"It's just a slight intro synthesizer track," Nerdly said, "and then a gentle background melody that will mix with the piano tracks. At least listen to what it sounds like before you start ranting about it."
"I don't have to listen to it," Matt said. "There's no fucking synthesizer in our band, Nerdly. Have you ever fucking noticed that?"
"Well maybe there should be," Nerdly said. "Led Zepplin used a synthesizer on their last two albums. Is there a law that says Intemperance can't use one too?"
"Yes, there's a law," Matt said. "It's my fucking law. There will be no synthesizers on any Intemperance song, period! That includes live and in the studio! And there's no fucking reason to put any overdubs at all into Time. The song is intended to be a simple piece."
Both of them began looking at Jake to support their respective positions. He sighed, knowing that the middle ground here was not really a fun place to be. "Look," he said. "I have to agree about the whole synthesizer thing, Nerdly. We're a hard rock band and we don't go there."
"You see?" Matt said triumphantly. "Even Jake agrees with me. No fucking overdubs on Time."
"Well, I didn't exactly say that, Matt," Jake said.
"What? What the fuck you talking about?"
"I said there should be no synthesizer overdubbing on Time. I do think we should do some basic acoustic overdubs to help back up my rhythm guitar on the piece."
"Acoustic overdubs?" Matt said. "Jake, that puts two guitars in the tune in addition to the harmonica. Two guitars! We can't reproduce that live unless we hire another fucking guitar player!"
"It's nothing that anyone is going to notice on the album," Jake said. "I'll just play an exact acoustic version of the rhythm and we'll blend it in on top of the main distorted version. We keep the level mid-range for the string strikes on the overdub and low for the follow-through. That way we'll have the string-strikes come through in a way they don't when the rhythm is distorted."
"But what about when we play it live?" Matt asked. "We can't reproduce that. It won't sound as good as the recorded version."
"People don't expect the live version to sound as good as the studio version," Jake said. "You should know that. As good as Nerdly is at concert sound mixing, we would never pull something like that off anyway. We've done this kind of overdub on quite a few of our tracks. Has anyone complained about how it doesn't sound the same in concert?"
Matt fumed but had to admit that Jake was right. Intemperance's reputation as a live act was irreproachable. "Fine," he said, throwing up his arms in surrender. "Put in your fucking overdubs. It's your goddamn song, isn't it?"
"It's our song, Matt, and I'm just trying to do what I think is best."
"That's what I'm trying to do too," Matt replied. "I gave in on this. You don't need to rub it in."
"So... do we have a consensus here?" asked George Harmon.
"Yeah," Matt said. "We have a consensus. Go ahead and start setting Jake up to record an acoustic overdub for Time. No fucking synthesizers though. I ever see you playing one of them things, Nerdly, and I'm gonna take a shit on it."
"I was just trying to do what's best too," Nerdly said softly, obviously upset that his plans had been voted down.
Their tempers calmed a bit over the next hour as they started the basic mixing process for Can't Chain Me. All agreed that no overdubbing was necessary in this tune since it featured two grinding electric guitars and had a passion to its sound that didn't require any kind of enhancement. There were some mild disagreements about the sound levels on the piano and drum tracks but they worked their way through these without too much strife — or at least they did by 5:45 PM, which was their official quitting time for the day.
"You want to go up and take a look at the album cover?" Jake asked Nerdly and Matt as they left the recording studio and waited for the elevator. "Jim and Sandy told me they should have the final version done and ready for approval by the end of the day."
"Sure, I'll check it out," Matt said.
"I'll have to made arrangements to peruse it at a later date," Nerdly said. "I have someplace I need to be tonight."
"Yeah?" asked Matt. "You getting some puss tonight?"
"Is the speed of light in vacuum a universal constant?" Nerdly asked.
"That means yes, right?" Matt asked.
"Yes," Nerdly allowed. "I'm taking two lovely young ladies to the planetarium for a romantic evening. We're then going to proceed back to my place to engage in extensive fornication of the quasi-legal variety."
"The planetarium, huh?" Jake asked. "Who could resist that?"
"Exactly," Nerdly agreed.
The elevator arrived. All three stepped inside. Nerdly got off on the first floor. Jake and Matt remained aboard until it reached the fourth floor, where the graphic arts department was located. They walked down the hall and entered the windowless, brightly lit room where most of the company's album covers were designed. Dozens of shabbily dressed graphic artists of varying age sat at desks with computer terminals working on a variety of projects. Most of them smoked and the haze of cigarette smoke in the room was on the same level as that found in a crowded bar on a Saturday night. They found Jim Handy and Sandy Pearl — the team assigned to the Intemperance album — sitting at their desks near the back of the room. Jim was about forty years old, a poor dresser, morbidly obese and poor on hygiene, but a very talented artist. Sandy was about thirty, almost anorexically skinny, a lesbian, and, if anything, even more talented than her partner.
"Hey, guys," Sandy greeted, putting out her smoke and immediately lighting up another one. "Glad you could make it up. We were just about to hit it for the day."
Jim had to finish the Twinkie he'd just crammed in his mouth before he could speak. When he did, he greeted them as well. "I think you'll really like what we came up with, Jake. It's pretty much just what you told us. I showed it to Crow earlier and he just about came in his panties."
"That's probably because he was checking out your ass, Jimmy," Matt said, making reference to the fact that Crow was a notoriously horny bisexual who hit upon just about anything that walked on two legs.
"Hey, there are some things that even I won't eat," Jim said, laughing much more than his joke actually warranted.
He reached into his desk and pulled out two sheets of photo paper, each the size of an album cover. They represented the front and back of what would appear on the next release. He handed them to Jake first, since it was Jake who had dictated what he envisioned.
"Wow," Jake said, impressed, as he perused the front cover. "You outdid yourselves on this one."
The centerpiece of the front cover was not a graphic design or a drawing but a photograph that Jake himself had taken. It was a picture of the cross that had been cemented into his front lawn on the night he'd moved into his new home. JESUS SAVES and REPENT SINNER! JOHN 3:16 were plainly visible in the photo, as was the front of Jake's house. Jake knew that most people, upon seeing the album cover, would know what this was a picture of since the incident had been reported on the AP wire the day following the event and published in newspapers throughout the nation, usually as a comedic type of piece in the back of the entertainment sections — a little amusing story about how the satanic domestic abuser Jake Kingsley had been put in his place by his virtuous neighbors.