Dissonance - Chapter 16

As we started the drive to the next city, I made the call to Kent. Although I knew I was right and Brent was just trying to scare me out of getting rid of him, I was still nervous that maybe he wasn’t completely full of hot air. It was one of those irrational fears where you know something isn’t likely, but you worry about it anyway.

Rowan had sent me a text while I was talking to the band, I guess knowing I might need more reassurance that I wasn’t about to make a massive mistake. He also reminded me to be professional, which was a good tip. I couldn’t make the call whining about Brent or acting like some school kid telling on a peer.

I made the call and sat on hold for a while after telling his secretary who I was. That was to be expected. I was a new artist and not one of the guys bringing in the big bucks for the label, so I was probably down the priority list a bunch.

“Charlie!” Kent said enthusiastically when he finally picked up the line. “I hear the tour is going well. We got a call from Linda Chapman’s tour manager saying good things about you guys.”

Linda had to be behind that call. I’d met the man briefly and he’d seemed nice enough, but I hadn’t gotten the feeling he was overly excited about us in any way.

“Good. That show was amazing. The whole first half of the tour was really great, actually.”

“Good. Good. The receipts have been solid in what we were expecting, so you guys are doing great. What can I do for you today?”

“While the first half of the tour has been great, we’ve been having some problems with Brent during this second leg.”

“What kind of problems?”

“Two specifically. The first one has to do with breaking the agreements in the contract I signed, specifically about scheduling tour stops during the school year while I’m still a minor.”

“He’s scheduling more tour stops?” Kent said, sounding surprised, which confirmed Brent hadn’t run any of this by anyone else.

“I don’t know if he’s actually scheduled any, but he talked to me about extending our tour and said he’d already spoken to venues in the Midwest. Specifically, he said I needed to drop out of school or take my GED, so I could focus on touring throughout the year.”

“I see. Don’t worry about that. I’ll have a talk with him, but we aren’t requiring or even asking you to do something like that, and we’ll hold to our contractual agreements.”

“Thank you, although I’m not worried about it. I already told him I wouldn’t agree to that and reminded him of what was in the contract. I brought it up because, of the problems, that one is the easiest to manage.”

“Okay, you said two things, so let’s hear it.”

“At the first show on this leg of the tour, he put in an opener before us. This was a gig that was originally set to last three hours in a smaller club, so it really didn’t need an opener at all. Worse, the opener was terrible. They basically cleared the place out before we ever got on stage, and we found out we had to split the take with this opener. I’m not sure how that shows in your books, but it’s going to make us look less profitable than we should be, for no good reason.”

“He arranged for an opening act?”

“Yes. They really didn’t match the place we were playing at all, and would have driven some of the audience out, even if they hadn’t been terrible. The place mostly played classic rock and they were straight metal.”

“What was their name?” He asked.

From the exasperated way he said it, it almost seemed as if he knew what the name was already.

“Death Punch Tuesday.”

“I see,” he said, his tone all but confirming my suspicions. “We’ll take care of it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“I appreciate that, but I think it would be better, at least for us, to get a new tour manager.”

“You just started, don’t you think that’s a bit hasty.”

“I don’t. I’m guessing from the way you asked about the opener he set for us, this isn’t a new thing for him, which probably also means he’s been warned about doing stuff like this in the past. A warning he clearly didn’t take seriously. That tells me a lot about whose interest he’s looking out for. I know he works for the label, and I’m not saying he should be working for our best interest, because even if he was making decisions based on what was best for the label, that would work out for us. The label wants this tour to work out as well as we do, since the whole goal here is to build an audience for the record release. The problem is, he isn’t making decisions for either our interest or yours. What I can’t accept is him using us as some kind of stepping pad for another group, especially one clearly on the downswing of their career.”

“I agree, that’s bad, and yes, we have had issues with him before, so I understand what you’re saying. However, we’re stretched thin on tour managers at the moment, and you guys really need someone with some experience this early on.”

“I get that, although I think our situation may be enough different from your normal artists that the experience will have limited effect on us. This tour is set up all the way already and what touring we can do during the year is going to be 
 strange, at best. I’m not sure any of your managers have experience scheduling appearances in between school schedules.”

“That’s a good point.”

“The bigger problem I have is I can’t trust him. Above grifting off our tour for another band, he’s not doing what we need for our tour schedule. He’d already asked about touring in the fall once, and when I told him no, he went ahead and started talking to venues anyway. I know my schedule is tough, but that’s why we have a tour manager. The album drops in a month and a half or so, and I do have weekends available. I can get pretty far for Saturday night shows and be back in time for school on Monday. Leading up to the release, he could be trying to book shows as far down as Georgia and up into Pennsylvania and southern Ohio, not to mention all the states we’ve already been in. The more we play before the album comes out, the better the release will be, and that doesn’t even count calling into radio stations or stuff like that. I’m all for touring in the fall, and we have a full week in thanksgiving I’d be willing to be on the road, but he has to be getting the gigs for us, and he’s not.”

“You’re not going to back down on this, are you?”

“No. I’m sorry, but we need a professional, and Brent isn’t that,” I said, and heard him sigh. “Kent, I’m really sorry to drop this in your lap. I know you’ve got a lot going on and you assigned us a tour manager so you could focus on other things. I promise I tried to work this out between us before calling you, but my conversation with him made it clear he wasn’t interested in hearing what I had to say.”

“Don’t worry about it. You did the right thing. I don’t know how long it will take to get someone new assigned to you, but you’ve only got two more stops left and I believe everything’s already set up on those.”

“Would it be okay for Hanna to be our front person for these last two shows?”

“Should be fine. Make sure she has my number if you guys run into any problems. As soon as we find someone new, we’ll see about getting some weekend shows set up for you leading up to the album release.”

“Is there anything we need to do about Brent?”

“No. I’ll take care of it.”

“Okay. Thanks Kent.”

“No problem. Now go out there and make us money.”

***

“So, how’d it go,” Lyla asked when we pulled up to the hotel in Louisville.

We still had an hour before we needed to be at the venue and had decided to check into the hotel and relax for a bit before we got to work. It wasn’t surprising that would be the first thing one of the other three asked, when we finally got out of our cars. I’d known most of the trip that Kent was on board with removing Brent, but for them, they’d had to linger in silence, so I could imagine they might be a little eager to hear news.

“Good. After hearing what’s been happening and what Brent’s been up to, he agreed that we should find a new tour manager. He’s going to look now, but that leaves us on our own for the rest of this tour. We only have two gigs left and both are already set up, so there isn’t a lot we need to do besides just showing up and playing. Hanna’s been keeping up on the details, so she’ll act as our manager for the time being, but he doesn’t expect many problems.”

“Did he say how long it would take to find a manager?” Seth asked.

“No, but he said he was eager to get us weekend gigs set up around the region that we can make it to, leading up to the album release, so I’m guessing not that long.”

“I guess this means a fall tour is out of the question now?” Marco asked.

“It wasn’t ever in question,” I said, trying to keep from snapping at him, since he’d kept his calm instead of whining. “But it doesn’t mean we aren’t going to play while I’m in school. Base line, we still have the Blue Ridge, but we’re going to try to keep every weekend we can booked with a gig, and hopefully Thanksgiving and winter break too. We’ll still make money and we’ll still get exposure, so it’s not a complete loss.”

“We have some news too,” Lyla said.

“Yeah?”

“We’ve been talking for a while, and us living in Ashville doesn’t make much sense. With the label setting our gigs, I doubt they’re going to put a lot here in Ashville instead of a bigger city or region and for weekends where we don’t have a gig, driving out to the Blue Ridge and back is kind of a drain. Plus, it limits how much we can rehearse or work on new material. We started talking about it while we were staying in that apartment in Raleigh, and agreed it made sense for the three of us to get a place in Wellsville to stay. We started calling around, and found a house where the owners moved to Florida and haven’t had a lot of luck selling it. Seth sent them an email and, after a bunch of back and forth, they agreed to let us rent it. Our leases are all up soon, so we should be moving in at the end of August.”

“Really?” I said. “That’s great news. I have been worried about practices and writing, since we are already so limited on time, and was concerned that, once we start having to spend all of Saturday and Sundays driving for days where we have gigs set up by the label, we would basically have no time. We can start practicing during the week.”

“Plus, we’ll have a space to practice. It’s outside of town and it has this big living room area we’re going to turn into our workspace. So no more practicing while tables are being set up for the dinner rush at the Blue Ridge.”

“That’s just great. I know there have been some bumps in the road, but I think we can really make this work,” I said, slapping Marco on the shoulder, finally eliciting a grudging smile.

“I hope so.”

Lyla rolled her eyes at him, but at least she did it where he couldn’t see her. I know Marco didn’t mean to be such a pain in the ass, and he was just eager to get his music career off the ground, which was hard when the entire deal wasn’t even for him. I’d hope I’d be more thankful if someone else got the deal I always wanted, and went out of their way to make sure I got an equal part in it anyway, but I couldn’t blame him for how he felt.

In spite of Marco’s grievances, everyone was in a good mood as we saddled up and headed to the club, including Marco. Unlike the last few, this one was in the suburbs, on the outskirts of downtown Louisville, and it was generally a lot nicer than the clubs we had been playing. Although it had a small bar in the back, it was obvious from the moment we stepped into the building that this wasn’t a bar that also did music. This was a music venue that also had a bar for people over twenty-one.

Even though I was playing, since I was underage, they stamped my hand with a black x symbol that clearly meant I wasn’t allowed to buy alcohol. The first thing that caught my eye was there wasn’t a lot of seating. There was some bleacher-like seating against the wall where the door was, some tables against the wall opposite the stage and next to the bar, and a few stools by the bar, but the rest of the space was open dance floor in front of a slightly raised stage. Large, permanent amps were set up next to the stage, which meant the place must be loud as hell once the bands started playing.

All along the wall were signed posters of groups that had played there in the past. Most I’d never heard of and looked to be regional groups, but there were a few posters from the early days of groups I had heard of. Including a few that had made it into the ranks of superstars.

It spoke to how focused this place was on music, and that they’d been around a while. I was just about to head to the stage to check that out when some guys who’d been by the bar passed us and jumped up on the stage. A club employee was nearby and didn’t say anything, which was odd. I was about to go ask why they were letting some of the early-arriving patrons go up on stage when two guys came through the front door carrying guitars, making a beeline for the stage.

My first thought was, in spite of Kent saying he’d talk to Brent, our tour manager had once again set us up with an opener in a venue that wasn’t big enough to call for one. Yelling at the guys now obviously setting up for a set wouldn’t do any good. They’d just been booked for the gig, and wouldn’t know about the situation behind the scenes between Brent and us.

“Wait here,” I said to the rest of the guys and went through the door marked employees only that Hanna had gone through earlier.

It wasn’t hard to find her, since the door lead to a hallway that was only about ten feet long, with two doors on either side of the hall facing each other. Hanna was standing in one of the open doorways, talking to a man I assumed to be the manager.

“There’s another band getting up on stage,” I said. “Did Brent schedule another opener?”

“No, he called and canceled a few hours ago,” she said, anger in her voice.

“Look, I’m sorry you guys drove all this way, but like I said, I can’t do anything for you. I had to fill your spot with two hours’ notice, and these guys dropped everything to come play. I can’t go tell them ‘never mind, my bad.’ Your manager called and canceled, so you’re going to have to take it up with him.”

“He isn’t our manager anymore. The studio removed him from that position today,” I said.

“Hey, no one told us. He’s who we were told was our contact for the booking, meaning as far as we knew, he had the authority to cancel for you. Sorry kids, but what’s done is done. You’re going to have to take the rest of it up with your people.”

“But you can’t 
” Hanna started to say, until I put my hand on her shoulder.

“Let’s go,” I told her, pulling her towards the door that led back to the club.

“This isn’t right,” she said, shaking off my hand and pulling the employee-only door open angrily.

“No, but the club can’t do anything about it. As far as they knew, Brent was our contact for the gig, and they had to find someone at the last moment. They can’t screw this other band over after they dropped everything to get here on short notice. The person who screwed us is Brent. I’ll call Kent and see what he can do. If Brent did this with the next gig as well, hopefully he can call them and reverse it or whatever, otherwise our tour is screwed.”

We got to the rest of the guys as I finished speaking, and I think the last part of that sentence freaked them out a bit. I explained what was going on, which didn’t help, because knowing what I was talking about made it worse.

“When you said you we needed to get rid of Brent, that you’d take care of it. This doesn’t exactly look like taking care of it.”

“No, I told you’d I’d call Kent. They’re the ones who assigned Brent to us, so they were the ones who needed to get rid of him. He manages other bands through them as well, so how in the world would anyone predict he’d do this? As far as I know, he only got pulled from managing us, but this is almost certainly going to get him shit canned, and probably make it hard to get picked up by any other label to boot.”

“No. You can’t keep passing the buck. You keep telling us how the deal is through you, and you’re the one who keeps talking to the label, so you’re responsible for what happens.”

“You’re right. I take responsibility and I’ll get this fixed. There’s nothing I can do about this gig, but we’re still going to have shows and we’re still going to finish this tour. This kind of thing can happen and we either need to learn to deal with it, or you’re going to be driven crazy.”

“Come on Marco,” Seth said. “We’ve seen some crazy shit over the years. At least we know the label’s going to come through and pay us. How many times have we played a show and never gotten paid? Shit happens, and if Brent was willing to do this, then we didn’t want him as our manager anyway. Better to deal with this now, at the end of our tour, than later on when maybe he could cause more damage.”

“He has a point,” Lyla said.

“I still think this could have been handled better.”

“How? I told y’all what I was thinking and asked for your input. The only thing you wanted to talk about was how you agreed with Brent, and when we, as a group, decided that getting rid of Brent was the right call, you shut down and didn’t have any more input. So please, tell me what we should have done to avoid this? I guess other than just giving in to him, rewarding his games?”

Marco was quiet for a minute, but I held his gaze until he looked away and mumbled something none of us could hear.

“Marco, we all value your input and we’ll continue making all of our decisions as a group, but if you want to be able to complain about how something is done, you have to make take part in the discussions leading up to it. This ‘I told you so’ schtick is getting old.”

Instead of letting him answer, I left the club to make the call to Kent.