Hallelujah
- 1 year ago
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Hallelujah Ch. 08 free porn video
Morning intrudes once more, this time via the sunlight streaming through my curtains. That seems to be enough. Laying around is just weak-willed defiance, now, I’m awake.
I groan my way to the bathroom. I piss in the toilet like a big boy, now, because I have a roomie. It’s early. Has to be. But then, I often wake with the sun after a night of hard drinking. Maybe it’s my body’s way of returning the harassment I heaped upon it the night before. Or maybe part of me is just happy to still be alive, and eager to take advantage of that while it still can. Whatever part that may be, it’s not the one that matters, though. The world is moving a little bit even though I’m standing still, and that’s not cool.
The wine has stained my lips. It makes them look wounded or bruised. I examine them for a moment while I try to file through blotchy memories. Embarrassment is always probable when you get that wasted, but I don’t think I did anything too stupid…
Oh. Except.
I kissed Jasmine Knox. Jesus Christ, I fucking kissed her.
I drop to my knees before the toilet and throw up. It has nothing to do with the revelation, or with my feelings about it…it’s just a well-timed reminder of my rolling hangover. It’s a good one, too, not stopping until I’m well into dry heave status. Afterward, I blow my nose and move to the kitchen. Water and crackers is a good, safe starting point. I find that, once the first barf is out of the way, I tend to recuperate quickly. Maybe, if I’m real lucky, I’ll even be capable of driving into work today.
Work. Shit.
It’s 5:15, so I have hours left before I have to go in. Those are hours I could use to come up with a plan for today’s session. I decide to put last night out of mind and focus on the task at hand. After all, it’s not that big a deal, right? We kissed, we laughed it off, and she…
…told me that it had been a mistake to leave me. Yikes.
Granted, we were both trashed and stupid, but she seemed to genuinely regret the memory of it. And I think that was a revelation to her as much as to me…not last night, but recently. Born of her need to reevaluate her choices, and probably worked out with a counselor’s help, her new understanding of how she managed to become an adulteress was teaching us both a few things. What I heard last night was a grown woman lamenting a young girl’s choices. And it sounded so simple. She left me, and it was a mistake. The worst moment of my life: a mistake.
Some people would panic in this situation. Not me. I don’t think I need to read too much into that kiss. It was an impulsive action, taken by a woman who is feeling confused and scared and lonely. It didn’t really have any passion or lust behind it, and it didn’t have any sort of follow-up. The fact that we were both able to laugh it off immediately afterward makes it seem unimportant. And, to be honest, I just don’t want her. Even if she didn’t sleep with AJ that summer…it was still cheating. And then she burned him, too. So in my mind her track record is not particularly endearing or appealing.
But, you know, the memory of that kiss has my hormones raging.
Water and crackers go down okay, and I even risk a bit of instant macaroni and cheese before showering and heading to the car. A few hours of ruminating on Teddy’s new songs hasn’t taught me anything, so I grab my IPod on the way out. Listening to other people’s music for a while might make it easier to take a fresh start. I hope so.
Jasmine is still passed out when I quietly slip out the door. I seem to remember that she doesn’t work today. I hope she recovers as easily as she used to.
I get in about fifteen minutes before launch, which is way early when you are dealing with musicians who are apt to be as much as a half hour late. Brian is already there and warming up the tubes, hunched over the console checking the signal chain. He nods at me as I come in.
‘Ready for another big day?’ he asks, that silly half-smile played out on his face.
I groan and fall into the chair at the control desk. ‘God, I hope so. Another one like yesterday and I’m gonna start to get scared.’
He glances over at me. ‘You didn’t think it went very well?’ He’s being very diplomatic, here, and I appreciate that. We both know that yesterday fucking sucked.
‘We got nothing done. I have seven more days here, and then two days in a tracking room, and that’s it. Another disaster like yesterday and I might as well go home.’
He makes a point of turning back and acting busy at the console. ‘Do you have any kind of a game plan? In case it does go bad?’
I lean back and look up at the ceiling. ‘No,’ I admit. ‘I haven’t even really thought about it. I was hoping that if I put it out of mind for the night and then came back fresh today, I could bypass the blockage.’
He doesn’t respond. Okay, whatever. After a while, he turns back to me and asks, ‘Are we going to use the same setup today? I didn’t prep the iso booths, but I still have time.’
‘No, that’s fine. We’ll still go full band in the main tracking room. Whatever else we do we are not splitting them up.’
‘Alright,’ he sounds disappointed. Maybe he was hoping that I’d come in today and be a real producer, with real producer ideas, instead of this maverick jackass who doesn’t get a single song recorded. But I’m still me, and I’m still hoping to make the record I want to make, even if that puts me in greater danger for failure. ‘What did you think of the songs?’
I mull over my answer, trying to remember just what I felt about the stuff they played yesterday, but before I can formulate a response the door opens and the band comes filing into the room. They look as rough as I do. Great. A hungover band playing incomplete songs for a hungover producer…great use of the finest recording room I’ve ever seen. But then, maybe it’s good that we all blew off some steam last night.
‘Hey, Jake,’ Teddy smiles that tired-eyed smile. ‘How was your night?’
‘Well, I kissed Jasmine Knox. Then I rolled on the floor with her, slept a while, and puked.’
His smile grows. ‘That’s a good order to do those in, I imagine.’
‘Well, there is that. How was yours?’
Mickey English grunts. ‘We survived it.’
Teddy nods. ‘And we’ll survive it again the next time.’ He glances at Brooke Meadows, who is laying on the couch at the back of the room with his arm draped over his eyes. ‘Probably.’
Brooke moans. ‘Survival,’ he rasps, ‘is the worst of all human qualities.’
Teddy gives him a reproachful look. ‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Just wait,’ he says. ‘It’ll come back to haunt you, too.’
‘Not so long as I stay away from that cheap-ass whiskey you pour down your throat. You remember us all buying shots just so you could line them up and do ’em all?’
‘That never happened.’
‘Oh,’ Mickey rolls his eyes, ‘that most certainly did. That happened.’
‘Fuck you guys.’
Paul Spears gives a big barreling laugh. ‘You would have tried, if you’d had another drink. You’re lucky we managed to get you away from that hippo before she took you away for feeding time.’
‘Fuck you. She was pretty.’
‘Pretty fucking fat.’ They all have a laugh at his expense.
I cough. ‘Well, we probably better get started. Are you guys sure you’re up to playing, in the condition you’re in?’ I glance at Brian, who gives me a skeptical look.
‘Friend,’ Teddy winks at me, ‘hungover is the third best state for us to be in, if you want us to play.’
‘What are the first two?’
‘Drunk and sober.’
‘Jesus Christ,’ I roll my eyes. ‘Just get into the fucking studio and let’s make some music.’
After some discussion, we decide to try working on a song called ‘Hazy Witness.’ It’s the closest in sound to ‘As Long As I’m Here,’ of all the new tracks. I’m hoping that maybe we can use that previous success as a springboard. The
band attempts the same kind of slow build on this one, and although it has a lot of similarities to ‘As Long’ it’s got a very nuanced difference. It’s almost…druggy…in its muted twisting and turning. It starts out with a relatively harmless ‘I want to fly, lucid and watching,’ which leads in to a list of wants that all appear to be about escape or frustration. As the song builds, though, Fields’s gospel throatiness comes through and gives a building, ominous tension.
‘I want to stab at the heart of this, screaming,’ he growls forty seconds in, really tearing into the last word. ‘Look out, now! The inmate’s retrieving freedoms he should have never had.’
Brooke swells up the cymbals, and Mickey’s piano playing becomes almost pounding. ‘I believe I am,’ Teddy cries euphorically, ‘a hazy witness to new worlds. And all possibilities prepare to unfurl.’ The cymbal swirl becomes almost overwhelming, and then suddenly vanishes. Teddy leans back as the band withdraws back into another tension-filled verse. His slide playing conveys almost manic distraction, which suits the song well.
The next verse behaves much the same as the first, and then a third verse/chorus comes and goes. It’s a neat track, relatively gentle but thick with dissatisfaction.
‘Let’s try and put a take down,’ I tell the band via talkback once they’re done. ‘Only this time, do you think you can speed it up just a tiny bit?’
‘Kinda like the tempo where it is,’ Fields responds. ‘But we can try it.’
‘Okay. And Brooke, do you think you can give me a little more dynamite in the chorus? Not a backbeat, so much, but just…put the drums in there. Do some fills.’
‘What about the cymbals? I can’t fill and ride them at the same time.’
‘Uh…I don’t know. I liked the way those created an almost white-noise element and filled up the chorus section, but I guess it’s too much to ask for both. Try the one, and we’ll go back to doing it your way if we don’t like the results.’ I flip the talkback off and turn to Brian. ‘Can you give me a really punchy sound to those drums? Compress ’em down with a slow attack and get all the mud out of ’em?’
‘Sure thing,’ he seems relieved to actually be getting asked to do something. ‘I’ll make ’em punchy as a boxer, if that’s what you want.’
‘Try it. Let’s see what happens.’ I feel good. I’m really just working a variation of what helped me make ‘As Long As I’m Here’ successful, but at least I’m doing something.
The second take sounds a little better than the first, but the tempo change was a mistake. Not only has it evaporated all the tension from the song, but it’s made it nearly impossible for Brooke to keep up with his fills. He’s not a rock drummer, and he can’t pretend to be. On the third and fourth takes, we slow it back down and the band jams on the ending so we can have a fade out. That helps a lot, but it’s still not quite sounding right. Finally, we decide to go back to using the cymbal effect on the first chorus. We’ll pulverize the last one with the Keith Moon fills, and use the middle chorus as a teaser for that. It comes out mostly cymbal with a little teaser fill towards the end, as if the song were struggling not to burst wide open. It’s a great effect.
And that’s that. It takes a while to get it just right, but by take seven we have a keeper. It’s not on a level with ‘As Long As I’m Here,’ but it’s a good sounding track. Too good to be a b-side, or left on the floor, but it probably won’t be your favorite song on the record either. After all the negotiating ended, I only got the right to full-point status on one song…this one won’t be it.
After a break and some glad-handing, we overdub a shaker onto the second verse, mixed low, to accentuate the growing tension. Then we attempt a retake on Fields’s vocals, but he can’t match the life performance when he’s standing by himself with headphones on, so we scratch it. Finally, after take fifteen minutes in the basement game room before going to work on a song called ‘Open it Up.’ It’s hilarious…it sounds like Howlin’ Wolf covering The Beatles, except that the lyrics are some of the more amusing ‘you broke my heart so fuck you’ lines I’ve heard in a while.
‘You say I never bring you,’ Fields yelps, sarcastic amusement dripping off his tongue, ‘Anything that I made you. You say it like there’s something wrong. So now I’ve brought this for you, Wrapped up and bowed it for you, Just like you hoped for all along.’
The song bursts into playful, pretty, McCartney melodies as he gravel-voices the chorus. ‘Open it up, now, baby, ’cause I’m tired of you. I’m tired of you. I’m tired of you.’
He repeats the chorus, every ‘tired’ and ‘you’ drawn out for emphasis. It’s a fun song…I thought so when they played it yesterday, too…but the earnest bluesy style of the band and Teddy’s own slide playing are poor fits for a high energy song that sounds like it could be a cover off of Hard Day’s Night. I need to find some way to bring out the playfulness and the meanness, but it’s so far outside the band’s sound that I just can’t get there. We try a few ideas…tempo and key changes, different approaches to the playing…but get nowhere. By the time we’re shaking hands at the end of the session I still have no ideas on how to fix it and the band is growing moody. So for two day’s worth of work, I’ve managed to get just one finished track. I try to convince myself that I’m happy to have at least that much, but I’m getting pretty nervous. I’d be stupid not to. Six days left, with only two songs that can be applied to the album. Bare minimum, I need to finish two songs a day from here on out in order to get the job done…and I don’t know if I can do that.
Heading down the hallway, I’m halfway to the front door when Bennie Rich comes shuffling out of his office. Seeing him gives me an idea. This is a man who’s been in this business for decades. Even if he wasn’t always involved directly, he was a music fan who was constantly aware of all of the ins and outs of the different sessions taking place. For a brief moment, as he turns and starts walking in my direction, I even see a little bit of August Cooper in him. Maybe he has some advice to offer.
His head is down and he’s picking at his lip with his thumb and forefinger…it’s something he does when he’s deep in thought…so he doesn’t notice me until I’m almost right in front of him.
‘Hey, uh, Bennie,’ I say, ‘I was wondering if you had a moment.’
He looks up at me without raising his head. ‘How did the Teddy Fields session go today?’ he asks. The real message: talk business or don’t talk to me at all.
‘That’s kind of what I wanted to discuss with you.’
He grunts. ‘Another rough one?’
‘Yeah. Yeah, I guess it was.’
He shakes his head. ‘You don’t need my help with that problem, Jake, and I wouldn’t give it to you anyway. Don’t you remember what I said?’
I look away. ‘Yeah, I’ve been thinking about it a lot. That’s what made me hope that…maybe you could help. Maybe you would have an idea that I wouldn’t have.’
He shakes his head. ‘No, Jake. You misunderstand the question. I’m a terrible person to ask for help when it comes to recording. I flushed out of the recording game, remember? And I did so many years before you were even born. You don’t need my help. You don’t. I couldn’t do what you do. So find someone who can.’ With that, he waves his hand dismissively and goes back to waddling down the hall. ‘Until tomorrow, Jake.’ I wave to his back and sigh.
Find someone who can? Like what? Another producer? I try to think about who is recording in the building besides myself right now. There’s a country duo I’m only lightly familiar with in Studio B, but I don’t really know the producer and they generally get in after we do and leave before us. There’s a crooner who wants to be Michael Buble down the hall, but those jazz albums aren’t recorded the same way ours are. They don’t always have a producer…there’s so much to be
cut and so many instruments involved that the work is often spread throughout several studios and managed by a ‘Production Coordinator.’ From what I’ve seen, it’s more like managing a film project than music. Other than that, the only other project I know about right now is a Christian singer-songwriter with a country bent in Studio D being produced by Walter Russell.
Surely Bennie didn’t mean for me to go ask Walter. Did he? I can still see the blotches on his face the last time we were in the same room together. Ask Walter Russell to help me record? Shit, I might as well go ask Eric Greenwood to lend me a few bucks so I can buy condoms. I certainly can’t imagine that my getting Studio A and a producer’s credit is going to have tempered his feelings for me. Besides, wasn’t Walter’s work exactly what prevented Teddy’s records from being great before? Wasn’t he a part of the damn problem?
Well, at least he MADE a damn record.
When I get out to my car, I start it up and just sit there for a while. I’m facing the studio’s front door, and I just stare at it thoughtlessly. A few people come wandering out while I sit there, mostly engineers. Some bearded guy with an acoustic guitar comes hopping down the front steps, and I’m wondering if it’s Ray LaMontagne. It could be…I’ve heard he was in town. I was in Allaire Studios in New York briefly while we was recording there four years back, and ended up going out to the bar with him, Ethan Johns, and a few other guys. Both nice guys, and they seemed to have a very clear idea of what they were working on. Ethan had all kinds of stories about working with Ryan Adams. I sigh. Guys like that always made it look so easy.
I wonder, what would Bennie say about that?
What would August? I take out my cell phone and dial.
‘Hello?’ a warm, elderly female voice answers.
‘August Cooper, please.’
The voice immediately grows even warmer. ‘Well, now, you must be Jake.’ She sounds like the way I imagine Santa Clause’s wife sounding.
‘I am.’ I try not to make it sound like a question.
‘Well, honey, I can tell you that you’re grandfather will be so glad to hear from you. He is just as proud as can be of you. He’s been telling anyone and everyone all about his grandson. You know I’ve had to chase him away from the desk three times, just so I can get some work done?’
I blush, alone in my car. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Oh, yeah. He’s always been proud of you, but lately we can’t seem to get him to talk about much else.’
‘How has he been?’
She breathes into the phone, sounding less jovial. ‘He’s been sick. That’s not uncommon, ’round here you know, but…he’d probably like a visit. If you can get one in. He’s been missing you.’
Weary sadness pulls me down in my chair. ‘Is it that bad?’
There’s a pause. ‘Why don’t I let him know you’re on the line, hon. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
It clicks over to music. They’re playing Frank. Well, okay. Who could complain about that? I get through a song and a half before it clicks back on.
‘Jake?’ August’s voice comes out a little raspy.
‘Hi, Grandpa. How are you holding up?’
He coughs. ‘Oh, I get by. How about you? Still taking on all comers?’
‘In more ways than you know. It’s been a while since I called, hasn’t it?’
‘Four weeks, I think. That’s alright, though…I know you get busy. Truth is, if you started calling me more often than that I’d start to worry. It’s a young man’s job to be setting out on his own, staking a claim. And it’s part of getting old to be extremely proud and grateful when your children are too busy to call.’ He chuckles. ‘Grandchildren. Sorry.’
I smile to myself. He does that a lot…accidentally refers to me as his son. It’s not a senility thing, just a measure of how close we are. And probably, of how hard it was for him to outlive his child. ‘Yeah, well, things haven’t really been so great lately. I was wondering…I guess I’d like to talk to you about some things. I’m kind of worried that I’m making some mistakes, personally and professionally, and you know your opinions are important to me.’
Elle
- 03.01.2022
- 5
- 0
