Why are you on my phone?
I saw your SFO date! I’m hurt!
Gee, I’m so sorry.
I can’t believe the band chose that little showcase over my offer. ;)
I can feel the sarcasm. I don’t know how to respond. I just want him to go away. So, I don’t reply, but after a pause, he writes: Come by my office tomorrow after school.
Why?
I’ll tell you then. And I’ll tell THEM if you don’t.
Great. My nerves are ringing. Why am I even letting him hold this over me? I should just tell Caleb about the gig offer, and also tell them how Jason can’t be trusted. Except I’m not sure they’ll see it my way. Why would they not want to play a cooler gig in SFO? Not that my gig isn’t cool but . . . am I really just holding out on them so that I won’t lose them? I should give Caleb more credit than that. And, I’m sure my gig is the better move . . . aren’t I?
Maybe I’ll just meet with Jason. That can’t be a good idea. What could he possibly want? But suddenly something occurs to me. And I write back:
Deal, on 1 condition: You let me interview your dad for my blog.
There’s no response for almost a minute. This was a risky thought, but since Jerrod Fletcher was Allegiance’s manager, he would know about their San Francisco tour stop. He could fill in the details about where they ate and stayed and all that.
Jason finally replies: Deal. See you tomorrow, say, 4?
See you then. I turn my attention back to Caleb, who is erasing fiercely. “Here,” I say. “Let me see.”
“Any good news?” he asks. As I take the notebook back, his fingers play with mine, and I feel a rush of guilt.
And then I say, “I’ll be late to practice tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah, what’s up?”
I almost lie about the whole thing, but then realize that if my interview with Jerrod works, Caleb will need to know about it. “Actually, I got a meeting with Jason Fletcher at Candy Shell. He was asking me to be his intern when we were at the Trial. I don’t want to, as he’s slime, but I told him I’d meet with him if I could interview his dad.” Only a lie by omission. But if I can unlock the key to the San Fran tape location, and convince Caleb that they should perform the songs, then one lost opener with Sundays on Mars won’t even matter anymore.
“Good plan,” Caleb says after I explain my reasoning, “but remember we were going to go to find Pluto before our movie date.”
“Right, yes,” I say, and I hate that I momentarily did forget that. He smiles and we kiss, but instead of just being there in the moment, I spend the whole kiss chasing my thoughts and wondering if I’m doing the right thing.
15
MoonflowerAM @catherinefornevr 45m
There it is before you—smiling, frowning, inviting, grand, mean, insipid, or savage, and . . . whispering, “Come and find out.” #jconradFTW
Two buses take me across LA on Friday afternoon, to Santa Monica and the sleek, coral white facade of Candy Shell Records. I’m with Maya, who checks me in and takes me up in the elevator to a waiting area, a dark wood-paneled room. The furnishings are sleek, with lots of chrome and glass. Gold and platinum records line the walls, interspersed with signed band photos and tour posters. The perky people striding to and fro wear well-tailored skirts and tops, shirts and ties.
“Isn’t it cool?” says Maya. She changed before leaving school, into a junior version of the power suits that glide past us.
“Yeah,” I say. It’s my first time in a real record label, and it’s not quite what I expected, or maybe not quite what I hoped. Maybe I wanted to see everybody dressed super casual or like they were going to a show, or to have there be wild art all over the walls, but this is all business. Big business. Part of me immediately wants to be part of it. Looking around at all these hustling people, you can feel the possibility. With this kind of machine behind you, man, you could reach so many people. As we’ve learned in class, there are whole departments here devoted to each of the things I have to do on my own: social media, creative development, branding and logos, booking, and on and on.
It also makes me feel hopelessly small. For as much as I like to believe that I can do it on my own, that I can get Dangerheart out there one email, tweet, or hashtag at a time . . . maybe this is what it really takes. Except then a band like Postcards is struggling to get anyone to their shows on tour.
Which makes me wonder: Do these people really see their bands for who they are? Or is Postcards just a commodity? Would Candy Shell love “On My Sleeve” because it’s brilliant or because it could lead to brilliant sales? And what happens if you get hooked on all this big label stuff? What if you start to think of your art in terms of sales too? Can you still be true to yourself?
But then I think of Carlson Squared sitting here in this expensive waiting area, as I walk down the hall in a pro suit to meet them for an expensive lunch. That’s okay, Dad, I’d say, waving off his wallet. It’s on the company. And I can see their opinions changing. There is no doubt they would be impressed by this.
Maya shows me her desk. It’s tucked in a puzzle of cubicles. “Kinda sterile, I know,” she says.
“Yeah, but, kinda fun too,” I say. The cubicle feels almost private, a safe space to get work done where you wouldn’t have to fake doing homework. She has a big hand-drawn logo of Supreme Commander beside a spreadsheet of what seem to be email contacts.
She introduces me to her cubicle neighbor, Bev, a large older woman who’s been at Candy Shell since its start.
“Bev knows all the dirt.”
“A coffin’s worth of it,” Bev says. “You stick around bands long enough, it tends to pile up.”
“I’m starting to learn that,” I say.
Maya brings me back to the waiting area. “Good luck,” she says, leaving me in a square of modern white couches and glass tables.
Two guys sit nearby in ripped jeans and T-shirts, their hair professionally messy. The first people I’ve seen who look like they actually play music. I’m guessing they do brat pop, the kind that’s too whiny but always has really catchy melodies, even if they’re always name-dropping corporate beverages and jeans. The kind of songs that are about rebelling but not against anyone specific. Twelve-year-olds can listen to them and parents can turn them up at barbecues in the Fronds while drinking pink margaritas. They probably sell a ton of records.
I wonder what it feels like to sell, say, a million copies of an album. Would it get to your head? Would it feel like pressure to sell more? At Postcards shows, we would sell ten copies and feel like royalty, and then be hopelessly depressed if at the next show we only sold six. Like we’d already peaked and failed.
An impossibly tall assistant strides up to me, heels clacking. She doesn’t make eye contact, and delivers her greeting in a single exhale: “Hi I’m Royce right this way.” She turns and starts walking like . . . she has no idea who I am. And I know exactly who she is. The one who got it on with Ethan last summer. I aim hate beams at the back of her head, but the sad truth is she probably never even knew about me.
Royce leads me down branching hallways, and we leave the shimmery entry spaces and enter grid after grid of cubicles similar to Maya’s. Charts, graphs, a drab kitchenette with a stained coffee machine, a stark conference room.
We pass through a graphic design department and briefly everything looks like I had imagined and I am in love: everyone’s workspace is cluttered with posters, sketches, album covers, and they’re dressed in jeans and T-shirts and sundresses, with stubbly chins and barrettes and thick glasses. After that it’s back to crisp shirts and graphs and charts.