"If people want the album, they'll find a way to get it," Jake said. "Our sales won't suffer, and even if they do, I will not have Wal-Mart or any other corporation dictating what should and should not go on one of our albums."
"A-fucking-men to that, brother," Matt had replied. "Service Me stays."
"You have to admit though," Pauline said now, as Jake took another long pull of his beer, "that the damn Tipper-sticker led directly to your arrest in Cincinnati."
"Yeah," Jake said, frowning. "What a bogus bunch of shit that was." He shrugged. "Oh well. What's an Intemperance tour without getting arrested at least once? At least the cops didn't beat my ass this time."
The arrest she was talking about was on a public obscenity charge. Weeks before the scheduled concert date several prominent citizens of that most conservative city had tried to get an ordinance passed banning any musical act from performing in the city limits if they had an album with a Tipper-sticker on it. When this effort failed the mayor declared that any musician uttering "profane or explicit lyrics" in concert would be arrested and charged with obscenity. Intemperance was specifically warned that several of their most popular tunes — Service Me, The Thrill Of Doing Business, Descent Into Nothing, and, incredibly enough, I Found Myself Again (which the PMRC had apparently decided was about masturbation) — would meet this definition and result in charges if they were performed. The band refused to alter their song line-up and immediately after the show Jake — who had been the one to sing the lyrics in question — was arrested by Cincinnati police officers and taken to jail for booking on the charge. He was bailed out within an hour but the charges were still pending.
"You're scheduled for your preliminary hearing there on December 16," Pauline told him now. "National threatened not to use their legal team to represent you until I got in a pissing match with them on contract language."
"I'll beat the rap," Jake said, unworried. "After all, if Larry Flynt can beat them, so can I."
"I wish I had your confidence," Pauline said. "If they convict you of the charge you could end up doing a year in an Ohio prison."
"It'll never happen," Jake said. "If there's one thing National's lawyers are good at, it's keeping the talent free of convictions in courts of law. They'll go in there and bribe the jury members if they have to."
"You sound proud of this," Pauline said.
"I'm just pointing out a fact of life," he said.
"Well anyway, be sure to mark December 16th on your calendar. National is making sure it will be a media circus."
"Of course they are."
"I've got some other dates you need to mark down as well," she said. "On December 13th you and the rest of the band are going to fly to New York and do two songs on Saturday Night Live."
"Cool," Jake said. "That was a blast the last time we did that."
"Each of you has also been scheduled for a couple of record store signings over the next few weeks. I'll get a print-out and your plane tickets to you by tomorrow."
"Those suck ass," Jake said with a frown.
"At least you're getting paid for them now," Pauline reminded him. "Remember, that was one of the sticking points during the contract negotiations."
"How could I forget?" he said.
Under the original contract — which Pauline had been instrumental in negotiating an end to — the band was required to attend any and all promotions National set up for them and would not be paid a dime for their time. Under the new contract National could only schedule them once a week for such events, had to fly them there first class or private, had to book them in first class accommodations, and had to pay each band member $500 per day.
"I've got all the dates and times written down for you," Pauline said. "Be sure you don't forget it when you leave."
"I won't," Jake promised. "How have you been getting along with Crow and Doolittle?"
She frowned. Steve Crow was the Artists and Repertoire representative from National Records who was assigned to look after Intemperance. James Doolittle was the head of the A&R department. "It's been trying at times," she said. "I've pretty much learned to just go directly over Crow's head and onto Doolittle for most things. I wouldn't say there's been anything like cooperation between us. I take a hard-line with them because of their propensity to screw people whenever they can. They, in turn, make every request I ask of them seem like an act of Congress is required because they're punishing me for taking over as your manager."
"Yes," Jake said. "They sure loved it when Shaver was our manager. It was almost like having one of their employees doing the job. Have they tried any more games with the money?"
"Nothing since that little incident when Balance was first released," she said. "That right to audit clause was one of the best things we put in that contract."
Jake chuckled. Under the original contract the band had the right to request an audit of National Records' finances as they related to the band but National reserved the right to deny the request if they didn't deem an audit necessary. And strangely enough, they just didn't seem to deem them necessary very often. Under the new contract the band had the right to conduct audits at any time using any auditing firm they wished as long as the band paid for it. In the first month of Balance Of Power's release, after it had gone gold in two weeks and platinum in four, Pauline started using that right. The first audit immediately caught multiple forms of questionable product tracking and monetary distribution practices that would have cost the band hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid royalties and overpriced expenses. These practices (which National claimed were simple "oversights") were corrected when Pauline threatened to pursue a breach of contract lawsuit against National and to have Crow and Doolittle charged criminally for embezzlement.
"They're probably screwing every artist who ever signed with them out of millions just in sheer embezzlement alone," Jake said.
"Undoubtedly," Pauline said. "In all my years of doing corporate law I have never run across a corporation as greedy, sleazy, and corrupt as this record company. And from everything I've learned, National is far from unique in this corruption. It amazes me they've gotten away with it for so long, that they continue to get away with it."
"But they're not getting away with it with us anymore, right?"
"Right," Pauline replied. "I've audited them four times now, including just last month. They whine and complain every time I disrupt their workday but I think they've learned to play straight — at least with us. Every penny we're entitled to is rolling in our direction, just like it should."
"That's good to hear," Jake said. "So how much did the tour make for us?"
Pauline gave him a funny look — one he wasn't quite sure how to interpret. "What if I told you," she asked, "that our cut of concert profits, including merchandising, was five hundred thousand dollars?"
"Is that what it was?" Jake asked.
"No," she said. "But for the sake of argument, let's say that I said yes. Intemperance made half a million in tour profits. Would that sound reasonable to you?"
Jake shrugged, uncertain exactly what she was getting at. "Sure," he said. "That sounds reasonable."
"Does it? And why does that sound reasonable?"
"Well... because there weren't as much overhead expenses as last tour since we didn't use all the laser and pyrotechnics that National wanted us to use but its still really expensive to truck a concert from city to city."