women it was the bitch brow. On men, meow. Fifteen points to the rock star cha ching. Had to make him do that again.
"Wank! You have Journey and Bon Jovi. And Australia is our Commonwealth, still ours."
"Party foul. Journey rocks," I said. "We have Guns N' Roses. We have Nirvana and Marilyn Manson who irrevocably changed the face of music as we know it today. Dave Grohl is the shit! It just sucks because Kurt was crap. But, we do have Seether and My Chemical Romance."
He pshawed. "Stay with me here, Bella. Guns N'Roses turned complete shite after their first album, and MCR? Wank, wank, wank! Now you're going all emo on me. You don't have a strange urge to cut yourself do you?"
"Ahem…Two points, here. One: Metallica and two: Aerosmith."
"No, no, no, wait. Two points." He set down his pint glass and counted them off with his long, blunt fingers. "One- Seether is from South Africa. Two. Iron Maiden."
"Oh, fuck you! You used AC/DC so I get to use Seether, they have dual citizenship. Technically, they're African Americans. Besides, we have The Doors and KISS."
His face went straight.
Go ahead. Admit defeat, mister rock star.
"Clapton."
"Eh-Clapton sucks. Elvis and Chris Whitley and Jack White." One hundred points to Bella. Yes.
"Who the hell is Chris Whitley?"
"Okay, now you're just fucking ignorant."
"He must be bollocks if we ain't heard of him. But you, now- I bet you've heard o' The Beatles and Stones an Black Fucking Sabbath."
Damn.
"And Led Zep-"
"Don't you dare say Led Zeppelin," I said.
"Are you taking the piss? Led Zeppelin? Anyone in there?" He reached down, made a light fist and knocked me twice on the head, like my skull was a door. Who did that? I looked up at him. He smelled good and had a crooked smile. But I wasn't really dumb fo' real. That right there had been a cheap but adorable ploy to touch my hair. Business. Business.
"Perfectly serious. That band sings about hobbich," oops tipsy. "Hobbits." I said, enunciating.
"No," he said and smiled. "Hobbits?"
"Hell yes, 'In the darkest depths of Murder I met a girl so fair.' Freaking Lord of the Stupid Rings." I widened my eyes for silly, girlish effect. I was so fucking brilliant, great conversationalist. Awesome. Well read. He probably was too, the Brits were so far more educated than we were, but at least he didn't seem a Tolkien fan. Ten points to the rock star. Twenty for me. Good game.
He smiled again.
"Don't you mean Mordor?"
Elf geek. Deduct five points from the rock star.I groaned. Change the subject.
"And besides, Mr. Brit, you should be ashamed of yourself."
"Oh, why is that, now?"
"Robert Plant ripped off his vocal style, not to mention one of their biggest hits, from a British band far better than themselves that you didn't even mention. The Small Faces and-"
"Humble Pie!" he said, "I didn't think you would know them."
"Whatever, not even just The Small Faces either." I said like a plastic Venice Beach Barbie. Seriously, Bella? "There is absolutely nothing original about them. They ripped off Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, Jake Holmes, Anne Bredon, Cochrans, Bukka, Bob Dylan, even Deep Purple, for Christ's sake. I mean, the list goes on and on!" Edward said nothing. He was just staring at me. "Edward, I'm obviously better schooled in music than you are." I leaned away from him and almost fell over but he caught me. "How could you think I wouldn't know Humble Pie? They're like, one of my favorites, man! Steve Marriott? Are you serious?" I just said like and called him man. Jesus!
"You just scored major points, but, what about Rory?"
"You mean Rory Gallagher?"
"Oh, bloody hell, you know Gallagher then, too?"
"Hell, yeah, dude! Bad Penny!" I sang a few lines from the chorus like an idiot, "okay I'll stop singing now, that's your job, but yeah, I love Rory. I love that name." Now I called him dude. Put down the whiskey before the 'ohmygod and totes and are you serious? Like seriously serious? Shut up.' No thank you. I tried to bring my head around.
"Yeah, I always loved that name too. Wanted to name a boy Rory if I ever had one," he said.
Thirty points to the rock star, penalty twenty-five to the gullible woman hooked by said rock star. There's game. Good thing I was drunk and shitty at math. Change the subject quick. Back to business.
"Okay, well," I said, "I have two more weeks here before I go back to New York. I need to make a phone call and you need to get me a demo and yourself a passport."
"Phone call?" He put his hands in his back pockets and puffed up his cheeks and then he smiled, wide like a blue and purple Cheshire. He had no idea what would happen when the band was released on a major label. Poor thing.
"Your future record company. When can I get that demo?"
"Give me forty eight hours and I'll have it to you. Thank you. Thank you. You have a good voice, by the way." He reached down and picked me up, smacked a big lager flavored kiss somewhere around my mouth and gave me an alligator smile. Poor thing my ass.
"Two days. Have the desk call before you come."
"Before I come? Really?"
"Yes, just before, so I can back up and bail out, asshole. Don't push it."
"Where you staying?"
"Savoy," I said. He did that eyebrow thing again.
"They won't even let me in the elevator."
"Just bring a pizza and tell them you're the delivery boy. They'll let you in." I winked at him. My turn to blow his face off. He laughed and hugged me hard, turned and headed for the stairs, ruddy hair glowing gold beneath the yellow lights. I was in deep, deep shitty, shit, shit.