Gimme More (6 page)

After a couple of years playing the pub, club, college circuit on a
mixed repertoire of original songs and covers, Inner Versions were taken up in a lukewarm way by a record company called Dog. It wasn't what the band had been dreaming of, but shit, you've got to start somewhere.

The trouble is that they know, know,
know
that they're more talented and prettier than bands who are doing a lot better than they are.

They need a little bit of luck – a little bit of magic. That's all.

And when it is offered to them, they need the wit to recognise it for what it is.

Karen recognises it almost from the beginning. The others are sceptical. Flambo is dismissive. He says, ‘You
are
shitting us, aren't you? The deal is, we sign, you pay, we get studio time. That's the deal. We do not get a make-over from an old tart everyone's forgotten. That
ain't
the deal.'

‘Well …' says the A&R man.

‘Come
on
,' says Flambo.

‘I'm bringing her to the Cellar Club tonight,' says the A&R man, who may look like a limp rhubarb stalk but who has an implacable side to his nature. ‘Talk to her afterwards.'

‘Fuck off,' Flambo says. ‘We're staying the way we are. If you don't like us, why sign us?'

‘We haven't yet,' says the A&R man.

‘Like, listen to the man,' Sapper says.

‘Who else has she worked with?' Karen asks.

‘Recently?' the A&R man says. ‘Dream Therapy. You know “On Your Toes”? Six weeks in the charts. That was one of her co-writes.'

‘Six weeks in the charts.' Sapper repeats the phrase like a mantra.

‘I didn't know that,' says Karen.

‘Industrial secret,' says the A&R man. ‘Bands want to do their own songs but sometimes they need help with writing and arranging. People who spin-doctor songs and don't get credited are usually called producers. But there are a few who do it just for the money.'

‘Fuck off,' says Flambo.

‘Six weeks in the charts,' says Sapper.

‘In your dreams,' says Corky.

‘Suck it and see,' says Dram.

‘Birdie Walker,' says Karen, who has read some of the books and seen photos of Birdie in a coffee-table volume called
Chelsea Chicks – Faces in Film and Fashion (1965-85).

‘I thought she was just a rock'n'roll mattress,' Corky says.

‘You mind your fucking manners,' says the A&R man. Up to now he's sounded like a public school type. Inner Versions stare at him in surprise: there's more than a touch of Rottweiler in this limp rhubarb stalk.

A typical Inner Versions gig goes like this: there is a smallish venue, like the Cellar Club. There are two bands. One band is trying out: it's new, maybe a college band. It opens while people are coming in, buying drinks, horsing around. No one dances. Then Inner-Versions come on for their first set. They have better equipment, a better sound. They are known to the audience because they've been doing the local circuit for two years. Some of their numbers are danceable and, if enough beer or pills have been swallowed, people will dance. Inner Versions call these people their Following.

They know what it's like to be the opening band. They know how depressing it is to perform for people who aren't there for them, who aren't listening, aren't responding. They know how crucial it is to have a bunch of people, even a small one, who will show up because Inner Versions are on. Their Following is very important.

Between sets, the band goes to the bar. They mix with their Following. Drinks are bought, pills popped. And why not? The band and the Following are contemporary. There is no distance between them.

It's a democratic, friendly scene which Inner Versions would sell their souls to escape. Given half a chance, they would be behind crowd-control barriers, in limos, holed up in luxury hotels, recording in LA studios. Friendly, democratic scenes are what you leave behind when you succeed big-time. They are what you return to when you fail. If, that is, you don't self-destruct first and never return at all. Heroic failure is also a romantic option. There are mythical burn-outs.

Tonight, Karen is thinking about one mythical burn-out. She knows Birdie Walker will be somewhere in the audience, watching and listening, so she is thinking about Jack and the nature of heat. There's the heat of animal magnetism. Jack had buckets of that. Talent's hot too. Jack had loads of that as well. Luck? Timing? Yes. Yes. Shake them all together and you get a chain reaction. Magnetism and talent rubbing together, igniting a spark, a series of small explosions, which generate publicity, which flows along invisible wires, which in the end light the big fire called fame. Jack's fame eventually became too hot even for Jack to handle. It burnt him to death – fame and flame.

To Karen, it seems emblematic. Life and death were in cahoots, producing something dangerous and symbolic. Almost like art, Karen thinks, because she is romantic about art.

She is in no danger, herself. She's stuck behind her keyboards, way behind the three guitarists. There's supposed to be a baby spotlight on her, but it isn't working so she's doing her thing, supporting the guys, almost invisible. Which, she thinks, is just as well. She's getting some annoying feedback and between numbers she's fiddling with the amps. If Inner Versions were a name band there'd be engineers and roadies to do it for her. If they were a name band she wouldn't be using knackered amps. She'd have state-of-the-art hardware and someone to carry and maintain it for her.

She looks across at Flambo. He's the only one who's noticed her difficulty. The others aren't listening. Flambo's arms are shiny wet blurs. He's whacking out a complicated pattern but he turns his head towards her and frowns. She gives him a despairing shrug. They are playing a number called ‘More and More'. It's eight minutes and forty-five seconds long. Karen wishes it was three minutes long and called ‘Less and Less'. Then the set would be over and she could get help with her amps. But ‘More and More' is one of their groove numbers and the Following are on their feet. She switches from the Roland to the Korg because the Korg feeds through a different amp. It's the wrong voice and some of the extra sounds are missing but at least she can play without her ears being blitzed.

Flambo scowls ferociously. She tries to ignore him. In a minute there'll be a thirty-two-bar drum break which will cheer him up and give him something else to think about. She doesn't usually look forward to drum breaks, but now she can hardly wait. Dram's lower E string has gone flat and that's annoying her too.

For a moment she wishes she were at home eating chocolate and watching TV. With her qualifications she could teach music at a school, never have to get up in front of a live audience. Chocolate and TV. Chocolate to rot the teeth, TV to rot the mind. No hard-edged, glittering ambition, no knife-edged teeter between success and failure. At the moment she would give up anything for the chance to sit at home in the dark and not be judged in public. At the moment she thinks ‘More And More' is trite and repetitive. She doesn't want to play it here, with everyone listening and watching. It doesn't represent her. It's just a long, loud, pointless wank.

To make matters worse, out there, somewhere behind the lights, behind the Following, is Birdie Walker. To Karen, Birdie Walker is a woman who
knows.
What does she know? Karen can't say, but it has something to do with how to
be
a woman – something alien and dangerous, to do with glamour, collective desire, spells. She has been somewhere Karen has never been and isn't sure she wants to go. She has been the woman every man wanted and every woman wanted to be. She has had the men every woman wanted and every man wanted to be. She was close to the music everyone wanted to make. She was close to unbelievable success and tragedy.

No unbelievable anything for me, Karen thinks dimly, standing there in a nothing club in Maidenhead, about to endure another one of Flambo's thirty-two-bar drum solos. She wants to switch off the Korg and go home. Switch off and fuck off.

Four bars into the drum break, without even thinking about it, Karen hits a button. The LCD screen on top of the keyboard flashes ‘harpsi', and Karen begins to play a left-hand pattern which runs counter to the drum pattern. Down low, fast, staccato, the harpsi voice sounds like someone grunting – uh-uh-uhn-erh.

Flambo is so surprised he nearly falls out of his pattern. He throws Karen a look of pure hatred. He grits his teeth, steadies and sticks with it.

The next twenty-eight bars are like a skirmish in a war. Flambo digs in behind his battery. Karen flashes in and out with guerrilla raids. She assaults his steady, heavy barrage with a light, sharp, almost Cuban cross-rhythm.

Sweat flies from Flambo's hair. Karen looks up and sees Corky grinning at her. Corky enjoys friction. She closes her eyes and concentrates.

Afterwards, Flambo says, ‘What the fuck do you think you're playing at? Don't you
ever
do that again.'

Karen says nothing. She walks offstage and threads her way through the Following at the bar. She's frightened and elated.

She feels as if she has blurted out the first thing to come into her head – it might be inane or obscene. She doesn't know. One thing is certain though – there will be a very nasty row when Flambo gets her home. By the time it's over, she may not have a home. Or a band.

She sees the A&R man waiting, so she turns and ducks into the cloakroom. Elation shrivels. She slips into an empty cubicle and locks the door. There's wet tissue on the floor. Some sad woman has scrawled the words ‘He beats me' on the wall. Underneath, someone even sadder has written, ‘Do you like it?'

Karen grabs a fistful of bog paper and blows her nose. She doesn't want to cry, but there's a hot ache behind her eyes. Life is spent hiding your feelings in tiny, smelly places.

‘Sick,' Karen says out loud. She waits till she thinks there's no one around and then she leaves the cubicle to wash her hands.

There is a woman leaning casually against the door; gold blonde hair, black Levis, a man's jacket.

‘Oh shit,' says Karen, ‘you're Birdie.' And instantly, she's positive the Cuban cross-rhythm was inane. Inane is all she's capable of tonight. Or ever.

She says, ‘Don't worry, I'm giving it all up. I don't want it. I can't do it.'

Birdie says, ‘Wash your face. Don't let them see you cry.'

Birdie says, ‘If you want to give up, by all means give up. But don't do it from a position of weakness.'

Birdie says, ‘Don't run away. Flounce.'

Birdie says, ‘Never flounce without lipstick.' She adds, ‘Lipstick is a metaphor.' And Karen starts to laugh.

She borrows Birdie's lipstick. Birdie backcombs her hair into an aggressive, tousled mass. Karen stares into the mirror and watches her own dim image morph into lioness.

‘What're you thinking?' says Birdie.

‘ “Hebeatsme”,' saysKaren.' “Do you like it?” It'sonthebogwall.'

‘I saw,' says Birdie. She chants, ‘He
beats
me. Do you
like
it?' Call and response.

Karen: ‘Lipstick is a metaphor.'

Birdie: ‘I
saw
it on the
bathroom
wall.'

‘Way to go,' says Birdie. ‘Your first bog wall song.'

‘The guys won't do anything with lipstick in it. Except maybe “Paint lipstick on your nipples.”'

‘Banal,' says Birdie.

‘Yeah,' says Karen, who has never painted lipstick on her nipples. She may be in a band but suburban repression still has her chained to her parents' garden gate.

‘OK?' says Birdie, and they leave the cloakroom and go to the bar.

‘She fucking seduced you,' Flambo says later. ‘I know her type: divide and conquer. You let her walk all over you.'

‘She can seduce me any day of the week,' murmurs Sapper. ‘Is she gay?'

‘Banal,' says Karen.

‘I dunno,' says Dram. ‘I reckon she could swing whatever way suited her. There's something
fleurs-du-mal
there.'

Karen does not go home with Flambo. For once, she takes the initiative and a taxi she can't really afford. She disappears without explanation.

‘Watch it,' Corky says to Flambo. ‘You could lose your grip.
And
your block vote.'

Corky is excited. He sniffs change on the wind like a hound scents a fox. In the politics of the band, the block vote, Flambo and Karen together, gives Flambo more power than Corky thinks he should have. If Flambo lost his grip and Karen's vote was up for grabs, Corky might grab her.

He doesn't exactly want her, he's never seen her as anything but an extension of Flambo, but she has more music theory than the rest of them put together and he needs someone to shape his ideas. At the moment it's Flambo's ideas she's shaping.

It doesn't occur to Corky that Karen might have ideas of her own. Rock'n'roll, after all, is a dick thing – a young dick thing – and Corky is a young dick. He has ideas but no imagination.

He says, ‘Hey guys, what d'you call a drummer who's just broken up with his girlfriend?'

‘Homeless,' says Dram.

‘A wanker,' says Sapper.

‘Ha-fucking-ha,' says Flambo. ‘Here's one for you – what do you call a sad fuck who hangs around with musicians?'

‘What?'

‘A bass player,' says Flambo. ‘Thank you and good night.' He wishes he could walk away like Karen, but at the moment he's driving the van with all the gear and the others squeezed in around him. It's another thing he plans to criticise Karen for – she walked off without helping to load the van.

But, of course, when he gets home, the flat is dark and silent. He sits. He waits. His grievances breed like rodents. Karen has fucked up. Karen
is
a fuck-up. She isn't even pretty. Where does she think she gets off – acting like a bleeding girl? She
always
helps hump the gear. Carry your own bags, Karen, open your own doors. If you want to play with the boys, don't expect any special treatment. That's the arrangement. And speaking of arrangements, what the fuck was that harpsi riff? Who told her she could do that? Arrangements are Flambo's thing. He's the one who knows what InnerVersions should sound like. He's the man who makes the decisions.