Chapter 73: Smart Girls Keep Quiet And Narrate

Marley, October, Atlanta

I sit on the couch at the back of the mixing room for the third week in a row. Soundcrush is deep in the recording of their third album.

I say very little these days. I'm here as a girlfriend, not as a road manager. Not even as a counselor. None of my training up til now has prepared me for this mess.

Three-fifths of Soundcrush are also in the mixing room with me. Bodie is in the soundbooth—his entire kit mic'ed and walled off in plexiglass. Adam is also in the large area, which is actually a room not a booth, behind his own sound barriers. Together, Bodie and Adam are laying down the rhythm track for Bone Break, a song that Trace and Mac wrote about their traumatic experiences and dealing with the aftermath. The central theme being that a bone is stronger at the site of a break than before.

Which isn't technologically true. Or rather, it's only temporarily true. Apparently in the last stages of the healing process of a bone break, the over-calcification does make a break site temporarily stronger. Then the over-calfication fades and the site loses that added strength. Kade pointed this out to Trace at a Labor Day picnic last month in Tennessee, much to Trace's annoyance.

Not that it takes much to annoy Trace these days. His mother and Ross have reconciled and are now living together in Atlanta again, and his anxiety has reached an all-time high. At least from my year perspective of being his counselor. Adding to his stress this particular week is a minor estrangment with Kat.

She is in Florence for his brother's first art show, and she's angry with Trace that he wouldn't take two days off from recording the album to fly over for the exhibition.

For once, I'm on Trace's side when it comes to his obstinacy. He isn't being petty, not attending the show. He's got massive problems to deal with, right here, right now.

From everything I have learned so far about this business, and from Riley and Matt's frequent trips to Atlanta to help mediate between Sid and Trace, I gather that the recording sessions this time around are going much more roughly than at any time in Soundcrush's past.

Soundcrush has a reputation for being a group of top caliber musicians and requiring few takes. So Sid and Trace had the goal of producing this album "live" in the sense that all the songs would be recorded with the entire band playing as one, with only the barest expectation that there might be some dubs on Leed's vocals. Yet producing a studio sound. It's a high aim for a band, and when it's achieved successfully, critics take notice, even if the fans have no clue.

The goal isn't panning out. Soundcrush spent more than a week trying to get a clean cut on Priestess. After the next single candidate, Drunk Sundial—a song about Leed's temporary break-up with Ashlynn—took another five days and nearly all of Trace's patience...Riley had a sit-down with the band and Sid to "adjust expectations."

Apparently Sid—who has never produced for them before—and Trace—who is cutting his first album under the del Marco media microscope and perhaps finally coming to understand Street's "big shoes to fill" hang-ups, are not the best combination after all.

Two perfectionists don't necessarily make a right. They make a huge headache for getting an album done.

So now, the band is trying to record as they have in the past—laying down the rhythm section together—sometimes Trace on additional backing guitar but not on this particular song. The keys, lead guitar, and vocals are recored after and separately.

Even still, the process has been fraught with more error and more conflict than any band member has anticipated. It seems Leed's voice is not at the best it's ever been—in hindsight adding those three weeks of tour dates at the end of the Double Impact was a mistake because it only gave him a few weeks to rest his voice.

But it's not just him. Adam is probably the most proficient musician in the band, but he keeps changing his bass solos between takes—mostly because he's exhausted and he forgets exactly how he played it the last time. His freestyles are driving Sid crazy because it subtly alters the plan he has for mixing the tracks.

Adam and Sid are having other problems, too. The band voted to have let Adam have a co-produing credit on three of the tracks and Sid—who had no problem with that in theory when the contracts were signed—has had a big problem with Adam's input in practice. I guess he thought it was just a vanity credit for Soundcrush's most talented but most underutilized musician.

Mac's loyalty to Adam is so fierce that she absolutely hates Sid. She's a pro in the studio but back at the band house she cusses him six ways to Sunday. It stresses Trace out more, because he is the one that brought Sid to the table.

And then there's Bodie. Bodie doesn't actually have a complaint, but Trace has a huge beef with Bodie right now.

There were six weeks of band rehearsal scheduled after Adam finished Arabella's album and before Soundcrush's slated studio time. Through no fault of his own, Bodie resulted in a loss of two full weeks of that rehearsal time. Because a rock band without its drummer is just a bunch of guys and girls standing around on a stage with no place to start.

Bodie spent the first week of rehearsals pushing to end rehearsals before Trace was inclined, because he was cooking Daemon's books for the audit that thankfully Varrick was able to squash at the last minute. Madam—who had been separated from each other for a month—always voted with Bodie on that one. And Leed, who would only sing on two or three passes of any given song anyway, in an effort to conserve his voice for the real recording time, was pretty bored at rehearsal and was always happy to knock off early to enjoy some Sunshine or some Facetime with Ollie. It's really starting to hit him, how much of Ollie's life he is missing being a music man.

With all the personal concerns the band has going on, the first week of rehearsals was nothing more than half-ass half-days, but it was Bodie who was always vocally calling it a day.

Then Bodie had to make another bad-timing trip to "the Phillipines" that ruined the second week. When he got back, he was just as edgy and unable to sleep as the last time—because apparently Thailand is a trigger that reminds him of his time there trying to drug away his memory of Cain Priestly. The third week was rough, with Bodie and Adam struggling to flesh out their parts on the three new songs that Trace and Mac had just written the month prior.

Things finally started to normalize with the band dynamics the fourth week—but then Chili got food poisoning in the middle of Strut's tour and Bodie automatically agreed to sub for three gigs without even talking to Trace. Trace was annoyed at both Row for asking and Bodie for agreeing on that one.

When Bodie got back, he got super serious about drumming—even spending long hours at home obsessively playing the songs over and over in the basement, spending entire nights not sleeping but drumming—but that didn't help his mood, or his interactions with Trace.

It also didn't help matters that Preston kept showing up at the band house after rehearsal hours with Sixmob tattoes blazing, interrupting casual dinners where the band was trying to relax. Apparently, Trace's neighborhood is Preston's dealing turf, so Bodie thinks it's a good idea to have him swing by and report things to Bodie about Daemon, Sixmob, and the new heroin business that the two are too paranoid to use cell phones for or discuss in our neck of Atlanta, in case Daemon gets the idea that Preston is spying on him for Bodie. Which apparently, he is. But the result of all that means that Preston shows up with a gun tucked in his pants at the rock star McMansion and he and Bodie walk off to the pool house for a chat that looks every bit as sketch as it is.

Everyone—even Leed—seems displeased by Preston's presence, and Bodie simply ignores it, refusing to offer any justification for his dealings with Preston, or his old gang.

So even though weeks five and six of rehearsal things technically began to come together, the sync that makes Soundcrush something beyond most bands? It's not as crisp.

In short, there is a lot of static in Soundcrush right now.

So it doesn't surprise me that as soon as Bodie and Adam finish the current take—which sounded perfect to my unprofessional ears, more trouble begins to brew.

Trace turns his back on the soundbooth and looks to his highly recommended producer. Sid Stoltz.

Sid has long curly hair like Leed, but darker and with a bonus goattee. He's lanky like Leed, and restless-prowly like Leed. He has none of Leed's charm or ease. He's by turns aggressive or obsessive. They say he's talented and makes legendary albums, but I suspect it comes with a cost. I make a note to ask Boss Hawkins if he's heard anything about the flip side—about how many bands have broken up trying to put together an album with Sid. It might be data I should put in front of Trace as a cautionary warning.

Trace has listened to every album Sid has ever produced and admires nearly all of them, so in his mind, Sid was the guy that had to produce their third make-or-break effort. "What do you think? That was the best take yet, for sure. I think we can move on..."

"It was the best take yet..." Sid agrees.

Then he makes a slight sound I have come to loathe—that intake of breath over the back of his teeth.

A hiss of doubt.

I'm not the only one that hates his little poisonous habit. As he makes that sound, Mac spins her chair and looks at me, rolling her eyes.

But unfortunately Sid's doubt is contagious.

Trace bites. "What did you hear?"

"Was it me, or did that drum fill in the second hook repetition sound just a little less energetic than it did in the first time we hear the hook?" He leans forward and presses the mic, speaking to Bodie and Adam in the booth. "Hold on guys. Just a sec. We're checking a thing..."

"How about you let us come in there and here the thing, too?" Adam growls. Sid doesn't even bother to respond into the mic. He cuts it off and focuses on the computer. Trace keeps his back to the booth.

Adam swings his Ibanez around and starts yanking off his leather bracelets in irritation, tossing them down on the floor. He looks to Mac through the glass, shaking his head slightly. Then he and Bodie communicate silent complaints to one another, because we can still hear them, but they can't hear us.

"It was perfect, Sid." Mac's voice is flat, but firm.

"It was not," he says bluntly as he hunkers close to the computer, cuing up the two drum fills in question for comparison. "But if you need to go feed your daughter, we can handle this deliberation without you."

"You know what Sid, you can go fuck yourself with a hashtag and follow it with a metoo," Mac says without heat. "And Trace, you can go straight to hell, if you are going to support his attitude."

"I'm not," Trace says. "That was over the line, Sid. Mac's input is critical to Soundcrush. We weren't Soundcrush until we added her sound. And fuck that lean out bullshit you are implying. Mac is not the problem. Motherhood is not the distraction."

Trace's eyes cut unconsciously to Bodie, but then he cracks his neck.

"Alright, alright," Sid holds his hands up in different. "I'm sorry, Mac. I'm just trying to do what you've asked, which is produce your best album yet."

He apologizes to Mac, but he's looking at Trace, his finger on the mouse, hovering to commence playback.

Trace looks at Mac to see if she's satisfied. She shrugs. "Let's hear it his issue, since we've already fucked with Adam and Bodie's vibe."

Sid plays the two drum fills. Overlayed. Trace concedes to Sid's point. Mac argues that the difference isn't discernable unless you overlay them and in no way detractive from the overall track once filled with all the elements. Leed suggests that they could cut the track and dub in the first fill for the second.

Sid says they could also use a Roland drum machine and synthesized bass and autotune for Leed's "pitch problem" but that it wouldn't be raw and real. Mac snipes that he is full of shit because he's sucking all the raw and real out by overproducing the tracks. Trace argues there is a difference between tight and overproduced and agrees with Sid.

He cuts on the mic to the booth. "We're gonna do it again. Bodie, those fills on the hook aren't sharp enough."

Bodie throws his stick and stalks into the booth. "I have no fucking clue what you are talking about if you don't let me hear the goddamn playback," he snaps.

Adam has followed him. Bodie turns to him in frustration.

"Bro, when have we ever produced a fucking song where we were treated like studio musicians instead of part of the band?" he tosses out to his rhythm partner. Adam opens his mouth—I think to agree, but before he can, Trace snaps.

"That's fucking rich, Bodie. Considering you've been acting about half as professional as a studio musician for I don't know—more than a year now."

Bodie laughs harshly. "You're right, I'm a complete hack. My family shit is just a big fucking distraction to your Soundcrush agenda. Not at all like the time you blew off our first Fallon appearance to elope to Vegas. Or when we pushed back our second album production by two weeks so that you could move your mom from Atlanta to LA. Or how you were getting wasted and fucking everything that moved during our Portland recordings because your platonic marriage was stressing you out. Or the weeks you spent off tour last year to make it with Little Sister and accept your del Marco crown—"

Trace shoves Bodie first but Bodie was ready for it. All hell breaks lose. Curses, accusations, and punches are all thrown. Leed and Adam are dragging them to separate corners and Mac and I are being ignored as we try to reason with them.

THey are still shouting at each other.

"That shit is not the fucking same and you know it!" Trace yells at him, shoving at Adam who is leveraging him against the wall as Mac says, "Don't. You need to walk it off."

"It's the goddamn same!" Bodie yells.

"Dharma and Arabella are not your family." Trace snarls back. "Sixmob is not your fucking family!"

"You don't know shit about Sixmob. I would have probably be dead by thirteen if it weren't for a few of those OG's in that gang! And Arabella is no goddamn different to me than Ashlynn was to you! You are just pissed that I found a way to help Arabella when you almost drove Ashlynn to the fucking brink of sanity!"

Leed is shaking his head as he fights to push Bodie across the floor. It's not really working. Leed has height leverage but Bodie has pounds of muscle on him. "Bodes, come on, man."

"Bodie please think about what you say..." One careless comment about Ashlynn and Leed is liable to turn from wingman to combatant.

"I always watch what I say, Jasmine," he growls in frustration and I sigh, knowing how true it usually is, how many roles Bodie has to play, how much pressure he is under. But he's already lost his cool and I rarely see that from him. Never with Soundcrush.

"Okay, let's take five!" I say forcefully. "Adam, get Trace out of here!"

I only say that because Trace is closer to the door and Adam has much more leverage on Trace than Leed does on Bodie. But I guess it was the wrong thing to say. Adam and Mac both look at me with clear disapproval—like I don't have the right.

Trace takes my words completely the wrong way. Now his anger is hurled at me.

"This is my goddamn band!!!! You work for me. You only give the orders I tell you to give. Don't ever fucking think you can thwart me. Doc Gorgeous will be out of a fucking job and Jasmine Jones can go back to working the pole at the Lunar Lounge!"

Trace's harsh words put Bodie over the top.

He jukes around Leed and is at Trace again. Leed and Adam scramble to keep them apart again, but it doesn't stop Bodie from yelling,

"Now you are talking the kind of shit that can get you killed, you know that!?!? Say that shit again and you better watch your fucking back because I will come for you with a nine!!!"

I'm shocked by what Bodie says. He's so enraged he doesn't know what he's saying. I think his words are just an echo of his childhood, the kinds of things he grew up hearing angry men say in the streets.

I'm not the only one that's shocked. Everything stops. All the struggle, all the yelling fades as everyone—including Bodie—winds down in the aftermath of his completely empty, but deadly threat.

Bodie makes a frustrated face and shakes his head, turning away.

"He didn't mean that," I say to Trace.

"He fucking knows I didn't mean that," he growls.

Trace pushes Adam off slowly. "Yeah I know."

There's a long silence. Finally Trace says. "That's it's for the day. Actually, let's call it a week."

"Are you kidding!?!?" Sid says, as if completely unconcerned about the free-for-all that just happened. "We can't lay off this." He gestures between Trace and Bodie, "You're just finally raising some real fucking energy."

Leed looks at Sid in disbelief. "You fucker. This is what you think of as good vibes? Goddammit, Trace—"

"Yeah," Trace nods at Leed. "Sid, why don't you head back to LA? We'll call you when we are ready to move forward again."

Sid is no stranger to "LA-speak." He knows he was just fired. He laughs. "You still have to pay out my contract. And hear me, Trace when I say this. You use any of these songs we've worked on together and I will sue you for publishing credit."

"You didn't write any of these songs," Trace is calm, but surprised at Sid's attitude. "You've done nothing but pick them apart."

Sid picks up his messenger bag. "We'll let the lawyers decide."

———

It's three weeks before Soundcrush reconvenes. At the bandhouse.

There is no booze and no girlfriends and no Preston allowed, by pre-negotiation. I am there only because Riley insists. There are apologies made—sincere ones—by both Trace and Bodie.

The band votes to fire Sid as producer and produce the album themselves, with Adam and Trace sharing credit.

I offer to resign. The band unanimously votes that down.

Three weeks later, there is another meeting. Riley has spent the interim trying to work a deal with Sid, to no avail. Sid won't budge on his insistence that he deserves a writing credit for the entire catalog of songs slated for Soundcrush's third album. Trace won't budge on his artistic integrity and give Sid the co-credits on songwriting, because it's simply untrue.

In the end, Soundcrush goes back to the drawing board for its third album, which is eventually, and to the displeasure of Angelo Moran, titled Fuck Charon. It was titled that for both a professional and a very personal reason, but neither were ever fully explained in the press. However, the professional grievance the band held against Sid Stotlz was alluded to in the album art. It features Trace, with a full bag of coins in one hand, giving the finger to the mythological boatman with other. The boatmen looks eerily familiar to anyone that knows Sid Stotlz.

Moran said the title was a branding issue because it's name couldn't be accurately expressed on public radio. DJ's have to call it "Eff Charon," and it loses its potency. Trace told Moran he did not give a fuck, that the title was a message to the assholes everywhere with too much prestige and too much power.

He said the title represented Soundcrush refusing payment to "the man" who was supposed to usher them into immortality, but also Soundcrush literally refusing to die.

Unfortunately, as some critics pointed out, refusing to die doesn't ever change anyone's outcome.