[email protected] are signing a deal #yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (is that 140 caracters yet) #yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
20 (June)
One of the advantages of working with Toten Herzen, according to Mike Flambor, was that you only got to work at night, which left the rest of the day free to do what you wanted and in Flambor's case that meant shopping. One of the disadvantages, according to Torque Rez, was that you only got to work at night, which meant he couldn't go out and get laid. Flambor and Torque continued their disagreement outside Randolph's Sushi on 8th Avenue and strode round onto West 21st heading for Minty Studios. "You don't believe me; check out this shirt, asshole," Flambor said.
"Good camouflage," said Torque comparing the pattern to the tree canopies threatening to burst out of their streetlit urban confinement. "What happened, they sell out of Paisley?"
"Paisley's good," said Flambor. "Not as good as this." He examined his sleeves again. "Felicity Garnier, man. Handmade. So new it still hasn't appeared on the catwalk."
"You know we've been asked to work with an old name."
"Yep. Call it the heritage line. It's like repainting a castle."
"They have castles in Holland?" said Torque, his tongue struggling to extract a fish flake from a rear molar. "I think Randolph's sea bass is a little on the obese side these days."
"Hasn't been the same since he fired his cousin. Mind you, the guy had worse dress sense than you."
"I spoke to Todd's predecessor three months ago and he convinced me that something was gonna happen this summer and I was like hoping we'd be discovering the new Skrillex." Torque stood back as two men came out of a house with a sofa. "You see, that's us," he said as the plump struggling piece of furniture was loaded into a truck. "Carrying weight, man. Carrying weight."
"Nah, build it from the bottom up, like we said. If we can pull this off we'll be treated like gods." Flambor laughed, even he didn't believe what he was saying.
Minty Studio was a red brick wedge, jostled by two stone guardians at each side of it. With a grey fire escape hanging over the double doored entrance it looked more like a dispatch centre than a place of music, of art, of creativity in the constriction of New York's heaving asthmatic streets. "We are going to turn the Brady Bunch's boring older relatives into the new new kids on the block, without the annoying chin rashes of the originals." Flambor allowed his colleague to enter first.
"I hope this isn't gonna go on for too long," said Torque as he yanked the door open. "Remember this was your idea; meet up, hang out, have a few beers," he mocked, straightening his imaginary tie, "maybe we can all be buddies and shit."
Inside, the reception area was clear; the cleaning staff only came in before ten a.m. and the only sign of life was the glow of the telephones' lcd screens. Flambor switched on the lights. A click followed by the buzz of the tubes as they sputtered into life. "What's so good about a Felicity Garnier shirt anyway?" asked Torque.
"Oh, Jesus. I bet you ask that question everywhere." They headed further into the building, automated lights glowing as they moved down the short corridor to Studio Two. "What's so special about this Michaelangelo, what's so special about this Ming vase, what's so special about Naomi Watts."
The control room of Studio Two was a lifeless windowless hole. Nothing more than a broom cupboard until the equipment was switched on, the producers settled into their high backed chairs and the artists cued up their throbbing, premature sense of glory. "What time do you think they'll show?" Flambor's voice drifted in the gloom as he identified the silhouettes and shadows.
"No idea. If they show up at all. I've got mixed feelings about this lot. They obviously don't like us. All that Bullshit Bingo."
"I actually thought that was quite funny," said Flambor suddenly illuminated.
"You think Adam Sandler's funny. You laugh at your own stools," said Torque. On the mixing desk was a sports bag with an A4 sheet of paper on top of it. "What the fuck is this? They let Curtis Painter in here?"
"Maybe I could persuade young Susan to see things the right way," said Flambor.
"You wish. Isn't she supposed to be old enough to be your grandmother?" Torque was unzipping the bag. "Looked pretty slim for a sixty year old. You know what they always say: you can tell you're getting older when the rock dinosaurs start looking younger."
"I'd fuck her anyway. I'm not as fussy as people say I am." Flambor picked up the note to read it. "Make sure you get the levels right. . . ."
"Oh, Jesus. . . ." Torque dropped the bag. A teenage boy's head rolled out of it. Flambor laughed.
"Woh, they caught you with that one, partner." Flambor picked up the head and stared at it. "Wonder where the hell they got it. Wouldn't surprise me if they stole it." He rolled it around, studying the details of it: the partially closed eyes, gasping mouth, congealed blood around the severed end of the neck. "That's . . . pretty fucking realistic, isn't it? You know you need a sort of warped patience to create something like this." Every hair looked human from the number four head trim to the boyish whiskers.
Flambor was still holding the A4 sheet and fiddling with a remote control to the studio television screen. A further instruction was to watch Channel 599 to see the breaking news. Both men stood and watched as scrolling banners provided lurid details of the murder of fifteen year old Anthony Rawls, a high school dropout from Boston. The boy's picture matched the head that Flambor was still holding. He could feel his sushi coming back up.
"911," said Torque. Flambor vomited. "Call the police. We can't sit here with this."
"You'll have to be quick." A voice from inside the live room echoed through the studio monitors. Torque Rez could see Susan Bekker's form on the other side of the glass. Before he could blink she was stood next to him, the rest of the band behind her.
"You still want to fuck me?" said Susan, stroking a lock of hair off the back of Flambor's ear. But there wasn't time to answer.
-
For the second time in as many months Todd Moonaj was woken up by a phone call concerning Toten Herzen. "They're the vampires," he said to his dozing wife, "but we're all expected to be up all night." He picked up the phone. "Yes, yes, yes."
"I'm sorry to ring you so late, Todd. It's Tom. Er. . . ."
"Get to the point."
"Okay. Mike and Torque are dead. The head of the boy murdered in Boston earlier this evening was in the recording studio next to them."
Tom Scavinio got to the point a little too quickly for Moonaj who was now dumbstruck. "Tell me this is a publicity stunt."
"It's not a publicity stunt, Todd."
"What happened?"
"Police aren't saying much, but they think there's a connection."
"They were supposed to be meeting the band tonight. Where's the band? Are they okay?"
"No sign of the band. It's all a little confusing. Police won't say how Mike and Torque died so we don't know if the killer or killers cut their heads off too."
"No sign of the band. Get in touch with Rob Wallet. He'll know, won't he?"
"I've tried him a couple of times, but keep getting his voice mail. I thought you should know, Todd. I didn't want you waking up in the morning and being greeted with a night of speculation like this."
"Just find the band, Tom. Find the band. Waking up in the morning! You think I'm going back to sleep after this. What are you, nuts?"
-
Tom Scavinio hung up. He was taking one of his evening strolls when he took the call telling him of the murders. His nightly ritual of slipping out of the apartment as his wife slept allowed him to experience a world that didn't care. It was a welcome environment where no one asked how are you keeping, how's Sheila, gee, Tom I feel your pain, which nobody did or could. Instead, New York's indifference and the unknowing faces on total strangers was a relief from the well intentioned hand on the shoulder and awkward nod of sympathy. Here, at night, Scavinio could wander and wallow, let his mind empty and release all those dead end questions that would bui
ld up during the day.
Along Columbus Avenue his routine took him past the familiar store where he opened a guitar shop in 1981. He survived for twelve years before the chains invaded and he was forced to move on in life. The shop was a sandwich bar now. Everybody eats, these days, he thought to himself as he studied the diners chewing and swallowing, unable to talk, unwilling to talk. And his new life, managing local bands who had come into his shop for advice, encouragement and occasionally, a guitar, had been consumed by another invading giant when he was taken on by one record label that was devoured by a larger label, itself ending up in the belly of an even bigger predator. Every time the company grew bigger, Scavinio's status and respect diminished until he was working for some distant unknowable entity; a corporate metaphysical state. His final challenge was the cruellest; watching his wife being consumed, not by some ravenous external force, but by her own body; her own genetics. A month or so after her diagnosis Scavinio had half listened to the consultant explaining the role of certain enzymes. At the time the technicalities were of no help or comfort, no more than the usual hand on shoulder or awkward nod, but the words were coming back to him now with increasing lucidity. This enzyme, not enough of it and you die, too much of it and you die, but get the amount just right, and nobody has yet, and you'll live forever.
Scavinio found a bar with a television running the news. Everyone was now hearing the name Toten Herzen for the first time, albeit by association. Scavinio hit his second double malt, rolling the tumbler between his hands and allowing himself the sneaky warmth of respect for the band. They were fighting back. They had walked into the belly of the predator and were now eating their way out from the inside. Rob Wallet's face appeared on the screen, apparently talking from a hotel lobby. "Can you turn this up?" asked Scavinio.
Rob Wallet - Toten Herzen Spokesman
". . . This kind of thing seems to follow us around. And it's like history repeating itself. We're just grateful the band weren't in the studio at the time otherwise this could have been an even bigger tragedy. We only met the guys once, er . . . what can I say? They seemed okay. . . ."
Cheryl Tovey - CNN New York Correspondent
"Where are the band now? How are they reacting to the news?"
RW
"They're in the hotel. They're sort of trying to calm down. You know it's been a long night for them."
CT
"Have the police spoke to them yet?"
RW
"Only to break the news to them."
CT
"Do you know why anyone would want to do this?"
RW
"Is it really a choice thing? Only a monster could do something like this."
As Rob turned to leave his expression to the camera struck a nerve deep in Tom Scavinio's mind as if Wallet had noticed him through the CNN camera, perched on his bar stool. It was the briefest raising of the eyebrow, a knowing look, a momentary slip that told Scavinio there was no sympathy, no empathy, no regret; you might have guessed we'd put up a fight, but not with this level of severity. Flambor, Torque Rez and the kid from Boston were in the wrong place at the wrong time and had become the latest victims of local history. He finished his drink and took a cab over to the band's hotel.
-
"Tom!" Wallet looked surprised to see the band's manager stood in the hallway of the Belle Air Hotel. He stood like a detective; he had a suspicious look on his face.
"I tried to get through to you on the phone. How are the band?"
"The band's fine."
"Are they here?"
"Yes. Do you want to come in?"
"Well, Rob, seeing as I've been given the unenviable task of managing them it might be useful to just check they're all okay."
Scavinio entered the room. The suite was vast, palatial in size as well as decor. He expected to find it a mess with the usual rock detritus of abandoned clothes, empty bottles, suspicious packages and under age girls. Instead there were books . . . just books. And a calm that hung like incense. Dee Vincent appeared.
"I called by," said Scavinio. "I need to know if you're all okay." Dee looked half asleep.
"Fine. Why, what's the problem?"
"The problem? Three people dead, at least one of them decapitated."
"Yeah, so?"
Elaine joined them. The band members were emerging from different rooms off the main sitting area. Scavinio felt surrounded.
"A lot of people would be traumatised to be at the centre of something like this."
"But we're not at the centre," said Susan.
"Your songwriting partners have been murdered tonight; it affects you. You might be next."
"I doubt it," Susan said.
"Yeah, I doubt it too, what am I saying? Can I ask you guys a favour," Scavinio said. His hands were still in his pockets. "Can we meet tomorrow, casually, over coffee. Just to discuss where we all stand. Say mid-day?"
"No," said Susan smiling. "We're vampires. We can't go anywhere during the day."
"Right," said Scavinio. "We're sticking to that line are we? Okay, well I'll see what the company is gonna do to replace the writing team, but don't expect a quick decision. Try to make time for us all to talk."
"What's wrong with now?" said Rene.
"I've been walking around and I'm a little tired. I'd also like to get home now."
"Sure." Susan followed him to the door and out into the hallway. "Is there something you want to say, Tom? Something in particular that's bothering you?"
"No. Not yet. But you might at least try to pretend that you're concerned by what's going on."
Susan shook her head. "We never pretend."
Terence Pearl: Blog post
Glory to the new gods
Extract from my forthcoming book 'In League with Nosferatu: the Record Industry’s Secret Vampire Conspiracy' by Terence Pearl
If there is one thing Toten Herzen deserve credit for it's their honesty. They are accused of being vampires and they don't deny it. They got away with their crimes for so long it just seemed like another eccentric display of extreme narcissistic behaviour. How so? Because the industry they are part of is just like them.
It plays on a kind of disinformation known as 'false mimicry.' False mimicry is a term first used by Professor Liam Shoelinsky from the Department of Societal Linguistics at the Caspard Institute in Liege. Professor Shoelinsky has described how any community, social, business, religious, can present a mythological facade which then reinforces people's preconceived expectations of how that community might behave. So, if an industry presents itself as self serving, greedy and dishonest, when it's members behave in such a way, rather than causing outrage and opposition the behaviour instils a reserved acceptance that unwittingly causes the observer to ultimately walk away. There is only opposition and a negative reaction when that community reacts differently to how it presents itself.
In the case of the record industry, the promotion of anti-social behaviour, excessive behaviour, questioning taboos and law breaking is central to its business model, and when individuals carry on this way, the public is satisfied, reassured and rewarded. It's what they have been forced to expect and are only happy when the expectation is fed.
Thus, a band openly proclaiming themselves to be vampires and involved in a string of killings and abuse are accepted by the public as if it's the most normal thing in the world. However, we should take note of the observations of Heather Moorehouse, a leading anthropologist who has studied anti-social behaviour for over thirty years. Toten Herzen have so far embodied certain typical messianic features: they have attracted an audience, their messages are accepted without question by their followers, they suffered death early on in their lives, the following continued long after their deaths, they were resurrected.
Toten Herzen far from being vampires are more like gods and it's no coincidence that the word god often goes hand in hand with the word rock. A recent survey suggested that a staggering seventy eight point four per cent of Toten He
rzen's followers were prepared to die for the band. Not only are these four individuals gods, they are the figureheads of a suicide cult. I wish I could say that they were merely humans and that their excessive behaviour is simply a product of the record industry's false mimicry, but this is a double false mimicry. It is the band using the industry as a cover, not vice versa. In the next chapter of my ebook I'll examine the mathematical patterns which prove that Toten Herzen's first reunion concert will be the signal for a worldwide suicide pact that could lead to the deaths of millions.
21 (June)
"Okay who said this: 'The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it's like watching television - you don't feel anything. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television. The channels switch, but it's all television.'" Rene looked up from his laptop as Dee came out of the bathroom towel drying her hair.
"Wyatt Earp!"
"There were no televisions when Wyatt Earp was alive. Andy Warhol. Wikipedia page has everything about him. He had a studio on Madison Avenue. Mind you, Madison Avenue is almost as long as the Netherlands so that doesn't really help."
Susan was all ready to go and was having trouble avoiding Wallet who was moving at a snail's pace. "What's up with you?"
"I can't fly."
"Neither can a tuna fish, so what?"
"Well, you're all going round New York by insta-travel and I'll have to take a taxi."
"You've taken taxis before, haven't you," said Dee flicking her towel at him.
"For fuck's sake. Will someone volunteer to hold Worker B's hand," said Susan gathering phone, purse, jacket.
Elaine stepped out of nowhere with a huge toothy grin and a dreadful look of impending violence. "My pleasure," she said.
"No, not her," said Wallet, but Elaine already had his hand in a crushing grip. "I still feel a slight sense of pain, you know."
The five of them followed an ad hoc itinerary around the city, searching for evidence of Andy Warhol's existence, hoping for glimpses, insights, remnants of his time hanging around Lou Reed and the rest of the Velvet Underground. But every point of the trail led to a furniture store or some repossessed bit of historic real estate. The frustration and disappointment grew until the band and Wallet, released momentarily from Elaine's cruel grip, ambled along Broadway.
Maybe the Beacon Theatre might have treats on offer. The venue chosen by the New York Dolls for their 1975 New Year's Eve concert was now hosting the Ultimate Doo Wop Show, followed by Frampton's Guitar Circus and, for one night only . . . was that right? An Evening With Alice Cooper. Someone inside, some unseen joker with a sense of history, must have seen them coming, must have been tipped off that Toten Herzen would be passing by tonight. The coincidence wasn't lost and the band were forced to step back from real life and consider the meaning of mortality. There he was, Vincent Furnier, in familiar top hat and black eyed make up. 'All Alice, All Night' promised the poster.
"Does that make you feel really old or really young?" asked Rene.
"Let's go somewhere else," suggested Susan checking the time on her phone. "What time did Almer say he was around?"
"Any time after eleven," said Dee. "Half an hour yet!"
They all walked away from under the theatre's canopy with a near backward stepping deference to the man they almost met when they were all at the height of their shocking fame. Furnier-Cooper had taken up golf whilst Toten Herzen were taking down old enemies. There was no appetite to even discuss the divergence in career paths or even how they had once run parallel before Lenny Harper did for real with a bag of stakes and a thirty pence mallet what Alice Cooper's stagehands would do by sleight of hand, tricks on the eye and thousands of dollars' worth of props.
"Well you came out looking for remnants of the past," Wallet said. "Looks like you found one of them."
And there was another one lined up. Almer. Or Alan Miller to his doctor and immediate family: ex drummer with Cat's Cradle who emigrated to the US in 1975 two years after his musical ambitions had been torn apart by Micky Redwall's grand plan. Almer clung on to the cliff face of rock music, reaching a sort of summit in 1977 when he bought a drink for someone claiming to be a roadie for the Talking Heads. Almer dined out on that experience for another ten years whilst collecting several small bars in and around Brooklyn. "What does he do before eleven?" Wallet asked. No one answered.
"I can hear music," said Elaine trying to pinpoint the source.
The Necronomicon, one untidy block from Broadway, turned out to be the portal of sound she could hear. Wallet was enjoying possession of his own hand again and ready to enter the club when he saw the length of the queue outside and guessed the rest. Elaine took his arm, not quite severing it just above the elbow and they were inside, unnoticed, unseen, unbothered by a crowd already bouncing about like bottle corks on a choppy sea. There was space behind the compacted audience and a better view of the stage, but as soon as she released Wallet's hand, Elaine was attracting the approaches of Cory from the Village. (The village? Branston, Potterhanworth, not Cherry Willingham?)
"Fuckin crazy hair," he shouted. True, Elaine's hair did have the same crimson spikes that Cory was fielding, but the rest of him was uncoloured, unbranded. His vanilla skin was vanilla coloured no matter how much the acrobatic lighting changed hue. Undeterred by her Arctic curiosity of him, the boy from the Village blundered on, beer bottle in hand, stud through lower lip, black tee shirt with Lacuna Coil decoration. "So where you comin from?"
"Lincoln."
"Lincoln, Nebraska?"
"England."
"Right. So, is that Missouri."
"Lincoln, England. Europe. Where your forefathers came from."
"Hey, don't talk about my father. My dad's a jerk."
"I can see the family resemblance," Elaine was starting to warm to Cory.
"He works for JP Morgan." In the absence of any feedback from Elaine or even cognisant awareness, Cory was trying to find some physical response to spur him on: a curl of the lip, a rippling forehead, but instead the only reaction was a kaleidoscopic variation around her pupils. Whenever the light shone whitest he found himself standing face to face with someone almost transparent other than the hair and a pair of eyes like red pool balls. "You drinking?" She shook her head. Cory gave up.
Onstage, at the steaming head of the crowd, a Gothic concoction of melodrama wrapped up in corsetry and heavy leather, navigated the tiny space with a dexterity quite at odds with the metallic chopping and grinding of the music. Behind them hung a stagewide banner (all twenty feet of it) with the roly-poly script declaring Argent Extremus. Wallet wasn't familiar with the name, but then there were probably four and twenty thousand Argent Extremuses playing New York tonight; no music journalist could be expected to follow them all. As he looked on, he wondered how their break would come. How could Argent Extremus grapple their way out of a pack of hopefuls so big no one could be sure where exactly the centre of it was? The numbers game was galactic and stacked against just about everyone trying to play it. Possibly, somewhere in the crowd would be a Jan Moencker or a young Tom Scavinio, but chances were they'd all be at home scouring social media hoping to discover who someone else had discovered. That was the chicken and egg runaround being played these days: get the break by advertising how many 'fans' you have, but by the time you had enough 'fans' why would you need a break from one of the big chequebook holders? You do the work yourself then let someone else convince you that you'll be a star if you hand it all over to them.
Wallet mentally pinched himself as he detected the onset of another rant. To his left, Elaine standing like the club memorial, to his right Susan, ignoring the turning heads and sideways glances that he wasn't sure were on the increase or whether he was becoming more aware of. Rene was criticising the drumming. Must be a bloke thing, thought Wallet. See the faults in everything.
"Wait for it," said Rene as Argent Extremus moved from verse to chorus, "bla
st drumming any bar now. . . ." On cue the drummer was playing everything on a manic four four beat: kick, snare, crash, kitchen sink. "And now he starts getting tired and slows down and they all lose rhythm." Dee was nodding, in sympathy more than disappointment.
When the next song started and a sense of deja vu raised its head, the five of them decided they'd heard enough and headed for the exit. Cory didn't see Elaine leaving. For one night only he could have had her all to himself. All Elaine, All Night: Elaine Daley of Toten Herzen, from England, Missouri.
Outside the club Susan noticed she had a text message. "It's off Tom," she said separating herself to call him back.
"Well I hope Almer's bar's better than that," said Wallet. "Six months ago I'd be ready for a decent pint by now. Is he. . . .?"
"What?" said Dee, "Gay?"
"No, like us?"
"Bored?"
"Forget it."
"Tom wants to meet up with me?" Susan slipped back into line.
"What now?" said Rene. "It's ten to eleven."
"Not right this minute, but he's out wandering and has some questions that won't go away." They formed a huddle in the open space of a street corner and agreed on Susan meeting Scavinio at the basement beneath Almer's bar. (He'd agreed to let them practice there, maybe even let him join in on drums for old time's sake.) Rene would keep watch whilst the rest of them were on the other side of the ceiling if anything happened.
Almer's bar was called Bonham on 11th and in addition to being a total mouthful - according to Dee - it was also a shrine to the Led Zeppelin drummer. Almer had a long bucket list and meeting his idol was at the top: what he hadn't allowed for was Bonham dying first with no mention of meeting Almer on his own bucket list. The bar was virtually wallpapered with framed prints of every size, live photos, posed studies, monochromatic abstracts in the style of one of Warhol's tin can silk screen jobs. Amazingly, the background music wasn't permanent Led Zep with all the other instruments acoustically removed, but a confusing mixture of dubstep, drum and bass, classic rock and the occasional shriek of punk thrown in to get the last punters to fuck off home at six in the morning.
Susan and Rene headed for the stairs to the basement. Scavinio had his instructions and was only ten minutes away on foot. Dee was the first to spot Almer, leaning against his own busy bar in discussion with a member of staff who wasn't listening. He had a pint of something amber coloured with a head of froth, so couldn't have been American beer, and was wearing a tee-shirt that was oversized even on his already oversized body. Almer's little vocalist friend squeezed into the gap between his stomach and the bar and stayed there for a whole ten seconds before he bucked away in surprise.
"Fuckin ell, thought someone were givin me a blow job then!" Elaine grabbed him round the neck from behind. "I could have done, but you wouldn't have noticed, you fat bastard." Dee straightened up and gave him a hug from the front.
"Wi your fuckin teeth I'd have noticed somethin. Who's this behind me? Is it Smiler?"
Elaine kissed him, quickly, a glancing blow of the lips, but with just enough pressure to avoid falling into air kiss territory. "Susan's downstairs meeting someone, Rene's gone with her so it's just the three of us for now."
Almer was released and he turned to see the third member of the three of them, the unfamiliar face of Rob Wallet. He offered his hand and said "Hi. You're the writer bloke aren't you?"
"Ex-music journalist, sometime writer, full time pain in the arse to these lot now," said Wallet.
"I know what they're like. I tried coming over here to get away from em, but they fuckin track you down in the end. You havin a drink?" Almer knew before Wallet could answer what the situation was. The hesitation, the subconscious search for an explanation. "Fuckin ell, you as well. How did they convince you? Or did they go all Keith Moon on you one night?"
"That's something I wanted to ask you," Dee interrupted, sitting herself up on the bar top and gripping her legs round Almer's midriff. "If you like John Bonham why have you got pictures of Keith Moon all over the place?"
With the breath being squeezed out of him Almer managed to twist around to Wallet. "You'll have found out by now what a fuckin cheeky little shit she is."
"Was she always like this?" said Wallet happy to see someone else being abused.
"Yeah. That's why me and Grant were glad to see the back of em. Every year we sent Micky Redwall a Christmas card as a show of gratitude," the constriction was getting visibly tighter, "and then his dogs ate him." He grabbed her legs and they exchanged cruel eye contact, but it was a genuine show of affection Wallet hadn't seen before even within the band. Almer was old. With his post-eleven pm stipulation Wallet was expecting to find another twenty year old sixty year old, but the old Cradler was both excluded from the hive and in full knowledge of its existence. His spreading weight, marbled skin and grey hair, still quite full but no longer capable of the length necessary for old rocker cliche, was Almer's reward for not joining the club. In front of him was a fresh faced goblin, to his right a steel and stone imp.
"So, you know the score?" asked Wallet.
"Score?"
"What they are, what I am, why we sleep during the day and refuse pints of proper bitter in bars that look like they're owned by Norman Hunter?"
"Oh yeah. But, you know, everyone has their secrets, don't they."
"Rob's secret is playing golf," said Elaine. She dared Wallet to respond.
"I'm playing the long game, Almer," said Wallet. "I wind this lot up until they pay me a wedge to get lost."
"Oh yeah," he said drumming the tops of Dee thighs, "These two don't pay for anything. Tighter than the skins on my drums, short arms and deep pockets. Never bought a round in their lives. I reckon that's the main reason they turned; so they wouldn't have to buy anyone a pint." Dee squeezed again and Almer stopped drumming.
"There was someone in ere askin about you lot a few weeks ago."
Elaine froze and Dee's legs dropped down against the bar. "Who?"
"A bloke, bit younger than me. Local."
"New York accent?" asked Wallet.
"Definitely New York. Asking all sorts of questions about your past, the years you were away from everything." It would have been such an innocuous statement at any other time, but at that moment it landed on the bar like a verbal grenade.
"Did he know who you were?" said Elaine. She and Dee were readying to head downstairs.
"Everyone knows who I am," said Almer. "The guy who used to be in the band with the two who used to be in Toten Herzen. He must have known."
Dee jumped down from her seat and left without speaking. Elaine came round to Wallet. "You wait here. Ask Almer about the plan." She patted her ex-colleague on the back.
"The plan?" said Wallet.
"They haven't told you?"
Elaine was off, pushing through the crowded floor space with a determined and confrontational straightening of her shoulders. "They don't tell me anything, Almer," said Wallet. "I will have a pint after all."
22 (June)
Ian Gillan was ready to go down below, to the inferno. But there were no fires raging underneath Almer's bar. Bare brick walls, a flight of timber steps, a few empty barrels lying around and cables. Long heavy duty cables. Before Scavinio could see her, he could hear her. A gentle aimless strumming on a guitar, a brief flurry of notes, then strumming again. He paused for a moment to recognise a pattern to the doodling; was it a troubled sound, peaceful, searching? He couldn't tell, but as the basement floor opened out before him he saw a range of guitars on stands, a drum kit, Marshalls, and in front of it all, Susan sitting on a simple wooden chair, playing, not the Flying V, but some Fender-type cutaway. From the sound it made he guessed Ibanez and he was right.
He wondered what it would sound like in this closed underground space if she suddenly let go and played it full throttle, full bloodied.
"You found me," she said without looking up. Scavinio grabbed another chair, pulled it close and sat down.
br /> "I could hear you three blocks away."
"Really?" She could see he didn't mean it. "So what's bothering you, Tom? Why the dramatic text and the oh so many questions routine?"
Scavinio pulled his face and let the strumming guitar fill a long long pause. "Curiosity finally got the better of me," he said. Susan nodded. "It isn't that long ago everything made sense, but then Sheila became sick and the questions started."
"So this is about your wife?"
"No, not necessarily. But the first wave of questions started gathering back then. Why her? In a world like this why was she chosen to suffer like that? A beautiful, friendly, loving, caring, sweet natured woman. Why her? You start to question everything and what you took for granted isn't the familiar state of affairs you thought it was."
"And it took you how long to come to this conclusion?" Susan's eyes would look up at Scavinio from underneath her dark, angular eyebrows diving in towards the top of her nose. Her mouth waiting as if another word was on its way and the ever present tips of those canines, two passive reminders of who she was.
"On their own I'd just dismiss them as part of life, part of the great conundrum, but then when you least expect it you get a call and your name is part of the conversation. You'd expect everything to be seen in context, but surprisingly, instead of the unbelievable being shown for what it is, it doesn't seem so unbelievable after all because everything has become unbelievable." Scavinio's weight pushed back into the chair as he laughed. "I mean, your age, your appearance, your teeth. Someone might get the wrong impression and start to believe all this shit." He wasn't sure if he was getting through yet. He'd be at the end of the road when the music stops, but the strumming continued. "When you walked into the room for that meeting did you not ask yourselves why no one talked about your age and how you look?"
"No."
"Okay. It might not be important to you and that's fine if you have your own reasons for being there, but they didn't ask because they don't care. Their minds were already made up. You're a hoax, put together by Rob and to be honest, quite well executed. That's what they were thinking, but when I got the call I was at a place where I was ready to believe anything. If ordinary life doesn't make sense any more what difference do four vampires make?"
The music stopped. Susan searched the space between her and Scavinio and found something. A new riff, a new melody rolling around and around.
"I have other issues to deal with and I'm trying to find a way of trusting you four or at least understanding what you are. In a few days time we might all walk away and never see each other again, but I don't want that."
Susan didn't appear to want that either. The music softened until it was barely audible. Her face was preparing for some display of emotion. She was a beautiful woman with features that couldn't possibly contain the number of stories and experiences she should have accumulated in sixty years. Scavinio whispered, "Did you kill Torque Rez and Mike Flambor?" Now he was straining to hear the music, but it was still there, drifting with the answer that Susan wasn't ready to offer. She turned away and started playing louder.
"Before you came over here," Scavinio continued, "there was Mike Gannon. He was an asshole nobody liked. I can see that one. The other four: they were tipped off by Micky Redwall in 1977 that something was going to happen to you? Is that true?" Susan nodded. "And they didn't tell the police or warn you that you're own manager was up to something."
She shook her head.
"Mike and Torque? They took me aside and mentioned Dee, getting rid of her?"
"And what did you say?"
"I didn't see it myself. No Dee, no band."
"They take one of us, we take three of them."
"Three?" Scavinio waited for the other name, but Susan carried on playing. "I saw your medical reports."
"We're in pretty good shape, don't you think? Considering our age."
"Better shape than me. You know we can all help each other here, but before I can trust you, you have to trust me."
"I can trust you."
"There is one other question that's been bugging me. In 1977, what the fuck were the four of you doing in coffins in a tomb in Highgate Cemetery?" Scavinio casually crossed his legs ready for another obtuse explanation.
"You think it's unusual four vampires sleeping in a tomb?"
Scavinio grinned.
"It's a long story. I promise I'll tell you that one some other time."
Scavinio leaned forward close to the neck of the guitar. Susan's fingers were long, delicate, gentle on the strings as they flowed up and down the notes. "Just give me a sign, a hint, one way or another who you really are and I promise I won't ask any more questions." Susan paused on middle C, holding the note with a slight vibrato whilst she considered his request. Scavinio knew the rest of the band were in the room. He sat up to look around and the three of them were standing and sitting on the steps.
"Give us a moment, Tom," said Susan and handed the guitar to him. He could smell her perfume on it as she walked away.
-
On the roof of the building that contained Almer's bar Toten Herzen gathered for a meeting. Against New York's rooftops they waited for Susan's briefing, but they already knew what she was going to ask.
"Do we tell him?"
"We can't do this without a manager we can trust," said Rene.
"What does he know?" Elaine was the only one pacing around the rooftop.
"He knows pretty much everything. He's done his homework, as you'd expect, but he's trying to make sense of it all. You can almost see him arguing with himself over his conclusions. Unavoidable conclusions."
"Is he ready for the truth?" Rene asked.
"I don't know," said Susan. "His wife's at death's door. She could go any day now. My concern is he's gonna ask us to save her life."
"What? Turn her?" Dee wasn't expecting this scenario. "We're not here to provide some kind of homoeopathy."
"I don't know for sure he'll ask, but it's a possibility."
"It's a possibility," said Elaine, "but it's also his responsibility if he asks. If he asks."
"He might not ask," said Susan. "He might turn himself inside out wondering whether to make that decision, but yeah, you're right. That's his call."
"But we still need a manager," said Rene. Susan agreed.
The decision would be another step along the plan, a big step. There was little further progress to be made until this one significant decision could be made.
"We make this decision now and we can get out of New York," Elaine said. And that was the clincher.
-
Scavinio was still in the basement, sat in the same chair and lost in his own nostalgia as he tried to play the notes from his favourite songs, but all he could manage were a few careful arpeggios. "Not exactly Eruption is it, Tom." Susan's hand pulled the guitar away from him. The four band members came around in front of him and they started to look like they meant business. Without hearing anything other than the original recordings Scavinio felt this was a band who lived and breathed music. They had that desire he had seen in the bands who came into his guitar shop, a disregard for the hoops and puzzles of the industry, the money games and accountancy tricks, the fancy pants deals and convoluted licenses. They didn't give a fuck for the new three sixty degree deals and sponsorship scams, the monetizing fandangos and affiliated corporate mind games that led in one direction: the bottom line of the hedge funds and vulture capitalists. Standing there were four people who could and would spit on Todd Moonaj's business plan, take Linda Macvie's marketing horseshit and feed it back to her one spoonful at a time, and he hoped, in vain, that they had lectured Mike Flambor and Torque Rez on the historic importance of Carnegie Hall before tearing their insignificant heads off.
"Come here." Susan held out her hand. It was freezing; the chill from it ran along Scavinio's arm and engulfed his body. Out of nowhere his guitar shop appeared, the lights still on inside, a few customers visible inspecting the racks of F
enders, Gibsons, Epiphones and BC Rich models new in, still made in America before the production lines halted and shifted out to the far east. Inside the store the smell of wood hit him in the face and the warmth of the electric lights was a relief. There was a hushed background chatter occasionally interrupted by the hysterical squeal of a bum note. It made Scavinio laugh to hear that again. Eventually he saw himself, explaining the settings on a Marshall amp that was way beyond the thirty dollars the kid had to spend. He pointed out more affordable models that would do the same job, or at least make a good fist of doing the same job until the kid was earning Eddie van Halen's salary and he could come back for the real thing. Behind them the door opened and a little bit of the dark street outside peeked in. Scavinio should have closed up for the evening ten minutes ago, but he never threw people out. There was always the risk of another and another desperate young hopeful slipping in when he was wanting to slip out. Tonight was no exception and in walked a young woman. Tall, lean, silver skinned with black hair like liquid jet. The recognition was instant. She gazed around. Scavinio noticed her, but was still preoccupied with the kid and the amp. They acknowledged each other with a brief nod and she continued to look over the Gibsons. She took a price tag in her hand.
"I wanted to see what mine was worth," said Susan softly.
"I knew it was you," said Scavinio. "When you walked into the meeting room. I was ninety nine per cent sure, but this. This seals it. You look at the Firebirds and Explorers and then leave." And she did. Two more minutes and the girl was gone.
"We came to see Almer. The first time we'd been to New York and we wanted to make sure he was doing okay. I saw the shop and thought, that place looks cool. Scavinio's Guitar Shop. You don't forget a name like that, Tom."
Scavinio rubbed his eye and swallowed heavily. "The other kid bought the amp, but I don't know if he ever got his Marshall."
"We can hope, Tom."
Back in the basement Rene was sat behind his kit, Dee and Elaine were trying to familiarise themselves with the strange bass and guitar Almer had left out for them. Seeing Scavinio back in the real world they started to play the opening bars of New York, New York. Dee stepped forward to the microphone and began a breathy Monroesque version of the lyrics that made Scavinio's knees weaken! "Start spreading the news. . . ."
Rene clattered his cymbals and started a simple two four beat, the band broke into the theme tune to the Munsters. "This is who we are, Mr Tom," shouted Dee. "Ha haah!"
"Can you play something real," Scavinio said.
"We don't do requests, sir, we aint no tribute band," said Dee. And Susan played the final notes of Any Old Iron. "We's a rock n roll band, mister."
"You should know that by now, Mr Tom," said Susan playing an expectant series of notes. "You know who we are. . . ." The volume grew louder. "And now you know what we are. . . ." and louder. "Fuck it, Tom, fuck everything, fuck the world, fuck life, fuck the beginning and the end, Tom. FUCK IT ALL."
-
The volume went through the roof as the band launched into one of their own songs. The sonic boom vibrated every panel in the bar, higher frequencies shaking the glasses and the prints. The floor thudded with the bass notes hammering their way upwards and the kick drum sending a shock wave through every skull that was still in the building. Almer looked at Wallet who looked at Almer. Both men waited for the missile to come through the floorboards at any minute. Their grins were a mile wide and not the only ones in the bar as the other drinkers started to howl and yell, arms up, fists gripped with the devil's horns out for the first time that evening. And the charge continued, every freight train coming in from Grand Central, every Airbus landing at Kennedy Airport, every vehicle in the city revving its six cylinder engine, every nerve and fibre of New York unleashed in a single cacophony of visceral noise. Almer lost all sense of shame and started playing his air guitar like a demon, accompanied by air drummers, air conductors, shakers, jumpers, headbangers, nutters. The whole place was a blur of stupidity, a dancing wreck, chairs went through the air, tables flipped over. The bar top was lost amongst people clambering to get on top of it, and down below in the inferno the sound continued, relentless, intense, bass heavy, unstoppable; for ten minutes Bonham on 11th was on the verge of collapse, shaken to bits by the aural battery and the combined weight of a bar full of crazed rockers hearing their lives played out with no sense of control or restraint. A joyous ten minutes they thought they'd never hear again this side of Armageddon. The four horsemen could fuck off and take their trumpets with them. The end of the world would sound like this.
23 (June)
Tuesday was always a long day for Todd Moonaj. He knew Mondays were terrible because they followed on from the relative relaxation of the weekends. But his Mondays were so bad they tainted and violated his Tuesdays as well, which wasn't supposed to happen. Moonaj's week only really began to settle by Wednesday before the bedlam of Thursday and Friday began when everyone was trying to contact him before the weekend arrived.
So Tuesday was finally over and about to surrender to the evening before grinding to a halt when Moonaj took a call from Mike Tindall asking if they could meet for a quick beer on the way home. Gregg's Loco was usually a quiet bar at seven pm Tuesday so they both rolled up to a table and sighed audibly as they sat down. Tindall couldn't help laughing.
"We sound like old men, Todd."
"We are old men," said Moonaj."Old before our time."
Tindall opened up his smartphone. "If only we could be vampires. We got the medical reports through this afternoon for our delightful friends from Europe."
"Go on, humour me. Are they as clinically dead as they claim to be?"
"Far from it. The staff at Crendale Medical Clinic are wondering now if their test procedures are correct. They're not sure how four people their age can be so healthy. Some of the headline details, and this applies to all four of them: 20/05 vision."
"Is that good?" asked Moonaj.
"Well, let's say a bird of prey would be proud of that. Hearing range 12 hertz to 30 thousand hertz."
"Bird of prey?"
"It's okay. Not exactly in the same range as a vampire bat, but for a human it's going beyond the normal limits. The ability to hear low decibel sound raised a few eyebrows. Then blood sugar, 72 mg/dl, haemoglobin A1c 3%, blood pH 7.4. Here's a strange thing: everyone's blood produced exactly the same results, like they had a fifty gallon drum of the stuff and injected themselves with it. Rene's blood is the same as the girl's, which is just plain wrong."
"Okay so, he's a woman . . . with a beard. . . ."
"And testicles," added Tindall. "What else? At rest oxygen consumption 245 mL/min, on the treadmill oxygen saturation remained at rest levels of 99% which is better than a drug-free Olympic athlete."
"Better than a drugged up Olympic athlete, I think. Do they ride for any cycling teams? Maybe we should get them in the Tour de France this year."
"Your not taking this seriously, Todd," sang Tindall. "BMI range 21, cholesterol 95."
"Fuck me, even I know that's low."
"Could account for them being so aggressive all the time. Like I say the clinic's checking their procedures because they think there are errors in these figures. I mean LDL cholesterol 3 mg. That can't be right, even for a healthy person. Let alone four sixty year olds."
"Oh, not that old bullshit again. Mike, they are not in their sixties."
"Birth certificates say they are."
"We can't say that for certain. The certificates could be faked."
"National Health Service in the UK supplied the data and matched their National Insurance numbers."
"Fraud. It's the easiest thing in the world to steal the identities of four people who died in 1977. There's your explanation why their results are so healthy. They're twentysomethings who take care of themselves. Come on, Mike, you've seen them. We all agreed this has to be a hoax. It hasn't played out yet."
Mike Tindall lowered his voice. "Todd, to pull off th
e conspiracy you're suggesting, they would have to fake and manipulate a lot of things. The bands history, press reports, their own physiology, other people's witness accounts. How many people are involved? Why hasn't one of them let slip what's going on?"
"And the alternative, Mike? Vampires? Which implausible scenario do you think I'm going with?"
Tindall had to agree. No matter how difficult it was to comprehend the scale of the hoax, the alternative explanation didn't begin to stand up to scrutiny.
"My biggest concern, Mike, and I've spoken to Bill about this. I just hope they're not opening us up to legal proceedings somewhere down the line. There's a whole nation of litigious nuts waiting with a writ for us to fall on our faces. People have been sued for miming, what are people going to do if they find out the whole band is a fake? Maybe Tom can speak to Rob and get some clues on how they're managing to pull this off. I don't mind concocting some kind of confidentiality agreement with them if, and only if, what they're doing is legal."
"Okay. Fine. I understand that. One other thing. Do you know your ears are identical to how they were when you were a kid?"
"Thanks for that, Mike."
"Your ears never change shape as you grow older. I just thought you might like to know, next time you meet the band."
"There isn't going to be a next time," said Moonaj finishing his beer.
"Photographs of the band taken in 1976, off an original album sleeve, Dead Hearts Live. They have the same ears."
"Plastic surgery, Mike," Moonaj was exhausted. "Glue on fakes, I don't know. Were Mr Spock's ears real? Let me spell it out for you. The only thing unnatural about Toten Herzen is that they still have their own livers. Now I'm going home to laugh at another episode of True Blood."
"And there's the teeth."
"Email the report to me, Mike." Moonaj's patience ran dry. He picked up the bill and left Tindall to think about teeth by himself. On the way home he heard his phone ring and go to voicemail. It was Mike Tindall, determined to ruin what was left of Moonaj's Tuesday.
"Hi Todd, it's Mike. I just thought you really should know the dental report was interesting. The fangs, you know their sharpened canines. According to the dental reports the enamel is real, that is they're not veneers or crowns, and the teeth are not dentures, all roots and nerves are still intact. And of course they show no signs of the enamel being shaped or filed. In other words they're pretty damn real. Who would have thought? Have a nice evening, Todd. Oh, and the clinic's x-ray machine is bust. Expect a bill for that."
Moonaj pulled the car over and paused a moment. He pinched the skin between his eyes wishing the voicemail message would suck itself back into the ether unheard. What was he to do? He tried to think of other hoaxes, real or otherwise and how much trouble they had caused their authors. Was Elvis dead? Was Kennedy killed by a stranger on the grassy knoll? When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon was he serenaded by starmen or NASA engineers? Maybe, just maybe, this was a cleverer band than he was giving them credit for. Maybe, just maybe, their deception was something he should go along with after all and milk it, or rather squeeze every last drop of blood out of it. Tuesday was done. Bring on Wednesday. Wednesday's are supposed to be quiet.
24 (June)
To: RobWallet
From: admin.LeeHoWang
Subject: Toten Herzen; monetizing the brand - draft summary ref255622/13
Hi Rob
Please find below a summary of the meeting to discuss the first ideas for monetizing potential of Toten Hezen. These are possible outcomes. If you have any questons do not hesitate to contact Tom.
Bex