"For the Grammy Awards next year?" Crow asked, wondering what was so important about that. All the album could qualify for would be Best Live Album — a nothing category announced early in the show.
"That would be nice," Doolittle said. "But that's not the reason."
"It's not?"
"No," Doolittle said. "We have another little project for the boys come January."
"We do?" Crow asked.
They did. Doolittle filled Crow in on the details.
"Wow," Crow said. "That's going to be expensive. Are you sure the band is going to go along with it?"
"We'll have to make sure they go along with it," Doolittle told him. "The money-making potential is simply too great to ignore.
"When are we going to tell the band about this?" Crow wanted to know.
"We'll wait until they're well into production of In Action and then we'll spring it on them. Trust me, they won't say no."
National Records Building, Los Angeles
September 10, 1988
Matt, Jake, and Nerdly were in the main mixing room of the basement studio, headphones in their laps, their faces red, their voices loud as they discussed the issue of Matt's song Life Of Toil, which they were trying to mix for inclusion on the master recording.
"I'm telling you guys," Nerdly said, his eyes burning. "That entire recording is sub-standard. Those morons at the mixing board during the Thrill tour had no intercoursing idea what they were doing. The lead guitar tracks are too much in the high end and the piano and rhythm are too much in the low. The drums and bass are all over the place."
Jake was leaning forward, covering his eyes in frustration. So far they had mixed two songs and they had had this argument with Nerdly on both of them. Nerdly was particularly passionate in this case. Toil was the first tune from the Thrill Of Doing Business tour — the tour in which Nerdly had had no hand in the sound levels. "Look, Bill," Jake said (he was much more likely to call Nerdly by his Christian name when he was frustrated and/or pissed off at him). "I listened to those tracks just like you did. I'll give you that they're not as good as the ones you did, but they're not that bad. We can work with them."
"They're unsalvageable," Nerdly insisted. "If we go with them, the quality won't match the rest of the recording."
"Your fuckin' face is gonna be unsalvageable if you don't knock this shit off," Matt said angrily. If Jake's frustration level was approaching the red, Matt's had already gone off the chart and into the abyss.
"I don't see how threatening me with physical violence is going to rectify this dilemma," Nerdly replied. "We need a solution to this disparity of quality in the tracks."
"You know what the fuckin' solution is, you moron!" Matt yelled. "We tweak the levels until they blend! We turn down the lead guitar a little and turn up the rhythm and the piano. We turn the bass and drum tracks up or down as needed. In other words, we fuckin' mix! We do what we've been doing for the other two tunes we did. That's what mixing is, remember?"
"There is no way we could make it work at optimum reproductive quality with the material we have available to us," Nerdly insisted, getting a little pissed off himself now. "You know what we need to do, Matt. So do you, Jake. You're both just too damn traditional to do it."
"I'm gonna fuckin' kill him, Jake," Matt said. "If he suggests overdubs one more time, I'm going to stomp his fucking head into the ground."
"We have to overdub this song if you want to include it on the album," Nerdly said.
"That's it," Matt said, standing up so fast his chair rolled four feet backwards. His headphones thunked to the floor in a tangled heap. "It's time for some fucking physical violence. Prepare to bleed, Nerdly."
Jake quickly stood and intercepted Matt before he could make it to Nerdly's position. He didn't think Matt was actually serious about hitting him, but with Matt you could never be sure. He put his hands on Matt's shoulders and pushed him back a few feet. "Chill, Matt," he said soothingly. "This ain't gonna help."
"Sure it will," Matt said. "Just let me gouge out one eyeball and you'll see how much it helps."
"You just don't want to admit I'm right," Nerdly said, standing his ground. "You're regressing to your Neolithic base instinct in response to your internal realization of your unfathomable position."
"I am not!" Matt yelled. "And what the fuck does that mean, anyway?"
"Sit down, Matt," Jake said, propelling him backward until he practically fell into his chair. Matt didn't resist.
"You cool?" Jake asked him.
"No, not really," Matt said.
"Good," said Jake. "Just don't attack anyone, okay? You might hurt your hand."
"Okay," Matt said, nodding.
"Jake," Nerdly said. "You know I'm right, don't you? I know you're opposed to the principle of overdubbing this live album — although I don't see why — but you heard the same tracks I did. Tell him we have to redo the lead and rhythm guitar at the very least."
"You agree with that prima donna faggot, Jake and I'll gouge your fuckin' eyeballs out too!" Matt yelled. "You know I can do it! You know I let you push me back to this fuckin' chair!"
"Matt... chill," Jake said, holding up his hand to him.
"Here we go now," Nerdly said, disgusted. "This is where you agree with him just because you're afraid of him."
"Don't start that shit with me, Bill," Jake said, turning on him. "You're talking out of your ass now."
"Do you agree with him or not?" Nerdly asked.
"I agree with him," Jake said. "But not because I'm afraid of him. I agree because he's right."
"Goddamn right I'm right," Matt said.
"In your opinion," Nerdly said. "There is nothing wrong with overdubbing a live album in order to achieve optimum audio quality."
"Then why not just re-record all the fucking tracks and throw in some fake audience noises and call that live?" Matt asked. "The whole goddamn thing could be like Benny and the fucking Jets!"
"That's not the same thing," Nerdly insisted.
"That's where you're wrong, Bill," Jake said. "It is the same thing. There isn't a line there. There is no gray area in this subject. It's black and white. Recording anything new in a studio and overdubbing it onto what is supposed to be a live album is dishonest, possibly fraudulent."
"I can't accept that," Nerdly said. "Under that logic, the fact that we're even mixing these tracks is fraudulent. After all, we didn't sound like that on the stage, did we?"
"That's the stupidest argument I've ever heard you make," Jake told him. "How can you not see the distinction? We recorded all of those tracks on stage in front of an audience. There's nothing wrong with mixing them to make them sound their best. There is something wrong with re-recording any portion of a live track in a studio and passing it off as live."
"You don't understand," Nerdly started.
He didn't finish. Matt had finally had enough. "No," he interrupted. "You don't fucking understand, so I'm gonna make you understand. We will not overdub anything on any tune on this album, period!"
"Then we can't use this tune!" Nerdly insisted.
"We will use this tune!" Matt yelled. "I'm not throwing out a perfectly good tune just because you're such a fucking perfectionist that you can't work with less than immaculate material. Now you can either accept this and help us mix this fucking tune or you can get the fuck out of here and me and Jake will do the rest of the album without your ass!"
"You can't make me leave!" Nerdly said.
"Try me, motherfucker," Matt said. "Jake, are you behind me on this shit?"
"Yeah," Jake said with a sigh. "I'd hate to do it to you, Bill, but I'll be forced to back Matt on this if you don't mellow out a little and start working with us. You're not doing anything but hampering production at this point."