While the pizza was going around, Alex took a careful survey of the trophy corner of the office.
For his whole career as a singer, Old Joe had exactly one dubious-looking award for ten thousand records sold, and he’d won it in the 1960s.
Which meant that this thrift store song stood a real chance of carrying Old Joe to a new peak as a performer — decades after he’d quit.
No wonder he’d told Pablo not to make things complicated.
Right now he was looking forward to this record coming out even more than Alex was.
Pablo was strong, true enough.
But the man whose word went furthest in this company was Old Joe, and the boss’s current state could fairly be described as fanatical.
The moment the pizza was gone he went straight into rehearsal, and his attitude in the booth was far better than either Lori’s or Morgan’s.
In every free minute he had the phone against his ear, booking a drummer, a keyboard player, the rest of the players; he also called around the bigger companies for time in a professional mixing room.
The schedule was brutally tight.
Alex spent most of his own time watching the man burn money on long-distance calls.
Old Joe’s blood being up like this was of course good news for Alex.
Their interests mostly pointed the same way.
Pablo was another matter.
On the broad question of Lori’s new album he had no conflict with Alex at all, but the same old problem remained: who owned the words.
After storming out of Old Joe’s office he’d gone straight to Lori and set him to work rewriting the lyrics, without asking Alex’s permission at all.
“Hey, kid.”
In the office, Old Joe took Alex — who had come to complain — over to the window.
“Look at them. Look at those girls.”
It had gotten late, but a considerable crowd of men and women had gathered on the open ground in front of the basement nightclub across the street.
They’d formed themselves into a few loose circles on their own.
Every so often somebody stepped into the middle of one for a battle of some kind — rapping, or dancing that looked mostly like a full-body seizure — and every so often the circle whooped and cheered.
The mood over there was very good.
“I can’t make out any faces,” Alex said, squinting to try.
“I didn’t ask you to identify anybody, idiot.”
Old Joe pointed across the street.
“Let me put it to you this way. Our Eric — short, sneaky little engineer, you met him. Suppose right now he walks downstairs, opens that door, picks any girl out of that crowd, any one at all, and says to her, ‘Hey, you sing beautifully, I’ve got a real feeling about you, why don’t you come upstairs with me across the street, we’ll cut a track and see how it goes.’ What do you figure happens?”
“He gets hit?”
“No! I will bet you money that seventy percent of the girls out there — no, eighty percent — even if she was tucked up under her boyfriend’s arm one second earlier, would go with Eric the next second without one moment’s hesitation, and be talked out of her clothes in about three sentences once the door shut, and then get put through her paces on that sofa in every position there is!”
“What are those girls out there for, huh? For what?”
“Dreams of being a singer?”
“Dreams of being a singer. Dreams of being famous. Dreams of somebody noticing them, somebody talking about them, somebody wanting them, somebody taking care of them, dreams of nice things, dreams of a beautiful life — women don’t want all that?” He kept piling the clauses on.
“Especially the girls out there. The club hasn’t even opened yet and they came early so they could sing and dance and make friends and build up contacts. You think that’s for fun?”
“…”
Old Joe looked helpless.
“Boy, you were sharp as a knife in front of Pablo. How did you turn stupid so fast? They want to be in the business! They want to be in! If sleeping with somebody gets them in, they know which way to jump. You see what I’m telling you?”
Alex saw perfectly well.
The whole example was just Old Joe pushing him toward a deal with Pablo as fast as possible.
And it was true that he wasn’t in the business yet, and that fighting too hard over money at this stage might well backfire.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for you, boss. But Pablo taking my lyrics off me is — honestly, it’s not something I can accept.”
“And if you both step back a pace? Half and half. Would you agree to that?” Old Joe laid out new terms.
Alex thought about it.
“Okay.” He nodded.
Pablo didn’t care for him much, but he was very satisfied with Old Joe’s attitude.
“Good. I’ll handle Pablo. You call your lawyer right now and let’s get everything nailed down as fast as we can.”
Old Joe pointed at the phone on the desk.
“And I have to remind you of something. If there wasn’t money in this for everybody, Pablo would not be playing it this way. He could have gone along with you, buttered you up, gotten you to sign a management contract with him, and then started playing games. He’s been very restrained with you. He’s got a gang behind him. Lori’s got a gang behind him. So do I, and my company has gang money in it. In the neighborhood you can’t count on a lawyer, and you sure can’t count on the police. You grew up here too, you know all this in your bones.” He balled his hands into fists and made a gesture with them.
“Come on. Everybody still counts you as one of our own. Play as few of the white man’s games as you can.”
“I understand.”
Alex agreed, watched Old Joe walk out of the office, shut the door behind him, dug Goodman’s card out of his pocket, and dialed the number on it.
“Hello, you’ve reached the McGill Law Office. We are closed for the day. Please leave a message and—” The call had rolled to the answering machine.
“Uh — Mr. McGill, it’s Alex, we met the other day, Alexander Song. I’ve got something urgent I need advice on, and if you pick up now I’m willing to pay fifty dollars an hour—”
Click.
The receiver crackled.
“Hi, Alex, this is McGill. How are you paying? I don’t run a tab here.”
“Hello, Mr. McGill. I’ll get you cash or a check as soon as I possibly can. I promise,” Alex said.
“Chuck.”
“What?”
“Chuck Goodman. Just call me Chuck. Tell me your problem, I’m starting the clock.”
“Okay.” Alex laid out the situation he was standing in. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“First off: I’m not licensed as an artist’s agent and I don’t know how to be one. The business you’re getting into is deep water. Albums, singles, compilations, greatest hits, licensing packages — every one of those is a different thing for a songwriter, and if you’re careless you get taken. So my advice is still that you get professional help.”
“Second: I don’t know any professionals in your industry, and especially none who can operate on the South Side. But since you say there’s nobody you can trust anyway, you might as well trust the biggest one there is. Their muscle, their expertise, their manpower in Chicago — there’s no question about any of it. You’ll be safe and you’ll save yourself a lot of grief. Naturally they’ll lean on you a little, big shop, small customer. They’ll probably take the top rate off a newcomer, ten percent commission.”
“Third: don’t be afraid of signing a management contract with someone.
To begin with, a management contract runs three years at the outside, and the law only lets somebody sign a newcomer like you for one year.
If it’s bad, wait it out and walk.
And you’re a minor, so the law leans further toward protecting you.
Don’t worry that they won’t bother with you, either.
From what you’re describing, a deal is practically ready to sign — all the agency has to do is send a man over and collect ten percent for free.
They’ve got no reason to say no.
Is there anybody in this world who thinks money is too plentiful?
Plenty of agents carry dozens of artists.
One more won’t kill them.”
“Last thing, and it’s the same point: once you’re in the industry, work toward getting yourself into ASCAP as a member. That’ll do you a lot of good.”
Across two consultations, Chuck had kept coming back to getting into the business.
Old Joe had hammered the same nail.
Both of them wanted him inside first.
Alex looked out the window at the men and women singing and dancing in the open air in the cold wind, and finally made up his mind.
Using the number Chuck gave him, he dialed the largest talent agency in the country: WMA, the William Morris Agency.
The conversation with WMA went far more smoothly than he’d expected.
Alex let out a long breath of relief, opened the door, and walked out of Joe’s office.
“Well?”
Old Joe and Pablo were standing in the control room talking.
It looked as if they’d come to terms.
“Mr. Pablo.” Alex gave him an apologetic smile.
“My agent says he’ll be here tomorrow.”
“That’s not the end of anything! Let’s all pull together and get this new album out as fast as we can!” Old Joe clapped a hand on each of their shoulders.
Pablo kept his face sour, then twisted his mouth into half a smile about thirty seconds later and put out a fist.
Alex hurried to touch it.