The Boiling of the Bones

23. The Record Label

Monday morning, I was at the studio promptly at eight. It was located in the Bowery just off the East Village. The building was a hundred years old with the original ornamented triple layer of brickwork with exposed massive arched steel supports. The receptionist directed me to Mike's office.

Mike was sitting at his desk reading. He looked up as I came in the open doorway.

"Hey nice to see you again."

"You too."

I approached the desk and shook his hand.

"At Probability we're always looking for great studio musicians—essentially guns for hire."

"Like the Wreaking Crew?"

"Exactly. This might surprise you, but some popular artists are not always the most musically talented so we might have our guys jump in for a session or two to get a good clean recording. You interested?"

"Yeah of course."

"You might have to fill in for someone at a concert or two. Maybe even go on tour once or twice. Rock stars live turbulent lifestyles. They're often getting sick or require occasional stints in rehab. We don't like to cancel shows unless we absolutely have to. Promoters get testy, understandably so because it gets messy giving out refunds and radio ads and publicity are expensive. If we can avoid it, it's for the best. Anyway, we've got a studio in the basement, I'd like to hear you play again and maybe record a few tracks for a demo tape, if that's OK?"

"Sure."

He led me down the elevator to the basement. They had the coolest recording studio with the biggest mixing board I'd ever seen in the control room behind an eight-foot-wide fixed glass window. The recording studio was sound insulated with thick dark colored foam and fabric materials on the walls and ceiling. The room was filled with microphones in a variety of shapes and sizes. Some hung down from above, others rested on stands. There was a stage with a drum set and other instruments including a few guitars.

"Have you ever used an Ibanez Tube Screamer?"

He was referring to a foot pedal used to create a variety of cool sound effects on an electric guitar.

"Nope."

"I want you give it a whirl."

"Sure."

He already had a blue Fender Stratocaster guitar amped up and ready to go.

I strummed a few notes. It sounded good. I adjusted the reverb settings, gave it another strum or two, finetuning the settings. I grinned and nodded my head, then played the opening riff from the Rush song, Tom Sawyer.

"How do you like it?"

"I love it."

He handed me a few pages of sheet music.

"I want to hear you play a few songs from, Gravity Source."

I couldn't believe it. They were one of my all-time favorite bands. I positioned the sheet music on a stand as Mike walked out of the room. I curled and uncurled my fingers a few times to stretch them then played a few notes, and then cut loose and tore into the music. Mike smiled and nodded his head from inside the booth.

"You want to start recording now?"

Mike gave me a thumbs up sign from behind the glass.

The first song was a popular ballad that was on the radio quite a bit my sophomore year in high school. Next was another song with quite a bit of radio play as well. I played a few more of their more popular songs and ended with their big hit, Demon Lover. Mike was nodding along as I jammed. It was a good sign for sure.