Utopia Avenue Read online

  “If we try ‘Darkroom’ without a piano,” says Dean, “it’ll die.”

  “ ‘House of the Rising Sun’?” suggests Jasper.

  Dean’s unimpressed. “Without an organ?”

  “It’s an old American folk song,” Elf points out. “It predates the Animals by six decades, at least.”

  Dean wonders how long he’ll be able to put up with her.

  “Are we holding you lot up?” yells the wag at the bar.

  “What do you want to play, then?” asks Elf.

  Dean finds he doesn’t know. “ ‘Rising Sun’ it is, then.”

  “Once we win them over,” says Jasper, “we’ll do an original.”

  Dean goes over to Griff, who’s opening another bottle of Gold Label. “Forget the set list, it’s ‘House o’ the Rising Sun.’ ”

  “Aye, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir.”

  “Just bloody play it.” Jasper steps up to the mic. “This next song’s about a house of ill-repute in New Orleans, where—”

  “There is…a house…in New Orleans…” begin the bar-football players, who haven’t stopped playing since they arrived.

  “Never heard this one before,” calls out the bar wag.

  * * *

  —

  UNTIL NOW, DEAN has thought of “The House of the Rising Sun” as an indestructible song, but Utopia Avenue are proving him wrong. Jasper’s vocals sound constipated, posh, and twattish. Elf’s harmony is a distraction in a song about male remorse. Dean walks too far from his amp and his piece-of-shit guitar lead unplugs itself from his piece-of-shit amp. The audience laughs as he scrambles back to plug it in again. Jasper doesn’t cover for him and launches into the second verse without any bass to buoy it along. Griff plays ploddingly—a deliberate fook you, Dean suspects, for daring to tell him he was playing too fast during “Abandon Hope.” Nobody in the audience is dancing. Or even swaying. They just stand there, their body language saying, Well this is shit. A group breaks off and leaves. Jasper’s solo misfires again. If he was this useless at 2i’s, thinks Dean, I’d have never joined the band. The swinging doors over by the bar keep swinging. We’re clearing the place out. Dean joins the third verse, hoping Jasper will take the hint and drop away. He doesn’t. He fingerpicks the last four bars minus drums and bass, like Eric Burdon’s intro on the Animals’ version, but it just highlights how inferior the whole performance has been. Not an ounce o’ showmanship, thinks Dean. Hopeless.

  On the final line, feedback jags out of the speakers. Not in a cool Jimi Hendrix way: in a bad village-fête-PA-system way. Someone shouts, “Heard better!” Dean can only agree. He looks at Levon, who stands with his arms folded, watching the dwindling audience.

  They convene around the drum kit. “Pretty shit,” says Griff.

  “ ‘Pretty shit’ ’s too kind if yer ask me,” says Dean.

  “What’s next?” asks Elf. “ ‘A Raft and a River’ without a piano is going to sink without trace.”

  “What about an electric ‘Any Way the Wind Blows’?” suggests Levon. “You’ve done it at Club Zed a few times.”

  “We were only pissing around,” says Dean, who thinks Elf’s signature song needs drums like an albatross needs propellers.

  “We’ve nowt to lose at this point,” says Griff.

  * * *

  —

  “ANY WAY THE Wind Blows” is the least worst so far. Griff keeps the tempo slower than on Elf’s recorded version, and Jasper ornaments each line. Dean finally clicks with Griff and they stay in lockstep. The mic barely picks up Elf’s guitar, but only twenty people are left watching. Jude is still there, clasping her hands. She smiles at him, and Dean tries to smile back. The doors at the back swing open. Six or seven guys barge in and Dean thinks, Trouble. They’re dressed more like mods than students. The barman folds his arms. A shout—“I said, FIVE fucking BEERS!”—is heard over the music, and the surviving audience turn around to look. The band plays on. Dean hopes someone is calling for the cavalry, and that Brighton Polytechnic’s cavalry is more than a wheezing porter. Dean hears more shouts: “Yeah? If you won’t serve us, I will!” There’s an exodus from the bar area. Even the bar-football players stop and scuttle off. The mods are helping themselves to beers. This should get the police involved, but Dean doubts they’ll be here any time soon. The band reaches the end of the song, but only Jude and a couple of others applaud. The others melt away as the mods approach the stage, holding beers. Their leader has a bullish neck, rat’s teeth, and a shark’s eyes. He gestures at Elf. “When’s she flashin’ her udders?”

  “This isn’t that kind of show,” says Elf.

  “Customer’s always right, honey pie,” says Shark Eyes. “Boys?” He and his gang link arms and perform the cancan with the jerky malice of mods on speed. They advance to within a few yards of the stage, where the cancan stops as suddenly as it began.

  “Play something, then,” says a mod in a Union Jack jacket.

  “None of your hippie bollocks,” warns another.

  Levon steps in front of the stage. “Lads, we play what we play. If you don’t like the music, the door’s back there.”

  Shark Eyes gurns mock astonishment. “A Yank? Fucksake. What are you doing here?”

  “Canadian,” says Levon, “and I manage this band, so—”

  “If it looks like a faggot,” Shark Eyes drops a glob of spit onto the floor, “dresses like a faggot, and squeals like a faggot…”

  “You won’t like our music,” says Jasper. “You may as well leave.”

  “ ‘You may as well leave’!” mimics Union Jack Jacket. “You beastly wuffians! Who are you? Little Lord Fauntleroy?”

  “OY!” Griff stands up. “We’re FOOKIN’ WORKING.”

  With his vest and wild barbarian hair, Griff looks crazy enough to be a threat—but not to Shark Eyes, who starts laughing: “A Yank, a toff, a hippie moo, and a Yorkshire Yeti! It’s like the first line of a fucking joke. What are you?” He’s pointing at Dean. “The Pixie Bumboy?”

  Off to one side, an arm swings and a projectile spins at Dean. He ducks, and Griff stumbles back clutching his head, falling over his drums. The cymbals clash like a punchline. Union Jack Jacket calls out, “One hundred and eightyyy!” like a darts scorer.

  The mods hoot and laugh, but Griff doesn’t get up. Levon and Elf hurry over. Dean peers at the damage. Griff’s face has a gruesome gash oozing blood. The zigzag cap of the bottle, thinks Dean, or an edge on his drum kit…

  “Griff?” Levon’s saying. There’s blood on his shirt. “Griff!”

  Griff mumbles, “Lemmegetmy’andsonth’fooker…”

  Levon roars at the bar: “Barman! An ambulance! Now! An emergency! His eyeball’s half out!” Dean doesn’t think an eye is out…but the mods don’t know that.

  The barman shouts back, with a phone in his hand, “I called the porter! He’s calling the cops and an ambulance!”

  Dean shouts at the onlookers: “Remember their faces!” He points at the mods, whose smirks are fading. “The cops’ll want witness statements. D’you fuckers know what that is?” He points at Griff. “That’s five years’ prison a head for GBH!”

  A flash goes off. It’s Jude, with a camera.

  The flash goes off again. The mods take a step back, and another, and another, except for Shark Eyes, who marches at Jude, snarling, “Gimme that fucking camera!” Dean drops his Fender and jumps down from the stage. Now Shark Eyes is in a tug-of-war with Jude over her camera. He’s roaring, “GIMME THAT, YOU BITCH!” It’s a one-sided fight until Dean grabs a bottle of brown ale from a bystander and brings it down on Shark Eyes’s head with all his might. Dean feels something crack. Shark Eyes lets the camera go and turns to look at his assailant, woozily. Fuck, thinks Dean. Am I the one going to prison for five years? To Dean’s relief, Shark Eyes’s gang hustle their leade
r from the scene of the crime.

  * * *

  —

  DRIZZLE COATS THE Students’ Union car park, and everyone in it, in a cool, wet layer. Most of the spectators have left. The mods have vanished into the night. “Your friend’s injury looks worse than it probably is,” says the ambulance man, discussing Griff. “But I’m guessing the duty nurse’ll want to keep him in over the weekend. He’ll be X-rayed, he’ll need stitches, and there’s a concussion risk with head injuries. On the whole, your friend’s lucky he didn’t lose an eye.”

  “I’ll follow you to the hospital in my car,” says Levon.

  “I’m coming with you,” states Elf.

  “There’s no need,” says Levon.

  Elf ignores him. “Dean can drive the Beast back, and…” Dean guesses she’s stopped herself saying, “Jasper’s not going to be much use to anyone.” “I’m coming with you.”

  Dean asks the ambulance man, “Can we say goodbye to Griff?”

  “Be quick, and don’t expect sparkling conversation.”

  “He’s the drummer,” says Dean. He goes around the back and steps into the clean, cream-colored interior where Griff is sitting up on a trolley. Half his face is bandaged. He looks at Dean. “Oh, bugger. It’s you. I’ve died and gone to Hell.”

  “On the bright side,” says Dean, “if that scar turns out nice, yer’ll get a lifetime of work in horror movies.”

  “How’re you feeling?” Elf holds his hand. “Poor thing.”

  “Getting glassed is light entertainment up in Hull,” says Griff. “Who’s minding my drum kit? I don’t trust them students.”

  “It’s in the Beast,” says Jasper. “We’ll keep it at my flat.”

  “If yer snuff it,” says Dean, “we’ll flog it to yer replacement.”

  “Good luck finding a drummer who’ll keep you on the beat.”

  “ ’Scuse me?” There’s a girl’s voice behind them. Dean turns around to see Jude hesitating by the ambulance door. “Can I…?”

  “Come on up,” says Levon.

  “Sorry to barge in. I just…I feel awful, for you.”

  “Apologies are due from the Students’ Union,” says Elf, “but you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”

  “Your music was fab.” Jude tucks a fallen strand of her hair behind her ear. “Until you were so rudely interrupted.”

  “Wish I could agree,” says Dean. “But thanks.”

  “Will you be back to finish the gig?” asks Jude.

  The band look at each other. “Not unless we’re paid blood money,” says Dean. Levon pfffs. “We’ll wait until Griff is back to full strength before planning our next move.”

  She glances at Dean. “So I guess it’s bye, then…”

  * * *

  —

  THE A23’S CAT’S eyes vanish beneath the Beast in sweeping curves. Now you see ’em, now you don’t. The amps, drums, and guitars shift around in the back. Four of us drove down, thinks Dean, and only two of us are going back. Jasper has retreated into Jasper. Or maybe he’s asleep. What’s the difference? Dean wishes the Beast’s radio worked. His mind is busy. Thank God Ray didn’t witness that shit-show. Shanks, Ray, and Co. would have fought off the mods, but Utopia Avenue’s disastrous debut would have had credible witnesses. Sounding good in rehearsal doesn’t count for shit if we can’t do it onstage. A band is only a band if it believes it is, and Dean isn’t sure if he, Jasper, Elf, and Griff do. When push came to shove, they didn’t click. He’s got a working-class affinity with Griff, but Jasper’s from a different planet. The Planet of the Posh Weirdos. Dean’s lived with Jasper for eight weeks, but he still hardly knows him. Elf thinks Dean’s an oik. How could she not? Her naughtiest swear word is “damn.” Her parents will bail her out if her adventures in showbiz go wrong. She lives life with a safety net. Even Griff’s got a safety net.

  “Not me,” mutters Dean.

  “Did you say anything?” asks Jasper.

  “No.”

  The Beast enters a tunnel of trunks and branches.

  A dead pheasant is smeared into the road.

  I need the others more than they need me, thinks Dean. Jasper could jump ship tomorrow. Any band in London would want him. And then I can kiss my Mayfair flat goodbye. Griff has the jazz circuit. Elf has a solo career to go back to. Levon has Moonwhale, an office in Denmark Street and, after tonight, Dean guesses, serious doubts about throwing good money after bad. What have I got? Utopia Avenue. Dean’s future was supposed to take off tonight.

  It blew up on the launch pad.

  Smithereens.

  MONA LISA SINGS THE BLUES

  “We decided an hour ago,” groans Elf. “The third take’s best.”

  “Take six is more precise.” Levon speaks on the control-room talkback. “Dean fluffed that descending scale.”

  “That adds to it,” insists Elf. “It comes just as Jasper sings the word ‘broken.’ It’s one of those happy accidents that—”

  “Jasper’s vocal’s better overall on take six,” says Levon. “And Griff played it more ‘tick-tock-tick-tock,’ too.”

  “If you want ‘tick-tock-tick-tock,’ ” said Elf, “just get a giant hairy metronome in a vest to sit in the corner and record that.”

  “If the giant hairy metronome can get a word in.” Griff lies on a saggy sofa, his angry new scar crossing his left temple. “Mosser’s bass bled into my snare. Can we do a take seven with an absorber?”

  “I left the absorber out on purpose,” says Digger, Fungus Hut’s in-house engineer. “Like the Stones. They let it bleed on purpose.”

  “So?” Dean is perched on an amp, picking his nose and not caring who sees. “We’re not Stones clones.”

  “Taking a leaf from the Stones’ book doesn’t make you a clone, guys,” says the tanned, tooth-whitened, Playboy-esque co-owner of Moonwhale, Howie Stoker. “Those boys are a gold mine.”

  “They’re a gold mine ’cause they found their own voice, Howie,” replies Dean, “and not by acting like bloody parrots.”

  “Nobody at Chess Records’d agree the Stones aren’t parrots.” Griff blows a smoke ring.

  “None of this is the point!” Elf feels trapped in a circular nightmare. “Can we please just—”

  “No, but, guys, here’s an idea.” Howie Stoker accentuates his speech with hand-chops. “Ditch that line, ‘Down in the darkroom where a lie becomes the truth’ and replace it with ‘sha-la-la-la-la-dah sha-la-la-la-la-bah.’ I had dinner with Phil Spector last week and he says sha-la-las are making a comeback.”

  “Definitely a thought, Howie,” says Levon.

  Shoot me first, thinks Elf. “Dean, it’s your bass part. Take three or six. Choose one. Put us out of our misery.”

  “I’ve listened to them so much, my ears’re on strike.”

  “That’s why God invented producers,” says Levon. “Digger, Howie, and I agree—take six is the one.”

  “We were agreed it was take three,” Elf tries not to shout because then she’ll be the hysterical female, “until you—”

  “Take three led the field for a while,” explains Levon, “but six rallied strongly and reached the finishing line first.”

  God give me strength. “A badly fitting metaphor is not a winning argument. Jasper. Three or six? It’s your song.”

  Jasper peers out of the vocal booth. “Neither. I sound like Dylan with a cold. I’d like to do a croonier retake.”

  “Phil Spector has a saying,” says Howie Stoker. “ ‘Don’t let the good be the enemy of the best.’ Is he right or is he right?”

  “I’d say that’s truly sound advice, Howie,” says Levon.

  You arse-licking pun-cracker, thinks Elf. “If we had all week I’d agree to try it five hundred ways. But we only have…” The clock shows 8:31 A.M. “…four hours and twenty-nine minute
s to do two songs because we’ve spent so much time on this one.”

  “ ‘Darkroom’ ’s the A side,” says Levon. “This is the song that’ll be coming out of a million radio sets. It has to be perfect.”

  “Shouldn’t we hear how my and Dean’s songs come out before deciding what’s the A side?” asks Elf. “Otherwise—”

  “No, but—” begins Dean, and a fuse blows in the brain of Elf, who slams her piano keyboard and tells the studio, “If anyone talks over me again I will ram my Farfisa up his arse.”

  The men look shocked, except for Jasper. Then they swap uh-oh-someone’s-having-her-period looks.

  “Miss Holloway?” Deirdre, Fungus Hut’s receptionist, is at the door. “Your sister’s in reception. She says she’s expected.”

  Bea’s been sent to save me from killing someone, thinks Elf. “Okay. Everyone. Do what you want with this damn song. I’m past caring. I’m going to the Gioconda. I’ll be back at nine.”

  “Go ahead,” replies their manager. “It’ll do you good.”

  “I wasn’t asking for permission, Levon.” Elf gathers her coat and bag and exits without a backward glance.

  * * *

  —

  OUT IN RECEPTION, fresh air wafts in from Denmark Street. Bea’s looking at a wall of photographs of Fungus Hut’s more famous clients. Elf admires her younger sister’s new boyish haircut, her violet beret, her lilac jacket and knee-length boots. Nails and lips are a matching shade of plum. “Little sis. Look at you.”

  The sisters hug. “Did I go overboard? I was aiming at Mary Quant, but now I’m afraid I’ve gone Mary Mary Quite Contrary.”

  “If I was on the judging panel, I’d offer you a place based on your sartorial genius alone.”

  “You’re biased.” Bea points to a photograph of Paul McCartney. “If I stay here long enough, will Paul waft in on a wave of fabness?”

  “ ’Fraid not.” Deirdre looks up from her desk. “That was March. Abbey Road was all booked up for the night. Just a one-off.”